Publications

October 2011 (Revised September 2014)
Case

Moda Operandi: A New Style of Fashion Retail

By: Mukti Khaire

Moda Operandi is a startup in the fashion industry. The firm organizes online trunk shows of designers' collections, allowing its members to directly order clothes from the collections shown in Fashion Weeks all over the world. Moda Operandi conveys the preorders to... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Distribution Channels; Internet and the Web; Design; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry

19 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

How Mercadona Fixes Retail’s ’Last 10 Yards’ Problem

Imagine a retail chain that offers customers not only the lowest prices but also personalized customer service. Employees receive above-average wages and 20 times more training than the average American retailer. Sounds like a recipe for retail suicide, especially in... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail; Food & Beverage

07 Aug 2000
Research & Ideas

Rocket Science Retailing

Marshall Fisher of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Ananth Raman of HBS and their colleague Anna Sheen McClelland recently completed a survey of 32 retail companies focusing on their practices and progress in four areas critical to what they call... View Details

Keywords: by Marshall L. Fisher, Ananth Raman & Anna Sheen McClelland; Retail

November 2006 (Revised December 2006)
Case

Pitney Bowes Inc.

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Ho Howard Yu

Pitney Bowes, the world's dominant maker of equipment used in generating and handling mail, is facing flattening growth in its core businesses and needs to create new growth products and businesses. Describes how a group of employees use state-of-the-art techniques for... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Distribution Channels; Growth and Development Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

November 2015 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Mission Impossible? Yummy77 Delivers Groceries within the Hour

By: Benjamin Edelman

Yummy77 considers alternative operational models to reduce cost, improve speed, and increase appeal. Can one of these approaches succeed where others have failed? View Details

Keywords: Grocery Delivery; Operations; Platforms; Logistics; Distribution; Food; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; China

Article

Integration of Online and Offline Channels in Retail: The Impact of Sharing Reliable Inventory Availability Information

By: Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

Using a proprietary data set, we analyze the impact of the implementation of a “buy-online, pick-up-in-store” (BOPS) project. The implementation of this project is associated with a reduction in online sales and an increase in store sales and traffic. These results can... View Details

Keywords: Retail Operations; Inventory Availability; Empirical Operations Management; Business Analytics; Online Retail; Ecommerce; Operations; Management; Distribution Channels; Consumer Behavior; E-commerce; Retail Industry

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05 Feb 2019
News

Protecting the Power Grid

distributing it for hundreds of miles. Large areas of America could become uninhabitable. Over dinner, Mott and Popik, who earned a mechanical engineering degree from MIT before attending HBS, vowed to work together on an engineering and... View Details

Keywords: Ralph Ranalli; terrorism; Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution

03 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Marketing Your Way Through a Recession

generous return policies motivate distributors to stock your full product line. This is particularly true with unproven new products. Be careful about expanding distribution to lower-priced channels; doing so can jeopardize existing... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

Winter 2013
Article

The New Patent Intermediaries: Platforms, Defensive Aggregators and Super-Aggregators

By: Andrei Hagiu and David B. Yoffie

The patent market consists mainly of privately negotiated, bilateral transactions, either sales or cross-licenses, between large companies. There is no eBay, Amazon, New York Stock Exchange, or Kelley's Blue Book equivalent for patents, and when buyers and sellers do... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Platforms; Intermediaries; Aggregator; Patents; Digital Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Distribution Channels

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2025
Working Paper

Generative AI and the Nature of Work

By: Manuel Hoffmann, Sam Boysel, Frank Nagle, Sida Peng and Kevin Xu

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology demonstrate a considerable potential to complement human capital intensive activities. While an emerging literature documents wide-ranging productivity effects of AI, relatively little attention has been paid... View Details

Keywords: Generative Ai; Digital Work; Open Source Software; Knowledge Economy; AI and Machine Learning; Open Source Distribution; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Labor

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2019
Working Paper

The Impact of Professionals' Contributions to Online Knowledge Communities on Their Workplace Knowledge Work

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf and Frank Nagle

Knowledge work is becoming increasingly challenging as pace of change in the knowledge frontier is increasing. Organizations have created multiple mechanisms to minimize knowledge gaps and increase learning such internal training, mentorship programs as well as... View Details

Keywords: Open Source; Future Of Work; Software Development; Knowledge Work; Online Community; Learning; Knowledge Sharing; Applications and Software; Open Source Distribution; Performance Productivity

June 2003
Case

IBM and Linux (A)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin, Siobhan O'Mahony and James Quinn

In the fall of 1998, Dan Frye, member of IBM's emerging technologies and business team, is trying to decide whether to forge a strategic alliance with the Linux Development Community (LDC). Just two years earlier, IBM had its first exposure to an "open source" software... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Open Source Distribution; Problems and Challenges; Alliances; Cooperation; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

February 1990 (Revised April 1991)
Background Note

Quick Response in the Apparel Industry

By: Janice H. Hammond

It has been estimated that the U.S. apparel industry wastes over $25 billion annually due to inefficient practices, long lead times, and insufficient coordination between channel partners. In response to intense competition from off-shore producers, the industry has... View Details

Keywords: Information; Distribution Channels; Performance Efficiency; Partners and Partnerships; Adaptation; Business Strategy; System; Technology; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

February 2001
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc.: Solaris Strategy

In the late 1990s, Sun Microsystems' Solaris has emerged as the dominant UNIX-based alternative to Microsoft for server operating systems. At the same time, the open source operating system Linux has appeared unexpectedly, and it is generating significant excitement... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competition; Open Source Distribution; Standards

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Mayer, known as the unchallenged “czar of Hollywood” for over a quarter of century, created one of the largest motion pictures companies in the world. After acquiring control over the largest chain of theatres in New England and creating his own View Details

Keywords: Entertainment & Broadcast Media

January 1991 (Revised March 2010)
Supplement

Westchester Distributing, Inc. (B)

By: Robert L. Simons and Robert Boxwell

Describes the actions taken by the owner/president to resolve the dilemma. View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Customers; Problems and Challenges; Governance Controls; Compensation and Benefits; Behavior; Distribution Industry

June 2009
Case

Plaza, the Logistics Park of Zaragoza

In the year 2000, the Government of the Autonomous Community of Aragón, Spain, made public a project for the development of a large-scale logistics park in the outskirts of the city of Zaragoza. With an area of nearly 13 square kilometers, PLAZA (an acronym for... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Geographic Location; Growth and Development Strategy; Infrastructure; Logistics; Supply Chain; Transportation; Distribution Industry; Zaragoza