Publications

February 2001 (Revised August 2001)
Case

WholesalerDirect

By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman

Describes the development of WholesalerDirect, a B2B electronic commerce venture in the plumbing, heating, cooling, and piping industry. Adam Berger, the CEO, is trying to raise funding to roll out the company's e-commerce platform to the industry's more than 3,000... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Valuation; Business Plan; Financing and Loans; Financial Strategy

November 2000 (Revised December 2001)
Case

Alibaba.com

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Carin-Isabel Knoop and David Lane

This case focuses on the strategic issues of an emerging dot-com in a rapidly emerging Internet nation-China. Alibaba, a bulletin board company based in Hangzhou, China, is trying to carve out a niche in the B-to-B e-commerce world. It also shows the speed and... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Marketing; Strategy; Service Industry; Information Technology Industry; Hangzhou; Europe; United States

November 2000
Case

Geocast Network Systems, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Christina L. Darwall and Elizabeth Kind

Geocast, a venture-backed start-up, had developed innovative technology for "datacasting" broadband information and entertainment content to an external hard drive, where it was cached for later retrieval by a Web-enabled PC. By using terrestrial TV, direct broadcast... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customer Value and Value Chain; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Information Management; Technological Innovation; Marketing Channels; Corporate Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Web Services Industry

October 2000 (Revised March 2001)
Case

BizRate.com

By: Youngme E. Moon

BizRate is a market research firm that collects point-of-purchase customer feedback data from retailing merchants. It then makes its findings available to consumers in the form of "BizRate star ratings," which are displayed on its website. To date, its primary revenue... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Marketing Channels; Internet and the Web; Customer Relationship Management; Trust; Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Business Divisions; Debates; Retail Industry

September 2000
Case

Jardines: Tapping the Asian E-Commerce Market

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Melissa Dailey and Fred Young

"We have made significant progress in reshaping the group in the current cycle of change," announced the homepage of Jardine Matheson & Co.'s web site. Percy Weatherall, newly appointed managing director of the company, knew all too well about change. In his previous... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Decisions; Information Technology; Corporate Strategy; Technology Adoption

July 2000 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Catalyst Medical Solutions

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Richard M.J. Bohmer and Naomi Atkins

Faced with a drop in the NASDAQ, four eHealth entrepreneurs must decide between two distribution strategies for their new company's technology. The team, comprised of three full-time resident physicians and an MBA, has developed software to enable electronic... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Health Care and Treatment; Distribution; Strategy; Venture Capital; Applications and Software; Partners and Partnerships; Borrowing and Debt; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry

April 2000 (Revised September 2001)
Case

Peppers and Rogers Group, The

By: John A. Deighton

Can two successful authors build a scalable consulting practice based on their unique view of customer relationship management (CRM)? Should they emphasize strategy or execution? The case describes how Peppers and Rogers grew from two people earning speaker fees to a... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Growth and Development; Information Publishing; Going Public; Strategy; Competition; Internet; Consulting Industry

February 2000 (Revised October 2000)
Case

E-commerce at Williams-Sonoma

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Daniel Galvin

Describes Williams-Sonoma's development of a third channel of business on the Internet. Describes the strategies for managing changes in the organizational, operational, and technological structure of the company. The new e-commerce division confronts challenges posed... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Internet and the Web; Trade; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Operations; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Information Technology Industry; Retail Industry; California

February 2000 (Revised October 2000)
Case

Open Market, Inc.: The E-Commerce Wars

By: James I. Cash Jr., Janis Lee Gogan, Michael Haselkorn and Mani Subramani

Continues the story of Open Market, Inc., a company founded in 1994 to support electronic commerce on the Internet. Despite a very successful initial public offering, the firm had reached a growth plateau, and the management team was considering several strategic... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Channels; Product Marketing; Product Development; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry

December 1999
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A): An Enterprise of Change

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Jane Roessner

In 1999, Sun Microsystems, Inc., was claiming a leadership position in the burgeoning world of e-commerce and networking computers. Its goal: "to dot-com the world." What was it about Sun's culture that made it so conducive to innovation and entrepreneurship? And how... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Leading Change; Innovation Leadership; Information Infrastructure; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Global Strategy; Experience and Expertise; Technology Industry; Computer Industry

October 1999 (Revised March 2000)
Case

HP Consumer Products Business Organization: Distributing Printers via the Internet

By: Rajiv Lal, Kirthi Kalyanam, Shelby Mc Intyre and Edie Prescott

In spring 1998, Pradeep Jotwani, vice president and general manager of the Consumer Products Business Organization of the Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), was contemplating the increasing success of e-commerce and its implications for his division. The consumer products group... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Marketing Channels; Business Processes; Problems and Challenges; Partners and Partnerships; Sales; Business Strategy; Information Technology; Consumer Products Industry

Teaching Interest

Overview

By: Frank Nagle

Prof. Nagle has taught a wide variety of topics to various types of students including everything from computer programming and e-commerce for undergraduates to cyber security for the FBI and HBS Executive Education participants to innovation and technology management... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

By: Chiara Farronato

Based on a broad interest in the economics of innovation and the Internet, Professor Farronato concentrates her research on the evolution of e-commerce and peer-to-peer online platforms, including platform adoption, economies of scale, and drivers of heterogeneous... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Antitrust; Network Effects; E-Commerce Strategy

Research Summary

Overview

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Rayport focuses his teaching and research on launching and scaling technology ventures, with emphasis on digital media, e-commerce, and multi-channel retail. View Details

Forthcoming
Book

The Everything Token: How NFTs and Web3 Will Transform the Way We Buy, Sell, and Create

By: Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers

We demystify the coming digital revolution, showing how NFTs will transform our online and offline interactions.

NFTs aren’t just pictures on the internet, or a fad that has come and gone. Rather, they’re a new technology for creating digital assets and... View Details