Publications

2018
Chapter

How Geography Shapes—and Is Shaped by—the Internet

By: Shane Greenstein, Avi Goldfarb and Chris Forman

Book Abstract: The first 15 years of the 21st century have thrown into sharp relief the challenges of growth, equity, stability, and sustainability facing the world economy. In addition, they have exposed the inadequacies of mainstream economics in providing answers to... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Geographic Location; Internet

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May 2000 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Service and Value in e-Commerce

This collection of readings illustrates the importance of service and logistics in e-commerce, focusing on e-Toys' disastrous 1999 holiday season. View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Internet and the Web; Service Operations; Logistics; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

January 2004 (Revised May 2004)
Background Note

Strategy and Positioning in Professional Service Firms

By: Ashish Nanda

This case provides a definition of strategy, distinguishes between corporate and practice strategy, and discusses how and why developing and implementing strategy for professional service firms is different from developing and implementing strategy for commercial... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Service Industry

March 2020 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Michelin: Building a Digital Service Platform

By: Sunil Gupta and Christian Godwin

Michelin, a tire company with over a century of experience, attempts to develop a digital service platform for its fleet and dealer customers. The case focuses on the challenges of bringing a large, well-established company into the digital age. Concerned about the... View Details

Keywords: Change; Transformation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Making; Leading Change; Growth and Development; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Auto Industry; Travel Industry; Transportation Industry; United States; France

Article

Health Care Providers Need a Value Management Office

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Catherine H. MacLean, Alexander Dresner, Derek A. Haas and Thomas W. Feeley

Many health care organizations are striving to implement a value agenda that delivers better patient outcomes at lower cost, medical condition by medical condition. To accelerate the dissemination and adoption of the value agenda, across many more medical conditions,... View Details

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

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31 Mar 2022
Op-Ed

Navigating the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ in Professional Services

If professional service leaders wish to scale up their enterprises, they must first answer a critical question: Why? How would scale provide an advantage for my firm? Scale can benefit a professional View Details

Keywords: by Ashish Nanda

June 1998 (Revised August 2001)
Case

Wells Fargo Online Financial Services (A)

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Nicole Tempest

Wells Fargo, the industry leader in electronic banking, has implemented a Balanced Scorecard in its online financial services group (OFS) to track and measure performance. The OFS group develops and supports services that allow existing and future banking customers to... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Internet and the Web; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Finance; Change; Situation or Environment; Measurement and Metrics; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

Article

Can Big-Box Retailers Provide Local Health Care?

By: Robert S. Huckman

National retailers, most notably Walmart and Best Buy, are making big bets on their ability to fill this need for local health care. At first glance, these moves are a bit surprising given that these companies have not traditionally been focused on health care... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Local Range; Retail Industry; Health Industry

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16 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Confronting the Reality of Web Services

What's next for Web services? In his case summary "Will Web Services Really Transform Collaboration?" published in the Winter 2005 edition of MIT Sloan Management Review, HBS associate professor Andrew P. McAfee argues that the... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant

January 2009 (Revised February 2009)
Case

F-Secure Corporation: Software as a Service (SaaS) in the Security Solutions Market

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Robert D. Austin, Kalle Lyytinen, Esko Penttinen and Timo Saarinen

Describes the development of a business model based on "software as a service" (SaaS) for security solution distributed through Internet Service Providers (ISPs). F-Secure disruptively entered a mature business with dominant players by executing an innovative new... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Service Delivery; Internet; Information Technology Industry

December 1998
Case

Retail Financial Services in 1998: Merrill Lynch

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Takia Mahmood

Provides an overview of Merrill Lynch's current strategy for retail financial services. Retail Financial Services in 1998 should be given to all students as background material. The class should then be split into groups, with each group receiving one of the following... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Industry Structures; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry

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December 1998
Case

Retail Financial Services in 1998: Fidelity Investments

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Takia Mahmood

Provides an overview of Fidelity Investment's current strategy for retail financial services. Retail Financial Services in 1998 should be given to all students as background material. The class should then be split into groups, with each group receiving one of the... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Industry Structures; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry

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December 1998
Case

Retail Financial Services in 1998: Charles Schwab

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Takia Mahmood

Provides an overview of Charles Schwab's current strategy for retail financial services. Retail Financial Services in 1998 should be given to all students as background material. The class should then be split into groups, with each group receiving one of the following... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Industry Structures; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry

October 2001 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Provident Life and Accident Insurance: The Acquisition of Paul Revere

By: Mihir A. Desai, Frank Williamson, Mark Veblen and Yuming Zou

Provident Life & Accident Insurance Co. has made an initial bid to acquire a primary competitor, Paul Revere, from conglomerate, Textron. The due diligence process uncovers a significant block of problematic disability insurance policies. Provident is forced to assess... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Financial Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Policy; Investment; Business Strategy; Cash Flow; Price; Bids and Bidding; Financial Reporting; Business Conglomerates; Service Industry; Service Industry

03 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

The State of Customer Service Leadership

Southwest Airlines, for instance, has continued as a legendary US-based service provider since its inception in 1971, IKEA of Sweden has evolved to teach the world’s retailers about the power of a well-... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner; Retail

July 2007 (Revised October 2007)
Teaching Note

PayPal Merchant Services (TN)

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Information Technology Industry

2016
Working Paper

The Search for Peer Firms: When Do Crowds Provide Wisdom?

By: Charles M.C. Lee, Paul Ma and Charles C.Y. Wang

In knowledge-based economies, many business enterprises defy traditional industry boundaries. In this study, we evaluate six "big data" approaches to peer firm identifications and show that some, but not all, "wisdom-of-crowd" techniques perform exceptionally well. We... View Details

Keywords: Peer Firm; EDGAR Co-search; Analyst Co-coverage; Wisdom Of Crowds; Performance Benchmarking; Crowd Of Crowds; Internet and the Web; Accounting

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September 2018
Case

ProdEng: Services for Oil & Gas Extraction

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Maria Fernanda Miguel and Mariana Cal

ProdEng is a venture created as part of a PE fund and provides oil field services in Argentina. In 2016, an industry-wide unforeseen oil and gas demand slump drove ProdEng’s average service rates down by more than 37%, with EBITDA margins falling from 50% to 24% in the... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Marketing; Price; Strategy; Latin America; Argentina