Publications

November 1992 (Revised November 1998)
Case

Bitstream

Focuses on the new CEO of a growing software firm, the culture he's tried to create, and the need to hire a manager to spearhead a new product division. Includes details on how the search was conducted and presents resumes of four candidates who are being considered... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Organizational Culture; Selection and Staffing; Recruitment; Cognition and Thinking; Applications and Software; Business Divisions; Information Technology Industry

05 Sep 2013
News

Who Will Radically Disrupt American Health Care?

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Around the World of Entrepreneurial Ventures

pizza delivery to what he termed technologically-intensive ones, such as CD metallization and products for cell phones. All twenty-nine sites are closely linked to their country context. They also represent a variety of deal structures... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

January 1998 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Acer America: Development of the Aspire

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Anthony St. George

Follows the development, national launch, and global rollout of the Aspire, Acer's first new product developed outside of Taiwan. Implementing a very promising new PC concept proves challenging to Mike Culver and his U.S. team, who are plagued by coordination problems... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Organizational Design; Supply Chain; Problems and Challenges; Relationships; Business Subsidiaries; Product Launch; Computer Industry; United States; Taiwan

December 1993 (Revised November 2009)
Case

Manville Corporation Fiber Glass Group (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Sarah Gant

Manville Corp.'s senior managers must decide how to respond to a new scientific study suggesting that fiberglass, the source of 75% of the company's profits, may be another asbestos and must act under conditions of great uncertainty. In particular, when should a... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Health Disorders; Risk Management; Marketing Communications; Product; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Safety; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

08 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 8

product design important, or is manufacturing the key locus of learning? How does a supplier's initial resource endowment play into the dynamic? Our empirical analysis yields interesting findings that have implications for theory and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

January 1971 (Revised August 1984)
Case

Dansk Designs Ltd.

Dansk Designs Ltd., a supplier of high quality, highly designed tableware products, plans to enter a new product area in housewares. Past growth and anticipated future expansion make organizational changes necessary. Overseas operations, design changes, supplier... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth Management; Expansion; Organizational Structure; Consumer Products Industry

May 1994
Background Note

Designing Channels of Distribution

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Presents a framework and a method for addressing the new product channel choice decision. Offers a six-step method that involves: 1) disaggregating and prioritizing a distribution channel by customers' channel function requirements; 2) obtaining and combining... View Details

Keywords: Distribution Channels; Framework; Cost; Customers; Cost vs Benefits; Management

Hundreds of large organizations worldwide have used the groundbreaking Service Profit Chain to improve business... View Details

29 Sep 2015
First Look

September 29, 2015

innovations from industry outsiders who saw economic opportunities where others didn’t—and how these mainstream firms had no choice but to innovate themselves. New models were tried: some succeeded, some failed. Commercial markets turned... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 1996 (Revised January 1997)
Case

Scott Cook and Intuit

By: James L. Heskett

Scott Cook has just learned that Microsoft has withdrawn its $2 billion offer for his company Intuit. Because of his company's prospects, he is elated. But he now must decide the direction in which to take his company while continuing to focus on the formula of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy; Product Development

Find at Harvard

April 2020 (Revised April 2023)
Case

TransDigm in 2017: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

TransDigm was a highly acquisitive company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial customers. Over the ten years ending in 2016, its stock price had increased ten times, and both EBITDA and revenues had grown... View Details

February 2022
Case

US Foods: Driving Post-Pandemic Success?

By: David E. Bell, Olivia Hull and Amy Klopfenstein

In November 2021, US Foods CEO Pietro Satriano must decide his company’s trajectory following the COVID-19 pandemic. US Foods suffered due to business closures and social distancing during the height of the pandemic. While the situation improved following the return of... View Details

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

18 Mar 2009
News

How to Innovate in a Downturn

June 2021
Supplement

Reversing Course on a Reverse E-Auction (D)

By: Kym Lew Nelson, James K. Sebenius and Alex Green

Global consumer products powerhouse LSP has found enormous savings in a trial run of a new competitive bidding tool for their procurement organization known as a reverse e-auction. But when Jen Baldwin is asked to achieve the same savings from her suppliers for a... View Details

Keywords: Reverse E-auctions; Bids and Bidding; Auctions; Complexity; Cost vs Benefits

June 2021
Supplement

Reversing Course on a Reverse E-Auction (B)

By: Kym Lew Nelson, James K. Sebenius and Alex Green

Global consumer products powerhouse LSP has found enormous savings in a trial run of a new competitive bidding tool for their procurement organization known as a reverse e-auction. But when Jen Baldwin is asked to achieve the same savings from her suppliers for a... View Details

Keywords: Reverse E-auctions; Bids and Bidding; Auctions; Complexity; Cost vs Benefits