Publications

December 2007 (Revised July 2008)
Case

General Mills (A)

By: Raymond V. Gilmartin, Marco Iansiti and Bianca Buccitelli

General Mills is an 80-year-old company that specializes in consumer foods such as cereal, snacks, baking, and dinner products. Although General Mills is, on the whole, a very successful company, they have, in the recent past, had to face challenges as a result the... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Change Management; Cost Management; Problems and Challenges; Inflation and Deflation; Price; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

October 2002 (Revised December 2003)
Case

eShip-4U

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Timothy M. Laseter

eShip is a small Israeli start-up with a potentially exciting new concept for the residential package-delivery value chain--the Automatic Delivery Machine (ADM). Much like today's ubiquitous ATMs, ADMs would allow consumers to have parcels delivered to a nearby ADM... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Model; Service Operations; Logistics; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation; Saving; Innovation and Invention; Transportation Industry; Service Industry; Shipping Industry; Israel; United States

16 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Getting the Message: How the Internet is Changing Advertising

Deighton notes that, at this point, "the Internet is not a particularly engaging medium. It's very accountable, but it really has limited powers to romance the consumer in the way that television... View Details

Keywords: by Susan Young

19 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Alfred Chandler on the Electronic Century

public use—major new products of either consumer electronics or computer hardware with their essential software technologies. In the United States, no enterprise had the capability to commercialize new View Details

Keywords: by Alfred D. Chandler, Takashi Hikino & Andrew Von Nordenflycht; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

10 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

The Legacy of Boaty McBoatface: Beware of Customers Who Vote

public. Boaty blowback highlights the potential danger of giving consumers the power to vote, even though customer engagement is a primary goal of almost every social media strategy. The problem: Even though... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

November 2005 (Revised September 2007)
Case

Beijing Hualian

By: David E. Bell and Mary L. Shelman

China's fifth largest domestic retailer faced intensifying competition from Wal-Mart and Carrefour with the opening of China's fast-growing retail market in January 2005. In response, Beijing Hualian developed a new "Family Store" format targeted at the nation's... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Consumer Behavior; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; China

Find at Harvard

March 1994 (Revised May 1994)
Case

Lisa Benton (A)

By: Linda A. Hill

Lisa Benton is in her fourth month as an assistant product manager at Houseworld, a leading consumer products company. She has been on the job since graduating from the Harvard Business School, and she has been frustrated from the start by a lack of responsibility, by... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Jobs and Positions; Power and Influence; Relationships; Consumer Products Industry

May 2012 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Credit Unions: The Future of the Cooperative Financial Institution

By: Robert C. Pozen and Grace Hou

Credit unions are a specialized type of depository institution with a cooperative, non-profit structure and a federal tax exemption. They originated as small, cooperative institutions with an emphasis on uncollateralized consumer lending to the unbanked... View Details

Keywords: Banking; Credit Unions; Banks and Banking

19 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Your Customers: Use Them or Lose Them

Frei. Their customers are better off and the organizations earn a disproportionate share of the profits over their competitors. Frei, who spoke with HBS alumni on June 4 in a session titled "Capitalizing on the Power of the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

05 Jun 2019
Research & Ideas

If Your Customers Don't Care What You Charge, What Should You Charge?

effects of competition have an advantage within their markets, says Alexander J. MacKay, assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, who coauthored the study Consumer Inertia and Market View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Energy

November 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Technical Note

Rechargeable Batteries, 2017: Gigafactory Wars in the Offing?

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In 2017, the global market for rechargeable lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries was 126 gigawatt-hours (GWh) valued at $37 billion, growing by $10 billion in two years. Once confined largely to consumer electronics and appliances, the rapid increase in demand was spurred by... View Details

20 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Activist CEOs Are Rising Up—and Their Customers Are Listening

When former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced earlier this year he was thinking about running for president of the United States, it wasn’t a new idea. Past CEOs seeking the White House have included Carly Fiorina, Ross Perot, Herman Cain, Steve Forbes, Mitt... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

10 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 10, 2009

approaches. Finally, the paper reviews the potential role of regional cooperation in mitigating conflict. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-086.pdf An Ounce of Prevention: The Power of Public Risk Management in... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 2009 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Nettwerk: Digital Marketing in the Music Industry

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

How is music marketed in the digital era? Nettwerk Music Group built on its foundation as a social, grassroots marketer of music and artists and emerged as a leader in the Internet-enabled social media environment. For most of the past decade Nettwerk CEO Terry McBride... View Details

Keywords: Music Entertainment; Product Marketing; Network Effects; Sales; Social and Collaborative Networks; Online Technology; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Music Industry

23 Aug 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

Has the Corporate Mission Just Been Disrupted?

as important as rewarding investors is using the power of business to build a better society. Roundtable members committed to building up local communities, investing more in employees, fostering diversity and inclusion, embracing... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Green Technology

11 Jun 2001
Research & Ideas

E-Commerce Unplugged

revenues over a five-year period. Building m-commerce applications will present huge challenges. Instead of improving a product or refining a distribution channel, companies will need to leverage superior consumer insights to develop... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria & Marty Leestma

12 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

The Unexpected Link Between Cadavers and Careers

out-of-state program; the cost of transferring a body out of state is especially prohibitive. "Because of the length of flight anything that happens in Hawaii stays in Hawaii," Anteby says. “Occupations are powerful groups.” In... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education; Health

05 Apr 2017
Research & Ideas

For Women Especially, It Pays to Know What Car Repairs Should Cost

offer a price concession if asked to do so by a woman than by a man. “We show that the price a consumer expects to pay can alter the negotiation of consumers with individual firms directly by changing the... View Details

Keywords: by Wendy Guild Swearingen; Auto; Service

June 2011 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Reversing the AMD Fusion Launch

By: Elie Ofek and Ryan Johnson

AMD management needs to make a critical decision on the launch sequence of its next-generation technology called Fusion. The Fusion processor concept merges the central and graphics processing units (CPU and GPU) onto one chip-- yielding advantages in performance... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Performance Effectiveness; Strategic Planning; Competition; Value Creation; Computer Industry; Technology Industry