Publications

September 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

DBS: Purpose-Driven Transformation

By: Ranjay Gulati, Adina Wong, Dawn H. Lau and Joseph Mesfin

Singapore-based bank DBS went through three waves of purpose-driven transformation, overhauling the bank’s systems, upgrading employee skills, and re-centering its customer focus, with the bank’s purpose growing bolder with each key milestone achieved. Find out how the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Alignment; Business Strategy; Balanced Scorecard; Technology Adoption; Mission and Purpose; Change Management; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Asia; Singapore

August 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Case

Satrix: Competing in the Passive Asset Management Industry in South Africa

By: Mark Egan, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha

In late 2017, Satrix, one of the largest passive asset management firms in South Africa and a pioneer in the industry since 2000, had to decide its strategy going forward in a market where passive asset management had become increasingly commoditized and... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Investment Funds; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; South Africa; Africa

06 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas: June 6, 2017

regulatory pathway, the biosimilars pathway, on the strategy of a major pharmaceutical firm that finds its largest product (60% of revenue) at risk. The case reviews the rationale for the pathway, the emerging biosimilars market entrants,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2010
Case

Target: Responding to the Recession

By: Ranjay Gulati, Rajiv Lal and Cathy Ross

Within 10 months of Gregg Steinhafel's taking over as CEO at Target, the U.S. was mired in the most significant economic downturn in 50 years. Top competitor Wal-Mart had positioned itself well for the crisis, while Target's same store sales began to slide. While... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Strategy; Operations; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Competition; Retail Industry; United States

September 2011 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Telemonitoring at Visiting Nurse Health System

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Mark Keil and Mala Kaul

The Telemonitoring at Visiting Nurse Health System case presents one home healthcare organization's efforts to use telemonitoring to improve the quality of care provided to at-risk patients who were discharged from hospitals and needed home care. After two years of... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Cost vs Benefits; Risk Management; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; Technology Industry

Web

Social Enterprise - Faculty & Research

financial performance of corporations, the design of incentive and control systems to guide strategy execution, corporate reporting, and the role of investors in this new paradigm. Initiatives & Projects The... View Details

February 2024 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Shore Capital Partners: The Next Ten Years

By: Boris Groysberg and Kerry Herman

Private equity firm Shore Capital Partners is at an inflection point, after 12 years of phenomenal growth and success. Now, as the partners consider options, should Shore remain micro-cap focused, or move into more mid-cap investments? Should Shore hold investments... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Financial Services Industry

Web

Curriculum - Business & Environment

systems to measure, track, and influence climate friendly changes to reduce CO2 emissions across the world's fourth largest dairy cooperative. Finance I Project Helios: Harvesting the Sun Key concepts: Return on Investment, Financial... View Details

04 Apr 2023
What Do You Think?

How Does Remote Work Affect Innovation?

(iStockphoto/visualspace) When former Google CEO Eric Schmidt tells how the company’s ad algorithm—the heart of its financial success—was revamped, here’s what he says: One Friday afternoon in May 2002, (company co-founder) Larry Page was... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

February 2010
Article

Global Currency Hedging

By: John Y. Campbell, Karine Serfaty-de Medeiros and Luis M. Viceira

Over the period 1975 to 2005, the US dollar (particularly in relation to the Canadian dollar) and the euro and Swiss franc (particularly in the second half of the period) have moved against world equity markets. Thus these currencies should be attractive to... View Details

Keywords: Currency; Equity; Financial Markets; International Finance; Investment Return; Globalized Markets and Industries; Risk Management

Find at Harvard

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April 2020 (Revised April 2023)
Supplement

TransDigm in 2017: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

TransDigm was a highly acquisitive company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial customers. Over the ten years ending in 2016, its stock price had increase ten times, and both EBITDA and revenues had grown... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Ethics; Private Equity; Financial Strategy; Growth Management; Performance Evaluation; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Value Creation; Competitive Advantage; Aerospace Industry; Air Transportation Industry; United States

November – December 2007
Article

Fundamentally Flawed Indexing

By: Andre F. Perold

A new theory of finance is being advanced as providing definitive proof that holding stocks in proportion to their market capitalizations is an inferior investment strategy. The claim is that capitalization weighting necessarily invests more in overvalued stocks and... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Capital Markets; Financial Strategy; Stocks; Financial Management; Valuation