Publications

Career Coach

Jamal Eason

Jamal (HBS’11, West Point ‘04) enjoys working with alumni & students to navigate their career paths in product management and general management in the tech sector.... View Details

Keywords: Technology

September 2015 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Joseph Fuller and Michael Roberts

The case provides a vehicle for teaching about both corporate intrapreneurship and the use of lean startup methods. It tells the story of a product manager within Intuit who develops an idea for a new product that spans two of the company's existing business... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Business or Company Management; Applications and Software; Accounting; Product Development; Financial Services Industry

March 1994 (Revised May 1994)
Case

Lisa Benton (A)

By: Linda A. Hill

Lisa Benton is in her fourth month as an assistant product manager at Houseworld, a leading consumer products company. She has been on the job since graduating from the Harvard Business School, and she has been frustrated from the start by a lack of responsibility, by... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Jobs and Positions; Power and Influence; Relationships; Consumer Products Industry

September 2004 (Revised April 2005)
Case

G.G. Toys

By: Dennis Campbell and Susan L. Kulp

This case highlights issues of management accounting and includes a review of product costing, excess capacity, variance analysis, and scrap costs. View Details

Keywords: Product; Cost Accounting; Financial Management

November 1992
Case

Process Control at Polaroid (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Steven C. Wheelwright

The plant manager of a film production operation wants to create and implement a new approach to quality within the next 12 months. Issues of personnel (and their roles), production processes (and their control), and quality standards must be addressed. View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Job Design and Levels; Management Practices and Processes; Production; Quality; Mathematical Methods

September 2014 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Belk: Towards Exceptional Scheduling

By: Ethan Bernstein, Saravanan Kesavan, Bradley Staats and Luke Hassall

With 24,000 staff and over 300 stores, Belk Inc. sought to replace its entirely manual labor scheduling system with an automated software solution from Reflexis. Belk hoped the upgrade would simplify scheduling, reduce time employees spent in non-customer-facing roles,... View Details

05 May 2022
HBS Seminar

Caleb Kwon, Harvard Business School

Research Summary

Overview

Dr. Burch’s research focuses on capitalism, work, and gender in the twentieth-century United States. Her work reinterprets the history of direct selling by placing it at the center, rather than on the margins, of narratives about advanced capitalism. Examining the... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Political Economy; Labor History; Gender; Marketing; Sales Force Management; Direct Sales; United States

May 2016 (Revised August 2022)
Case

RegionFly: Cutting Costs in the Airline Industry

By: Susanna Gallani and Eva Labro

RegionFly is a small, private airline specializing in ultra-premium services. Founded shortly after the "Golden Age of airline travel," RegionFly's financial performance had been strong for several decades. More recently, however, the results have taken a downward... View Details

Keywords: Recession; Downsizing; Profitability; Cost Management; Profit; Luxury; Competitive Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Divisions; Logistics; Decision Making; Strategic Planning; Air Transportation Industry

Kash Rangan is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at the Harvard Business School. Formerly the chairman of the Marketing Department (1998-2002), he is now the co-chairman of the school's Social Enterprise Initiative. He has taught in a wide variety of MBA... View Details

Keywords: consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products

August 1994 (Revised May 1997)
Case

Sony Corporation: The Walkman Line

Explores how Sony manages its Walkman line in both the domestic (Japanese) and Western markets. Describes a simple target costing system, a simple Japanese cost accounting system, and the management of product proliferation. View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; Japan

January 2014 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Henry Schein: Doing Well by Doing Good?

By: Rebecca Henderson, Raffaella Sadun, Aldo Sesia and Russell Eisenstat

Henry Schein Inc., a distributor of supplies to dentist, physician, and veterinary practices, had sales approaching $9 billion and employed nearly 16,000 people. The company had experienced impressive growth under the leadership of Stanley Bergman and his executive... View Details

10 Dec 2018
Blog Post

Interning in the Technology Sector

Shelby Colby, MBA 2019, describes her summer at Hubspot interning in the product group. Coming from previous roles in management consulting focused on strategic analysis, she was looking for a role where she... View Details

Keywords: Technology

July 2013 (Revised August 2017)
Case

TaKaDu

By: Elie Ofek and Matthew Preble

In December 2012, Amir Peleg, founder and CEO of TaKaDu, reflected on how to position his young firm for the next fiscal year and beyond. The small Israeli startup had developed an innovative software system that used patented algorithms and statistical analysis to... View Details

Alan MacCormack is the MBA Class of 1949 Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, a member of The Digital, Data, and Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard, and a core faculty member... View Details

Keywords: automotive; communications; computer; e-commerce industry; electronics; high technology; information technology industry; internet; semiconductor; software; telecommunications; venture capital industry

October 2000 (Revised March 2001)
Case

Firestone/Ford Tire Controversy, The (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Roger Orosman Nieves

Examines the high-profile Firestone/Ford product recall/investigation that took place in the summer of 2000. Focuses on the management of supplier relationships and incentives. View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Supply Chain Management; Motivation and Incentives; Crisis Management; Corporate Accountability; Product; Service Operations; Auto Industry

November 1991 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Nucleon, Inc.

By: Gary P. Pisano

Nucleon is a small biotechnology company whose first potential product is about to enter clinical testing. Before Nucleon can begin clinical trials, however, its management must decide how and where to manufacture the product. Three options are being contemplated: 1)... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Entrepreneurship; Health Testing and Trials; Rights; Product Development; Production; Partners and Partnerships; Research and Development; Biotechnology Industry

May 2009
Case

Who is the Fairest of Them All? Choosing a Leader at Deronde International

By: Nitin Nohria and Martha Spaulding

Alain Deronde, the CEO of a French personal care company, has to choose a successor to head global product development from a diverse set of candidates with different backgrounds, strengths, and weaknesses. The candidates include Elise Bernier, Vice President of... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Management Succession; Diversity; Management Teams; Product Development; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; France

April 2017
Case

Yushan Bicycles: Learning to Ride Abroad

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Paul S. Myers

Yushan Bicycles, one of Taiwan's leading bicycle manufacturers, is pursuing an international expansion strategy by increasing demand for its range of traditional and electric bicycles and shifting its product mix toward higher-margin models sold through specialty... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Conflict Management; Learning; Bicycle Industry; Taiwan; Australia