Publications

14 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Pay Attention To Your ‘Extreme Consumers’

little money, it wasn't worth saving." What these consumers did do, students found, was spend those extra few dollars on the lottery. When it came time to develop the strategy for their client, the students experimented with including elements of View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2006
Book

3-D Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in Your Most Important Deals

By: David Lax and James K. Sebenius

Keywords: Negotiation; Change; Games, Gaming, and Gambling

Find at Harvard

Web

Partners - Case Method Project

Cincinnati, OH OH 12 of 14 Bryan Shephard Timken Early College High School Canton, OH OH 13 of 14 Tracy Stefanov Andrews Osborne Academy Willoughby, OH OH 14 of 14 Stephen Uhlhorn James N. Gamble Montessori High School Cincinnati, OH... View Details

03 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping

$160 million. When he set out to gamble on his idea of containerized cargo, McLean probably did not realize that he was revolutionizing an industry. McLean's vision gave the shipping industry the jolt that it needed to survive for the... View Details

Keywords: by Anthony J. Mayo & Nitin Nohria; Manufacturing; Transportation; Aerospace

Web

Teacher Profiles - Case Method Project

High School Palisades Park, NJ OH Stephen Uhlhorn James N. Gamble Montessori High School Cincinnati, OH NY Gabriel Ulibarri Nightingale-Bamford School New York, NY MI Troy Ungrey Grandville High School Grandville, MI Subjects: College... View Details

01 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Better by the Bundle?

Sales can soar when companies bundle products together into one cheaper package—Happy Meal, anyone? Yet a buyer's affinity for such deals comes with a big caveat, according to new research: These groupings are often successful only if the consumer is given the option... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

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

February 2016 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Bankruptcy at Caesars Entertainment

By: Kristin Mugford and David Chan

Caesars Entertainment was a large casino operator in the United States that had been purchased in a 2008 leveraged buyout by Apollo and TPG. In January 2015, Caesars Entertainment Operating Company (CEOC), its largest subsidiary, filed for Chapter 11. This set up a... View Details

Keywords: Gaming; Chapter 11; Fraudulent Conveyance; Apollo; TPG; Bankruptcy; Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Private Equity; Financial Management; Lawsuits and Litigation; Negotiation; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Las Vegas

Portrait Project

Haoran Jiang

myself, that I was not a mistake. A random gamble of genetics somehow resulted in a disappointing hand: me. “I’m going to show them” became my mantra, my life’s objective, my obsession. Then, everything changed. I became a dad to two... View Details

March 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Reinventing Best Buy

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

On March 1, 2017, Best Buy Company, Inc., North America’s largest retailer of consumer electronics and appliances, announced a third year of comparable-store sales increases and a 20.8% increase in domestic comparable online sales. These results were in marked contrast... View Details

Keywords: Best Buy; Hubert Joly; Renew Blue; Showrooming; Webrooming; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Online Retail; Multichannel Retailing; Omnichannel; Marketplaces; Turnaround; Consumer Electronics; Consumer Electronics Accessories; Appliances; Stores-within-stores; Store Experience; Store Size; Store Pickup; Store Management; Delivery; Delivery Models; Amazon; Amazon.com; Pricing Strategy; Business Subsidiaries; Business Units; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Theater Entertainment; Price; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Cost; Selection and Staffing; Reports; Technological Innovation; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Human Capital; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Media; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Distribution Channels; Infrastructure; Product; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Programs; Groups and Teams; Sales; Salesforce Management; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Resource Allocation; Computer Industry; Electronics Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Information Technology Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Video Game Industry; United States; Minnesota; Minneapolis; Saint Paul; St. Paul

14 Jan 2019
Op-Ed

These 4 CEOs Created a New Standard of Leadership

leadership roles at Procter & Gamble and Nestlé before becoming CEO of Unilever in 2009. Observing the dangers of global warming, Polman focused on sustainability, introducing Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan and applying it to... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Health; Banking; Food & Beverage; Consumer Products

22 Feb 2023
Blog Post

Meet the Disability Advocacy and Affinity Group (DAAG)

Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. Prior to HBS, I worked as a process engineer for Procter & Gamble and then in engineering and business roles at an early-stage manufacturing data analytics company. I graduated from Duke University with... View Details

03 Jan 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Wordle: Can a Pandemic Phenomenon Sustain in the Long Term?

Keywords: Re: Christina M. Wallace; Entertainment & Recreation; Media & Broadcasting

26 Jun 2013
News

How a Trivial Pursuit Became a Significant Case

Bob Reiss Photo courtesy of Bob Reiss It was 1983, and Bob Reiss (MBA 1956) was looking for a new game to play. A Brooklyn native and former basketball star at Columbia University who had become a successful entrepreneur in the toy-and-game industry, Reiss was... View Details

Keywords: Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries; Arts, Entertainment; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade

01 Jul 2020
Blog Post

How SVMP Helped Me Take My Next Steps (2+2) and Find Myself

Through what at the time felt like sheer luck, I landed an internship at Procter & Gamble on the Dish Engineering team between my sophomore and junior year. That internship taught me a lot about what a “corporate job” in the Consumer... View Details

Web

Historical Data & Sources - Business History

Harvard Business Review 90 (July/August 2012): 141-45 Natura Annual Reports, 2007-2013 Map created by John Regan, MBA 2016 Download Data Set in Excel Pampers Brand Sales by Country Courtesy of Proctor & Gamble Map created by John Regan,... View Details

31 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

From SpinPop to SpinBrush: Entrepreneurial Lessons from John Osher

the more eclectic business careers of the last few decades. His entrepreneurial journey culminated (at least temporarily) in the sale of his electric toothbrush company to Procter & Gamble for almost a half-billion dollars. Not bad... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Consumer Products

October 2016
Case

Supercell

By: William R. Kerr, Benjamin F. Jones and Alexis Brownell

Supercell is a young Finnish smartphone game company with an unusual team structure and company philosophy. It is already one of Finland’s most valuable companies, and despite being only six years old, it has put up some impressive numbers: as of 2016, it has released... View Details

Keywords: Supercell; Finland; Video Games; Firm Structure; Startups; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Groups and Teams; Video Game Industry; Finland