Publications
Publications
Show Results For
-
All HBS Web
(1,054)
- Faculty Publications (278)
Page 1 of
278
Results
→
- November 2021
- Case
Farfetch: Digital Transformation for Luxury Brands
By: Sunil Gupta, Jill Avery, Elena Corsi and Federica Gabrieli
Farfetch, a global luxury technology platform and digital marketplace had been surfing the wave of digital transformation in the luxury fashion industry since 2008. While the company’s stock price and market valuation had fluctuated since its IPO in 2018, it had...
View Details
Keywords:
Digital Marketing;
E-commerce;
Digital Transformation;
Marketplaces;
Retailing;
Internet Marketing;
E-Commerce Strategy;
Marketing;
Marketing Strategy;
Marketing Channels;
Brands and Branding;
Luxury;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Beauty and Cosmetics Industry;
Fashion Industry;
Retail Industry;
Web Services Industry;
Technology Industry;
United Kingdom;
Europe;
Portugal;
China
- October 2021
- Article
Can Self-Regulation Save Digital Platforms?
By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie
This article explores some of the critical challenges facing self-regulation and the regulatory environment for digital platforms. We examine several historical examples of firms and industries that attempted self-regulation before the Internet. All dealt with similar...
View Details
- July 2021
- Article
Outsourcing Tasks Online: Matching Supply and Demand on Peer-to-Peer Internet Platforms
By: Zoë Cullen and Chiara Farronato
We study the growth of online peer-to-peer markets. Using data from TaskRabbit, an expanding marketplace for domestic tasks at the time of our study, we show that growth varies considerably across cities. To disentangle the potential drivers of growth, we look...
View Details
- April 2021
- Case
The Clean Network and the Future of Global Technology Competition
By: Meg Rithmire and Courtney Han
In May 2019, amidst of an ever-worsening trade war between the U.S. and China, President Donald Trump added Chinese telecom giant Huawei to the Department of Commerce’s “entity list,” essentially forbidding American firms from doing business with the company. Huawei,...
View Details
- March 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
Hotwire.com: Navigating Through Turbulence
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Manny de Zarraga and Eric Levine
On September 10, 2001, after speaking at an industry conference at New York’s World Trade Center, Hotwire co-founder Spencer Rascoff boarded a flight from Newark to San Francisco. After returning home, Rascoff awoke the next morning to a phone call informing him that...
View Details
Keywords:
September 11;
Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Disruption;
Decisions;
Job Cuts and Outsourcing;
Growth Management;
Two-Sided Platforms;
Problems and Challenges;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Expansion;
Internet;
Online Technology;
Web Sites;
Leading Change;
Leadership Style;
Air Transportation Industry;
Tourism Industry;
San Francisco
- February 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
AptDeco: Circular Economy Furniture Marketplace
By: Ayelet Israeli and Jamie Merkrebs
AptDeco, a used furniture marketplace, was growing rapidly in the tri-state area. The co-founders were confident that the business model, financial position, and unit economics positioned AptDeco for scaling in the massive $120 billion furniture market, despite its...
View Details
Keywords:
E-commerce;
E-Commerce Strategy;
Mobile;
Digital Marketing;
Word-of-Mouth;
Word-of-mouth Marketing;
Word Of Mouth;
Internet Marketing;
Growth Strategy;
Platform;
Platforms;
Two Sided Markets;
Two-sided Market;
Two-sided Marketplace;
Two-Sided Markets;
Two-sided Network;
Black Entrepreneurs;
Black Leadership;
African Americans;
Circular;
Peer-to-peer Markets;
Furniture Industry;
Furniture;
Growth Hacking;
Monetization Strategy;
Growth Management;
Marketing Strategy;
Entrepreneurship;
Market Platforms;
Marketing Channels;
Online Advertising;
Consumer Behavior;
Acquisition;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Two-Sided Platforms;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Retail Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Technology Industry;
Web Services Industry;
United States;
North America;
New York (city, NY);
New York (state, US)
- January 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
Snapp: Scaling Under Sanctions in Iran (A)
By: Meg Rithmire and Gamze Yucaoglu
"The case opens in November 2019 as Eyad Alkassar and Mahmoud Fouz, co-founders of Iran’s first and leading ride-hailing platform, Snapp, find out about Apple’s and Google’s decision to remove all Iranian apps from their respective application stores.
The case... View Details
The case... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
ByteDance: TikTok and the Trials of Going Viral
By: William C. Kirby and John P. McHugh
In 2020, TikTok became the most valuable start-up ever. The short-form, video-sharing social media platform emerged as the crown jewel of the Chinese technology firm ByteDance, realizing 850 million monthly users and an estimated worth of $180 billion. However, a...
View Details
Keywords:
China;
Technology;
Startup;
Start-up;
International Strategy;
Global Strategy And Leadership;
Innovation;
Political Risk;
Regulations;
Trump;
Foreign Policy;
Foreign Investment;
Social Media;
Chinese Internet Market;
Global Strategy;
Crisis Management;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Entrepreneurship;
Globalized Economies and Regions;
Government Legislation;
Innovation and Management;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Online Technology;
Technology Industry;
China;
United States
- December 2020
- Case
Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
By: Elie Ofek, Billy Chan and Dawn H. Lau
Tencent, one of the largest Internet conglomerates in China, had a vision to become a "Tech+Culture" firm. With dominant market shares in online games and social networking, it had built a vast Internet-based entertainment ecosystem, and was now focused on cultural...
View Details
Keywords:
Media Franchise;
Marketing;
Market Entry and Exit;
Product Launch;
Strategy;
Culture;
China
- September 2020 (Revised January 2021)
- Case
Comviva: Exploring New Frontiers (A)
By: Dante Roscini and Mahima Rao-Kachroo
Comviva, a mobile solutions provider active in India and 94 other countries, has had a rich history and been successful across many emerging and complex markets: Latin America, South-East Asia, Africa. What are the lessons learnt from expansion, cultural fits, and...
View Details
- July 2020
- Technical Note
Digital Natives Growing Without a Sales Force
By: Das Narayandas, Michael Norris and Amram Migdal
This brief case describes the rise of so-called digital natives (also called born-in-digital) in the 2000s and 2010s that successfully grew without a sales force. The case highlights the emergence of business-to-business Internet and cloud-based companies and their...
View Details
Keywords:
Business Growth and Maturation;
Customers;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Customer Relationship Management;
Innovation and Invention;
Disruptive Innovation;
Innovation Strategy;
Technological Innovation;
Marketing;
Marketing Channels;
Marketing Strategy;
Product Marketing;
Sales;
Technology;
Information Technology;
Internet;
Online Technology;
Software;
Technology Adoption;
Information Technology Industry;
Australia;
North and Central America;
United States;
Illinois;
Chicago;
California;
San Francisco
- July 2020 (Revised November 2020)
- Case
Pricing at Netflix
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Oded Koenigsberg and Amy Klopfenstein
Since its launch in 1998 as “the Amazon.com of DVDs,” Netflix had evolved from a DVD rental company to a video streaming platform and producer of original films and television shows. As the company matured, it regularly increased prices and adjusted its product...
View Details
Keywords:
Pricing;
Marketing;
Marketing Strategy;
Entertainment;
Film Entertainment;
Television Entertainment;
Finance;
Price;
Strategy;
Competition;
Competitive Strategy;
Business Strategy;
Adaptation;
Technology;
Internet;
Online Technology;
Technology Platform;
Customers;
Customer Satisfaction;
Customer Value and Value Chain;
Entertainment and Recreation Industry;
North and Central America;
United States
- June 2020 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
Time Out: The Evolution from Media to Markets
By: Kate Barasz and Eva Ascarza
In February 2020, Time Out’s chief executive officer Julio Bruno is evaluating the strategic direction of the company. Over the span of five decades, Time Out — the global media and entertainment brand — had gone from a self-published counterculture publication in...
View Details
- April 2020 (Revised May 2020)
- Case
NTT DOCOMO's Race to 5G
By: Juan Alcácer, Horst Melcher and Akiko Kanno
The case, based on extensive interviews with NTT DOCOMO’s technology leaders, focuses on the opportunities and challenges that NTT DOCOMO faces with the launch of infrastructure and services for 5G wireless telecommunication technology. With higher data rates and...
View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Hunting for Talent: Firm-driven Labor Market Search in the United States
By: Rembrand Koning, Sharique Hasan and Ines Black
This article analyzes the phenomenon of firm-driven labor market search—or outbound recruiting—where recruiters are increasingly “hunting for talent” rather than passively relying on workers to search for and apply to job vacancies. Our research methodology leverages...
View Details
- March 2020
- Case
Sizmek Chapter 11: Surviving Walled Gardens in Their Ad Tech Empire
By: Ayelet Israeli, Danilo Tauro and Sarah Gulick
This case provides a post-mortem of the advertising technology (adtech) company Sizmek. Sizmek grew via multiple acquisitions, with the vision of becoming an integrated adtech company that could leverage AI to buy digital media, while creating and serving display and...
View Details
- January 2020
- Case
The June Oven
By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Christian Godwin
The June Oven was a smart oven which was capable of identifying food and cooking it accordingly. This type of smart oven represented the next step in the long history of oven and stove development. Due to the widespread use of traditional ovens, the market for the June...
View Details
Keywords:
Business Ventures;
Trends;
Customers;
Design;
Entrepreneurship;
Food;
Goods and Commodities;
Innovation and Invention;
Marketing;
Brands and Branding;
Demand and Consumers;
Distribution;
Product Development;
Sales;
Technology;
Internet;
Software;
Consumer Products Industry;
Retail Industry;
Technology Industry;
Electronics Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
United States
- November 2019
- Case
GOAT Group: Jordans, Yeezys, and the Global Secondary Sneaker Market
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Spencer Rascoff and George Gonzalez
- October 2019
- Case
Agility Africa
By: Juan Alcacer, Caroline M. Elkins and Esel Çekin
This case illustrates the challenge and opportunities that firms face when developing and executing new business models in high-risk, low-infrastructure, low-trust countries. It features a global logistics group, Agility, that aimed to become the leader in supplying...
View Details
- September 2019
- Article
The Persistence of Broadband User Behavior: Implications for Universal Service and Competition Policy
By: Andre Boik, Shane Greenstein and Jeffrey Prince
In several markets, firms compete not for consumer expenditure but consumer attention. We examine user priorities over the allocation of their time, and interpret that behavior in light of salient tensions in policy discussions over universal service, data caps, and...
View Details
Keywords:
Broadband Service;
Attention Allocation;
Consumer Behavior;
Household;
Internet;
Competition;
Policy