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- April 2025
- Case
Thrivent: From Insurance Agents to Financial Advisors
By: Hubert Joly, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Tom Quinn
Thrivent, a midwestern financial services company with a centuries-long history rooted in Lutheranism, had reached $10 billion in revenue mostly by selling life insurance. In the 2020s, however, CEO Terry Rasmussen began a transformation process centered around the... View Details
Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Forecasting and Prediction; Employee Relationship Management; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Job Design and Levels; Human Capital; Leading Change; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Insurance Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States; Minneapolis
- April 2025 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
JPMorganChase: Leadership in the Age of GenAI
By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Karim R. Lakhani and David Lane
This case study examines JPMorgan Chase's (JPMC) journey in adopting and implementing Generative AI (GenAI) following the release of ChatGPT. It outlines JPMC's initial cautious approach focused on data security, followed by strategic investments in internal platforms... View Details
Keywords: Banks and Banking; Governance Controls; Information Technology; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Cybersecurity; Digital Platforms; Digital Transformation; Information Management; Information Infrastructure; Technology Adoption; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Sharing; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Product Development; Performance Improvement; Customization and Personalization; Financial Services Industry; United States
- March 27, 2025
- Article
How One Company Used AI to Broaden Its Customer Base
By: Sunil Gupta and Frank V. Cespedes
The software company SAP successfully leveraged AI tools to begin selling to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) market, which had previously been uneconomical for its in-person sales approach. By mapping the customer journey and deploying over 40 AI tools, SAP... View Details
- March 2025 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
ING Türkiye: Flexible Work in a Competitive Banking Environment
By: Ashley Whillans and Nico Schaefer
This case explores ING Türkiye’s journey toward workplace flexibility within the traditionally conservative Turkish banking sector. Beginning with early remote work experiments in 2015 and culminating in the FlexING model, by 2024 ING Türkiye had positioned itself as a... View Details
- February 2025 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Shake Shack's Playbook for the Digital Era
By: Christopher Stanton, Allison Ciechanover and George Gonzalez
This case examines Shake Shack’s journey from a single New York City hot dog cart to a global fast-casual restaurant chain renowned for both premium quality and a culture of “enlightened hospitality.” As the company expands worldwide, it pilots digital ordering... View Details
- February 2025
- Case
Managing Complexity at mymuesli
By: Thomas Graeber and Stacy Straaberg
In April 2009, direct-to-consumer e-commerce muesli brand mymuesli faced a flood of customer questions. The breakfast cereal startup enabled users to order personalized muesli on its website by choosing from 75 organic ingredients for a total of 566 quadrillion... View Details
- January 2025
- Case
Moderna: Democratizing Artificial Intelligence
By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Karim R. Lakhani, Annika Hildebrandt and James Weber
The case study examines Moderna's journey in democratizing artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI, across its workforce. It details the company's "digital-first, AI-focused" approach, including the rollout of OpenAI's ChatGPT Enterprise to all... View Details
- November 2024
- Case
Group AMANA: Built to Last
By: Hise Gibson and Fares Khrais
The case chronicles the Bsaibes brothers’ journey in founding and operating Group AMANA; a contracting business founded in 1993, based in the United Arab Emirates with operations across the Middle East. Over the years, the business found itself grappling with major... View Details
- November 2024
- Case
Polish Agro: Where Do We Grow from Here?
By: Willy C. Shih, Lena Duchene and Daniela Beyersdorfer
By July 2024, Polish Agro had grown into one of Poland’s fastest-growing agribusinesses, with €230 million in revenue, 82 employees, and operations across Northern Poland. The company supported farmers with essential agricultural inputs like fertilizers and seeds,... View Details
Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Distribution; Volatility; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Climate Change; Environmental Regulation; Profit; Trade; Digital Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Advertising; Brands and Branding; E-commerce; Business and Community Relations; Networks; Adaptation; Adoption; Competitive Advantage; Business Model; Health Pandemics; War; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe; Poland
- February 2024 (Revised February 2024)
- Teaching Note
Travelogo: Understanding Customer Journeys
By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei Huang
Teaching Note for HBS Exercise 524-044. The exercise aims to teach students about 1) Customer Segmentation; and 2) constructing buying personas, 3) Get actionable insights from clickstream data. View Details
- February 2024
- Case
Tabby: Winning Consumers' Digital Wallets
By: Eva Ascarza and Fares Khrais
Hosam Arab (MBA 2009), cofounder and CEO of Tabby, a Saudi-based fintech startup, raised its Series D funding round in October 2023, four years after its inception, valuing it as a regional unicorn. Tabby's core product, a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service, allowed... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
- Exercise
Travelogo: Understanding Customer Journeys
By: Eva Ascarza, Nicolas Padilla and Oded Netzer
In late May 2023, Sarah Merino, the newly appointed manager of the Customer Insights group at Travelogo—an online travel booking platform—initiates a comprehensive analysis of clickstream data to understand the varied behaviors and needs of their users. In preparation... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Customer Journey as a Source of Information
By: Nicolas Padilla, Eva Ascarza and Oded Netzer
In the face of heightened data privacy concerns and diminishing third-party data access,
firms are placing increased emphasis on first-party data (1PD) for marketing decisions.
However, in environments with infrequent purchases, reliance on past purchases 1PD... View Details
- July 2023
- Case
Schuberg Philis: From Success to Significance
By: Thomas J. DeLong and Daniela Beyersdorfer
The founders of Dutch professional services firm Schuberg Philis, and the new leadership team entrusted with the day-to-day management, must set the path forward in 2019. The company has grown into a €70 million revenue strong IT provider with top ranks in the... View Details
- June 2023 (Revised September 2023)
- Simulation
Managing the Customer Journey Marketing Simulation: Adobe's Data-Driven Operating Model (DDOM)
By: Sunil Gupta, Rajiv Lal and Celine Chammas
Adobe started monitoring Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), one of its primary metrics, when it shifted from selling its software in a box to selling the software as a subscription-based cloud service. They wanted to know when, where, and how much to invest in marketing.... View Details
- April 2023 (Revised August 2023)
- Teaching Note
Adobe's Customer Journey
By: Sunil Gupta, Rajiv Lal and Celine Chammas
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 522-033. View Details
- March 31, 2023
- Article
What Is the Optimal Pattern of a Customer Journey?
Even though customer experience (CX) leaders are becoming increasingly focused on optimizing their firms’ customer journeys, they face a clear challenge: Which touchpoints along the journey should they invest in? That is, which moments when the customer interacts with... View Details
- March 2023 (Revised August 2023)
- Case
Majid Al Futtaim: Adapting the Shopping Mall to the Digital Era
By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu
The case opens in August 2022, as Ahmed Galal Ismail, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Properties and Fatima Zada, digital and omnichannel director at Majid Al Futtaim Shopping Malls, go over the plans to roll out the omnichannel mall offering for the Mall of the Emirates they... View Details
- March 13, 2023
- Article
Sales Teams Need to Stop Focusing on the Customer Funnel
Understanding where customers are, how they navigate streams in your market, and how to interact with them in a given stream is now central to crafting a good customer experience, and that has implications. Among other things, companies need to shift from thinking... View Details
- August 2022 (Revised October 2023)
- Case
Bajaj Finance: Building an Omnipresent Financial Services Firm
By: Das Narayandas and Rachna Tahilyani
Bajaj Finance, India’s largest consumer finance firm with $20.9 billion of assets across 50.5 million customers, is on a journey to transform itself from a traditional firm that sells loans and other financial products through brick-and-mortar outlets to an omnipresent... View Details