Publications

16 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Confronting the Reality of Web Services

communication exchanges, are not going to happen unless managers better integrate common standards. McAfee studied IBM's B2B midrange ordering system and interviewed key players to find out what worked and what didn't. Using his case... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant

2009
Other Unpublished Work

Singapore Competitiveness Report

By: Christian H.M. Ketels, Ashish Lall and Boon Siong Neo

The 2009 Singapore Competitiveness Report, the first in this new series of regular assessments by the Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, provides data and analysis to inform the discussions on the impact of the crisis... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics; Microeconomics; Policy; Competitive Strategy; Singapore

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June 2017
Case

MIA: Profit at the Base of the Pyramid

By: Lynda M. Applegate, José Antonio Dávila Castilla, Sarah Mehta and Aldo Sesia

In January 2016, Guillermo Jaime had just returned home to Mexico City after attending a Harvard Business School executive education program. Jaime was the founder and CEO of Mejoramiento Integral Asistido (MIA), a company providing affordable housing to low-income... View Details

Keywords: Base Of The Pyramid; Social Capitalism; Housing; Emerging Markets; Social Enterprise; Society; Wealth and Poverty; Social Entrepreneurship; Construction Industry; Mexico

2012
Other Book

Redefining German Health Care: Moving to a Value-Based System

By: Michael E. Porter and Clemens Guth

The German health care system is on a collision course with budget realities. Costs are high and rising, and quality problems are becoming ever more apparent. Decades of reforms have produced little change to these troubling trends. Why has Germany failed to solve... View Details

Keywords: Health

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February 1998 (Revised June 2000)
Case

Delamere Vineyard

Delamere Vineyard is a small, integrated winemaking business in Tasmania, specializing in pinot noir (red) and chardonnay (white) wines. Richard Richardson, Delamere's owner and winemaker, manages and operates the vineyard and winery largely alone. His products have... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Quality; Production; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Australia

July – August 2011
Article

The Paradox of Samsung's Rise

By: Tarun Khanna, Jaeyong Song and Kyungmook Lee

Twenty years ago, few people would have predicted that Samsung could transform itself from a low-cost original equipment manufacturer to a world leader in R&D, marketing, and design, with a brand more valuable than Pepsi, Nike, or American Express. Fewer still would... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Research and Development; Marketing; Business Processes; Brands and Branding; System; Globalized Markets and Industries; Transformation; Cost; Forecasting and Prediction; Production; Quality; China; India; Turkey

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02 Feb 2004
Research & Ideas

Where Does Apple Go From Here?

a consequence Apple continues to find pressure on its prices, which makes it harder for them to sustain a big premium over time. This is why Apple has barely generated any real profits out of its core Mac business in the last three years.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Michael E. Porter

Michael Porter is an economist, researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher. Throughout his career at Harvard Business School, he has brought economic theory and strategy concepts to bear on many of the most challenging problems facing corporations, economies... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; e-commerce industry; health care; information; information technology industry; internet; nonprofit industry; service industry; state government

Benjamin C. Esty

Benjamin Esty is the Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Over the years, he has taught a variety of courses ranging from advanced corporate finance and project finance to competitive strategy and leadership. He... View Details

Keywords: banking; asset management; investment banking industry; consumer products; shipping; wine; financial services

May 2022
Supplement

Borusan CAT: Monetizing Prediction in the Age of AI (B)

By: Navid Mojir and Gamze Yucaoglu

Borusan Cat is an international distributor of Caterpillar heavy machines. In 2021, it had been three years since Ozgur Gunaydin (CEO) and Esra Durgun (Director of Strategy, Digitization, and Innovation) started working on Muneccim, the company’s predictive AI tool.... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Commercialization; Technology Adoption; Industrial Products Industry; Turkey; Middle East

1980
Working Paper

Components of Manufacturing Inventories: A Structural Model of the Production Process

By: Alan J. Auerbach and Jerry R. Green

This paper presents a structural model of production and inventory accumulation based on the hypothesis of cost minimization. It differs from previous attempts in several respects. First, it integrates the analysis of input inventories with output inventories, treating... View Details

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August 2015 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Amazon.com, 2021

By: John R. Wells, Benjamin Weinstock, Gabriel Ellsworth and Galen Danskin

In February 2021, Amazon announced 2020 operating profits of $22,899 million, up from $2,233 million in 2015, on sales of $386 billion, up from $107 billion five years earlier (see Exhibit 1). The shareholders expressed their satisfaction (see Exhibit 2), but not all... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Analysis; Retail; E-commerce; Amazon; Internet; Amazon.com; AmazonFresh; Jeff Bezos; Cloud Computing; Marketplaces; Streaming; E-reader Market; Digital Media; Mobile App; Online Retail; Shipping; Database; Tablet; Kindle; Kindle Fire; Smartphone; Delivery; Digital Platforms; Competition; Internet and the Web; Corporate Strategy; Digital Marketing; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Profit; Revenue; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Taxation; Business History; Human Resources; Resignation and Termination; Books; Human Capital; Working Conditions; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Practices and Processes; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Media; Distribution; Distribution Channels; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Infrastructure; Logistics; Product Development; Supply Chain; Supply Chain Management; Organizational Culture; Public Ownership; Work-Life Balance; Problems and Challenges; Labor and Management Relations; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Integration; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Price; Applications and Software; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Working Capital; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Retail Industry; Advertising Industry; Distribution Industry; Electronics Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Information Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Music Industry; Publishing Industry; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry; Video Game Industry; Web Services Industry; United States; Washington (state, US); Seattle

Benson P. Shapiro is a well-known authority on marketing strategy and sales management with particular interests in pricing, product line planning, and marketing organization. He is also the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing Emeritus at the Harvard Business... View Details

October 2016
Case

La-Z-Boy (A)

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Natalie Kindred

Kurt Darrow, CEO of La-Z-Boy furniture, must decide whether to continue an overhaul of the company's strategy in the face of a collapse in demand during the great recession. Having pared back La-Z-Boy's portfolio of brands and manufacturing network, he intends to... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Manufacturing; Organizational Transformations; Reorganization; Furniture Industry; Corporate Strategy; Home Fashion; Turnaround; Portfolio Rationalization; Globalization Of Supply Chain; Brand Repositioning; Business Growth and Maturation; Brands and Branding; Competitive Strategy; Vertical Integration; Retail Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

October 2018 (Revised October 2018)
Teaching Note

La-Z-Boy (A)

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Julia Kelley

Kurt Darrow, CEO of La-Z-Boy furniture, must decide whether to continue an overhaul of the company's strategy in the face of a collapse in demand during the great recession. Having pared back La-Z-Boy's portfolio of brands and manufacturing network, he intends to... View Details