Publications

02 Nov 2023
News

Seeding Startups

Shirish Nadkarni (MBA 1987) was the director of product planning for Microsoft’s MSN when he decided he was ready to become an entrepreneur. He had recently led the growing internet portal’s 1997 acquisition of Hotmail, the first free, web-based email solution, and the... View Details

Keywords: April White

16 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 16

after the team scaffolds were implemented and showed a 40% improvement in patient throughput time. Working Papers Transition to Clean Technology By: Acemoglu, Daron, Ufuk Akcigit, Douglas Hanley, and William R. Kerr Abstract—We develop a microeconomic model of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 1999 (Revised April 2000)
Case

drugstore.com

By: Richard L. Nolan

On a clear day in August 1999 in the new headquarters of drugstore.com, against a backdrop of the Blue Angels flying in formation over Lake Washington practicing for their hydroplane Seafare Cup performance, Peter Neupert was pleased with his company's IPO performance.... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Internet and the Web; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Retail Industry

25 Oct 2016
First Look

October 25, 2016

2016 University of Chicago Press Innovation Equity: Assessing and Managing the Monetary Value of New Products and Services By: Ofek, Elie, Eitan Muller, and Barak Libai Abstract—This book bridges the gap between what academics know, and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

The History of Beauty

the consumer products giant Unilever, published some years ago. This company had a long-established business in soap and other toiletries, but spent decades after World War II striving without great success to expand its business into... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Beauty & Cosmetics

10 Dec 2021
Research & Ideas

Truth Be Told: Unpacking the Risks of Whistleblowing

things, they can resolve it internally more quickly and in a more efficient way than if it goes to regulators. Although we don’t study this, I think it could also empower employees to feel ownership of the company because they’re helping in the overall View Details

Keywords: by April White

05 Jun 2023
What Do You Think?

Is the Anxious Achiever a Post-Pandemic Relic?

premium on “novelty and growth over the cyclical and the regenerative.” "It’s not that Gen Zers want to do nothing or even less. It’s just that they want to achieve in their own way and in their own sweet time." Athos taught and... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 Mar 2024
News

In Harmony

October 2023, news broke that filming of the book would begin in fall 2024, backed by Anonymous Content, the US production company behind Spotlight and The Revenant, and Korea’s Anthology Studios. Deeply personal and highly... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; photographs by Jun Michael Park; private equity; fiction; financial crisis; leadership; Korea

August 2010 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Developing an App for That

By: Hanna Halaburda, Joshua Gans and Nathaniel Burbank

At a time when ever-rising smartphone sales are driven as much by demand for devices that run must-have third-party "apps" as by the quality of traditional voice and data services, there is a myriad of challenges facing the software developer who is looking to choose... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Competitive Strategy; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Banking Industry; Information Technology Industry

October 2011
Case

Gene Sequencing: Staking a Position in an Expanding Industry

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Mara Aspinall and Phillip Andrews

Towards the end of 2010, companies in the gene sequencing industry were pushing aggressive R&D programs to develop technologies and products in the race to sequence the entire human genome at a cost of $1,000. It remained to be seen when the "$1,000 genome" would... View Details

Keywords: Genetics; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Plan; Competition; Venture Capital; Biotechnology Industry

Find at Harvard

21 Mar 2019
HBS Case

The Ferrari Way

made Ferrari a hot commodity among high-net-worth buyers. At the same time that competitors have increased production, Ferrari has intentionally limited production to create scarcity, something Thomke calls “deprivation marketing.” The... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Auto

May 2025
Teaching Note

Boutiqaat: Influencing Retail in MENA

By: Juan Alcacer and Noor Al Qadhi

Boutiqaat, a Kuwait-based e-commerce platform, scaled an influencer-driven beauty retail model across MENA and now faces critical strategic choices about offline expansion and globalization. Founded in 2015, Boutiqaat combined social commerce, localized logistics, and... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Digital Strategy; Growth and Development; Expansion; Global Strategy; Distribution Channels; Business Model; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Retail Industry; Kuwait; Saudi Arabia; Middle East; North Africa

December 2002 (Revised June 2003)
Case

Vignette: The Rebar Dilemma

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Martin Smith, a new associate at an LBO firm, must respond to a problem posed by his boss, based on an historical deal that suddenly came undone. After months of negotiation, his firm's plan to buy a bankrupt competitor of one of its portfolio companies and close it... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Competition; Growth and Development Strategy; Business or Company Management

22 Feb 2024
Blog Post

It’s Time to Build: Why the MS/MBA Is Right for You!

carved out a product manager or adjacent role for me to step into. I ended up joining Starlink at SpaceX, where I had a terrific summer working on the Growth team in LA - and even overlapped with alum and... View Details

Web

Building Iconic Brands and Brighter Futures: Interview with Glossier CEO, Kyle Leahy - Recruiting

Insights & Advice 11 Dec 2023 Building Iconic Brands and Brighter Futures: Interview with Glossier CEO, Kyle Leahy Becca Carnahan Author HBS Team tag Alumni Consumer Products / Retail Student & Alumni Stories Kyle Leahy (MBA 2011) stepped... View Details

16 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Your Customers Have Changed. Here's How to Engage Them Again.

pursue? To adapt to a new customer-centric directional reality, we propose an alternative to Ansoff's (1965) growth strategy matrix (see table below). The proposed 2 x 2 matrix is categorized by whether the firm is competing with existing... View Details

Keywords: by Rohit Deshpandé, Ofer Mintz, and Imran S. Currim; Retail; Service

December 2012 (Revised April 2025)
Case

AmTran Technology Ltd.

By: Willy Shih, Jyun-Cheng Wang and Karen E. Robinson

As an original design manufacturer (ODM) of television sets and leading supplier to Vizio, a market leader in the U.S. for LCD flat panel TVs, AmTran Technology Ltd. uses what founder Alpha Wu describes as a "WE" model in which western companies perform sales,... View Details