Computers - Publications - Faculty & Research

November 2017
Teaching Note

Reinventing Best Buy

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

Teaching Note for HBS No. 716-455. On March 1, 2017, Best Buy Company, Inc., North America’s largest retailer of consumer electronics and appliances, announced a third year of comparable-store sales increases and a 20.8% increase in domestic comparable online sales.... View Details

Keywords: Best Buy; Hubert Joly; Renew Blue; Showrooming; Webrooming; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Online Retail; Multichannel Retailing; Omnichannel; Marketplaces; Turnaround; Consumer Electronics; Consumer Electronics Accessories; Appliances; Stores-within-stores; Store Experience; Store Size; Store Pickup; Store Management; Delivery; Delivery Models; Amazon; Amazon.com; Pricing Strategy; Business Subsidiaries; Business Units; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Theater Entertainment; Price; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Cost; Selection and Staffing; Reports; Technological Innovation; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Human Capital; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Media; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Distribution Channels; Infrastructure; Product; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Programs; Groups and Teams; Sales; Salesforce Management; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Technology; Hardware; Information Technology; Internet; Mobile Technology; Online Technology; Search Technology; Software; Web; Web Sites; Wireless Technology; Resource Allocation; Computer Industry; Computer Industry; Computer Industry; Computer Industry; Computer Industry; Computer Industry; Computer Industry; Computer Industry; Computer Industry; United States; Minnesota; Minneapolis; Saint Paul; St. Paul

Citation

Purchase

16 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 16, 2015

Business School Case 415-028 Aarti Grover and CMS Computers No abstract available Purchase this case: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/415028-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 415-051 Sarah Sullivan at Greater Marketing... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 25

transfer of IP addresses, numeric identifiers required by all computers connected to the Internet. Excessive fragmentation of IP address blocks causes growth in the Internet's routing table, which is socially costly, so an IP address... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

22 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

CEO Succession: The Case at Ford

been at a tobacco company. But in fact, at American Express, where he had a significant run, he was running the largest customer for computers perhaps in the world, the American Express travel business. And it was based on that... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner; Auto; Employment

24 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Be an Angel Investor

subscribers every month. The system was extremely complicated. Computers were not using the same operating systems so there were a lot of protocol compatibility problems. There were no databases that could be accessed. So the... View Details

Keywords: by David Amis & Howard Stevenson

07 Aug 2000
Research & Ideas

Rocket Science Retailing

World Company has achieved a gross-margin return on inventory investments of more than 300%—a substantially higher return than any other retailer we are aware of. Dallas-based CompUSA, which sells computers and associated merchandise, has... View Details

Keywords: by Marshall L. Fisher, Ananth Raman & Anna Sheen McClelland; Retail

June 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Creating World-Class Board Governance at SECO

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Emer Moloney

In Spring 2023, SECO CEO Massimo Mauri had the ambition to grow the €200 million revenue technology company to a €1 billion company by 2030. Founded in Italy in the 1970s, the family-owned company had gone through a period of growth and internationalization,... View Details

Citation

Educators

Purchase

11 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 11

decimated Faber-Castell’s slide rule business in the 1970s, and computer aided design technology undermined the company’s manual drafting tools in the 1980s. With each new threat the Count had to decide whether to adapt to new... View Details

10 Jun 2002
Research & Ideas

How to Look at Globalization Now

emerged. Some (relatively rich) emerging countries now exploit the economic advantage of relatively low labor costs to move quickly into the manufacture of high-tech products, such as wireless phones, microprocessors, personal computers, and even View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

04 Jun 2001
Research & Ideas

RealNetworks, CNET, and Judo Strategy

active medium. Larger ads become part of the user's experience, because they allow for much richer information delivery." Glaser: Surfers Will Pay RealNetworks, which achieved ubiquity on personal computers around the world by giving... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

14 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: February 14

Cloud Computing Authors:Kyle Armbrester and Robert G. Eccles Publication:European Business Review (January 2012) An abstract is unavailable at this time. Publisher's Link: http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/?p=5748 Assent-maximizing... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

12 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 12, 2007

Barron, and Kagan Tumer Abstract We describe an auction mechanism in the class of Groves mechanisms that has received attention in the computer science literature because of its theoretical property of being more "learnable"... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

IT Links for Boundaryless Companies

presentation and application activity. "The levels at which computers communicate have been formalized," said Upton. "This is important as we begin to understand what's happening on the 'Net as we go forward." As this... View Details

Keywords: by Kenneth Liss

24 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

Is Your iPhone Turning You Into a Wimp?

poses and less likely in constrictive poses. Now they wanted to look into whether behavior was affected during the poses. This might help to answer questions like: Would people be more likely to join a game of online poker while using a desktop View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology; Consumer Products

27 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Horrible Boss Workarounds

didn't use computers himself and didn't see the value in the strategy. So a group of self-starters went ahead and designed a small, low-risk e-commerce pilot anyway. It tested well, the CEO was at last impressed, and the project moved... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

12 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 12, 2008

huge impact on the business models of major record labels. Modularity, and the commoditization spill-over enabled by modularity in the personal computer industry, was a major force in the development of the market. While Apple's iPod... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

05 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Radical Change, Entrepreneurial Opportunity

importantly, mindset. Photography firms like Nikon, Canon, or Kodak, coming into this new arena, think about it very differently than Sony or another consumer electronics firm or HP or Intel as computer industry firms. So given the biases... View Details

Keywords: by Michael J. Roberts; Technology

07 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

The Organizational Model for Open Source

question that firms and policy makers need to be thinking about is just what type of good is software? The answer to this question may be shifting just as economic and social life becomes dependent upon a common computing infrastructure.... View Details

Keywords: by Mallory Stark

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Porter’s Perspective: Competing in the Global Economy

true cluster in Costa Rica will take decades to complete, but I'm confident that it will be sustainable because the country offers some unique qualities that are a source of competitive advantage — among them, the highest computer usage... View Details

Keywords: Re: Michael E. Porter

16 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Resolving Patent Disputes that Impede Innovation

Land Rover, for instance, while the Universal Serial Bus (USB) helps standardize the connection of countless computer peripherals. Intellectual property owners often strive to have their patents included in these standards, such that in... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology; Legal Services

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