Publications

Portrait Project

Nagi Otgonshar

vegetable plot As a child, I did not fully understand the economic struggles after the collapse of socialism in Mongolia. After the withdrawal of the Soviets from our country, we often lost electricity, food became scarce, and even my... View Details

Web

Partners & Fellows | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

Island United Nations World Food Programme United Negro College Fund U.S. Department of Education WGBH Educational Foundation Whitney Museum Of American Art Women's Educational and Industrial Union World Economic Forum World Wildlife Fund... View Details

July 2014 (Revised August 2014)
Case

AmazonFresh: Rekindling the Online Grocery Market

By: Rory McDonald, Clayton Christensen, Robin Yang and Ty Hollingsworth

More than a decade after the high-profile failures of several early online grocers, grocery remains the largest single U.S. retail category and one of the few that has not yet migrated online. Amazon began testing its grocery-delivery service, AmazonFresh, in Seattle,... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; New Markets; Grocery; Operations Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Strategy; Emerging Markets; Learning; Service Operations; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

August 2015 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Planters Nuts

By: Robert J. Dolan and Donald K. Ngwe

In 2012 Planters had about $1 billion in U.S. annual revenues, but had experienced declining unit sales and household penetration over the past six years. The snack nuts category was growing overall, but household spending was shifting away from peanuts, cashews, and... View Details

Keywords: Product Marketing; Product Positioning; Marketing Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry

01 Sep 2023
News

Global Outposts Expand HBS’s Intellectual Footprint

Since taking over as CEO of Tata Steel in 2013, T. V. Narendran had sought to transform India’s oldest steel manufacturing firm to ready it for a rapidly evolving business world. He instilled financial discipline, acquired new businesses, and launched digital... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie

May 2019
Case

Whiskey and Cheddar: Ingredient Branding at the Caesan Cheese Cooperative (Brief Case)

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine B. Hartman

The Caesan Cheese Cooperative is considering introducing a new high-quality, high-margin artisan whiskey cheddar cheese. Deidra Kelly, vice president of marketing and product development at Caesan, must recommend to the Board of Directors whether to launch the product... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Product Development; Management; Product Marketing; Product Positioning; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Food and Beverage Industry

March 2020
Case

Forbidden City: Launching a Craft Beer in China

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Carole Carlson

This case describes a difficult choice faced by Victor Wang, Managing Director of Singapore-based Eurasian Brewing Company (EBC), concerning the competing product launch plans of Le Jie, Vice President of EBC's China and East Asian operations, and Vivian Chin, EBC's... View Details

Keywords: Subsidiary Management; Craft Brewing; Strategy; Decision Making; Organizational Structure; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Management Style; Food and Beverage Industry; China; East Asia

07 May 2024
Blog Post

Opportunity to Offset Travel Emissions with Carbon Credits that Meet HBS Criteria

Utility to meet State Renewable Energy Requirements.) HBS has started to reduce our Scope 3 emissions by partially offsetting required academic student air travel, increasing our plant-based food options in our dining venues &... View Details

16 May 2023
Blog Post

Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month at HBS (part 2)

out of the theater and into the nearby Whole Foods vegetable aisle where the waterworks continued. I had just never felt so ‘seen’ by a movie. In hindsight, it was only my position between these cultures that allowed this story to... View Details

07 Dec 2022
Blog Post

2022 Climate Symposium: Tackling Climate Together

achieve our goals. This year's theme 'Tackling Climate Together' is a nod to COP27 but also to our hopes for open collaboration and communication amid a further polarizing world.” The opening keynote address featured Irina Gerry, CMO of Change Foods, who started off... View Details

11 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

a large scale into selling refrigerated meat and dairy food from New Zealand and Australia to Europe. 3 The upshot was the creation of diversified 'investment groups,' or business groups in the terminology preferred here, around the... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

18 Feb 2020
Blog Post

A Vision of Love@HBS in 2020

rising college seniors. At SVMP, we developed a friendship, which turned into a relationship a year later during Laura’s work trip to the New York City Wine and Food Festival. We started off long-distance—flights between New York City and... View Details

13 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

Should Men’s Products Fear a Woman’s Touch?

Most eight-year-olds are familiar with cooties: an imaginary infectious disease spread through proximity to children of the opposite sex. We eventually outgrow the silly idea. But when it comes to the world of consumer products, fear of associating with the opposite... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Food & Beverage; Food & Beverage; Food & Beverage

August 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Luckin Coffee (A): Caffeine-fueled Growth?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes the founding of Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee in 2017 and its path to surpassing Starbucks as the largest coffee chain in China (by number of stores) in 2019. Unlike Starbucks stores, which were designed to be welcoming “third places” for... View Details

November 2004 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Ice-Fili (Abridged)

By: John R. Wells, Pai-Ling Yin and Michael G. Rukstad

Designed as an overview of all aspects of the strategy process: industry analysis, positioning, dynamics and sustainability, and scope issues of corporate strategy, including vertical integration, horizontal diversification, and location issues. Ice-Fili is the largest... View Details

Keywords: Product Positioning; Geographic Location; Competition; Vertical Integration; Corporate Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Russia

March 2022 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Hometown Foods: Changing Price amid Inflation

By: Julian De Freitas, Jeremy Yang and Das Narayandas

During the early part of the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic, Hometown Foods, a large seller of flour-based products, thrived as consumers hoarded baked goods and took up baking to pass the time and find comfort. Then, amid growing shortages in commodities, a vaccine arrived,... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Consumer Behavior; Supply Chain; Inflation and Deflation; Spending; Price Bubble; Price; Volatility; Food and Beverage Industry

01 Jan 2005
News

Joseph J. O'Donnell, MBA 1971

including facilities in more than twenty arenas and stadiums, serving all kinds of snacks and comfort food in the stands and fine cuisine in the luxury boxes. It is also a major player in numerous convention and performing arts centers... View Details

November 1991 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Taco Bell Corp.

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Roger H. Hallowell

John Martin, Taco Bell CEO, brings the company into line with its competitors through incremental change during the 1980s. In the early 1990s, he adopts breakthrough approaches to improve service levels while reducing prices, providing a distinct competitive advantage.... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Food; Competitive Advantage; Innovation and Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

2014
Book

Can China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth

By: Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby and F. Warren McFarlan

At the time of the American Revolution, China was the strongest, richest, and most powerful civilization in the world. The Great Qing Empire ruled China and dominated East Asia by a combination of power and cultural prestige. China's economy was the world's largest.... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Leadership; Power and Influence; China

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