Publications

10 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Is Groupon Good for Retailers?

First, discount vouchers can provide price discrimination, letting merchants reach customers who value the merchant less than the merchant's ordinary customers do. For instance, some View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising; Technology

Price Bargaining and Competition in Online Platforms: An Empirical Analysis of the Daily Deal Market

The prevalence of online platforms opens new doors to traditional businesses for customer reach and revenue growth. This research investigates platform competition in a setting where prices are determined by negotiations between platforms and businesses. We compile a... View Details

January 2021
Case

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Cash Flow; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; United States; California

Earl Sasser is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School and has been a member of the faculty there since 1969. He received a B.A. in Mathematics from Duke University in 1965, an MBA from the University of North Carolina in 1967, and a Ph.D. in... View Details

22 Feb 2012
News

Disclosures Are Found to Change Financial Behavior

08 Apr 2013
Video

Booya Fitness, Inc. - Episode 2- Shifting Behavior

Article

Digital Ubiquity: How Connections, Sensors, and Data Are Revolutionizing Business

By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

When Google bought Nest, a maker of digital thermostats, for $3.2 billion just a few months ago, it was a clear indication that digital transformation and connection are spreading across even the most traditional industrial segments and creating a staggering array of... View Details

Keywords: Digital Innovation; Digitization; Industrial Internet; Technological Innovation; Production; Competitive Strategy; Engineering; Aerospace Industry

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22 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

Humans vs. Machines: Untangling the Tasks AI Can (and Can't) Handle

explains. The second would engage in “business problem-solving tasks using quantitative data, customer and company interviews, and a persuasive writing component.” The experiments represent typical activities for consultants; some... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology; Technology

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

May 2004 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King

By: Nitin Nohria and Bridget Gurtler

Follows the rise and fall of the founder of the modern supermarket, Clarence Saunders. Prior to 1915, all staple shopping took place in the market or general store, where a clerk behind a counter pulled items from shelves for customers , measured them from a barrel, or... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Mission and Purpose; Business Processes; Leadership; Consumer Behavior; Leadership Style; Advertising; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Order Taking and Fulfillment

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August 2016 (Revised July 2017)
Case

Singapore Airlines: Premium Goes Multi-Brand

By: Rohit Deshpande and Dawn H. Lau

Singapore Airlines had long been considered the gold standard for its innovative customer service. However, the company was faced with new sources of competition, from the rapid growth of Southeast Asian low-cost carriers on the one hand, to the expansion of premium... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Air Transportation Industry; Travel Industry; Singapore

Pietro Satriano is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. He sits on the boards of CarMax, the largest omni-channel used car retailer in the U.S. and Metro, a large regional grocery retailer in Canada. Pietro advises a number of food-tech startups and acts... View Details

June 2018
Teaching Note

The Transformation of Microsoft

By: C. Fritz Foley and F. Katelynn Boland

Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-048. In early 2015, Amy Hood, CFO of Microsoft, and the rest of the senior leadership team faced a set of fundamental choices. The firm had opportunities to serve customers in ways that would be associated with higher growth but lower... View Details

Keywords: Growth; Corporate Finance; Valuation; Growth Management; Communication Strategy; Transformation; Information Technology Industry; Computer Industry; United States

19 Jul 2013
News

Reinvigorate a Disengaged Sales Force

31 Aug 2012
News

From the frontlines of the Assamese exodus

July 2020 (Revised January 2021)
Case

Pattern Brands

By: Sunil Gupta, Elie Ofek and Julia Kelley

In March 2020, direct-to-consumer (DTC) company Pattern Brands needed to decide how to allocate resources across its different brands. Pattern Co-Founders Nick Ling and Emmett Shine hoped to avoid the pitfalls faced by some DTC companies—such as inability to scale and... View Details

May 2013
Article

Health Care's Service Fanatics: How the Cleveland Clinic Leaped to the Top of the Patient-satisfaction Surveys

By: James Merlino and Ananth Raman

The Cleveland Clinic has long had a reputation for medical excellence. But in 2009 the CEO acknowledged that patients did not think much of their experience there, and he decided to act. Since then the Clinic has leaped to the top tier of patient-satisfaction surveys,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Customer Satisfaction; Health Industry; Cleveland

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April 1998 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Hambrecht & Quist

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Nicole Tempest

Hambrecht & Quist (H&Q), an investment bank headquartered in San Francisco, has a very unique culture relative to its Wall Street counterparts. Firm members and even competitors describe the culture as entrepreneurial, team-driven, non-bureaucratic, and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Investment Banking; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Organizational Culture; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry; San Francisco