Publications

Web

Business & Environment

What is the Business & Environment Initiative? What is the Business & Environment Initiative? Inspiring innovation and action at the intersection of business and environment Climate Rising Podcast Designing for Resilience: with Alex Berkowitz of Coastal Protection... View Details

Program

Agribusiness Seminar

constraints Leverage data and technology to improve decision making, operating efficiency, and responsiveness to customers Defend against commodification and drive profitability through product and marketing innovation Design robust,... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture; Agriculture

October 2023
Case

Kevin O'Leary: Building a Brand in Shark-infested Waters

By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti

For more than fifteen years, successful Canadian entrepreneur and investor Kevin O’Leary had developed his brand into a global powerhouse. Since his first appearance on the Canadian television program Dragons’ Den in 2006 and his meteoric rise to stardom through the... View Details

Keywords: Personal Brand; Crisis; Brands and Branding; Entrepreneurship; Crisis Management; Social Media; Public Opinion; Power and Influence; Financial Services Industry

August 2019 (Revised April 2020)
Case

BlueVine Capital: Growth Factors

By: Marco Di Maggio and Nathaniel Schwalb

The start-up, BlueVine Capital Inc. (BlueVine), used data and technology to help finance small businesses via factoring and lines of credit. The case explains the small business financing market in mid-2010s, how CEO Eyal Lifshitz identified the opportunity for... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Business Startups; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Innovation Leadership; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

June 2014 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Relating to Peapod

By: Susan Fournier and Jill Avery

Explores the relationships formed between consumers and the Peapod consumer-direct grocery delivery service, as revealed through an ethnographic study of Boston-area Peapod shoppers conducted between the Summer of 1997 and the Fall of 1999. Three representative case... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing Strategy; Service Industry; Boston

19 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Finding Success in the Middle of the Market

its customers well, their assets will grow to the point that they'll need more sophisticated services and advice. To control midfield, companies like Charles Schwab must stay consistent in their positioning... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Auto; Retail

31 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Checking Your Ethics: Would You Speak Up in These 3 Sticky Situations?

‘professional’ client services firm,” he says. “The client and the values of the firm are of utmost importance.” The case of the abusive VP: During work with a client, you witness abusive behavior by a senior vice president at the firm,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Consulting

August 2011 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Danielle Marcoux at AdNet2Win Technologies

By: Anthony J. Mayo and Joshua D. Margolis

Danielle Marcoux, Director of Web Design at AdNet2Win Technologies, must decide how best to confront Charles Davide, the Chief Technology Officer and leader of the design team charged with overseeing a major upgrade of the company's proprietary customer loyalty... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Management Teams; Interpersonal Communication; Creativity; Status and Position; Web Services Industry

Web

Finance - Faculty & Research

to Evaluate and Promote Agricultural Technology Adoption: Evidence from Smallholder Farms in India By: Shawn Cole , Tomoko Harigaya, Grady Killeen and Aparna Krishna This paper evaluates a low-cost, customized soil nutrient management... View Details

March 2011 (Revised August 2012)
Case

Groupon

By: Sunil Gupta, Ray Weaver and Dharmishta Rood

On November 4, 2011, Groupon, a marketing services company that promoted local businesses by selling deeply discounted vouchers for their products and services, completed its initial public offering that valued the company at $17 billion. Within a year Groupon's share... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Customers; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development; Marketing Channels; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation

September 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Bharti Tele-Ventures

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Ingrid Vargas

Following the liberalization of India's telecommunications service industry in the early 1990s, Bharti Tele-Ventures grew from a small entrepreneurial telephone equipment importer and manufacturer to become India's largest private-sector telecommunications service... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Growth and Development; Customers; Foreign Direct Investment; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Public Ownership; Profit; Partners and Partnerships; Rank and Position; Telecommunications Industry; India

May 2013
Supplement

Transport Corporation of India (B): Choosing the Right Candidate

By: V.G. Narayanan and Saloni Chaturvedi

Transport Corporation of India was a logistics company that provided multi-modal transport solutions to its customers. Set up in 1958, TCI had grown from a 'one man, one truck, one office' set-up to a company with revenues of $400 million in half a century. TCI's... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Business Divisions; Performance; Sales; Transportation Industry; India

24 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 24

development projects in an Indian software services firm, we find that knowledge repository use has a positive effect on project efficiency but not on project quality. However, when we examine two moderators, geographic dispersion and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Sep 2023
Research & Ideas

How Can Financial Advisors Thrive in Shifting Markets? Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

more comfortable using technology to make financial decisions. It turns out, Di Maggio says, that “having a broader view of the financial picture of the client helps [advisers] keep their clients and helps with growing the clientele as well.” By widening their list of... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Financial Services

Teaching Interest

Managing Global Health: Applying Behavioral Economics to Create Impact (MBA)

Health, and development more broadly, is not something we give to people: it is something they produce themselves, interacting with supply-side and institutional factors. This course trains students to see through the lens of the end-user and to use the levers of... View Details

29 Nov 2010
HBS Case

United Breaks Guitars

object lesson in what that means for big, recognizable companies and their brands. "United Breaks Guitars" documents the incredible viral power of social media, analyzing the reach and impact of a clever customer complaint music... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

April 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Case

Apple's iPhone Revolution: Pioneering the Circular Economy

By: George Serafeim

When asked to identify an example of a circular economy business model that has generated billions in revenues for a company, ChatGPT, the famous chatbot that in 2022 rocked the world with its ability to perform a variety of tasks, immediately identified and... View Details

Keywords: Iphone; Smartphone; Waste Management; Recycling; Innovation; Product Upgrade; Product Life Cycle; Sustainability; Climate Impact; Digital; Business Model Innovation; Climate Change; Information Technology; Business Model; Electronics Industry; Information Technology Industry

July 2021 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Fynd

By: Ranjay Gulati, Kairavi Dey and Rachna Tahilyani

Fynd is a fast-growing venture that in 7 years since its founding has become India's largest omnichannel retail company with real-time access to over 9,000 stores' offline inventory. It started as a B2B business supporting retailers who didn’t have an online business,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Model; Acquisition; Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry; India; Mumbai