Publications

June 1986
Case

Premier Furniture Co.

By: Thomas R. Piper

A credit analyst for a furniture manufacturer is confronted with two customers who have exceeded their credit limits. The financial performance of each has been weak, and one of the customers has a highly leveraged balance sheet. Industry conditions are weak; the... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Financial Statements; Credit; Sales; Manufacturing Industry

Article

Why ‘Tell Them Something They Don't Know’ Is Bad Advice in B2B Sales

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Tracy DeCicco

Common advice in sales is to provide insights to customers during sales calls. But this advice generally stays at the level of “tell people something they don’t already know” and results in sales conversations littered with many irrelevant factoids. This article... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy

Register to Read

March 1995 (Revised April 1997)
Case

Co-operative Bank, The

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Srikant M. Datar

A British bank with strong roots in the cooperative movement encounters declining profitability in an increasingly competitive and deregulated financial services industry. It attempts to grow by broadening its customer base and increasing the range of products and... View Details

Keywords: Product; Competition; Expansion; Cost Management; Activity Based Costing and Management; Profit; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
Case

Burberry

By: Youngme E. Moon, Erika Kussmann, Emma Penick, Susan Wojewoda and Kerry Herman

In 2003, Rose Marie Bravo, Burberry's CEO, is debating how to maintain the currency and cachet of the brand across its broad customer base, while entering new product categories and expanding distribution. In the past five years, the brand has become one of the hottest... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Management Teams; Luxury; Product Launch; Distribution; Product Positioning; Advertising; Market Entry and Exit; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; United Kingdom

Typically, past spending in a category is a positive indicator of future purchasing. In this we show that there exist categories (which we name "canary categories") in which the reverse is true -
When customers purchase... View Details

January 2008
Article

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

By: Michael E. Porter

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Five Forces Framework; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy

Find at Harvard

*Joined Harvard Faculty: 1991
Prior Faculty Appointments: Northwestern University, 1968-75;
University of Pittsburgh, 1975-91

*Doctoral Degree in Sociology Received from: The John Hopkins University;
MBA Degree Received from: The University of... View Details

Keywords: advertising; apparel; automotive; beverage; biotechnology; consumer products; entertainment; financial services; food; health care; marketing industry; pharmaceuticals; retailing; sports; telecommunications

August 2004 (Revised April 2005)
Case

MK Taxi: Private Chauffeur Service

MK Taxi Tokyo has developed a system to allow customers to use their mobile phones to find and contact the cab closest to them, bypassing the dispatch center. The system, called the Private Chauffeur Service (PCS), makes use of NTT's i-mode service, which essentially... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Entrepreneurship; Customer Focus and Relationships; Transportation; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Transportation Industry; Service Industry; Tokyo

May 2009
Article

Customer-Based Valuation

By: Sunil Gupta

Customer lifetime value (CLV) has emerged as an important metric to manage and grow customers. Marketing scholars have written many books and articles on this topic. However, most of this research has focused on tactical marketing decisions. While this is important, it... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Valuation

Read Now

April 2020
Teaching Note

Glossier: Co-Creating a Cult Brand with a Digital Community

By: Jill Avery

Teaching Note for HBS No. 519-022. Flush with cash from its Series C fundraise, cult beauty brand Glossier considers its next phase of growth, facing critical decisions on how to allocate its capital to support various marketing communications and distribution... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Crowdsourcing; CRM; Startup; Direct-to-consumer; DTC; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Customer Relationship Management; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Social Media; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States

12 Apr 2010
News

Inside Best Buy's Customer-Centric Strategy

Zhongming Jiang

Zhongming Jiang is a first-year Ph.D. student in Marketing (Quantitative) at Harvard Business School. His research focuses on developing methodologies for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that enable personalized interventions, dynamic customer... View Details

30 Mar 2017
HBS Seminar

David McKenzie, World Bank

Benson P. Shapiro

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

July 1998
Case

Quality Furniture Co.

By: David F. Hawkins and Norman Bartczak

A supplier is trying to determine if credit should be extended to two customers whose circumstances have changed. 99U per Case Records. View Details

Keywords: Credit; Risk Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Manufacturing Industry

September 2013
Exercise

An Exercise in Designing a Travel Coffee Mug

By: Elie Ofek and Michael Norris

In recent years design has emerged as a critical factor in the success of many new products. This case exercise provides a hands-on way to experience the design process and offers a structured approach for incorporating key considerations that can aid in effective... View Details

Keywords: New Product Development; Innovation; Market Research; Competitive Positioning; Design; Product Development; Consumer Products Industry

29 May 2015
Blog Post

Personalized Emails Get Responses

When contacting candidates of interest, customization is required to be impactful. If you spend a few extra minutes to personalize your email, then a student is far more likely to respond. Personalization doesn't have to be over the top.... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

08 Dec 2008
Research & Ideas

Thinking Twice About Supply-Chain Layoffs

centers can seriously affect an organization's bottom line and undermine its strategy. "My research reveals that what happens in the last 10 yards of retail supply chains is really important. Customers often experience stockouts not... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

July 2009 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Alacra, Inc.

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Aldo Sesia

In 2009, the CEO of Alacra, a venture-backed information services firm that provides customized data primarily to financial services firms, must decide how to respond to the global economic crisis. View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Crisis Management; Information Industry