Measuring the Efficacy of the World's Managers
| Published: | January 30, 2012 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
| Forum: | open for comment; 16 Comments posted |
Over the past seven years, Harvard Business School's Raffaella Sadun and a team of researchers have interviewed managers at some 10,000 organizations in 20 countries. The goal: to determine how and why management practices differ vastly in style and quality not only across nations, but also across various organizations and industries.
Published in 2011
HBS Cases: Clocky, the Runaway Alarm Clock
| Published: | December 12, 2011 |
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| Feature: | HBS Cases |
| Forum: | open for comment; 7 Comments posted |
There had not been an innovative breakthrough in alarm clock design since the snooze button until entrepreneur Gauri Nanda created Clocky. Her runaway hit has been the inspiration for several cases written by Professor Elie Ofek.
Retailing Revolution: Category Killers on the Brink
| Published: | October 10, 2011 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
| Forum: | open for comment; 14 Comments posted |
Mass-market retailers, particularly big-box "category killers," are under critical pressure from online competitors. For retailers that can react quickly enough, this upheaval is survivable. But those slow to see the tsunami wave on the horizon stand to be swept away, according to professors Rajiv Lal and José B. Alvarez.
A New Model for Business: The Museum
| Published: | August 15, 2011 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
| Forum: | open for comment; 45 Comments posted |
Looking for a new model to think about business? Look no further than your local art museum, says Assistant Professor Ray Weaver. Some of the most profitable Web businesses and retailers such as Apple succeed by acting like museum curators: providing a very limited amount of choices at a time; offering a brief, engaging description of each choice; and classifying products honestly.
To Groupon or Not to Groupon: The Profitability of Deep Discounts
| Authors: | Benjamin Edelman, Sonia Jaffe, and and Scott Duke Kominers |
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| Published: | August 2, 2011 |
| Paper Release Date: | June 2011 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
For consumers, online discount vouchers (like those offered by Groupon.com) have obvious appeal: discounts as large as 90 percent. But for retailers offering the deals through the site, does the publicity compensate for the deep hit to profit margins? This paper sets out to help small businesses decide whether it makes sense to offer discount vouchers. Research was conducted by Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman, Business Economics PhD candidate Scott Duke Kominers, and by Sonia Jaffe of the Harvard University Department of Economics.
Customer Loyalty Programs That Work
| Published: | July 27, 2011 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
| Forum: | open for comment; 14 Comments posted |
Thanks to ever-improving technology, customer loyalty programs are proving extremely popular among retailers—but merchants are not getting all they should out of them. The reason? Professor José Alvarez says retailers need to see customers as partners, not transactions.
Search Diversion, Rent Extraction and Competition
| Authors: | Andrei Hagiu and Bruno Jullien |
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| Published: | June 16, 2011 |
| Paper Release Date: | May 2011 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Retailers, search engines, shopping malls and other intermediaries often deliberately design their physical layouts or e-commerce sites in order to divert customers' attention away from the products they were initially looking for, with hopes that they'll buy a bunch of other products, too. This paper explores various incentives for so-called "search diversion" in a couple of scenarios—when stores internalize their affiliation decisions with intermediaries, and when competition is introduced among intermediaries. Research was conducted by Andrei Hagiu of Harvard Business School and Bruno Jullien of the Toulouse School of Economics.
QuikTrip's Investment in Retail Employees Pays Off
| Published: | May 25, 2011 |
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| Feature: | HBS Cases |
| Forum: | open for comment; 5 Comments posted |
Instead of treating low-paid staffers as commodities, a new breed of retailers such as QuikTrip assigns them more responsibility and invests in their development, says professor Zeynep Ton. The result? Happy customers and even happier employees.
Empathy: The Brand Equity of Retail
| Published: | May 19, 2011 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
| Forum: | open for comment; 15 Comments posted |
Retailers can offer great product selection and value, but those who lack empathy for their customers are at risk of losing them, says professor Ananth Raman.
The 'IKEA Effect': When Labor Leads to Love
| Authors: | Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely |
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| Published: | April 13, 2011 |
| Paper Release Date: | March 2011 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Companies increasingly involve customers in the design and assembly of products, from Converse allowing customers to design their own shoes to IKEA asking customers to assemble their own furniture. In this paper researchers Michael I. Norton (Harvard Business School), Daniel Mochon (University of California at San Diego), and Dan Ariely (Duke) use the "IKEA Effect" to explain the increase in valuation we place on products we build ourselves. The researchers discuss the implications of the IKEA Effect for marketing managers and organizations more generally.
Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing
| Published: | February 14, 2011 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
| Forum: | open for comment; 102 Comments posted |
About 95 percent of new products fail. The problem often is that their creators are using an ineffective market segmentation mechanism, according to HBS professor Clayton Christensen. It's time for companies to look at products the way customers do: as a way to get a job done.
Published in 2010
Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans
| Authors: | Doug J. Chung, Thomas Steenburgh, and K. Sudhir |
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| Published: | November 19, 2010 |
| Paper Release Date: | October 2010 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Companies generally pay their sales staff with some combination of salary, commissions, and bonuses for meeting quotas-with sales force costs averaging about 10 percent of sales revenue in the United States. This paper aims to gain insight into the most effective way to design a compensation plan, concentrating on whether bonuses boost sales productivity and whether they should be awarded quarterly or annually. Research, focusing on the sales force of a large office supply company, was conducted by Harvard Business School professor Thomas Steenburgh and Doug J. Chung and K. Sudhir of the Yale School of Management.
Tesco's Stumble into the US Market
| Published: | October 25, 2010 |
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| Feature: | HBS Cases |
UK retailer Tesco was very successful penetrating foreign markets—until it set its sights on the United States. Its series of mistakes and some bad luck are captured in a new case by Harvard Business School marketing professor John A. Quelch.
How Mercadona Fixes Retail's 'Last 10 Yards' Problem
| Published: | July 19, 2010 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona offers aggressive pricing, yet high-touch customer service and above-average employee wages. What's its secret? The operations between loading dock and the customer's hands, says HBS professor Zeynep Ton.
Rocket Science Retailing: A Practical Guide
| Q&A with: | Ananth Raman |
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| Published: | July 12, 2010 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
How can retailers make the most of cutting-edge developments and emerging technologies? Book excerpt plus Q&A with HBS professor Ananth Raman, coauthor with Wharton professor Marshall Fisher of The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance.
Ruthlessly Realistic: How CEOs Must Overcome Denial
| Q&A with: | Richard S. Tedlow |
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| Published: | March 29, 2010 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Even the best leaders can be in denial—about trouble inside the organization, about onrushing competitors, about changing consumer behavior. Harvard Business School professor Richard S. Tedlow looks at history and discusses how executives can acknowledge and deal with reality. Plus: Book excerpt.
Published in 2009
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.
