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  • August 2018
  • Teaching Note

Magpie: Developing and Using Buyer Personas

By: Frank V. Cespedes
Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-013. Magpie is a startup with a platform that allows publishers to natively tag the products discussed in their content and thus allows consumers to purchase those products without needing to leave that publisher’s web page. A key aspect... View Details
Keywords: Buying Process; Marketing; Sales; Distribution Channels; Segmentation; Entrepreneurship; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
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  • December 1998
  • Background Note

Cash Management Practices in Small Companies

By: H. Kent Bowen, Andrew R. Jassy, Laurence E. Katz, Kevin E. Kelly and Baltej Kochar
Most small business managers claim that cash management is their leading concern. Often walking a tightrope between growth and illiquidity, small business managers face different cash management challenges than their counterparts in larger companies. Compared to larger... View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Working Capital; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design; Cash; Forecasting and Prediction; Policy; Business Strategy
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    Roy D. Shapiro

    Roy D. Shapiro is the Philip Caldwell Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration.  He is currently the faculty co-chair of the School's Technology and Operations Management Unit... View Details

    • February 2022 (Revised May 2025)
    • Case

    Resident 2020

    By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones
    Launched in 2016, Resident was a leading player in the direct-to-consumer bed-in-a-box mattress market, where it was one of at least 175 venture-backed companies competing in the space. By late 2020, it had realized over $500 million in revenue, profitability in the... View Details
    Keywords: Digital Marketing; Business Growth and Maturation; Operations; Entrepreneurship; Competitive Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Decisions; Marketing Strategy; Cash Flow; Demand and Consumers
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    • January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
    • Case

    Pioneer Natural Resources: Enhancing the Capital Return Strategy with Variable Dividends

    By: Benjamin C. Esty, Elisabeth Kempf and E. Scott Mayfield
    In February 2021, Scott Sheffield, the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources (an independent oil and gas company based in Texas), was considering the possibility of enhancing the firm’s capital return strategy by introducing a variable dividend tied to cash flows in... View Details
    Keywords: Corporate Finance; Cash Flow; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Value Creation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment Return; Profit; Policy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Energy Industry; United States; North America; Texas
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    • November 2009 (Revised May 2017)
    • Case

    Miracle Life, Inc.

    By: Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy
    Miracle Life is a firm with a unique setup and organizational structure. Specifically, it is a network marketing firm, also known as multi-level marketing (MLM) firm, which utilizes a large distributor base and depends on this individual distributor base to sell its... View Details
    Keywords: Finance; Cash Flow; Stocks; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Marketing; Distribution; Organizational Structure
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    • March 2021 (Revised July 2021)
    • Case

    Resident

    By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones
    Launched in 2016, Resident was a leading player in the direct-to-consumer bed-in-a-box mattress market, where it was one of at least 175 venture-backed companies competing in the space. By late 2020, it had realized over $500 million in revenue, profitability in the... View Details
    Keywords: Digital Marketing; Business Growth and Maturation; Operations; Entrepreneurship; Competitive Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Decisions; Marketing Strategy; Cash Flow; Demand and Consumers
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    • September 1995 (Revised March 2023)
    • Background Note

    Process Fundamentals

    By: Ann E. Gray and James Leonard
    This note provides an introduction for a course or module covering the basic elements of production or service operations and how processes are managed. Begins by discussing the activities that take place in a "process." Analysis tools such as the process flow diagram... View Details
    Keywords: Service Operations; Operations; Management; Business Processes; Analysis
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    • December 1993 (Revised June 2000)
    • Case

    Kochman, Reidt + Haigh, Inc.

    By: Richard S. Ruback and Roy Burstin
    A small company faces the dilemma of how to finance growth (i.e., internally generated cash flows vs. outside financing sources). An innovative concept positions the company in promoting a niche within the kitchen-cabinet industry and in looking for an optimal way of... View Details
    Keywords: Cash Flow; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Finance; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry
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    • February 2001 (Revised March 2003)
    • Case

    Extricity Inc.

    Extricity provides software that triggers and automates information flows between collaborating businesses. Its products interface with the legacy information systems already in use by customers, extract information from them, and send this information over the... View Details
    Keywords: Product Positioning; Internet and the Web; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Information Technology Industry
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    • Research Summary

    Tax evasion

    Tax evasion generates billions of dollars of losses in government revenue and creates large distortions, especially in developing countries. A growing, mostly theoretical literature argues that information flows are central to understanding effective taxation.... View Details
    • September 1999 (Revised October 2006)
    • Case

    MarketSoft

    By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Diana S. Gardner
    Greg Erman and Nancy Benovich-Gilby have assembled a team and selected a market for the launch of a high-potential venture based on using an Internet-based service to manage the flow of sales leads between principals and their distribution channel partners. Their... View Details
    Keywords: Product Development; Planning; Sales; Management; Internet; Web Services Industry
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    • November 1994 (Revised September 1996)
    • Case

    RiceSelect

    By: Alvin J. Silk and Mary Shelman
    In August 1994, Robin Andrews, President of RiceTec, Inc., faces a critical decision that will affect his firm's future: what policy should RiceTec follow for supplying grocery retailers with private label merchandise? RiceTec, a small privately owned firm engaged in... View Details
    Keywords: Cash Flow; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Supply Chain Management; Private Ownership; Research and Development; Conflict Management; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry
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    • 17 Apr 2006
    • Research & Ideas

    Resisting the Seductions of Success

    resources described in earlier chapters [of my book]—having a good dream, a sound moral code, or unsettling role models—matters at all if leaders cannot resist the flow of success. Tony's story is set in the 1960s, a time when the... View Details
    Keywords: by Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.; Entertainment & Recreation; Information; Publishing
    • 2010
    • Case

    Groupe Ariel, S.A.: Parity Conditions and Cross-Border Valuation: Brief Case.

    By: Timothy A. Luehrman and James Quinn
    Groupe Ariel evaluates a proposal from its Mexican subsidiary to purchase and install cost-saving equipment at a manufacturing facility in Monterrey. The improvements will allow the plant to automate recycling and remanufacturing of toner and printer cartridges, an... View Details
    Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Valuation; Business Subsidiaries; Policy; Cash Flow; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; International Finance; Problems and Challenges; Production; Currency; Manufacturing Industry; Mexico
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    • 28 Nov 2005
    • Research & Ideas

    Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

    possessed, first, strong capabilities in branding and marketing. It understood local markets, and it knew how to market to them. It was at the frontier of market segmentation strategies in packaged consumer products. It opened up new View Details
    Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

      William R. Kerr

      William Kerr is the D’Arbeloff Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Bill is Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Research, co-director of Harvard’s Managing the Future of Work initiative, and faculty chair of the... View Details

      Keywords: communications; computer; consulting; high technology; information technology industry; management consulting; manufacturing; telecommunications; venture capital industry
      • May 2009 (Revised August 2013)
      • Case

      The DiagnoFirst Opportunity

      By: Robert C. Pozen and Rukmini Balu
      John Mason, a principle at Oldwell Partners, was facing a decision of whether or not to invest in DiagnoFirst, a molecular diagnostics firm. DiagnoFirst's key product was a genetic test that identified a subset of prostate cancer patients with a high risk of clinical... View Details
      Keywords: Genetic Engineering; Genetically Modified; Genomics; Venture Capital; Patents; Genetics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Laws and Statutes; Investment; Science-Based Business; Biotechnology Industry
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      • November 2002 (Revised November 2006)
      • Case

      Tax-Motivated Film Financing at Rexford Studios

      By: Mihir A. Desai, Gabriel J. Loeb and Mark Veblen
      The head of production for Rexford Studios must analyze the terms and value consequences of an international financing involving a German film fund. The financing involves a sale-leaseback structure where international tax rules give rise to a sizable economic pie that... View Details
      Keywords: International Finance; Financing and Loans; Taxation; Cash Flow; Financial Strategy; Financial Management; Competition; Film Entertainment; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Financial Services Industry; Germany
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      • January 2001 (Revised July 2003)
      • Case

      Pharmacyclics: Financing Research & Development

      By: Malcolm P. Baker, Richard S. Ruback and Aldo Sesia
      Pharmacyclics (NASDAQ: PCYC), a pharmaceutical company that manufactures products that will improve existing therapeutic treatments for cancer, arteriosclerosis, and retinal disease, was considering a $60 million private placement in February 2000. The company had more... View Details
      Keywords: Valuation; Cash Flow; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Financial Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry
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