Customer Service - Publications - Faculty & Research

29 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

The Entrepreneurial Venture: A Conversation

customers on Valentine's Day, so we decided to offer the best customer service ever. We called every single customer and explained that our... View Details

Keywords: by Susan Young

21 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

Music Downloads: Pirates—or Customers?

industry consider peer-to-peer services as marketing tools rather than the enemy? Should online pricing be different from in-store pricing? What happens when broadband makes it as easy to illegally download an entire CD as an individual... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Entertainment & Recreation; Music

01 Apr 2002
News

Urban Evolution - HBS Research on the Inner City

indifference. Whether they are helping inner cities capitalize on their inherent competitive advantages, working to make assetbuilding financial services available to low-income families, analyzing the benefits of welfare-to-work... View Details

Keywords: Paul Grogan; Peter Tufano; David Crockett; Diana Barrett; Real Estate

26 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

New Winners and Losers in the Internet Economy

calls the "less glamorous layer" that supports those big brand names, such as digital advertising agencies, ad networks, ad exchanges, customer analytics firms, listening platforms, and other firms both large and small, many of... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Publishing

14 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

The World in Your Palm?

both a car wax and dessert topping. At the moment, the cell phone is the closest thing we have to a fully converged device, said panelists, who represented device makers, telecom service providers, and operating system developers. Many... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

26 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

What Developing-World Companies Teach Us About Innovation

developing countries. As a result, they must rely on the customer-pull approach: finding ways to solve customers' dilemmas without relying on novel science. Many multinationals entering developing countries pay lip service to serving... View Details

Keywords: by Donald N. Sull, Alejandro Ruelas-Gossi & Martin Escobari

08 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 8, 2019

to deliver high-quality goods or services in a cost-effective manner. This concept has become increasingly relevant to cardiac catheterization laboratories, as insurers move away from fee-for-service reimbursement and toward payment... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

13 Dec 2016
First Look

December 13, 2016

Harvard Business School Case 217-016 Financial Services at Falabella (A) In 2010, the board and senior management team of Falabella, a leading retailer with operations throughout Latin America, faced choices about what to do with its... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

01 Sep 2008
News

The Levitt Brand

Globalization of Markets” (1983). With nearly 900,000 reprints sold to date, “Marketing Myopia” posed a question that reverberates nearly fifty years later: “What business are you really in?” “An industry begins with the customer and his... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Educational Services; Educational Services

19 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Ground-Floor Opportunities for Retail in India

the customer." Jain said competition in India includes delivery services that bring items as inexpensive as a Diet Coke to a customer's door in five minutes. "How do you work against that?" Noticing that there were few... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Consumer Products; Retail

01 Sep 2012
News

An Intellectual Capital: Some Influential HBS Ideas, at a Glance

In “Marketing Myopia” in HBR, Ted Levitt (below) famously asks “What business are you in?” and insists that customer focus be paramount. 1977 Abraham Zaleznik raises a provocative, game-changing question in “Managers and Leaders: Are They... View Details

Keywords: Professor Elton Mayo: Professor Fritz Roethlisberger; George M. Moffett Professor of Agriculture and Business, Professor Emeritus Ray A. Goldberg; Professor Abraham Zaleznik; Professor Alfred Chandler; Professor Michael Porter; Professor Robert S. Kaplan; Professor Michael C. Jensen; Professor C. Roland Christensen; Professor Robert Menton; Educational Services; Educational Services

01 Mar 2004
News

The Business of Babies

selective genetics. In order to succeed, providers will have to walk a fine line between making the customer happy and avoiding controversy. One thing is for sure, as Spar pointed out, “You can’t be politically naive and do well in this... View Details

Keywords: Educational Services; Educational Services

20 Oct 2016
News

Smart Moves

purchaser, rather than the generator, of roadway data. The early days required a lot of evangelism, but in the past five years, most governments have begun seeing how much more effective we can be.” Turning government agencies into View Details

Keywords: Robert S. Benchley; Support Activities for Transportation; Transportation

Web

Winning with Digital Platforms Online Course | HBS Online

challenges associated with developing, overseeing, or interacting with a platform business Explore strategies for transitioning a product or service into a platform Build offensive and defensive plans to effectively develop or compete... View Details

20 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

Maybe Uber isn't God's Gift to Mankind

been diligent in filing lawsuits—they’re filing plenty of lawsuits. But Uber is fighting back. Often the company’s strategy has been to delay regulators’ every complaint, trying to get their service that much more entrenched so it will be... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Transportation; Insurance

05 Apr 2022
Blog Post

The HBS New Venture Competition Turns 25: Celebrating A Quarter Century of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

for the $10,000 Tough Technology Prize (pdf). “Entrepreneurship is an integral component of the HBS experience, as it gives students and alumni a chance to create a product or service that can effect real change,” said HBS Dean Srikant... View Details

04 Jun 2001
Research & Ideas

RealNetworks, CNET, and Judo Strategy

will help make you a winner." Glaser's success story in fending off intense competition from Bill Gates & Co. and turning his seven-year old company into a prime purveyor of streaming video, audio, and music services on the Web... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

Fast Answer

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Tools

License registration is required. It is available as desktop software in the Stamps Reading room on the CD-ROM machine (next to the Bloomberg terminal). QCGIS : desktop GIS with numerous plugins and connections to other databases... View Details

08 Oct 2013
First Look

First Look: October 8

has sharply declined over the past 30 years, from 60% or 70% to only about 20%. What accounts for this trend? Disruption is coming for management consulting, the authors say, as it has recently come for law. For many years the professional View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2018 (Revised August 2020)
Background Note

Continuous Software Development: Agile's Successor

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Samuel Clemens and Olivia Hull

In recent years, the twin software development methodologies of continuous delivery and continuous deployment have risen to prominence in the start-up world and beyond. These methods have enabled technology companies large and small to accelerate their product... View Details

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