Publications

July 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Case

Qihoo

By: Feng Zhu

Qihoo, one of the largest Internet companies in China today, was founded in 2005. The company started its business by offering a security software product, and quickly dominated the market in China after its unusual move of giving its product away for free in 2009.... View Details

Keywords: Platform Strategy; Business Model Innovation; Chinese Internet Market; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Information Technology Industry

07 May 2020
Research & Ideas

The One Good Thing Caused by COVID-19: Innovation

options. They can invest in new as well as shelved technologies and product designs that are particularly effective in mitigating risk and improving safety—even when they are initially inferior in terms of... View Details

Keywords: by Hong Luo and Alberto Galasso

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Restoring a Global Economy, 1950–1980

industries. Europe and Japan had to spend the immediate postwar decade undergoing extensive reconstruction, heavily dependent on official aid from the United States, yet over time Europe and Japan closed the technological and View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

May 2018
Article

Using Online Prices for Measuring Real Consumption Across Countries

By: Alberto Cavallo, Erwin Diewert, Robert C. Feenstra, Robert Inklaar and Marcel P. Timmer

We show that online prices can be used to construct quarterly purchasing power parities (PPPs) with a closely matched set of goods and identical methodologies in a variety of developed and developing countries. Our results are close to those reported by the... View Details

Keywords: Purchasing Power Parity; International Economy; Online Prices; Billion Prices Project; Economics; Macroeconomics; Price; Internet and the Web; Spending; Economy; Global Range; Measurement and Metrics

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Read Now

February 1999 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Securicor Wireless Networks: February 1996

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Bill Wasik

Securicor Wireless (SWN) sold software products to wireless telephone carriers. The company was incorporated in January of 1995 as a 40%-owned subsidiary of Securicor Telesciences (STI), itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of British security giant Securicor PLC. Just... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business Subsidiaries; Nationality; Business Conglomerates; Applications and Software; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Culture; Business Startups; Business and Shareholder Relations; Technology Industry; United Kingdom; United States

January 2017
Case

Expanding Ecommerce at Technos

By: Thales Teixeira, Rohit Deshpandé, Ruth Costas and Priscilla Zogbi

Technos was the market leader in the Brazilian watch market. Its CEO had made a firm commitment to evolve the company’s marketing and commercial practices by focusing less on pushing product to retail clients and more on branding to end consumers to pull watches from... View Details

27 Aug 2018
News

How Best Buy, The New York Times, And John Deere Have Become Digital Leaders

January 2017 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Carmichael Roberts: To Create a Private Equity Firm?

By: Steven Rogers and Kenneth J. Cooper

Carmichael Roberts, a rare African-American venture capitalist, considered leaving his general partnership in a private equity firm near Boston and setting up his own in 2015. He weighed whether the timing was right, with the economy still not fully recovered from the... View Details

02 Aug 2020
What Do You Think?

Is the 'Experimentation Organization' Becoming the Competitive Gold Standard?

the relentless quest for adaptation and improvement in the so-called technology sectors seems to fuel the need for experimentation, the nature of experimentation in other sectors, including the high hazard/high reliability industries, may... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology

19 Sep 2023
Blog Post

2023 Summer Internships in Business & Environment

breakthrough technology and innovative business models. Audrey's role prior to HBS was a Senior Manager and Acting Zambia Country Director at One Acre Fund. Aman Baboolal (MBA 2024, Section F), Summer Internship: MBA Intern, NextEra... View Details

Web

Winners & Runners-Up | New Venture Competition

solution for product design and manufacturing. The software can predict cost early in design Brontes Technologies Doug Hart Eric Paley Federico Frigerio Sheng Tan Ted Acworth Micah Rosenbloom Janos Rohaly... View Details

Web

Strategy Curriculum - Faculty & Research

and how to sustain competitive advantage. How to generate superior value for customers by designing the optimum configuration of the product mix and functional activities. How to balance the opportunities and risks associated with dynamic... View Details

24 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Activity-Based Costing

Activity-based costing, ABC, would seem to be an accurate way for managers to assign costs to the customers and products that use a department's services. But real-world use has shown ABC loses power in large-scale operations, and can be... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & Steven R. Anderson

November 2004
Case

IBM's Diversity Strategy: Bridging the Workplace and the Marketplace

By: David A. Thomas and Ayesha Kanji

Explores how IBM incorporated diversity into its business strategy, making the case that workforce diversity is critical to marketing its products and services to its customers. In the early 1990s, Ted Childs, vice-president of Workforce Diversity, proposed to CEO Lou... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Diversification; Business Strategy; Integration; Global Strategy; Organizations; Markets; Information Technology Industry; United States

25 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Could a Business Model Help Big Pharma Save Lives and Profit?

there is not more equity?” Voluntary licensing unlocks overlooked, less-understood markets Gilead’s tiered model combined branded product sales at prices based on disease burden and per capita income of 140 low- and middle-income... View Details

Keywords: by Esther Schrader; Pharmaceutical; Health

April 2006 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Endeca Technologies: New Growth Opportunities

By: Paul A. Gompers and Kristin Perry

Steve Papa, CEO of Endeca Technologies, must decide whether to expand into a new market with a new application of his company's technology. Endeca has experienced significant success with its information access software in the online retail industry, and in September... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Market Entry and Exit; Production; Organizational Structure; Partners and Partnerships; Opportunities; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Information Technology Industry

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April 2012 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Mekanism: Engineering Viral Marketing

By: Thales S. Teixeira and Alison Caverly

Mekanism introduces students to a digital media production company specializing in creating viral marketing campaigns for advertising agencies and clients (e.g., Microsoft, AXE, eBay, Toyota, etc.) Mekanism has grown tremendously from 2007 to 2010 in part due to the... View Details

Keywords: Viral Marketing; Viral Advertising; Core Competencies; Growth Strategy; Online Media; Videos; Advertising Media; Internet and the Web; Expansion; Media; Marketing; Advertising; Advertising Industry; North and Central America