Publications

September 2011
Article

How to Solve the Cost Crisis in Health Care

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Michael E. Porter

Existing health care costing systems have serious flaws that make it impossible to measure costs accurately at the individual patient and medical condition level. This gap has severely limited meaningful cost reduction throughout the system. The paper describes a new... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Health Care and Treatment; Measurement and Metrics; Service Delivery; Outcome or Result; Quality; Health Industry

March 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Jill Greenthal at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (B): The TCI/AT&T Deal

By: Ashish Nanda, Thomas J. DeLong and Sarah S. Khetani

Documents the hectic and grueling work done by Jill Greenthal's team at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in an attempt to execute a landmark deal on behalf of a key client. View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Negotiation Process; Service Delivery; Groups and Teams; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Deal; Gender; Banking Industry; Service Industry; Telecommunications Industry

May 1994 (Revised September 1994)
Case

STAR TV (A)

By: Michael Y. Yoshino and J. Peter Williamson

Concerns the decision whether or not to launch a satellite television service in Asia in the 1990-1991 period. STAR TV was a joint venture between Hutchison Whampoa and Li-Ka Shing and was established to launch such a service. Li-Ka Shing's son, Richard, was CEO.... View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Decisions; Product Launch; Service Delivery; Adaptation; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Asia; Europe; United States

01 Mar 2014
News

My HBS Eureka Moment

mutely pouting. I learned a lifelong lesson: When you don't know what to say or do, say or do nothing. Find Your Place Rusty McClure (MBA 1975) AS A MARRIED MBA STUDENT, in order to afford a better apartment, I applied for and was awarded the student franchise for the... View Details

Keywords: Walter Frese; Martin V. Marshall; C. Roland Christensen; Lawrence Fouraker; Educational Services

Article

What Do Nongovernmental Organizations Do?

By: Eric D. Werker and Faisal Z. Ahmand

Nongovernmental organizations are one group of players who are active in the efforts of international development and increasing the welfare of poor people in poor countries. Nongovernmental organizations are largely staffed by altruistic employees and volunteers... View Details

Keywords: Non-Governmental Organizations; Growth and Development; Welfare or Wellbeing; Poverty; Service Delivery; Crime and Corruption; Social Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Resource Allocation; Product Development; Framework

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2012
Working Paper

Conflict Policy and Advertising Agency-Client Relations: The Problem of Competing Clients Sharing a Common Agency

By: Alvin J. Silk

What restrictions should be placed on advertising agencies with respect to serving accounts or clients that are competitors of one another in order to avoid conflicts in interest? In recent decades, the advertising and marketing services industry has undergone a number... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Service Delivery; Competition; Conflict of Interests; Policy; Practice; Advertising Industry; United States

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March 2010 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Bank of America: Mobile Banking

By: Sunil Gupta and Kerry Herman

In January 2010, Jen McDonald, head of Bank of America Corporation's (BAC) Digital Marketing group, was discussing the bank's mobile strategy with Douglas Brown, senior vice president, Mobile Product Development. BAC launched mobile banking in 2007 and within three... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Digital Marketing; Financial Services; Mobile Banking; Channels; Strategy; Banks and Banking; Marketing Strategy; Service Delivery; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Banking Industry; United States

September 2002 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Transformation at the IRS

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Frances X. Frei and Corey B. Hajim

Describes the service transformation occurring at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Plagued by a history of poor service, enormous complexity, and an insular employee base, the 100,000-person organization grapples with a turnaround process that attempts to change... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Service Operations; Organizational Structure; Taxation; Organizational Culture; Transformation; Public Administration Industry; United States

June 1977 (Revised September 1992)
Case

Sorenson Research Co. (Abridged)

By: Steven C. Wheelwright

Presents the issues facing a high volume, high margin (but lightweight) medical products business. The company is trying to improve its inventory control to reduce inventory investment and improve service. The present multi-site inventory system is described and major... View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Investment; Volume; Service Delivery; Supply Chain; Performance Improvement; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

March 2000 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Jill Greenthal at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (A): The TCI/AT&T Deal

By: Ashish Nanda, Thomas J. DeLong and Sarah S. Khetani

Jill Greenthal, managing director at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, is leading her team of investment bankers to negotiate on behalf of Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) on a potential landmark deal with AT&T. Representing TCI in the negotiations is the culmination of... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Negotiation Process; Service Delivery; Groups and Teams; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Deal; Gender; Banking Industry; Service Industry; Telecommunications Industry

September 2002 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Oklahoma VISION Project

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Susan Saltrick

Describes the two-year-old pilot phase of a public/private initiative in Oklahoma called the Virtual Internet School in Oklahoma Network (VISION) project. VISION was a first-of-its-kind, standards-based, vendor-neutral technology infrastructure developed to enable... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Internet and the Web; Performance Evaluation; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Service Delivery; Innovation and Management; Entrepreneurship; Education; Information Technology Industry; Education Industry; Oklahoma; Western United States

16 May 2017
Blog Post

Making the Move into Digital Health and Software Engineering

at Instacart, a same-day grocery delivery service. My team’s job was to handle everything that related to the ordering process: we worked with Stripe, our payments API, built the discounts infrastructure, and created an infrastructure to... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Health Care

24 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

Are Assets Only for America’s Wealthy?

nature and delivery of the IDA program could be the answer, he says. Rather than administering IDAs through brick-and-mortar channels—banks, paperwork, and more paperwork—why not use technology to speed up, standardize, and improve... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

01 Sep 2013
News

A Focus on You

To sweeten the deal, we have something big to offer in exchange. Beginning this month, HBS is launching a brand-new Alumni website, featuring personalized content delivery (based on your profession and unique interests), customized events... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

23 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Partnering and the Balanced Scorecard

to be defective, and arrange for replacement parts to arrive (which themselves have to inspected). The low-price supplier may also not have a stellar on-time delivery capability. Its failure to deliver reliably at scheduled times causes... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

August 2011
Teaching Note

Exeter Group, Inc. (TN)

By: Robert G. Eccles and Penelope Rossano

Teaching Note for 409001. View Details

Keywords: Markets; Projects; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Performance Capacity; Service Delivery; Information Technology Industry; Consulting Industry

June 2015 (Revised November 2016)
Supplement

HealthCare.gov: The Crash and the Fix (B)

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Paras D. Bhayani

A review of the process utilized by the Obama administration to create the Health Care.gov exchange and the problems that resulted from the implementation effort. This case provides the follow on strategy and processes utilized to get the site up and running after the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change; Implementing Strategy; Implementation; Government Innovation; Health Care Industry; Health Care Reform; Service Delivery; Internet and the Web; Health; Government and Politics; Information Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; Health Industry; United States

18 Aug 2014
Research & Ideas

Have a Better Idea To Improve Health Care?

adoption of successful health care ideas, the Forum has launched the Health Acceleration Challenge, a competition meant to identify and promote proven innovations that, if more broadly disseminated, could increase the quality and access—and lower the cost—of health... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

May 28, 2018
Article

How Companies Can Identify Racial and Gender Bias in Their Customer Service

By: Alexandra C. Feldberg and Tami Kim

Research shows that minority customers — blacks and Asians — regularly receive worse customer service than whites in ways that are not immediately obvious to onlookers (or even managers). These results prompt a couple of questions for executives and managers. One, does... View Details

Keywords: Internal Audit; Customers; Service Delivery; Prejudice and Bias; Race; Gender; Organizational Change and Adaptation