Publications

February 1997 (Revised April 1998)
Case

first direct (A)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Describes the operations and strategy of the world's largest, fastest growing branchless bank. Using a person-to-person interface over conventional phone lines, First Direct provides standard banking and related financial products to nearly 700,000 customers throughout... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Customer Satisfaction; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Banking Industry; United Kingdom

October 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

The CRISPR-Cas9 Quarrel

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Matthew G. Preble

In mid-2016, the Broad Institute and the University of California, Berkeley were in the middle of a contentious patent dispute over which entity controlled a breakthrough gene editing technology called CRISPR-Cas9. With CRISPR-Cas9, scientists might soon be able to... View Details

Keywords: CRISPR; Broad Institute; University Of California Berkeley; Intellectual Property; Patents; Law; Lawsuits and Litigation; Science; Genetics; Entrepreneurship; Biotechnology Industry; United States

February 2015
Case

Beckman Coulter, 2011

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In early 2011, Danaher was contemplating the acquisition of Beckman Coulter. With $3.7 billion of revenues in 2010 and $431 million in operating profits, California-based Beckman Coulter was a global leader in blood cell count diagnostic systems and also supplied a... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

November 2009 (Revised August 2010)
Case

NovoCure Ltd.

By: William A. Sahlman and Sarah Flaherty

Venture capitalist William Doyle must raise $35 million for a portfolio company with a promising, novel cancer therapy, just as global capital markets are imploding in the fall of 2008. NovoCure, Ltd., has developed an electrical-field-based therapy, called Tumor... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Investment; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Technological Innovation; Financial Services Industry

June 2017 (Revised May 2019)
Supplement

Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (B)

By: Doug J. Chung

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain founded in 1988 by brothers Marcus, Mikael and Fredrik Dahnelius. The company operated 84 stores, all company-owned, located mainly in the metropolitan areas of Sweden’s most popular cities: Stockholm, Gothemburg... View Details

Keywords: Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Change Management; Behavior; Electronics Industry; Sweden

Web

Faculty & Advisors - MBA

single cell sequencing techniques for target discovery in oncology. Throughout his industry career, Andrew has continued to practice as a clinical geneticist at the University of Washington Medical Center.... View Details

07 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

The Steve Jobs Legacy

another star in that constellation. William Kirby (General Management) Steve Jobs's legacy is everywhere, not the least in Chinese cities where the Apple stores are crowded from dawn to dusk, and where there are not only knock-off phones... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Computer; Technology

January 2009 (Revised May 2011)
Case

China Mobile's Rural Communications Strategy

By: William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan, G.A. Donovan and Tracy Manty

China Mobile was the world's leading mobile communications service provider with over 400 million customers. In some cities, its penetration rate was over 100%. With such huge successes, Chairman Wang Jianzhou was exploring ways to expand its customer base. Nearly... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Investment; Rural Scope; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Telecommunications Industry; China

Web

FAQs - MBA

greater Boston area, which is one of the largest biotech clusters in the world. Through courses like the Life Sciences, Ethics, and Management seminar, students interact with industry leaders, who discuss challenges they have faced in... View Details

May 2006
Case

A123Systems

By: H. Kent Bowen, Kenneth P Morse and Douglass Cannon

A 123Systems was a young company that was founded on basic materials science research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A co-founder of the company, Yet-Ming Chiang, was a full professor at MIT and served as scientific adviser. Intellectual property based... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Business Startups; Research and Development; Commercialization; Technological Innovation; Science-Based Business; Product Development; Battery Industry; Battery Industry; Massachusetts

July 2021 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Brigham & Women's Hospital: Using Patient Reported Outcomes to Improve Breast Cancer Care

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Navraj S. Nagra and Syed S. Shehab

Dr. Andrea Pusic, breast cancer reconstruction surgeon, wants to extend outcomes measurement beyond traditional surgical metrics of infections, complications, and survival rates. The case describes her development of a new mobile phone app, which collects patients’... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Cost Management; Activity Based Costing and Management; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Health Testing and Trials; Surveys; Health Industry; Boston

April 2010 (Revised December 2010)
Case

Shanzhai! MediaTek and the "White Box" Handset Market

By: Willy C. Shih, Chen-Fu Chien and Jyun-Cheng Wang

The term "white box" is often used to describe products without a brand name. Such products are assembled from standardized parts, and they became a very popular category of desktop PCs. Hsinchu, Taiwan based MediaTek is a fabless semiconductor company that unleashed a... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Competitive Advantage; Wireless Technology; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan

09 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

Come Fly with Me: A History of Airline Leadership

Few industries have had the competitive challenges—the literal ups and downs—experienced by the U.S. airline industry since its formation in the 1920s. Consider that its early pioneers had the unenviable... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Air Transportation

June 2020 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Vanguard Retail Operations (A)

By: Willy C. Shih and Antonio Moreno

The first two cases in this series are set in the financial services industry, and explore whether it is better for back-office workers to be generalists who provide the flexibility of being able to handle the complete range of transactions that the company faces or... View Details

Keywords: Pooling; Generalist Model; Specialist Model; Operations; Service Operations; Management; Job Design and Levels; Financial Services Industry; United States

17 Dec 2007
Research & Ideas

The Rise of Medical Tourism

case with professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Carin-Isabel Knoop, executive director of the HBS Global Research Group. The medical services industry hasn't been global historically but is becoming so now, says Khanna. There are several... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health; Medical Devices & Supplies

October 2018 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Safecast: Bootstrapping Human Capital to Big Data

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46pm, a 9.1-on-the-Richter-scale, six-minute long earthquake unleashed a tsunami that ravaged the Tohoku region of Japan, damaging the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power facility and releasing sufficient radioactive material into the air and ocean... View Details