Publications

August 1988 (Revised December 2000)
Case

Dunkin' Donuts (E): 1988 Distribution Strategies

Dunkin' Donuts is exploring various methods of increasing distribution. Possibilities involving new outlets include area development contracts, subfranchising, regional rollout strategies, and an increase in company owned stores. Possibilities focusing on existing... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Franchise Ownership; Distribution Channels; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States

October 1994
Case

Campbell Soup Company: A Leader in Continuous Replenishment Innovations

Campbell Soup, like most food manufacturers, faced grocery chain and wholesale demand for its goods driven by Campbell's own promotional pricing structure rather than retail consumer demand. Former policies to encourage overstock created huge swings in production and... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Supply Chain Management; Logistics

October 2006 (Revised October 2007)
Case

Information Technology and Innovation at Shinsei Bank

Shinsei Bank was rebuilt from the ashes of a failed predecessor, and pioneered new levels of customer service in retail banking in Japan. The bank's information technology, however, was vestigial at best and not well suited to the new service models Shinsei was... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Banking Industry; Japan

02 Feb 2016
News

Hiring Star Salespeople Isn’t the Best Way to Grow

October 1987 (Revised July 1991)
Case

Tiffany & Co.

By: Samuel L. Hayes III

This premier retail jewelry company was bought from its parent, Avon, by a group of investors led by its own management in 1984. The company was highly leveraged, financially, and had to scramble to meet the cash flow and earnings requirements laid down by its lenders.... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Borrowing and Debt; Cash Flow; Price; Going Public; Apparel and Accessories Industry

December 1999 (Revised February 2001)
Case

CVS: The Web Strategy

By: John A. Deighton and Anjali C. Shah

How should America's second-largest pharmacy chain respond to the challenge from online drugstores? What threat does the web pose to bricks and mortar distribution of prescription drugs and the other items that make up 50% of a drugstore's sales? This case describes... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Marketing Channels; Distribution Channels; Service Operations; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Web Services Industry

February 2001
Case

BarnesandNoble.com (C)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Dickson Louie and William A. Sahlman

At the end of 1999, Steve Riggio, the vice chairman and acting CEO of barnesandnoble.com, wonders what his company should do next against Amazon.com, the online retailer who is the leading online book seller in the United States. While barnesandnoble.com has been... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Internet and the Web; Diversification; Brands and Branding; Retail Industry

September 2017 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Great Lakes Banking Group: Data Management

By: Shane Greenstein and Christine Snively

In May 2016, Michael Rechtin, an expert in international data center law, advised global financial services firm Great Lakes Banking Group (GLBG) on its plans to upgrade its data centers. The bank’s data processing and storage systems were in need of an update, and... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Infrastructure; Operations; Information Management

20 Feb 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Where Should We Build a Mall? The Formation of Market Structure and Its Effect on Sales

Keywords: by Doug J. Chung, Kyoungwon Seo, and Reo Song; Retail; Retail; Retail

2022
Working Paper

Stock Market Stimulus

By: Robin Greenwood, Toomas Laarits and Jeffrey Wurgler

We study the stock market effects of the arrival of the three rounds of “stimulus checks” to U.S. taxpayers and the single round of direct payments to Hong Kong citizens. The first two rounds of U.S. checks appear to have increased retail buying and share prices of... View Details

Keywords: Stock Market; COVID-19 Pandemic; Fiscal Stimulus; Stimulus Payments; Impact; Stocks; System Shocks; Price; Spending; United States; Hong Kong; China

Read Now

November 2005 (Revised April 2009)
Case

RFID at the METRO Group

Introduces radio frequency identification (RFID) as the next generation of automatic identification technologies that is expected to improve the performance of retail supply chains through reduced shrink, increased product availability, and improved labor productivity.... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Supply Chain Management; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Technology Adoption

30 Jan 2022
News

From Just-In-Time To Just-In-Case: Is Excess And Obsolete Next?

01 Apr 2020
News

Facebook May Be Hit Harder Than You Think by COVID-19

John D. Dionne

John D. Dionne has been a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School since 2014 and is a recently retired Senior Managing Director and Senior Advisor to Blackstone. He is also Managing Partner of Franconia Capital, a... View Details

October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

KOKO Networks: Bridging Energy Transition and Affordability with Carbon Financing

By: George Serafeim, Siko Sikochi and Namrata Arora

The problem was massive: two million hectares of African forests were lost annually to charcoal production for cooking, an area equivalent to 13 times Greater London, resulting in one billion tons of carbon emissions yearly. At the same time, an estimated 700,000... View Details

September 2016
Case

Financial Services at Falabella (A)

By: C. Fritz Foley and Agustin M. Hurtado

In 2010, the board and senior management team of Falabella, a leading retailer with operations throughout Latin America, faced choices about what to do with its financial services division. More than 4.5 million customers had CMR credit cards that could be used in... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Credit; Financial Institutions; Personal Finance; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Latin America; Chile; Argentina; Colombia; Peru

Person Page

Non-academic Talks and Lectures

Harvard Business School Entrepreneurship Conference, March 3, 2005
Panelist on International... View Details

10 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 10, 2018

Teixeira Abstract—Online retail accounts for a rapidly growing proportion of revenues in many industries. While selling online broadens firms’ access to consumers, operating margins are often lower in online stores than in physical... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

April 2021
Supplement

Buy Online, Pickup in Store: CEO Supplement

By: Antonio Moreno, Santiago Gallino and Amy Klopfenstein

In April 2019, Sylvarella CEO Sylvia Coparella must assess the impact of the company’s Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program on her company’s overall sales. To do so, she must review analyses of both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar sales data and compare the... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Service Delivery; Logistics; Infrastructure; Distribution Channels; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Analysis; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States; Canada