Publications

November 2011
Case

Pacific Grove Spice Company

By: William E. Fruhan and Craig Stephenson

Pacific Grove Spice Company is a profitable, rapidly growing manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of quality spices and seasonings. The company's business model requires significant investment in accounts receivable, inventory, and fixed assets to support sales.... View Details

Keywords: Capital Expenditures; Investments; Acquisitions; Securities Analysis; Debt Securities; Opportunities; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Investment; Capital Budgeting; Business Model; Cash Flow; Financing and Loans; Acquisition; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

January 1985
Case

Turning Around Alcan Europe (B): Patrick Rich's Two Years as CEO-Europe

Traces the efforts of Patrick Rich, CEO of Alcan Europe, to bring the company into a stable, profitable situation after having lost $120 million in 1982. Focuses on a wide variety of issues, including setting objectives and strategies for the region, creating... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Organizational Structure

14 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Water, Electricity, and Transportation: Preparing for the Population Boom

By 2050, the Earth's population will likely exceed 9 billion people, up 30 percent from 6.9 billion today, according to projections from both the US Census Bureau and the United Nations. What's more, the population in the world's cities is expected to increase by 3... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

October 2012 (Revised April 2014)
Case

Troubles at Tesco, 2012

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

It was October 3rd, 2012, and all was not well at Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket chain with revenues of £64.5 billion ($104 billion). CEO Philip Clarke unveiled the first half-year profit drop in almost 20 years and, in the UK, the majors Asda and Sainsbury were... View Details

Keywords: Retailing; United Kingdom; Strategic Planning; Strategy; Retail Industry; United Kingdom

April 1998
Case

Jim Lyons and GenRad

Lyons, currently CEO of Harry Gray Associates, a consulting and investment firm, had just been approached by an executive recruiter representing GenRad, a 78-year-old electronics company headquartered in Concord, MA. The company, which manufactured integrated software... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Management Succession; Personal Development and Career; Consulting Industry; Massachusetts

Find at Harvard

December 2018 (Revised June 2021)
Supplement

Bulb 2018: Hypergrowth

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

After a wild and volatile year, Bulb, a new entrant in the UK residential energy market, ended March 2018 with 329,171 properties, 1.2% of the total residential energy market). This was 150% ahead of a plan for 130,000 properties and almost ten times the size the... View Details

January 2006 (Revised July 2016)
Case

Gordon Bethune at Continental Airlines

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson

A $385 million loss for the final months of fiscal year 1994 signaled Continental might go bankrupt. Could new CEO Gordon Bethune turn Continental around? Continental was in dire straits because the deregulation of the commercial airline industry in 1978 ushered in a... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Profit; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Improvement; Labor and Management Relations; Air Transportation Industry

March 2023 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Majid Al Futtaim: Adapting the Shopping Mall to the Digital Era

By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in August 2022, as Ahmed Galal Ismail, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Properties and Fatima Zada, digital and omnichannel director at Majid Al Futtaim Shopping Malls, go over the plans to roll out the omnichannel mall offering for the Mall of the Emirates they... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Strategy; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Competition; Expansion; Profit; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; Real Estate Industry; United Arab Emirates

December 2022
Case

To Feed the Planet: Juan Luciano at ADM

By: Joshua D. Margolis, David E. Bell, Damien McLoughlin, Stacy Straaberg and James Weber

In December 2022, Juan Luciano, Chairman and CEO of agribusiness and nutrition giant ADM, considered the next phase of the historic company’s future. Beginning in 2011 when he joined as COO and moving into his tenure as CEO in 2015, Luciano led a transformation of ADM... View Details

23 Jun 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Using Financial Innovation to Support Savers: From Coercion to Excitement

Keywords: by Peter Tufano & Daniel Schneider; Financial Services

February 2013 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Elasto Therm: The Next Step

By: Jim Sharpe and James Weber

Julia and Nate Burstein were living their dream running their own business and balancing the demands between their work and family obligations while creating a company that was responsive to their employees' and their customers' needs. The Bursteins had joined a large... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurs; Pricing; Pricing Policies; Pricing Strategy; Pricing Structure; Sales Force Management; Acquisitions; Work/family Balance; Family-owned Business; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Work-Life Balance; Manufacturing Industry; Rubber Industry; United States

March 2019
Supplement

KITEA (B): Getting Ready to Face IKEA

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in September 2015, when IKEA is about to open its first store in Morocco. It then chronicles the efforts of KITEA CEO Amine Benkirane and his son Othman between 2013 and 2015 to prepare KITEA for IKEA’s entry. After incurring losses for the first time in... View Details

26 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 26, 2008

principal can set its payment delay to deter bad-type agents and to attract solely or primarily good-type agents. Through the savings from excluding bad agents, the principal can increase its profits while offering increased payments to... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

May 2017
Teaching Note

Hilti Fleet Management (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

These notes are meant to accompany Hilti Fleet Management (A): Turning a Successful Business Model on Its Head (717-427) and Hilti Fleet Management (B): Towards a New Business Model (717-465).
This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the... View Details

28 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 28

of developing its third set of 10‐year goals, with the aim of producing a plan that will ensure the viability of the company 50 years from now. With this end in mind, Dow's leaders understand their obligation to continue investing in the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2013
Dissertation

Designing Freemium: A Model of Consumer Usage, Upgrade, and Referral Dynamics

By: Clarence Lee, Vineet Kumar and Sunil Gupta

Abstract. Over the past decade "freemium" (free + premium) has become the dominant business model among internet start-ups for its ability to acquire and monetize a large install-base with limited marketing resources. Freemium is a hybrid strategy where a firm offers... View Details

Keywords: Discrete-Continuous Choice Dynamic Structural Models; Bayesian Estimation; Word-of-Mouth; Digital Services; Freemium; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Motivation and Incentives; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Reference Programs; Business Startups

10 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Is Groupon Good for Retailers?

altered focus has been the key to success of current discount voucher services. Q: Do you have any plans to continue researching this subject? A: Absolutely. We're currently talking to merchants that have used discount voucher services,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising; Technology

January 1998 (Revised May 1999)
Case

General Scanning, Inc. (A)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Sean McClenaghan and Charles Tillen

General Scanning, Inc. was founded by Jean Montagu and Pierre Brosens, two MIT mechanical engineers with an interest in developing innovative products based on the early application of lasers. They invented proprietary technology for laser beam positioning and scanning... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Entrepreneurship; Management Practices and Processes; Product Development; Strategic Planning; Research and Development; Risk and Uncertainty; Commercialization; Manufacturing Industry