Publications

05 Oct 2021
Blog Post

First-Gen Voices: Eric Westphal on Tapping into the Global Alumni Network & Making a Difference across Borders

alumni-founded e-commerce startup for his HBS internship. Yet what might seem like a direct entrepreneurial path was anything but. Westphal’s life and career have crossed country lines, cultures, and industries, and continue to lead him... View Details

March 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Pakistan Rising: Bazaar's Growth Story (A)

By: Paul A. Gompers and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in September 2021 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are contemplating whether the year-and-a half old startup should also venture into offering financing to... 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

October 2000 (Revised October 2000)
Case

3PLex.com

By: Myra M. Hart and Judith Marie Dror

A start-up team is faced with the challenge of building a senior management team with relevant industry experience. The marriage of e-commerce and the transportation logistics industry creates unusual problems in blending "old economy" employees and employee practices... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Executive Compensation; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Organizational Culture; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Technology Adoption; Transportation Industry

August 2023
Case

Floward

By: Krishna Palepu and Namrata Arora

In 2022, Abdulaziz B. Al Loughani, CEO and co-founder of Floward, an online flower and gifting company established in Kuwait in 2017, contemplated the firm's growth trajectory. Floward, an e-commerce enterprise that offered fresh-cut flowers sourced directly from... View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Information Technology Industry; Middle East; North Africa; Saudi Arabia; Kuwait; United Arab Emirates; Jordan

July 2020
Case

Karen Bruck: Growing Managers at MercadoLibre

By: Joshua D. Margolis, Fernanda Miguel and Mariana Cal

Karen Bruck, Corporate Sales Director at MercadoLibre, Latin America's largest e-commerce platform, needs to make a decision about one of her managers, who, while analytically savvy, has an approach that does not fit in with the company's culture. View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Employee Relationship Management; Decision Making; Interpersonal Communication; Organizational Culture; Retail Industry; Latin America; Argentina

14 Feb 2014
Blog Post

Harvard Start-Up Fair Highlights

Last week more than 90 start-ups and 900 students across Harvard filled the Harvard i-lab for the 4th Annual Harvard Start-Up Career Fair. As in previous years, the day was a huge success. With start-ups from Cambridge to Palo Alto in industries ranging from View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship

08 Nov 2017
News

China's Tencent buys about 12% of Snapchat maker Snap

31 Mar 2023
Video

Hue: Runner-Up 2023 New Venture Competition Alumni Track

April 2000 (Revised June 2000)
Case

E-Loan: The CarFinance.com Acquisition

E-Loan is an online mortgage lender that acquired an auto-lending arm in August of 1999. This case examines E-Loan's purchase of CarFinance.com and highlights E-Loan's strategy-setting process. In addition, the case explores business development as a strategic process... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Internet and the Web; Change Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry

Find at Harvard

“The use of this lever of discounts has been so high in many aspects, it is causing e-commerce companies to become unprofitable,” says Teixeira, the Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration. “We don’t think that’s necessarily the right approach.”... View Details

September 2020 (Revised June 2023)
Exercise

Artea: Designing Targeting Strategies

By: Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli

This collection of exercises aims to teach students about 1)Targeting Policies; and 2)Algorithmic bias in marketing—implications, causes, and possible solutions. Part (A) focuses on A/B testing analysis and targeting. Parts (B),(C),(D) Introduce algorithmic bias. The... View Details

February 2000 (Revised June 2002)
Case

Development of the Internet in China (A), The: Challenges and Opportunities

Explores the development of the Internet in China. Starts with background information on China, the Internet, and several common Internet business models. Discusses regulatory and business obstacles to the growth of e-commerce in China. Finally, presents forecasts and... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Emerging Markets; Retail Industry; China

2024
Working Paper

Adjusting Prices in the Long-tail: The Role of Competitive Monitoring

By: Ayelet Israeli and Eric Anderson

Most e-commerce retailers offer a long-tail of very low demand products. Individually, these items may have low sales but collectively they are critical to the overall e-commerce business model. Because of their minimal sales, pricing is a constant challenge. The... View Details

Keywords: Algorithmic Pricing; Ecommerce; Price Monitoring; Price; Competition; Retail Industry

December 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Amazon Buys Whole Foods

By: José B. Alvarez, David Lane and Joni Coughlin

The June 2017 news that e-commerce giant Amazon was paying $13.7 billion for organic supermarket chain Whole Foods precipitated a broad sell-off in the shares of grocery retailers and suppliers. Behind the precipitous declines lay recognition that Amazon’s bold move... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Whole Foods; Grocery; Grocery Delivery; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Business Models; Food Value Chain; Agribusiness; Mergers and Acquisitions; Operations; Competitive Strategy; E-commerce; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States