Publications

We live in a dynamic economic and commercial world, surrounded by objects of remarkable complexity and power. In many industries, changes in products and technologies have brought with them new kinds of firms and forms of organization. We are... View Details

April 2021
Case

Codecademy: Where to Next?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Max Mailman and Sarah Ascherman

In March 2020, Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of online education platform Codecademy, prepared for a meeting with his Chief of Staff Kunal Ahuja to discuss the company’s goals. Codecademy billed itself as the largest online resource for computer science literacy and... View Details

Keywords: Monetization Strategy; Business Model; Change Management; Venture Capital; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Teams; Marketing Channels; Product Marketing; Network Effects; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; United States

28 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

Billions of Entrepreneurs in China and India

power, the way they deal with each other, and the way the village economy works. In China, the government is often the entrepreneur. It is in many instances a very efficient entrepreneur. Of course there are bankrupt state-owned... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Blog

Making the Decision to Attend: Our Participants Share Their Stories

definitely worth the time investment. My family came out to Boston the first week so I could spend a little time with them. I also went home to California for the brief break halfway through the program. Today's technology, like FaceTime, makes View Details

November 2012
Teaching Note

Groupon (TN)

By: Sunil Gupta, Ray Weaver and Yien Hao Lock

On November 4, 2011, Groupon, a marketing services company that promoted local businesses by selling deeply discounted vouchers for their products and services, completed its initial public offering that valued the company at $17 billion. Within a year Groupon's share... View Details

Keywords: Social Networking; Media; Technology; Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Marketing Strategy; Marketing; Internet and the Web; Social Media; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; North America; United States

March 2011 (Revised August 2012)
Case

Groupon

By: Sunil Gupta, Ray Weaver and Dharmishta Rood

On November 4, 2011, Groupon, a marketing services company that promoted local businesses by selling deeply discounted vouchers for their products and services, completed its initial public offering that valued the company at $17 billion. Within a year Groupon's share... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Customers; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development; Marketing Channels; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation

February 2001 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Merrill Lynch: Integrated Choice (Abridged)

By: F. Warren McFarlan and James Weber

Merrill Lynch, a full-service brokerage firm with $1.5 trillion in client assets, is under attack from both discount and electronic brokerage firms. It responds with Integrated Choice, a suite of products designed to capture clients, from the do-it-yourself investor... View Details

Keywords: Investment Banking; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry

07 Jul 2015
News

Can Artists and Labels Change Behavior With Technology?

27 Apr 2009
News

Past Business Plan Contest Winners Pave the Way for 2009 Participants

14 Nov 2021
News

Vikram Gandhi—HBS Professor and Managing Partner at Asha Impact Fund

August 2010 (Revised November 2020)
Module Note

Integrating Around the Job to Be Done

By: Clayton Christensen, Rory McDonald, Laura E Day and Shaye Roseman

Unlike traditional market segmentations that are based on a correlation of product sales or service with the attributes of the purchaser (such as age, gender, income level, and education level), jobs-based segmentation seeks to understand the causal roots of... View Details

Keywords: Integration Planning; Jobs; Market Segmentation; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing; Jobs and Positions; Marketing Strategy; Segmentation; Integration; Planning

12 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

New Research Explores Multi-Sided Markets

much more than the platform vendor could do by itself if it remained vertically integrated into hardware. The interesting exception here is, of course, Apple. Apple's logic is that vertical integration allows the company to better control... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

2012
Teaching Note

ChemChina (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Donghong Li, Lei Li and Hong Zhang

ChemChina is China's largest basic chemical manufacturing firm. It was included in Fortune Global 500 in 2011 and 2012, ranked No. 475 and 402. Its sales revenue in 2011 was 179 billion yuan, and profit was 600 million yuan. The year-end total assets were 254.2 billion... View Details

Keywords: Reorganization; Strategy; China; China

September 19, 2017
Article

After Equifax Breach, Companies Advised to Review Open-Source Software Code

By: Ben DiPietro and Lou Shipley

It doesn’t make much sense: At a time when high-powered automated trading systems can execute stock sales in real time, some companies that rely on open-source software to help to run their businesses track their open-source use on spread sheets on paper.
Lou... View Details

Keywords: Software; Open-source; Security Vulnerabilities; Data Privacy; Hack; Applications and Software; Safety; Cybersecurity

Register to Read

25 Oct 2012
HBS Seminar

Andy McAfee, MIT

06 Mar 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Comparing Apples to Apples Online Leads To More Fruitful Sales

the best chance of ringing in a sale if the considered product is surrounded by related items in the same category, rather than a mishmash of random, unrelated items, Karmarkar says. In other words, if a consumer clicks on the Bananagrams... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail; Advertising

14 Aug 2006
HBS Case

On Managing with Bobby Knight and “Coach K”

"Is it better to be loved or feared?" Machiavelli asked. At Harvard Business School, Professor Scott Snook uses this classic quote to help students become more effective leaders. Using two of the most successful college... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Sports

2008
Working Paper

The Architecture of Platforms: A Unified View

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard

The central role of "platform" products and services in mediating the activities of disaggregated "clusters" or "ecosystems" of firms has been widely recognized. But platforms and the systems in which they are embedded are very diverse. In particular, platforms may... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Industry Clusters; Infrastructure; Information Infrastructure; Digital Platforms