Publications
Publications
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(657)
- Faculty Publications (158)
- December 2002 (Revised October 2006)
- Case
Tesco Plc.
By: David E. Bell
Tesco, a supermarket chain, has been transformed from a third-rate retailer to a global leader in the past ten years. This case describes how that was accomplished. Interviews with Tesco employees explain the company's approach to understanding customers, motivating... View Details
- September 2002 (Revised August 2014)
- Case
Cardinal Health (A): The Medicine Shoppe Acquisition
By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Miguel Abecasis and Brenda Cheng
Robert Walter, the founder and CEO of Cardinal Health, a pharmaceutical distributor, is contemplating the purchase of Medicine Shoppe, a chain of apothecaries. The purchase might be construed as competition against his own drugstore customers. But one of its many... View Details
- August 2002 (Revised June 2006)
- Case
Great Dakota Bank: Online Banking
By: Frances X. Frei, Youngme E. Moon and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar
In 2002, Great Dakota Bank's retail division is considering how heavily it should be promoting the company's online banking service. A recent promotional campaign appears to have significantly increased enrollments in online banking, but it is unclear whether the bank... View Details
- June 2001
- Teaching Note
Retail Operations TN
By: Ananth Raman
Describes the teaching objectives and content of the Retail Operations Module in the Coordinating and Managing Supply Chains elective course at HBS. First describes the motivation for developing a module on retail operations in a supply chain course and then addresses... View Details
- December 2000
- Case
Friona Industries, L.P.
By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis
As the food industry becomes more sophisticated, and as genomics and other factors provide for quality control from the producers to the consumers in the food chain, the beef industry has been one of the last commodity systems to organize the vertical systems to... View Details
- October 2000 (Revised November 2005)
- Case
Li & Fung (A): Internet Issues
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Fred Young
This case looks at the issues facing a Hong Kong-based trading company, which links hundreds of factories in India and Asia with major customers like Gap and the Limited in Europe and in the United States. The company has recently launched a dot-com operation to allow... View Details
- August 2000 (Revised February 2003)
- Case
Borders Group, Inc.
By: Zeynep Ton and Ananth Raman
Describes Borders Group, a well-known retail chain, in late 1999 and its traditional strengths and rapid growth in the 1990s. By 1990, however, the company had fallen behind Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in leveraging the Internet for book retailing, although it... View Details
Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Distribution Channels; Service Operations; Business Growth and Maturation; Economic Growth; Industry Growth; Growth and Development; Internet; Business Model; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Supply and Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry
- April 2000 (Revised November 2003)
- Case
H. E. Butt Grocery Company: The New Digital Strategy (A)
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Melissa Dailey
Shows how the company's IT priorities have moved from primary supply chain restructuring to e-commerce. Shows the new organization structure created by the company. View Details
- February 2000 (Revised December 2000)
- Case
Staples.com
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Joanna M. Jacobson and Gillian Morris
Staples.com, the online unit of the U.S. office supplies retailing chain Staples, faces a range of strategic and organizational issues as it accelerates its growth. Should it pursue only existing Staples customers or consumers who do not shop in Staples stores? How... View Details
- January 2000
- Article
Retailing and Supply Chains in the Information World
By: J. H. Hammond, F.A. Abernathy, J.T. Dunlop and D. Weil
- 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
- May 1999 (Revised August 1999)
- Case
Victory Supermarkets: Expansion Strategy?
By: David E. Bell and Ann Leamon
Jay DiGeronimo, president of a 16-store supermarket chain, is trying to decide the timing and method for expanding his chain. The family-owned company could continue in a maintenance mode, with each family member running one store. It could expand slowly using a new... View Details
- October 1998 (Revised December 1998)
- Case
CompUSA The Computer Superstore
By: Ananth Raman and Anna Sheen McClelland
Examines the CompUSA organization, focusing especially on the operations and the company culture. Highlights the economics of PC retailing and the importance of a responsive supply chain for their product category. The description of company culture emphasizes the role... View Details
- June 1998 (Revised January 2000)
- Case
Egghead.com
Egghead Software, an entrenched traditional chain retailer specializing in computer software and peripherals, had established a nationwide chain of mall and shopping center stores and a well-organized national brand. In early 1998, management made a highly unusual, and... View Details
- May 1998 (Revised October 2001)
- Case
Taco Bell Inc. (1983-1994)
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Dave DeLong
Details the actions of John Martin, newly named CEO, as he leads Taco Bell through a decade of incremental and radical changes. By the end of the case, total system sales within Taco Bell, a Mexican style fast-food restaurant chain and a division of PepsiCo, have grown... View Details
- October 1997 (Revised January 2008)
- Case
Asda (A)
By: Michael Beer and James Weber
In the mid-1980s, Asda was one of the most successful retail companies in the United Kingdom. By 1991, the chain of 200 grocery stores had a lack of direction, a demoralized workforce, declining profits, rising debt, collapsing stock price, and was facing bankruptcy.... View Details
- October 1997 (Revised June 1998)
- Case
Woolworths South Africa
By: David B. Yoffie and Anthony St. George
Woolworths South Africa is one of the most successful retail chains in the country, modeled on Marks and Spencer of the United Kingdom. This case focuses on the sources of Woolworth's competitive advantage within South Africa and the challenges of growth in the wake of... View Details
- February 1997 (Revised May 1998)
- Case
Tire City, Inc.
By: W. Carl Kester
A small, rapidly growing retail distributor of automotive tires must present a set of forecasted financial statements to a bank in order to obtain a five-year loan. Expected growth rates given in the case and historical financial ratios derived from recent financial... View Details
- October 1996 (Revised April 1997)
- Case
Tweeter etc.
By: John T. Gourville and George Wu
In the early 1990s, Tweeter etc., a small regional retailer of higher-end audio and video equipment, faced increasing competitive pricing pressures from several large regional and national consumer electronics chains. In response, in 1993, they introduced "Automatic... View Details
- July 1996 (Revised August 2024)
- Case
Innovative Opportunities to Manage Health Care Delivery
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and D. Scott Lurding
The purpose of this case is:
To familiarize the students with the changing landscape of health care delivery, through chains of retail medical centers and those offering value-based care (VBC).
To discuss fundamental managerial decisions about their... View Details
To discuss fundamental managerial decisions about their... View Details