Publications

In industry after industry, data, analytics, and AI-driven processes are transforming the nature of work. While we often still treat AI as the domain of a specific skill, business function, or sector, we have entered a new era in which AI is challenging the very... View Details

19 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: “The Architecture of Innovation”

The key to managing innovation starts, and probably ends, with incentives. In his new book, The Architecture of Innovation: The Economics of Creative Organizations, Harvard Business School Professor Josh Lerner puts it this way:... View Details

Keywords: by Josh Lerner; Financial Services

March 2022
Supplement

Pakistan Rising: Bazaar's Growth Story (B)

By: Paul A. Gompers and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in January 2022 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are looking over the performance of the newly launched “buy now, play later” feature. The traction looks... View Details

Keywords: B2B; Business Model; Emerging Markets; For-Profit Firms; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Profit; Resource Allocation; Diversification; Corporate Strategy; Pakistan

03 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Is the Future of MBA Education?

the limitations of models and markets. At these crossroads, how should business education proceed? We wrote the book to outline the needs and to explain how schools are addressing them in surprisingly... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

March 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Pandora Radio: Fire Unprofitable Customers?

By: Willy C. Shih and Halle Alicia Tecco

Pandora Radio is at a crossroads. Founder Tim Westergren has just been told by a well known VC to get rid of his unprofitable customers in order to get his costs down, but Westergren is not sure that such actions are consistent with his company's business model.... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customer Satisfaction; Music Entertainment; Venture Capital; Profit; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Internet; Media and Broadcasting Industry

February 2023
Case

Roblox: Virtual Commerce in the Metaverse

By: Ayelet Israeli and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2022, Roblox had 58.8 million daily active users, including over half of all children and teens under the age of 16 in the United States. Roblox, a free-to-use “co-experience platform”, allowed users to come together in immersive 3D experiences to socialize, work,... View Details

August 2022 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Sweet Teez Bakery: Projecting the Dough's Rise

By: Emily R. McComb, Mel Martin and Amy Klopfenstein

In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team met with entrepreneur Teresa Maynard, who had applied for a $25,000 impact investment loan. The students thought the former Harvard Data Scientist’s bakery business, Sweet Teez Bakery, showed promise. Maynard had... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investment; Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Finance; Investment; Goods and Commodities; Financial Reporting; Small Business; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Massachusetts

2021
Working Paper

Time and the Value of Data

By: Ehsan Valavi, Joel Hestness, Newsha Ardalani and Marco Iansiti

Managers often believe that collecting more data will continually improve the accuracy of their machine learning models. However, we argue in this paper that when data lose relevance over time, it may be optimal to collect a limited amount of recent data instead of... View Details

Keywords: Economics Of AI; Machine Learning; Non-stationarity; Perishability; Value Depreciation; Analytics and Data Science; Value

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August 2022
Supplement

Sweet Teez Bakery: Projecting the Dough’s Rise Financial Supplement

By: Emily R. McComb, Mel Martin and Amy Klopfenstein

Abstract: In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team met with entrepreneur Teresa Maynard, who had applied for a $25,000 impact investment loan. The students thought the former Harvard Data Scientist’s bakery business, Sweet Teez Bakery, showed promise.... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investment; Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Finance; Investment; Goods and Commodities; Financial Reporting; Small Business; Food and Beverage Industry; Massachusetts; United States

October 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Veeva Systems: The Next Frontier

By: Satish Tadikonda and William Marks

Born out of a desire to bring technological advances in enterprise software into the healthcare vertical, Peter Gassner and Matt Wallach founded Veeva to bring life sciences companies into the digital age for data management in both the commercial and R&D sectors. Over... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Governance Compliance; Applications and Software; Growth Management; Expansion; Technology Industry

October 2011 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Company: Marketing Challenges for the Underprivileged Latecomer

By: Willy Shih and Nancy Hua Dai

As Mr. Li Chunrong visited the new assembly line for the Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Company in Wuhan, China, he contemplated the position his business unit found itself in: a latecomer. As a state-owned enterprise Dongfeng had entered into numerous joint ventures to... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Problems and Challenges; Auto Industry; China

April 1998 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Arrow Electronics, Inc.

By: Das Narayandas

Deals with the issue of cross-selling and managing a portfolio of products and services in business markets. Arrow/Schweber (A/S), a subsidiary of electronic parts distributor Arrow Electronics, has a portfolio of products that differ in the amount of value added by... View Details

Keywords: Distribution Channels; Internet and the Web; Problems and Challenges; Change Management; Electronics Industry

September – October 2011
Article

The Rise and Consequences of Corporate Sustainability Reporting

By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

For many decades the cornerstone of corporate reporting has been financial information that is presented in a company's annual, semi-annual, and quarterly reports. These comprehensive financial reports—required by law for public companies in most countries... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; ESG Reporting; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Annual Reports; Operations; Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Performance; Business Model; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Disclosure