The Return of the Salesman
| Q&A with: | Walter A. Friedman |
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| Published: | June 8, 2009 |
| Feature: | History Teaches |
Salesmen have received a bad rap over the years, but increasingly the profession is drawing scholarly interest. Business History Review coeditor Walter A. Friedman discusses the publication's recent themed issue on salesmanship.
Crafting Integrated Multichannel Retailing Strategies
| Authors: | Jie Zhang, Paul Farris, Tarun Kushwaha, John Irvin, Thomas J. Steenburgh, and Barton Weitz |
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| Published: | May 29, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | April 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
The past fifteen years has been a period of rapid growth in the practice of multichannel retailing, mirroring the rise of the Internet as a nearly ubiquitous tool that firms use to interact with customers. More than 80 percent of a broad cross-section of U.S. retailers now report that they sell merchandise through multiple channels. This practice seems to be on the cusp of a new era in which firms start demanding even more from their investments, with particular emphasis being given to financial performance in light of the current economic crisis. These circumstances present a great opportunity both to firms that are looking to gain a competitive advantage through multichannel retailing and to researchers who are interested in helping them make more informed decisions. This article provides a broad discussion of these issues, synthesizes current knowledge, and suggests directions for future research.
Marketing After the Recession
| Published: | March 18, 2009 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
This downturn has likely changed people's buying habits in fundamental ways. Professor John Quelch discusses why marketers must start planning today to reach consumers after the recession.
Published in 2008
'Ted Levitt Changed My Life'
| Published: | December 17, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Lessons from the Classroom |
Many students say legendary Harvard Business School marketing professor Ted Levitt changed their lives inside his classroom and out. "Ted Levitt was the most influential and imaginative professor in marketing history," HBS professor and senior associate dean John Quelch eulogized on the occasion of Levitt's death in 2006. Colleagues and students remember a life and times. From HBS Alumni Bulletin.
Thinking Twice About Supply-Chain Layoffs
| Published: | December 8, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Cutting the wrong employees can be counterproductive for retailers, new research from Harvard Business School professor Zeynep Ton concludes. One suggestion: Pay attention to staff who handle mundane tasks such as stocking and labeling. Your customers do.
The Next Marketing Challenge: Selling to 'Simplifiers'
| Published: | October 29, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
The mass consumption of the 1990s is fast fading in the rearview mirror. Now a growing number of people want to declutter their lives and invest in experiences rather than things. What's a marketer to do, asks professor John Quelch.
Indulgence vs. Regret: Investing in Future Memories
| Published: | September 2, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Good news for makers of $20,000 watches and other luxury goods and services. Recent research from Harvard Business School professor Anat Keinan and a colleague suggest that we often regret not indulging ourselves earlier in life.
Making the Decision to Franchise (or not)
| Published: | July 28, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Owners operating outlets across multiple markets have a variety of organizational models to choose from, including franchising. The decision is one of the most important they will make. A new Harvard Business School study looks at how 420 convenience store chains organized to serve diverse customers.
Starbucks' Lessons for Premium Brands
| Published: | July 9, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
After building a great franchise offering a unique customer experience, Starbucks diluted its brand when it overexpanded and offered too many new products. Harvard Business School professor John Quelch thinks the trouble began when the company went public.
Getting Down to the Business of Creativity
| Published: | May 14, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Business leaders must manage and support creativity just as they would any other asset. Harvard Business School professors Teresa Amabile, Mary Tripsas, and Mukti Khaire discuss where creativity comes from, how entrepreneurs use it, and why innovation is often a team sport. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin.
Organizational Design and Control across Multiple Markets: The Case of Franchising in the Convenience Store Industry
| Authors: | Dennis Campbell, Srikant M. Datar, and Tatiana Sandino |
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| Published: | May 8, 2008 |
| Paper Release Date: | April 2008 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Chain organizations operate units that are typically dispersed across different types of markets, and thus serve significantly different customer bases. Such "market-type dispersion" is likely to compromise the headquarters' ability to control its stores for two reasons: Relative differences in local conditions make it difficult to monitor a store manager's behavior, and a chain with wide-ranging customer bases will have a harder time serving its customers and will need to rely more heavily on store managers' ability to adapt to local needs. This study identifies market-type dispersion as a factor that is systematically related to firms' organizational design choices. The results may help managers and consultants who deal with control challenges related to a chain's geographic expansion into different markets.
HBS Cases: Negotiating with Wal-Mart
| Published: | April 28, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Lessons from the Classroom |
What happens when you encounter a company with a great deal of power, like Wal-Mart, that is also the ultimate non-negotiable partner? A series of Harvard Business School cases by James Sebenius and Ellen Knebel explore successful deal-making strategies. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin.
Published in 2007
The "Fees → Savings" Link, or Purchasing Fifty Pounds of Pasta
| Authors: | Michael I. Norton and Leonard Lee |
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| Published: | November 20, 2007 |
| Paper Release Date: | November 2007 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Discount membership clubs have a large and growing presence in retail—one recent survey reported that Costco sells to 1 in every 11 people in the United States and Canada, and warehouse clubs are estimated to be a $120 billion industry today in the United States alone. As a result, many people have had the experience of entering one of these popular clubs and leaving hours later with more goods than can fit in their car. One rational reason for such behavior is that membership clubs do offer lower prices than other retailers. However, Norton and Lee offer a counterintuitive explanation for such buying behavior. They propose that the presence of membership fees alone—independent of the actual savings on any given product—can lead consumers to infer a "fees → savings" link, leading them to spend more than they otherwise would to capitalize on these perceived "great deals." Norton and Lee explore this phenomenon by setting up their own "membership clubs" and comparing profits across stores with varying membership fees.
HBS Cases: How Magazine Luiza Courts the Poor
| Published: | April 18, 2007 |
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| Feature: | Lessons from the Classroom |
Brazilian retailer Magazine Luiza has developed an innovative strategy for selling to the poor, combining technology with great service that please both customers and employees. The question of how the company can grow without sacrificing the special qualities that have made it successful is at the heart of a case study developed by Harvard Business School professor Frances X. Frei.
Incorporating Price and Inventory Endogeneity in Firm-Level Sales Forecasting
| Authors: | Saravanan Kesavan, Vishal Gaur, and Ananth Raman |
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| Published: | April 13, 2007 |
| Paper Release Date: | March 2007 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Benchmarking and forecasting firm level performance are key activities for both managers and investors. Retailer performance can be tracked using a number of metrics including sales, inventory, and gross margin. For operational reasons, the sales, inventory, and gross margin for a retailer are interrelated. Retailers often use inventory and margin to increase sales; and sales, conversely, provide input to the retailer's decisions on inventory and margins. Inventory and margin also influence each other. This research uses firm-level annual and quarterly data for a large cross-section of U.S. retailers listed on NYSE, AMEX, or NASDAQ to construct a model that examines the interrelationships among sales per store, inventory per store, and margin.
Adding Bricks to Clicks: The Effects of Store Openings on Sales through Direct Channels
| Authors: | Jill Avery, Mary Caravella, John Deighton and Thomas Steenburgh |
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| Published: | February 12, 2007 |
| Paper Release Date: | February 2007 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Consider a retailer who operates both brick-and-mortar stores and direct channels such as direct mail catalogs and an Internet Web site. What effect does the opening of a new retail store have on direct channel sales in the retail trading area surrounding the store? Does the existence of more opportunities for consumer contact with the brand increase the retailer's direct sales, or does intra-brand, inter-channel competition erode the retailer's direct sales? Does consumer response to the retailer's brand evolve over time, perhaps as consumers go through some process of trial-and-error learning about the relative merits of stores and direct channels, or is the impact of the new store relatively discrete? Does the answer depend on whether consumers in the retail trading area have had the opportunity for previous experience with the brand's stores? This research used a proprietary longitudinal dataset from a multichannel retailer to understand what happens and to probe the implications for channel management strategy.
Published in 2006
Fixing Price Tag Confusion
| Q&A with: | Luc R. Wathieu |
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| Published: | December 11, 2006 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
"Partitioned" price tags that include a main price plus additional charges (Lamp: $70, Bulb, $5, Shipping: $15) may be confusing your customers at best or even causing them to reject the product, warns HBS professor Luc Wathieu. When is an all-inclusive price the best bet?
The Real Wal-Mart Effect
| Published: | August 23, 2006 |
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| Feature: | Op-Ed |
Critics are lining up to take shots at Wal-Mart's treatment of workers and a host of other alleged knocks against society. But the critics miss one big point, says Pankaj Ghemawat: Wal-Mart's overall impact benefits the economy and lower-income consumers.
Whatever Happened to Caveat Emptor?
| Q&A with: | J. Gunnar Trumbull |
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| Published: | August 7, 2006 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
In many world nations, consumers enjoy vast protections that are relatively new on the scene. Why the rapid rise in consumer protectionism? Why do these efforts vary from country to country? A discussion with professor Gunnar Trumbull on his new book, Consumer Capitalism.
Managing Alignment as a Process
| Published: | April 24, 2006 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
"Most organizations attempt to create synergy, but in a fragmented, uncoordinated way," say HBS professor Robert S. Kaplan and colleague David P. Norton. Their new book excerpted here, Alignment, tells how to see alignment as a management process.
