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Professor Nolan earned his B.A. from the University of Washington in Production and Operations Research in 1962, and his M.B.A and Ph.D. in 1963 and 1966, respectively. Upon graduation in 1966, he joined Boeing Commercial Airplane Company as an Information... View Details

Keywords: aerospace; information technology industry; internet

June 2023
Simulation

Artea Dashboard and Targeting Policy Evaluation

By: Ayelet Israeli and Eva Ascarza

Companies deploy A/B experiments to gain valuable insights about their customers in order to answer strategic business problems. In marketing, A/B tests are often used to evaluate marketing interventions intended to generate incremental outcomes for the firm. The Artea... View Details

July 2002 (Revised April 2004)
Supplement

GE's Digital Revolution

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Presents interviews with Gerry Podesta, VP of GE Plastics Component of General Electric Co., and Gary Reiner, senior VP and CIO of General Electric Co. A revised version of an earlier video. View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Corporate Strategy; Management Teams; Consumer Products Industry; Technology Industry

17 Dec 2018
News

The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures

Gary P. Pisano

Gary Pisano is the Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School where he has been on the faculty since 1988. From 2018-2023, Pisano was Harvard Business School’s Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Promotion and... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; electronics; health care; manufacturing; pharmaceuticals

12 Dec 2005
Research & Ideas

Using the Law to Strategic Advantage

encourage general managers to bring counsel in early in the decision-making cycle; they should not wait until the last minute to fight a fire that has already started or to bless a deal that has already been... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Legal Services

June 2014
Case

Financial Policy at Apple, 2013 (A)

By: Mihir A. Desai and Elizabeth A. Meyer

By the end of 2013, Apple had $137 billion dollars in cash and marketable securities. This case explores how companies can generate such large amounts of cash and how and if they should distribute it to shareholders, especially in the face of shareholder pressure. In... View Details

Keywords: Apple; Steve Jobs; Forecast; Forecasting; Forecasting And Prediction; Shareholder Activism; Share Repurchase; Dividends; Financial Ratios; Preferred Shares; Cash Distribution; Corporate Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Technology Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Republic of Ireland

January 2020
Case

SK Group: Social Progress Credits

By: George Serafeim, Ethan Rouen and David Freiberg

SK Group was one of the largest companies South Korea. A family-run conglomerate consisting of around 120 subsidiaries and employing more than 100,000, SK was tightly knit into the fabric of Korean society. SK viewed their future success as contingent upon the strength... View Details

William Sahlman is a Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Mr. Sahlman received an A.B. degree in Economics from Princeton University (1972), an M.B.A. from Harvard University (1975), and a Ph.D. in Business... View Details

24 Jan 2013
News

What can foreign retailers bring in which India doesn't already have?

20 Dec 2018
News

Consumer Rating Algorithms Score Big with Businesses, Governments

September 2021 (Revised June 2023)
Supplement

Serving Bud Moore (B)

By: David G. Fubini and Patrick Sanguineti

In only his third year at a Leading Strategy Consulting firm (LSC), Gregory Davis has been assigned to a select group tasked with advising General Motors (GM), one of the largest companies in the world by revenue, on how to reorganize their entire North American... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Relationships; Outcome or Result; Groups and Teams; Management Skills; Restructuring

20 Mar 2013
News

Sizing Up Social Impact

16 Sep 2008
News

Prof. Emeritus Gerald Zaltman Honored for Contributions to Marketing Science

Derek C. M. van Bever

Derek van Bever is a Senior Lecturer in the General Management Unit of Harvard Business School. He teaches courses in both years of the MBA program (“Leadership and Corporate Accountability” in the first-year required curriculum and “Building and Sustaining a... View Details

November 2006 (Revised November 2007)
Case

Strategy in the Twenty First Century Pharmaceutical Industry: Merck & Co. and Pfizer Inc.

By: David J. Collis and Troy Smith

The global pharmaceutical industry has gone through substantial changes in the last few decades and pharmaceutical firms face major challenges including headline-grabbing litigation, imminent patent expirations, new technologies, rising drug development costs, generic... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Research and Development; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

March 2011
Case

Cash Flow Productivity at PepsiCo: Communicating Value to Retailers

PepsiCo developed a new metric that better measured the value added by Pepsi products than did gross margin, the traditional metric used by retailers to determine shelf space and promotional activity. The new metric, cash flow productivity, captured the value of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Cash Flow; Measurement and Metrics; Distribution; Performance Productivity; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

Find at Harvard

September 1990 (Revised June 1994)
Case

Catawba Industrial Co.

By: Francis Aguilar

A department general manager has to decide whether or not to add a lightweight compressor to the line, what price to charge, and what volume to produce. The analysis requires maximizing contribution in a situation where one factor is constrained. As such, it takes into... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Capital Budgeting; Business Earnings; Cost Accounting; Cost Management; Asset Pricing