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- September–October 2022
- Article
Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price
By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant
Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers.
In this article, the authors present a scorecard to...
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Keywords:
Retail;
Retailing;
Online Business;
Ecommerce;
E-commerce;
E-Commerce Strategy;
Omnichannel Retail;
Omnichannel Retailing;
Amazon;
Amazon.com;
Sales;
Digital Marketing;
Internet and the Web;
Business Model;
Retail Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Fashion Industry;
Advertising Industry;
Battery Industry;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Beauty and Cosmetics Industry;
Distribution Industry;
Electronics Industry;
Food and Beverage Industry;
United States
- September 2022
- Case
Esas Group: Investing Together, Staying Together
By: Christina R. Wing and Alpana Thapar
This case opens in June 2022, after Esas Group, one of Turkey’s largest family-owned investment firms, implements a series of changes to professionalize the business and help transition family members from operators to responsible investors. In December 2019, the Group...
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- September 2022
- Case
QED Invests in Africa
By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui and James Barnett
In March 2022, investors at venture capital firm QED consider strategy for establishing business in Africa.
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Keywords:
Analysis;
Investment;
Geography;
Markets;
Operations;
Strategic Planning;
Strategy;
Financial Services Industry;
Africa;
Nigeria;
North America;
Canada;
Europe;
Asia;
Latin America
- 2022
- Working Paper
Racial Diversity in Private Capital Fundraising
By: Johan Cassel, Josh Lerner and Emmanuel Yimfor
Black- and Hispanic-owned funds control a very modest share of assets in the private capital
industry. We find that the sensitivity of follow-on fundraising to fund performance
is greater for minority-owned groups, particularly for underperforming groups. We...
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- September 2022
- Case
ROI vs. ROI: The Grupo Baobá Family Office
By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, Jiawei Ye and Grace Headinger
Fernando Scodro, a third-generation member of his family, mulled over the next step in integrating an ESG strategy into his family office’s investment portfolio. While his family office, Grupo Baobá, had made excellent progress in incorporating his family’s values into...
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- August 2022
- Case
Sweet Teez Bakery: Projecting the Dough’s Rise
By: Emily R. McComb, Mel Martin and Amy Klopfenstein
In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team met with entrepreneur Teresa Maynard, who had applied for a $25,000 impact investment loan. The students thought the former Harvard Data Scientist’s bakery business, Sweet Teez Bakery, showed promise. Maynard had...
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- August 2022
- Supplement
Sweet Teez Bakery: Projecting the Dough’s Rise Financial Supplement
By: Emily R. McComb, Mel Martin and Amy Klopfenstein
Abstract: In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team met with entrepreneur Teresa Maynard, who had applied for a $25,000 impact investment loan. The students thought the former Harvard Data Scientist’s bakery business, Sweet Teez Bakery, showed promise....
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- August 2022
- Case
Boston Impact Initiative: Investing in Local Change
By: Emily R. McComb, Amy Klopfenstein and Mel Martin
In fall 2021, Aliana Piñeiro, impact director at Boston Impact Initiative (BII) discovered that an entrepreneur the organization was considering for an investment had failed to disclose pre-existing debt with another lender. Although the business scored highly on BII’s...
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Keywords:
Entrepreneurship;
Social Entrepreneurship;
Finance;
Investment;
Investment Funds;
Investment Portfolio;
Relationships;
Business and Community Relations;
Society;
Social Issues;
Wealth and Poverty;
Wealth;
Poverty;
Risk Management;
Financial Services Industry;
North and Central America;
United States;
Massachusetts;
Boston
- August 2022
- Case
Evaluating the Impact of Hillside Harvest
By: Archie L. Jones, Mel Martin and Amy Klopfenstein
In fall 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team had just finished their last round of due diligence on the BIPOC-founded premium hot sauce company Hillside Harvest. They thought the business had a fine performance, showing potential to grow into a successful...
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- August 9, 2022
- Article
Preparing Sales for a Changing Economy: Part 1
Companies spend more per capita on sales training than any other function, but the return on investment is disappointing. One recent estimate indicates “that 85-90% of sales training fails to translate into a lasting improvement in productivity.” A major reason is...
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- July 2022
- Case
David Crane’s Clean(er) Energy Strategy at NRG
By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel and Tom Quinn
In 2015, David Crane was the CEO of NRG, the second-largest energy producer in the United States. NRG got most of its power from fossil fuels, but Crane – hired as CEO in 2003 as NRG emerged from bankruptcy – had invested heavily in alternative energy, loudly...
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- July 2022
- Case
Kovi: Changing Brazil’s Mobility Landscape
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Michael Norris and Alexis Lefort
Kovi, a car rental startup located in São Paulo, Brazil, provides affordable access to rental cars for rideshare drivers. The case examines the origins of the company, provides background on the auto and rideshare industries in Brazil, and follows the CEO, Adhemar...
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- July 2022 (Revised September 2022)
- Case
York Capital and Enovix
By: William Vrattos, Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
In June 2020, Jeremy Blank prepared for a meeting with his fellow partners at York Capital to discuss an investment he had championed in Enovix, a company developing a state-of-the-art, silicon-based battery. Early-stage technology companies, like Enovix, were not...
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- Article
The C-Suite Skills That Matter Most
By: Raffaella Sadun, Joseph B. Fuller, Stephen Hansen and PJ Neal
Landing a job as a CEO today is no longer all about industry expertise and financial savvy. What companies are really seeking are leaders with strong social skills. That’s what the authors discovered after analyzing nearly 7,000 job descriptions for C-suite roles....
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- June 2022
- Case
Individual FoodService, Kelso, and Ken Sweder
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
When and how much risk to take? In October 2020, Ken Sweder, CEO of Individual FoodService (“IFS”), contemplated this question as he evaluated a proposal to acquire Brady Industries, a distributor of janitorial and sanitation products. Sweder and his private equity...
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- June 2022
- Teaching Plan
Pacesetters
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Mel Martin
Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 322-019. City Sealcoating CEO Keith Chaney had just publicly called out the Boston Chamber of Commerce for their slow progress on their supplier diversity program, Pacesetters. Established in 2018 by regional business leaders,...
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- June 2022
- Case
The SAH Group: The Time is Right
By: Juan Alcacer and Alpana Thapar
In January 2021, Jalila Mezni, cofounder and CEO of the SAH Group, was preparing to present the company’s future growth plans to its board of directors. The Tunisian company was a leading producer and distributor of personal care and packaged hygiene products. In 2019,...
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- June 2022
- Case
Zalando: Becoming the Starting Point for Fashion
By: Antonio Moreno, Leela Nageswaran, Emilie Billaud and Federica Gabrieli
Born in 2008 as a small startup selling flip flops, by mid-2021 Zalando had turned into an online fashion company with an assortment of more than 4,500 international brands, 45 million active customers, and a presence in 23 European markets. An essential component in...
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Keywords:
Transition;
Customer Value and Value Chain;
Digital Platforms;
Distribution;
Order Taking and Fulfillment;
Infrastructure;
Logistics;
Service Operations;
Strategy;
Business Strategy;
Fashion Industry;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Beauty and Cosmetics Industry;
Distribution Industry;
Retail Industry;
Service Industry;
Shipping Industry;
Technology Industry;
Europe
- May 2022
- Case
America's Budget Impasse, 2009-2022
The United States has been a fiscal mess for years…at least since the financial crisis in 2009. This case describes the U.S. economy during the presidencies of Barack Obama, Donald Trump and now, Joe Biden’s first year. The case is composed of excerpts from the...
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- May 2022
- Case
Third Point in 2020: Growth is Where the Value is?
By: Robin Greenwood, James Williams and Denise Han
In early May 2020, Daniel Loeb’s team at Third Point was evaluating a potential growth opportunity in the Walt Disney Company and whether investor activism might play a role. Battered by the effects of COVID-19, the company’s stock had initially tumbled to $86 and then...
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Keywords:
Growth;
Equity;
Disney;
Value;
Economics;
Strategy;
Growth and Development;
Investment Return;
Opportunities;
North America