Publications

15 Feb 2017
Op-Ed

What Africa Can Teach the United States About Funding Infrastructure Projects

African nations, as in the United States, a key role of government is the funding, construction, and maintenance of the public infrastructure that benefits everyone. This... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Construction

December 1987 (Revised September 1995)
Case

IDS Financial Services

Scarce managerial talent, sales force turnover, and client attrition were potential problems underlying IDS' disappointing performance at mid-year 1987. The marketing vice president had three potential "fixes": 1) increasing or decreasing the $35 million budget for... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Salesforce Management; Performance Improvement; Financial Services Industry

March 1988 (Revised September 1993)
Case

United Services Automobile Association (USAA)

Under the leadership of Robert F. McDermott, USAA has been transformed from a property and casualty insurance company with $200 million in assets in the late 1960s to a $11 billion financial services empire in 1988. The case illustrates the value of having a CEO drive... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Leadership; Information Technology; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States

01 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

A Bank That Takes Parmesan as Collateral: The Cheese Stands a Loan

infrastructure that is tailored to this kind of environment," Trichakis says. "So the question is, can you do it? And the answer is yes." The Cheese Stands A Loan Credem accepts young cheese... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking; Food & Beverage

30 Sep 2020
Blog Post

Reflecting on my service

genesis of my public service comes from growing up on Long Island, where the September 11th attacks affected me intimately. Over forty people from my hometown were killed; my uncle survived only because of a... View Details

Program

Leading Professional Service Firms

Summary As entry barriers rapidly disappear, competition is accelerating and reshaping the business landscape for professional service firms. Navigating this continual change successfully requires... View Details

Keywords: Professional Services; Professional Services

June 2000 (Revised September 2000)
Case

Amazon.com: Exploiting the Value of Digital Business Infrastructure

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Meredith Collura

Enables a thorough analysis of Amazon.com and the company's value proposition, in terms of its business concept, digital business capabilities, and community and shareholder value. Examines the company's complex set of business models and web of business relationships,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Asset Pricing; Capital; Financial Management; Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Relationships; Competitive Strategy; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry

25 Jun 2012
News

Complexity Kills: Keeping Customer Service Simple

01 Feb 2000
News

Financial Services 24/7

Wingspanbank has joined with Lycos Inc. and Juno Online Services in an effort to attract more clients, and it is banking on retaining customers by offering benefits such as discounts when using View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

12 Oct 2016
Blog Post

Interning as a Software Engineer while at HBS

Today, we’re catching up with Andrea Coravos (HBS ‘17). Before coming to HBS, Andrea worked in private equity at KKR Capstone. She also spent three years at McKinsey in the Houston and then DC offices. This summer, she interned as View Details

November 1989 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Automation Consulting Services

By: Robert Simons and Hilary Weston

Illustrates the management control challenges that are associated with rapid growth and geographic expansion. Situated at an offsite Executive Committee Retreat. The three founding partners of a specialized consulting firm are grappling with several difficult questions... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Governance Controls; Policy; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Expansion; Consulting Industry

Research Summary

Building Capabilities in Professional Service Firms

One of the most distinctive aspects of professional service firms is that the vast majority of the people who work in them are directly involved in serving clients. Long-term success in a professional service firm requires obtaining and developing the right... View Details

October 2014
Case

CreditEase: Providing Credit and Financial Services for China's Underclass

By: Lena G. Goldberg, Paul Healy and Nancy Hua Dai

In 2013 Ning Tang, who in 2006 founded CreditEase as a broker of P2P loans to unbanked individuals and small businesses in China, confronts the challenges of rapid growth and expansion in a changing regulatory environment. CreditEase needs to develop technology to... View Details

Keywords: P2P Lending; HNW Products And Services; Business Growth; Business Start-ups; Government Regulation; Change Management; Credit; Microcredit; Banking; Innovation And Management; Developing Countries And Economies; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Law; Financing and Loans; Change; China

08 Jul 2016
Video

Human-Centered Service Design Professor Ryan Buell

24 Apr 2014
News

Recasting environmentalism as a smart financial investment

attractive business returns,” says Tercek. “Compared with man-made solutions, natural infrastructure often works better, costs less, and appreciates in value over time. And it provides a host of important... View Details

09 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Marketing a Country: Promotion as a Tool for Attracting Foreign Investment.

private organizations, however, the quasi-government agencies did not face the problems likely to be faced by a private agency in conducting the investment promotion tasks that are more like typical government tasks, such View Details

Keywords: by Louis T. Wells & Alvin G. Wint

2025
Working Paper

Incentive-Compatible Recovery from Manipulated Signals, with Applications to Decentralized Physical Infrastructure

By: Jason Milionis, Jens Ernstberger, Joseph Bonneau, Scott Duke Kominers and Tim Roughgarden

We introduce the first formal model capturing the elicitation of unverifiable information from a party (the "source") with implicit signals derived by other players (the "observers"). Our model is motivated in part by applications in decentralized physical... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Infrastructure; Information Infrastructure

Read Now

April 2006
Background Note

Informing Service Management with Customer Data

By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell

Taught as the third module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations. Explores the role of data analysis in ongoing service management. Describes how to realize the maximum amount of value from analyses and use this information in... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Design; Analytics and Data Science; Service Operations; Mathematical Methods; Value