Publications

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For Alumni - Entrepreneurship

stories about fellow alumni. Read more Insights Get insights and news from trusted sources for any company stage on topics ranging from customer acquisition & development to legal issues View Details

15 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions

specify goals up front and revisit them repeatedly during the decision-making process. These goals can be complex and multifaceted, quantitative and qualitative, but whatever... View Details

Keywords: by David A. Garvin & Michael A. Roberto

March 2018 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Edward Lewis: Essence Magazine

By: Steven Rogers and Jacqueline Adams

Essence, the first magazine aimed at African-American women, was created by four, young, Black entrepreneurs in the aftermath of massive racial and political upheaval in the United States in 1968. The venture was a financial, branding and cultural success. By 2005, the... View Details

11 Mar 2024
News

In Harmony

30s—played a major role in managing a $4 billion sovereign bond offering in 1998 that helped recapitalize South Korea in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Eugene Tan met Kim when both were first-year associates working in mergers... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; photograph by Jun Michael Park

23 May 2018
News

Carla A. Harris, MBA 1987

talking about great things,” says Harris, who, two years later, enrolled at HBS as a first-year student. Harris thrived at HBS, and the experience launched her career at Morgan Stanley. She joined in 1987 View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

April 2001 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Seagate Technology Buyout

By: Gregor M. Andrade, Stuart C. Gilson and Todd C. Pulvino

In March 2000, a group of private investors and senior managers were negotiating a deal to acquire the disk drive operations of Seagate Technology. The motivating factor for the buyout was the apparently anomalous market value of Seagate's equity: Seagate's equity... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Leveraged Buyouts; Financial Strategy; Computer Industry

April 2011 (Revised May 2011)
Case

EMC2: Delivering Customer Centricity

By: Thomas Steenburgh and Jill Avery

This case introduces the concept of customer centricity and traces its development at EMC, the world's leading data storage hardware and information management software company. EMC's customers had historically relied on EMC salespeople to guide them through the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Interpersonal Communication; Customer Relationship Management; Knowledge Acquisition; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Salesforce Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet; Information Technology Industry

July 2022 (Revised September 2022)
Case

Birla Carbon Egypt: Building Soft Power in a Foreign Country

By: Jeremy Friedman and Malini Sen

Birla Carbon, a flagship business of the nearly $60-billion global conglomerate and India-headquartered Aditya Birla Group (ABG), is one of the world's top manufacturers and suppliers of high-quality carbon black. The largest among its 16 manufacturing plants is Birla... View Details

06 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

The Innovator’s Battle Plan

When companies have the same capabilities and motivation, they care about the battle and have the necessary skills to fight it. Skills in execution make the difference here—and because other scholars have... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony & Erik A. Roth

September 2018
Case

Clayton, Dubilier & Rice at 40

By: Josh Lerner, Abhijit Tagade and Terrence Shu

In 2018, private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice celebrated its 40th anniversary and its 20th year under the leadership of CEO Don Gogel. In those decades, CD&R showed solid portfolio performance and generated strong returns for its investors - accomplishments... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Succession; Buyout; Leveraged Buyout; Turnaround; Operations; Private Equity; Management Succession; Business Model; Leveraged Buyouts; Trends; Organizational Change and Adaptation

09 Feb 2021
News

Investing in Entrepreneurship

that gave Venrock 10 percent of the company—his reputation for integrity, hard work, and picking people is what he finds most satisfying. “No Venrock company ever went bankrupt,” he noted in the Computer History Museum interview.... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

July 2021 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Fynd

By: Ranjay Gulati, Kairavi Dey and Rachna Tahilyani

Fynd is a fast-growing venture that in 7 years since its founding has become India's largest omnichannel retail company with real-time access to over 9,000 stores' offline inventory. It started as a B2B business supporting retailers who didn’t have an online business,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Model; Acquisition; Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry; Communications Industry; India; Mumbai

November 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Case

California Closets: Organizing the Customer Experience

By: Boris Groysberg and Annelena Lobb

California Closets had used robust net promoter score (NPS) data, surveyed across its locations, to create a more consistent and satisfying customer experience. CEO Bill Barton wanted to further optimize the customer experience around best practices. He also wanted to... View Details

Keywords: Net Promoter Score; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Customers; Acquisition; Demographics; Strategy

October 2007 (Revised January 2009)
Case

The Hertz Corporation (A)

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Douglas Scott

Examines the leveraged buyout of Hertz in 2005, a complex, high-profile deal and a good example of cutting-edge practice in private equity. The first of a two-part series on the Hertz LBO, adopts the perspective of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, the leader of a private... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Private Equity; Bids and Bidding; Negotiation Deal; Valuation; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry; United States

20 Oct 2023
News

Highlights from the Fall 2023 Alumni Board Meeting

On the evening of Wednesday, October 11, Alumni Board members joined with current HBS students in the Spangler Center for "A Conversation about Life Lessons", which was led by Leslie Perlow, the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership. This October, more than 75... View Details

Web

Investment Banking & Securities Underwriting | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School, the book became a standard textbook in business schools. Lehman Brothers also issued bonds for public utilities and branched into the business of advising on mergers View Details

December 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Collaboration Wars: Slack vs. Microsoft Teams

By: David B. Yoffie, Kriti Gupta, Mehek Punatar, Poonam Sacheti and Poorvi Vijay

In 2021, Slack was acquired by Salesforce. While widely viewed as the best corporate collaboration and messaging software, Slack was being challenged by Microsoft, which was giving away its competitive product, Microsoft Teams, for free with a subscription to... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Acquisition; Business Model; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Competition; Expansion; Technology Industry