Publications

October 2022 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Masdar City: Aiming for Sustainable and Profitable Real Estate

By: Boris Vallee and Fares Khrais

Masdar City broke ground in 2008 and was conceived by the Abu Dhabi government to be an international beacon of innovation in sustainable energy and real estate. It was also to be a profitable investment for the government. At first glance, the two goals pulled in... View Details

Article

Lessons from Mayo Clinic's Redesign of Stroke Care

By: Robert S. Kaplan, W. David Freeman, Kevin M. Barrett, Lisa Nordan, Aaron C. Spaulding and Meredith Karney

Facing escalating costs of medications and technology, health care patients and providers in the United States continue to search for opportunities to reduce overall costs while maintaining and improving health care outcomes. The Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Stroke Center... View Details

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October 1992 (Revised September 1993)
Case

L.L. Bean, Inc.: Item Forecasting and Inventory Management

By: Arthur Schleifer Jr.

L.L. Bean must make stocking decisions on thousands of items sold through its catalogs. In many cases, orders must be placed with vendors twelve or more weeks before a catalog lands on a customer's doorstep, and commitments cannot be changed thereafter. As a result,... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Risk Management; Cost Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Demand and Consumers; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Retail Industry; United States

19 Oct 2018
News

Lessons from Mayo Clinic’s Redesign of Stroke Care

March 2018 (Revised September 2023)
Case

X: The Foghorn Decision

By: Robert S. Huckman, Karim R. Lakhani and Kyle R. Myers

In February 2016, Kathy Hannun—a project leader at X, Alphabet Inc.'s so-called "moonshot factory"—had to prepare a recommendation for the senior leadership of X regarding the future of Foghorn, a project she was leading to develop a carbon-neutral process for... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; R＆D Project Management; Radical Innovation; Clean Technology; Innovation and Management; Technological Innovation; Energy; Research and Development; Projects; Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; California

Article

A Simple Solution to a Very Old Problem

By: Hoff Stauffer and Jurgen Weiss

The article addresses the problem of fixed cost recovery via variable electricity rates creating disincentives for utilities to engage in energy efficiency. The article provides one solution, which is to decouple fixed cost recovery from sales volumes, with the help of... View Details

Keywords: Energy Efficiency; Decoupling; Electricity; Utilities; Energy

18 Sep 2000
Research & Ideas

Big Deals: Financing Large-Scale Investments

venture capital for people with real guts," quips Esty. "Most of the projects are start-ups, yet they cost something on the order of $5 billion, not $5 million." And all too often, he adds, they turn out to be losing... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

April 1999 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Aluminum Smelting in South Africa: Alusaf's Hillside Project

With prices at all-time lows at the beginning of 1994, South Africa's sole primary aluminum producer--Alusaf--is considering building the world's largest greenfield smelter. Using cost estimates in this case, students can evaluate the relative cost position of this... View Details

Keywords: Metals and Minerals; Analysis; Markets; Profit; Capital; Industrial Products Industry; South Africa

2006
Book

Service Productivity Management: Improving Service Performance Using Data Envelopment Analysis

By: H. David Sherman and Joe Zhu

Here is an in-depth guide to the most powerful available benchmarking technique for improving service organization performance—Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book outlines DEA as a benchmarking technique, identifies high cost service units, isolates specific... View Details

Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis; Economics; Operations; Mathematical Methods

August 2016 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Accenture Human Capital Strategy

By: Paula A. Price, V.G. Narayanan and James Weber

Accenture is a leading global consulting, technology, and outsourcing company. It has clients and its own operations throughout the world. This case describes the human resources and related activities necessary to deliver its services to clients. It allows students to... View Details

Keywords: Management Consulting; Technology Consulting; Outsourcing; Human Resources; Activity Based Costing and Management; Management Practices and Processes

Here is an in-depth guide to the most powerful available benchmarking technique for improving service organization performance — Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book outlines DEA as a benchmarking technique, identifies high cost service units, isolates... View Details

April 2003
Tutorial

ABC Pen Factory Tutorial

By: Robert S. Kaplan

To preview this online product, Authorized Faculty can call our customer service department at 1-800-545-7685 or 617-783-7600. Illustrates, via a guided audio tour accompanied by dynamically changing spreadsheets, the role for activity-based cost systems. The numerical... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants

November 1984 (Revised March 1999)
Case

Mayers Tap, Inc. (A)

Mayers Tap, Inc. has a poorly designed cost accounting system and is in the process of redesigning it. This case provides background details for the rest of the Mayers Tap, Inc. series. View Details

Keywords: Management Systems

Find at Harvard

Research Summary

The Economics of Enterprise IT

By: Shane M. Greenstein

Why do some organizations adopt new information systems while others do not? Why do some face high costs while others do not? Professor Greenstein has been pursuing this stream of research throughout his career, analyzing the factors shaping the costs of acquiring... View Details

Bohan Li

Bohan is a doctoral student in Health Policy Management. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 with a double major in Chemistry and Economics. Post-graduation, Bohan spent 4 years as a management consultant advising both payers and providers,... View Details

15 Jul 2020
Video

The HBS Health Minute: A Tool Kit for Entrepreneurs

October 2020 (Revised May 2023)
Exercise

SenseAim Technologies: Pricing to Win

By: Elie Ofek, Eyal Biyalogorsky, Marco Bertini and Oded Koenigsberg

This exercise serves to help students understand the proper role and use of costs in a firm’s pricing decisions. The exercise is designed such that the learning of students evolves across a classroom session, starting from understanding which costs are relevant when... View Details

Keywords: Pricing Decisions; Cost; Information; Price; Decision Making