Publications

Web

Advisory Board - Entrepreneurship

before it went public. He then led Open Market's expansion into business-to-business applications. In 1999, he founded and ran PurchasingCenter.com, a "My Yahoo" portal for industrial purchasing agents who purchase $2-$10 million of... View Details

04 Apr 2023
Book

Two Centuries of Business Leaders Who Took a Stand on Social Issues

While shareholders still reign supreme at many companies, a widespread shift toward more responsible business practices is driving more leaders to take a stand on social and environmental issues today, says Harvard Business School Professor Geoffrey Jones. Jones... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Consumer Products; Fashion; Retail; Green Technology

June 2014
Case

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal

By: Nancy F. Koehn, Kelly McNamara, Nora N. Khan and Elizabeth Legris

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal analyzes the turnaround and reconstruction of Starbucks Coffee Company from 2008 to 2014 as led by CEO and co-founder Howard Schultz. The case offers executives and students an opportunity to examine in depth how... View Details

January 2007 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Farmacias Similares: Private and Public Health Care for the Base of the Pyramid in Mexico

By: Michael Chu and Regina Garcia-Cuellar

Farmacias Similares, serving Mexico's low-income sector, grew to $600 million sales and 3,400 drugstores while deep reforms to help the poor swept the public health system. Adjacent to each store, for $2 per visit, medical clinics provided access to doctors for 2.3... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Public Sector; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Poverty; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Mexico

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

attracting new business from corporate and retail customers. The merger was therefore also viewed as a vehicle for increasing top-line revenue growth. Internal cost cutting alone would not have enabled either bank to achieve this second... View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

February 2024
Case

Tabby: Winning Consumers' Digital Wallets

By: Eva Ascarza and Fares Khrais

Hosam Arab (MBA 2009), cofounder and CEO of Tabby, a Saudi-based fintech startup, raised its Series D funding round in October 2023, four years after its inception, valuing it as a regional unicorn. Tabby's core product, a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service, allowed... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Risk Management; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Saudi Arabia

November 2021 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Hitting Home: Amazon and Mary's Place

By: Paul M. Healy, Debora L. Spar and Amy Klopfenstein

In 2020, Amazon, the $386 billion online retail behemoth, built an eight-story shelter for women and families experiencing homelessness on its expanding headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The shelter, operated in partnership with a non-profit organization known as... View Details

Keywords: Business Ethics; Homelessness; Business And Society; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Corporate Accountability; Urban Development; Society; Information Technology; Ethics; Technology Industry; Seattle; United States; North America

26 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Japanese Businesses Are So Good at Surviving Crises

initiatives to help rebuild local industries in the Tohoku region, including the establishment of a temporary fish market. “He made the judgment call that the right thing to do was to look after the victims first and foremost, not the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

09 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Location, Location, Location: The Strategy of Place

where the retailer was able to outmaneuver mom-and-pop competitors. The management team again waited until they had developed enough resources before going head-to-head in suburban areas against big-box View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

28 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 28

are less responsive to changes in investment opportunities, especially in industries in which stock prices are most sensitive to earnings news. These findings are consistent with the notion that short-termist pressures distort investment... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

19 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Birth of the American Salesman

salespeople. About 41 percent of today's sales workers sell in retail stores. The demographics of America's sales workers have changed. Nearly half of the total sales workers recorded in the 2000 census were women. The same View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

19 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Fed Up Workers and Supply Woes: What's Next for Dollar Stores?

Retailers should be ecstatic. Last year was dismal amid the pandemic, with plunging revenue and record bankruptcies. But this year things have turned around. For instance, retail sales in April through June... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Retail

Gerald Zaltman

*Joined Harvard Faculty: 1991
Prior Faculty Appointments: Northwestern University, 1968-75;
University of Pittsburgh, 1975-91

*Doctoral Degree in Sociology Received from: The John Hopkins University;
MBA Degree Received from: The University of... View Details

Keywords: marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry; marketing industry

Web

Social Enterprise - Faculty & Research

Environmental Sustainability ; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms ; Governing and Advisory Boards ; Lawfulness ; Lawsuits and Litigation ; Measurement and Metrics ; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact ; Business and Shareholder Relations ; Social Issues ;... View Details

07 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

4+2 = Sustained Business Success

business performance. What does matter, it turns out, is having a strong grasp of the business basics. Without exception, companies that outperformed their industry peers excelled at what we call the four primary management... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria, William Joyce & Bruce Roberson

October 2013 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Walmart around the World

By: Juan Alcácer, Abhishek Agrawal and Harshit Vaish

After reaching the limits of its successful expansion in the United States in the early 1990s, Walmart sought growth opportunities in markets abroad. This case describes Walmart's attempts to replicate its successful U.S. business model in Mexico, Canada, Brazil,... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Success; Globalized Markets and Industries; Expansion; Market Entry and Exit; Failure; Retail Industry; Germany; China; Argentina; South Korea; Canada; Japan; Brazil; Africa; United Kingdom; United States; Mexico

May 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Gap, Inc., 2012

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

Between 2000 and 2012, Gap, Inc. (Gap) ceded its world leadership position in specialty fashion retailing to Inditex of Spain and H&M of Sweden. These two companies, each less than a quarter of Gap's size in 2000, were now setting the pace in the global mass fashion... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Change; Fashion; Multinational; Brands; Competition; Multinational Firms and Management; Performance Improvement; Strategy; Brands and Branding; Change Management; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Sweden; Spain; United States