Switching Costs - Publications - Faculty & Research

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2024 Reunion Presentations - Alumni

focus on entrepreneurial actors trying to deliver better health and education outcomes at a lower cost and requiring less time to more people. He also will discuss the role of ventures in addressing climate change. Some of the... View Details

03 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Is the Future of MBA Education?

changed, and with it the security that used to come almost automatically with an MBA degree. [ ] High-paying jobs are no longer guaranteed to graduates, and the opportunity costs of two years of training—especially for those who still... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

Profile

Kyle Schultz

Kyle Schultz (MBA 2004) works with a software company that is developing ways to notify patients about the costs of their health care procedures and the ways insurance can be applied. View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Technology

05 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

Five questions for Regina E. Herzlinger

"bonus" long-term policies that reward those who switch to healthy lifestyles. Insurers and providers will receive risk-adjusted payments, so the sick will become financially attractive enrollees and patients. With today's... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

06 Jun 2023
Blog Post

Van den Ende Rozen: Greenhouse Rose Production

growth. Three months ago, they replaced some lights with LEDs in their greenhouses with good results. Prior to the replacement, lighting consumed 12 megawatt-hours per day. The greenhouse shuts down all lights for approx. four hours per day because plants need rest.... View Details

10 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

IT Links for Boundaryless Companies

"There are huge switching costs in information technology. If you're selling stuff, you can lock in the buyer around your proprietary standards. But the buyer has to beware they're not locking... View Details

Keywords: by Kenneth Liss

08 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

A Bold Proposal for Investment Reform

out of the rut we're currently in, both the suppliers and those demanding information have to be willing to consider radical ideas in terms of reform. What radical measures should the investor community or those demanding information consider? Healy and Palepu: We... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

05 May 2009
First Look

First Look: May 5, 2009

effects of satisfaction and switching costs as drivers of retention among self-service customers. Our empirical analysis examines 26,924 multi-channel customers of a nationwide retail bank. For each... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

Charting Tariff Pain: Small Businesses Brace for Job Cuts, Falling Sales | Working Knowledge

could immediately switch to domestic suppliers, and 35 percent estimated that reshoring would raise costs by no more than 20 percent. Another 20 percent of owners said that shifting would be impossible or... View Details

07 Oct 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

How Companies Can Make Up with (Very) Unhappy Customers

JetBlue employees and more than 130,000 customers whose flights were cancelled, delayed, or diverted. How did the airline make it right with customers and learn from its mistakes? The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall Product failures... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail; Air Transportation

27 Sep 2024
Research & Ideas

Charting 'Cheapflation': How Budget Brands Got So Pricey

Surging inflation drove many consumers to cheaper brands or lower-quality products, but new data suggests that switching might not have saved them as much as they might have expected. During the most recent period of high inflation,... View Details

Keywords: by Ana Elena Azpúrua

05 Jun 2019
Research & Ideas

If Your Customers Don't Care What You Charge, What Should You Charge?

customers. Both established firms and new market entrants frequently use introductory offers to accumulate customers and then raise prices later on, assuming customers will choose to stay over the cost of View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Energy

23 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

Strategy for Small Fish

with multiple hubs. As we discuss in some detail later, the crucial factor in figuring out which of these strategies to pursue is developing an understanding of the necessary "coupling strength," which defines the switching... View Details

Keywords: by Marco Iansiti & Roy Levien

01 Mar 2004
What Do You Think?

Are Customer Loyalty Initiatives Worth the Investment?

retaining customers than programs that focus on retaining customers but add cost to the product or service." Others tended to regard Treacy's and Reichheld's views as complementary. "I don't see a conflict," said Jack... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

04 Aug 2009
First Look

First Look: August 4

Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-005.pdf The Effect of Labor on Profitability: The Role of Quality (revised) Author:Zeynep Ton Abstract Determining staffing levels is an important decision in retail operations. While the View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

13 Aug 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Shouldn't Delay Software Updates—Even After CrowdStrike's Flaw

some IT experts I’ve talked to are surprised by the results.” Why? The cost of software updates—both in terms of time and money—may cause businesses to delay manual updates to vulnerable systems, says Shane M. Greenstein, the Martin... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Technology; Information Technology; Computer; Web Services

24 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Can Obamacare Be Saved?

merger between Aetna and Humana, two of the largest health insurers in the United States. The 838,000 consumers who were insured by Aetna exchange plans in 2016 will be forced to select other public exchange plans or purchase individual insurance outside of the... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch and Emily Boudreau; Insurance; Health

29 Jun 2015
HBS Case

Consumer-centered Health Care Depends on Accessible Medical Records

tend to seek technology partners that can grow with them over a long period, rather than bearing the switching costs of starting over with a new platform and supplier. Ideally, a sophisticated analytics... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health; Technology

01 Mar 2017
Research & Ideas

A Good Thing Happens When Doctors Start Talking to Their Patients

recovery costs weren’t borne by the hospitals, they had not been motivated to find the low total cost alternative. After Kaplan pointed out the discrepancy, some hospitals View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

01 Dec 2011
What Do You Think?

Thinking Slow: An Argument for Bureaucracy?

ranging from overconfidence in planning to the defense of sunk costs and the failure to cut our losses in investments. Kahneman implies, among other things, that in selecting decision-makers we should look for those who know when to View Details