Publications

March 2002
Background Note

Virtuous Cycles: Improving Service and Lowering Costs in E-Commerce

Illustrates how various elements in a customer's encounter with Internet services relying on physical service (labor-intensive customer support and/or logistics) affect one another. Presents a framework that suggests: 1) that improving service quality in specific... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Service Delivery; Performance Efficiency; Performance Effectiveness; Service Industry

Profile

Hunter Goble

scientists in Harvard and MIT’s ecosystem. Through a self-matching process that Hunter describes as “speed dating,” he found two scientists from Boston’s Children’s Hospital developing “a novel drug delivery platform that increases the... View Details

January 1999 (Revised December 2000)
Case

Finale

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Michael J. Roberts and Matthew C. Lieb

Designed for use with "Room for Dessert" to show the changes between creating the initial business plans and starting to serve customers. Conforti and Moore have to both manage the business and deliver service to customers on a day-to-day basis in the initial location... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Business Plan; Entrepreneurship; Customer Satisfaction

April 1990 (Revised May 1997)
Case

Lowe's

By: Walter J. Salmon

Lowe's chain of 306 stores was anticipating fierce competition from their major market rival, Home Depot. As they reformulated the size of their new prototype stores and the mix of their merchandise, what would be the ultimate format? What impact would it have on their... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Buildings and Facilities; Markets; Service Delivery; Competition

October 1984
Teaching Note

NIKE (A1), Teaching Note

Teaching Note for (9-385-026). View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Policy; Service Delivery; Decisions; Apparel and Accessories Industry

September 1998 (Revised June 1999)
Case

Discovery Health (A)

A South African health insurance company undertakes a redesign of its prescription drug coverage policy in light of its experiences with Prozac. View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Service Delivery; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance Industry; South Africa

February 2016 (Revised February 2020)
Teaching Note

Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve

By: Ryan W. Buell and Ananth Raman

Celebrated as one of the world's premiere luxury hotel brands, Oberoi Hotels attracts and serves some of the most quality sensitive guests in the world. The case considers the challenge of how an organization with a standardized service model can repeatedly delight... View Details

Keywords: Service Quality; Service Management; Service Quality Competition; Customer Management; Customer Service Excellence; Employee Empowerment; Employee Engagement; Employee Training; Hospitality; Hotel Industry; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Customer Satisfaction; Employees; Training; Quality; Accommodations Industry; India

11 Jun 2020
In Practice

Are Digital Organizations Better at Overcoming COVID?

Government leaders rushing to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in March gave companies little time to shift to an all-virtual workforce. Ready or not, many businesses had to become more digital. But true digital transformation takes far more than a Zoom account. Using... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

Spring 2019
Article

Fluid Teams and Knowledge Retrieval: Scaling Service Operations

By: Melissa A. Valentine, Tom Fangyun Tan, Bradley R. Staats and Amy C. Edmondson

To scale service operations requires retrieving knowledge across the organization. However, prior work highlights that individuals on the periphery of organizational knowledge networks may struggle to access useful knowledge at work. A knowledge repository has the... View Details

Keywords: Teaming; Teams; Groups and Teams; Knowledge Management; Service Delivery; Knowledge Use and Leverage

November 2015
Article

Influence of Experience and the Surgical Learning Curve on Long-term Patient Outcomes in Cardiac Surgery

By: Bryan M. Burt, Andrew W. ElBardissi, Robert S. Huckman, Lawrence H. Cohn, Marisa W. Cevasco, James D. Rawn, Sary F. Aranki and John G. Byrne

OBJECTIVE: We hypothesized that increased post-graduate surgical experience correlates with improved operative efficiency and long-term survival in standard cardiac surgery procedures.

METHODS: Utilizing a prospectively collected retrospective database,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Value; Health Care and Treatment; Experience and Expertise; Health Industry

September 1998 (Revised July 1999)
Case

Discovery Health (B)

By: Samuel S. Chun and Shaun Matisonn

A South African health insurance company grapples with designing a financially viable coverage solution for a new prescription drug treatment for male impotence. View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Service Delivery; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance Industry; South Africa

08 Mar 2016
First Look

March 8, 2016

cultural model and undermine their own positions with inappropriate use of symbolic market-creation actions. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50701 Harvard Business School Case 916-026 Express Scripts: Promoting Prescription Drug... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

10 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

IT Links for Boundaryless Companies

Doing Things Upton concluded his presentation with a look at two contrasting approaches to information technology development. One approach, what he referred to as the periodic project, involves a lot of time and a lot of planning, with value View Details

Keywords: by Kenneth Liss

Profile

Blake Landro

company.” There, Blake focused on the intersection of technology and the delivery of marketing messages. “The experience taught me the importance of being able to articulate value to your customers,” says Blake. Like many MBA candidates,... View Details

Profile

Jason Flood

up-close experience of the United States’ health care system. “There were mind-boggling inefficiencies both in terms of delivery and coordination,” Jason says. “We had multiple doctors who failed to communicate to each other and ordered... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare/Biotech; Tech

01 Sep 2014
News

Making a Statement

Getting Behind Health Care Andrew M. Paul (MBA 1983) sees a powerful connection between the business side of health care and the benefits of better service delivery to patients. “By investing in companies committed to innovation, you can... View Details

Summer 2017
Article

Measuring Consumer Preferences for Video Content Provision via Cord-Cutting Behavior

By: Jeffrey Prince and Shane Greenstein

The television industry is undergoing a generational shift in structure; however, many demand-side determinants are still not well understood. We model how consumers choose video content provision among over-the-air (OTA), paid subscription to cable or satellite, and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Television Entertainment; Service Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

2008
Working Paper

The Effect of Labor on Profitability: The Role of Quality

By: Zeynep Ton

Determining staffing levels is an important decision in retail operations. While the costs of increasing labor are obvious and easy to measure, the benefits are often indirect and not immediately felt. One benefit of increased labor is improved quality. The objective... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Selection and Staffing; Service Delivery; Business Processes; Quality; Retail Industry