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- December 2022
- Article
When and How Should Firms Differentiate? Quality and Advertising Decisions in a Duopoly
By: Dominique Olié Lauga, Elie Ofek and Zsolt Katona
A prominent hallmark of competitive interaction is the desire to differentiate from rivals. In this article, the authors examine under what conditions firms will differentiate through product quality versus advertising intensity. Firms select quality in a first stage,...
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- October 2022
- Case
Cost Plus Drugs
By: Alexander MacKay and James Barnett
In September 2022, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company CEO Alex Oshmyansky considered the future of the company. Cost Plus Drugs was a retailer for more than 340 generic oral medications, selling their drugs at significantly lower prices than typical pharmacies....
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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 (Revised November 2022)
- Teaching Note
PittaRosso: Artificial Intelligence-Driven Pricing and Promotion
By: Ayelet Israeli
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 522-046.
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Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence;
Pricing;
Pricing Algorithm;
Pricing Decisions;
Pricing Strategy;
Pricing Structure;
Promotion;
Promotions;
Online Marketing;
Data-driven Decision-making;
Data-driven Management;
Retail;
Retail Analytics;
Price;
Advertising Campaigns;
Analytics and Data Science;
Analysis;
Digital Marketing;
Budgets and Budgeting;
Marketing Strategy;
Marketing;
Transformation;
Decision Making;
AI and Machine Learning;
Retail Industry;
Italy
- August 2022
- Exercise
Joy4Home Brands: Pricing Matters
By: Elie Ofek, Oded Koenigsberg and Marco Bertini
Joy4Home Brands, the maker of novel houseware items, was gearing up for its launch. The company would be introducing two lines: kitchenware products and storage containers. The initial go-to-market plan called for a direct to consumer (DTC) channel strategy. While...
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- August 2022
- Supplement
Zalora: Data-Driven Pricing Recommendations
By: Ayelet Israeli
This exercise can be used in conjunction with the main case "Zalora: Data-Driven Pricing" to facilitate class discussion without requiring data analysis from the students. Instead, the exercise presents reports that were created by the data science team to answer the...
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Keywords:
Pricing;
Pricing Algorithms;
Dynamic Pricing;
Ecommerce;
Pricing Strategy;
Pricing And Revenue Management;
Apparel;
Singapore;
Startup;
Demand Estimation;
Data Analysis;
Data Analytics;
Exercise;
Price;
Internet and the Web;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Retail Industry;
Fashion Industry;
Singapore
- May 2022
- Supplement
Maestro Pizza (B): The Competition Awakens
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais
Maestro pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of...
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Keywords:
Competitive Strategy;
Competitive Advantage;
Competition;
Market Entry and Exit;
Emerging Markets;
Business Startups;
Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Product Positioning;
Disruption;
Disruptive Innovation;
Advertising;
Advertising Campaigns;
Social Media;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Crisis Management;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Brands and Branding;
Product Development;
Production;
Service Delivery;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Financial Statements;
Cost Management;
Analysis;
Quality;
Performance Consistency;
Customer Satisfaction;
Profit;
Family Ownership;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Saudi Arabia;
Middle East
- May 2022
- Supplement
Maestro Pizza (C): Taking the Fight Outside
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais
Maestro pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of...
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Keywords:
Competitive Strategy;
Competitive Advantage;
Competition;
Market Entry and Exit;
Emerging Markets;
Business Startups;
Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Product Positioning;
Disruption;
Disruptive Innovation;
Advertising;
Advertising Campaigns;
Social Media;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Crisis Management;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Brands and Branding;
Product Development;
Production;
Service Delivery;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Financial Statements;
Cost Management;
Analysis;
Quality;
Performance Consistency;
Customer Satisfaction;
Profit;
Family Ownership;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Middle East;
Saudi Arabia
- May 2022
- Case
Maestro Pizza: Coming in Hot!
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais
Maestro Pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of...
View Details
Keywords:
Competitive Strategy;
Competitive Advantage;
Competition;
Market Entry and Exit;
Emerging Markets;
Business Startups;
Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Product Positioning;
Disruption;
Disruptive Innovation;
Advertising;
Advertising Campaigns;
Social Media;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Crisis Management;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Brands and Branding;
Product Development;
Production;
Service Delivery;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Financial Statements;
Cost Management;
Analysis;
Quality;
Performance Consistency;
Customer Satisfaction;
Profit;
Family Ownership;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Middle East;
Saudi Arabia
- May 2022 (Revised April 2023)
- Case
LOOP: Driving Change in Auto Insurance Pricing
By: Elie Ofek and Alicia Dadlani
John Henry and Carey Anne Nadeau, co-founders and co-CEOs of LOOP, an insurtech startup based in Austin, Texas, were on a mission to modernize the archaic $250 billion automobile insurance market. They sought to create equitably priced insurance by eliminating pricing...
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- April 2022 (Revised April 2023)
- Case
Highland Park Wood Co. (Abridged)
By: David E. Bell
A major home builder wishes to purchase lumber (Southern pine). The builder wants delivery in six months but prefers to lock-in the price near current rates. The lumber wholesaler must decide on a pricing and sourcing strategy. Examples include: 1) buy & hold, 2) wait...
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- April 2022
- Article
National Customer Orientation: A Framework, Propositions and Agenda for Future Research
By: Ofer Mintz, Imran S. Currim and Rohit Deshpandé
Purpose: This paper aims to propose a new country-level construct, national customer orientation, to provide a benchmark for global headquartered managers’ decisions and scholars investigating cross-national research.
Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual... View Details
Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual... View Details
- April 2022
- Article
Predictable Financial Crises
Using historical data on post-war financial crises around the world, we show that crises are substantially predictable. The combination of rapid credit and asset price growth over the prior three years, whether in the nonfinancial business or the household sector, is...
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- March 2022 (Revised April 2023)
- Case
Hometown Foods: Changing Price Amid Inflation
During the early part of the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic, Hometown Foods, a large seller of flour-based products, thrived as consumers hoarded baked goods and took up baking to pass the time and find comfort. Then, amid growing shortages in commodities, a vaccine arrived,...
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- March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
MTN: Unlocking Value While Driving Socioeconomic Progress
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha
On March 10, 2021, Ralph Mupita the new CEO of MTN Group, Africa's largest telecommunications company, presented the group’s 2020 annual results and unveiled a new strategy to “drive growth and unlock value.” Despite MTN’s leadership in most of its markets, the...
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- February 2022 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
Jaypee Infratech and the Indian Bankruptcy Code
By: Kristin Mugford, William Vrattos and Radhika Kak
In 2016, India passed a new bankruptcy law (IBC) to counter a brewing bank crisis and increased corporate distress. Homebuilder Jaypee Infratech, one of India largest distressed companies (the “dirty dozen”) began restructuring under the IBC in 2017. Two years later,...
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Keywords:
Restructuring;
Decisions;
Judgments;
Voting;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Financial Crisis;
Public Sector;
Asset Pricing;
Borrowing and Debt;
Corporate Finance;
Credit;
Insolvency and Bankruptcy;
Debt Securities;
Bonds;
Investment Return;
Price;
Government Legislation;
Laws and Statutes;
Bids and Bidding;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Valuation;
Real Estate Industry;
India;
Delhi
- 2022
- Working Paper
Heterogeneous Investors and Stock Market Fluctuations
By: Odhrain McCarthy and Sebastian Hillenbrand
We introduce a heterogeneous agent model which features extrapolative beliefs and time-varying risk aversion. The model leads to an empirical framework which we estimate with stock prices, survey data and risk aversion measures. We find that extrapolative beliefs and...
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- November 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Supplement
PittaRosso (B): Human and Machine Learning
By: Ayelet Israeli
This case supplements the "PittaRosso: Artificial Intelligence-Driven Pricing and Promotion" case, and provides major highlights on what happened at the company since the first case.
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Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence;
Pricing;
Pricing Algorithm;
Pricing Decisions;
Pricing Strategy;
Pricing Structure;
Promotion;
Promotions;
Online Marketing;
Data-driven Decision-making;
Data-driven Management;
Retail;
Retail Analytics;
Price;
Advertising Campaigns;
Analytics and Data Science;
Analysis;
Digital Marketing;
Budgets and Budgeting;
Marketing Strategy;
Marketing;
Transformation;
Decision Making;
AI and Machine Learning;
Retail Industry;
Italy
- November 2021
- Article
A Salient Sugar Tax Decreases Sugary Drink Buying
By: Grant E. Donnelly, Paige Guge, Ryan Howell and Leslie John
Many governments have introduced sugary drink excise taxes to reduce purchasing and consumption of such drinks; however, they do not typically stipulate how such taxes should be communicated at point-of-purchase. Historical, field, and experimental data entailing over...
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Keywords:
Decision-making;
Open Data;
Open Materials;
Preregistered;
Health;
Policy;
Taxation;
Consumer Behavior;
Decision Making
- November 2021
- Article
Ratings, Reviews, and the Marketing of New Products
By: Itay P. Fainmesser, Dominique Olié Lauga and Elie Ofek
We study how user-generated content (UGC) about new products impacts a firm's advertising and pricing decisions and the effect on profits and market dynamics. We construct a two-period model where consumers value quality and are heterogeneous in their taste for the new...
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