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Live from Klarman Hall - Alumni

ability to adapt to these evolving occupational demands varies widely among firms and countries, exerting substantial influence on productivity growth at both micro and macro levels. As we navigate these View Details

John C. Mulliken

Strategy consultant, former CTO & CPO, public & private company board member, retail & climatetech entrepreneur, early stage investor. Father of two, husband, sailor, hiker, and aspirational road biker.

John is a senior lecturer in the... View Details

November 2013 (Revised November 2014)
Case

Freemium Pricing at Dropbox

By: Thales Teixeira and Elizabeth Anne Watkins

Online storage company Dropbox provided remote-storage over the internet of any type of computer file, along with file sharing, synchronization and backup. Using a freemium pricing strategy whereby a basic service was free-of-charge and a premium service was paid,... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Price; Internet; Information Technology Industry

October 2018
Case

BreezoMeter: Making Air Pollution Data Actionable

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Allison M. Ciechanover and Margot Eiran

The case focuses on an Israeli startup that provides actionable air pollution data and forecasts. The company has over 50 enterprise customers and its tool reached a million people daily in 67 countries. The co-founders wrestle with which markets and customers to focus... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Pollutants; Analytics and Data Science; Sales; Marketing; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; Israel; United States

October 2022 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Driving Decarbonization at BMW

By: Shirley Lu, George Serafeim and Michael W. Toffel

The case describes BMW’s electrification and decarbonization strategy, and how the company measured carbon emissions throughout the life cycle of its vehicles and used tools like carbon abatement cost curves to evaluate decarbonization opportunities. In mid-2022,... View Details

2023
Article

Balancing Risk and Reward: An Automated Phased Release Strategy

By: Yufan Li, Jialiang Mao and Iavor Bojinov

Phased releases are a common strategy in the technology industry for gradually releasing new products or updates through a sequence of A/B tests in which the number of treated units gradually grows until full deployment or deprecation. Performing phased releases in a... View Details

Keywords: Product Launch; Mathematical Methods; Product Development

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August 1989 (Revised October 1989)
Case

Avon Co.

Avon engineers developed a new type of electric adjustable speed drive. Executives began to make long-range plans for production and marketing. Members of the sales department wondered what pricing recommendations they should make to management on the basis of... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Price; Product Development; Technology Industry

16 May 2018
Blog Post

Internship Success: Mutual Growth Brings Intern and Enterprise Together

industry,” he says, “but the position needed a strong technology component. I wanted to work closely with product development and management in a company that was competitively well-positioned, on a View Details

Keywords: Technology

Program

The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports

Summary Nowhere has the impact of digital technology been felt more keenly than in the entertainment world, where it has dramatically changed how products are developed and managed—and how talent connects... View Details

Keywords: Media & Entertainment; Media & Entertainment

January 1995 (Revised August 1996)
Case

Pacific Dunlop China (A): Beijing

Describes the predicament of an overworked Western plant manager in a Chinese joint venture. The fourth in a line of such managers, he must deal with the combined problems of an inability to delegate, different customs and practices, and difficulties in information... View Details

Keywords: Production; Joint Ventures; Management Skills; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Manufacturing Industry; Beijing

March 2022
Case

Unilever: Remote Work in Manufacturing

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Susie L. Ma

In December 2021, Unilever—one of the world’s largest producers of consumer goods—was in the midst of a pilot project to digitize its manufacturing facilities and enable remote work for factory employees. This was possible because of an earlier project to retrofit a... View Details

Keywords: Change; Globalization; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Human Resources; Jobs and Positions; Operations; Education; Training; Manufacturing Industry

September 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Compilation

PEARL Project, The: Work Patterns at Ditto (A)

By: Leslie A. Perlow

Describes life on a product development team, the behaviors that are rewarded, and the difficult tradeoffs members often have to make as a result. This is a rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Time Management; Groups and Teams; Work-Life Balance; Motivation and Incentives; Information Technology Industry

September 1989 (Revised December 1989)
Case

Siemens Electric Motor Works (A) and (B) (Combined)

Explores how a cost system can help support a firm's decision to change strategies. In the process, students are exposed to a simple activity-based cost system. Also examines Siemens policy for transferring products between sales and manufacturing divisions. Transfer... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Business Strategy; Technology Industry

November 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

Microsoft Office: Finding the Suite Spot

By: Stefan H. Thomke and Steven Sinofsky

Describes a key decision-making process within Microsoft's Office products division. At a time when the PC software business has a great deal of uncertainty, Microsoft's management has to make a key decision regarding the future of software suites. A strengthening of... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Applications and Software; Strategic Planning; Organizational Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Product Development; Managerial Roles; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Goals and Objectives; Digital Platforms; Innovation and Management; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

July–August 2025
Article

Don’t Let an AI Failure Harm Your Brand

By: Julian De Freitas

How companies market their AI systems affects the repercussions they face when their products fail. Marketers must promote their AI products with potential failure in mind. To do that, they must first understand consumers’ unique attitudes toward AI. Marketers who... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Attitudes

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October 2012 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Kleiner-Perkins and Genentech: When Venture Capital Met Science

By: Felda Hardymon and Tom Nicholas

Genentech is a rare success story in the biotechnology industry. Hundreds of billions of dollars of venture capital have been invested without the expected transformational effects. Established in 1976, Genentech was to develop the new science of recombinant DNA into... View Details

Keywords: Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Science; Biotechnology Industry; United States