Publications

01 Sep 2020
News

Action Plan: Finding Fluency

Photo courtesy of Cammie Dunaway Photo courtesy of Cammie Dunaway Every day of 2020, Cammie Dunaway (MBA 1990) has practiced her French using the Duolingo app. “It is something positive I can do for myself,” Dunaway says of the hobby she has maintained throughout... View Details

Keywords: April White; foreign language; education and technology; digital marketing; change management; COVID-19; Educational Services

June 2014 (Revised March 2016)
Teaching Note

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal

By: Nancy F. Koehn

21 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Fighting the COVID Blues: Advice from Business Research

We asked Harvard Business School experts who study well-being to share strategies for coping with this unsettling period to prevent the coronavirus blues from taking a huge toll, both personally and professionally. “You're not going to be... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman and Danielle Kost

November 2020
Case

Creating a Virtual Internship at Goldman Sachs

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Iavor I. Bojinov and Emma Salomon

Goldman Sachs runs an annual internship for over 3,000 participants, spread across dozens of the firm's global offices. In 2020, the team brought all its resources to bear to transform the internship program into a fully virtual format in just a few short weeks. The... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Remote Operations; Remote Internship; Internship; Virtual Socialization; Human Capital Management; Human Resources; Management; Health Pandemics; Adaptation

June 2023
Simulation

Artea Dashboard and Targeting Policy Evaluation

By: Ayelet Israeli and Eva Ascarza

Companies deploy A/B experiments to gain valuable insights about their customers in order to answer strategic business problems. In marketing, A/B tests are often used to evaluate marketing interventions intended to generate incremental outcomes for the firm. The Artea... View Details

August 2002 (Revised November 2016)
Background Note

Customer Profitability and Lifetime Value

By: Elie Ofek

Introduces the central concepts involved in determining customer lifetime value, with detailed analysis and examples from the realm of direct marketing. Implications for marketing strategy and customer relationship management are briefly discussed. View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Customization and Personalization; Product Marketing; Sales; Marketing Strategy; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Consumer Products Industry

Yiwei Li is a Doctoral student of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He concentrates on managerial accounting research, with interest in topics like incentive scheme and management control system. He pursues the goal of applying research output into... View Details

March 1990 (Revised November 1999)
Case

MCI Communications: Planning for the 1990s

By: Robert L. Simons and Hilary Weston

Concentrates on the evolution of MCI's strategy-setting process following a period of dramatic growth. Opportunistic strategies during MCI's early years have given top managers a dislike of formal strategic planning and a strongly-held belief in top down strategy... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Growth and Development; Planning; Strategic Planning; Growth Management; Business or Company Management; Competition; Alignment; Communications Industry

August 1993 (Revised August 1994)
Background Note

Rhetoric of Change

By: Nitin Nohria

Describes the ways in which managers communicate the need to change, specifically the way in which they use vision, crisis, and transition as rhetorical strategies to mobilize change. Also discusses strategies used by those trying to resist change, setting up what may... View Details

Keywords: Change; Communication Strategy

October 1984
Case

NIKE (F): The Apparel Division

Deals with challenges confronting a new divisional manager of Nike's apparel division, David Chang. The teaching plan would focus on a diagnosis of the division's current strategy and what future strategic moves might be considered. View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Business Divisions; Management Teams; Business Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry

Tatiana Sandino is the Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Business Administration in the Accounting and Management Unit, most recently teaching and undertaking the role of course head for the required first-year MBA course Financial Reporting and Control. She has... View Details

Keywords: retailing; service industry

May 2019 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Walmart's Workforce of the Future

By: William R. Kerr and Jordan Bach-Lombardo

Faced with intense competition from Amazon, Walmart began a transformation of its operations and workforce in 2015. The goal was to create an omnichannel retail experience for customers that seamlessly joined online and offline shopping. This case explores Walmart's... View Details

Keywords: Walmart; Managing The Future Of Work; Workforce; Automation; Ecommerce; Omnichannel Retail; Operations; Transformation; Employees; Training; Information Technology; Infrastructure; Disruption; Competitive Strategy; E-commerce; Information Infrastructure; Retail Industry

May 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Teaching Note

Reliance Baking Soda: Optimizing Promotional Spending (Brief Case)

By: John A. Quelch and Heather Beckham

Teaching Note to Briefcase 4128 View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Analysis; Consumer Marketing; Marketing Planning; Product Management; Sales Promotions; Program Budgeting; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Mathematical Methods; Advertising; Budgets and Budgeting; Product Marketing; Communication Strategy

11 Feb 2021
Blog Post

Good Leadership Is an Act of Kindness

bloggers are buzzing with guidance about ways to sustain employee engagement and productivity in the chaos of a pandemic. Unfortunately, most Management 101 advice does not recognize that in times like these, the manager's toolkit must... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

September 1996 (Revised March 1999)
Case

EMDICO (A)

By: John A. Quelch

The general manager of Fuji Film's Saudi distributorship must decide on a relaunch strategy for Fuji film and cameras in Saudi Arabia. View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Emerging Markets; Product Launch; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Saudi Arabia

August 2020 (Revised September 2020)
Case

Facelift at Olay (A)

By: Sunil Gupta, Rajiv Lal and Olivia Hull

By October 2017, Procter & Gamble’s skincare brand Olay has been struggling with declining sales for several years. The team has tried many remedies, but none has returned the brand to growth. As pressure grows from Olay’s competitors, including hundreds of new... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Demographics; Age; Brands and Branding; Marketing Channels; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Digital Marketing; Transformation; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States; Ohio

July 23, 2012
Article

Companies and Investors Should See More of Each Other

By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim

Company executives and institutional asset managers are increasingly working sustainability into their strategy and operations. Similarly, institutional asset managers are doing the same in constructing their portfolios. Yet both groups are doing this relatively... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Environmental Sustainability; Growth and Development Strategy

Read Now

Bharat N. Anand is the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning at Harvard University, and the Henry R. Byers Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Professor Anand is an expert in digital strategy, media and... View Details

Keywords: broadcasting; entertainment; information; media; motion pictures; music; publishing industry; sports; television

November 2017 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Brandless: Disrupting Consumer Packaged Goods

By: Jill Avery

Brandless, an online direct-to-consumer seller of upscale private-label consumer packaged goods, offered consumers a limited assortment of values-conscious products delivered directly to their homes with the simplicity of one fixed $3 price point that promised an... View Details