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Cold Call
A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
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Strategies for Underdogs: How Alibaba’s Taobao Beat eBay in China

In 2007, Alibaba’s Taobao became China’s leading consumer e-commerce marketplace, displacing the once dominant eBay. How did underdog Taobao do it? And will it be able to find a way to monetize its marketplace and ensure future success? Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee discusses his case, “Alibaba’s Taobao,” and related strategy lessons from his new book, Better, Simpler Strategy: A Value-Based Guide to Exceptional Performance.  Open for comment; 0 Comments.

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The Spectacular Fall and Fix of HealthCare.gov

Professor Len Schlesinger describes his case study around the enormous challenges involved with building, launching, and ultimately fixing HealthCare.gov—one of the largest IT fiascos ever. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Munich Oktoberfest: From Local Tradition to Global Capitalism

Professor Juan Alcacer discusses how the Oktoberfest brand has been transplanted around the globe, whether copycat festivals help or hurt its reputation, and to what extent its original hosts could or should be profit-motivated. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Innovation Under Constraint: Constructing a Turnaround at Lego

In this podcast, Jan Rivkin takes us behind Lego's iconic building "bricks" and into the minds of its leaders as they tackle digital disruption, staying true to the brand, and engineering an impressive turnaround. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Netflix Built its House of Cards (and Changed TV Forever)

The TV drama "House of Cards" not only made Netflix a major entertainment player, but it changed the viewing habits of millions of watchers. In this Cold Call Podcast, Anita Elberse discusses her case study on the impact of this pioneering series and the small production company behind it. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Behind Apple's Tax Situation, an Unprecedented Financial Policy

The European Union recently hit Apple with a $14.5 billion tax bill, but that’s hardly the first or worst financial challenge the technology giant has faced. Mihir Desai explains the financial wiring behind the inventors of the iPhone. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Behind IBM's High-Risk Decision to Put Watson on 'Jeopardy'

The gamble looked like an epic fail when supercomputer Watson fumbled the first question. But failure didn't last long. Willy Shih describes IBM's marketing of Watson in a recent case study.

Why College Rankings Keep Deans Awake at Night

Can parents and prospective students trust college rankings? Bill Kirby unpacks this complex system, including what “world-class” actually means, what rankings don’t take into account, and how schools are learning to game an imperfect system. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Small Investors Can Bet Big on Brands They Love

LOYAL3 allows consumers to make small stock purchases of companies they love. In this Cold Call podcast, Luis M. Viceira discusses LOYAL3's move into IPOs and the idea that shareholders make better customers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How to Fix a Broken Global Team

On a Cold Call podcast, professor Tsedal Neeley discusses her recent case study about a manager charged with corralling a hugely diverse, underperforming group and leading it back to success on a global scale. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Who Makes the Eyes for Driverless Cars?

Professor David Yoffie discusses why a company many have never heard of, Mobileye, will be a linchpin in the future of self-driving automobiles. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Hold on to Your Complexity: Bringing Multiple Identities to Work

Striking a careful balance between professional image and personal passion is difficult, as a case study on high-profile banker and gospel singer Carla Ann Harris underscores. Professor Lakshmi Ramarajan discusses the case in this Cold Call podcast. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

A Better World Through Brewing

Since brewing is a marketing-driven business, finding ways to differentiate a beverage from its competition is crucial. Heineken’s chief marketing officer took a novel approach: take the complicated processes of production and distribution and make them interesting and important to the consumer. Professor Forest Reinhardt explains how a big, sophisticated company used small details, from trucking routes to the color of refrigerators, to put its commitment to the environment to work on its behalf. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Who Owns Space?

Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are tapping into their vast personal wealth to make commercial space travel a reality. In the process, they're revitalizing a listless national space program. Professor Matthew Weinzierl discusses his new case on New Space, and how public-private partnerships are becoming the building blocks for the hottest new startup sector. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Real Cost of Ignoring Mental Health in the Workplace

The statistics are startling: about one-third of American workers suffer from chronic work stress; $27 billion worth of work days are lost to mental health-related absences each year. Professor John Quelch discusses his case on the state of mental health in the U.S. workplace, and why even though companies are better than ever about providing services to their workers, the stigma attached to mental health leaves a lot of work yet to be done. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Walmart: Changing the World for Better or Worse?

Can big companies fix big problems? Are they responsible for doing so? As the third-largest employer in the world, any move Wal-mart makes reverberates around the globe. Yet despite its many successes and innovations, particularly in terms of sustainability, the company often faces criticism for its business practices. Professor Rebecca Henderson discusses what she calls the paradigmatic case: how Wal-mart takes huge risks, makes great strides, and demonstrates how companies are one of the few instruments humanity has for changing the world at scale, for better or for worse. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Key to Keeping Resolutions? Betting Against Yourself

It’s been a few months since many of us made New Year’s resolutions. Have you stuck with yours? Professor Leslie John studies how to help people change bad habits (and reinforce good ones) by looking at what makes them tick. Here, she discusses stickK, an application that motivates people by forcing them to put skin in the game of self-improvement. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

A Map for Economic Renewal Begins in Maine

Maine has had one of the worst state economies in the country the last few years. But something special is happening there of late that could change the face of job creation in the future. Senior fellow Karen Mills, the former administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration under President Obama, explains her new case on the Maine Food Cluster Project, including the role catalytic philanthropy and cluster initiatives can play in reenergizing struggling business sectors. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Team Sport of Scaling a Business

For entrepreneurs, size and scale don’t have to come at the cost of agility. Fabricio Bloisi, a 21-year-old Brazilian college graduate, proved that with his company Movile. Professor Lynda Applegate discusses how with the right blend of talent, ambition, and teamwork, a company can become an international powerhouse and still remain nimble and true to its roots. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

For Today’s Travel Businesses, Is It TripAdvisor or Bust?

Research says that 85 percent of people will make a purchase after reading online reviews about a product or service. This has had huge implications for the hotel industry and helps explain why TripAdvisor, a massive repository of user-generated reviews, was the most-visited travel website in the world in 2013. Associate Professor Thales Teixeira discusses TripAdvisor’s staggering success, how the company has forced an entire industry to change the way it considers (and purposefully influences) the online review process, and how consumers navigate that sea of reviews. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Amazing Life of One of America’s Earliest Black, Female Entrepreneurs

Though not everyone may know her name, Madam C.J. Walker helped invent what have become staples of our modern country and economy: entrepreneurship, national sales forces, and corporate social responsibility, says Nancy Koehn. Open for comment; 0 Comments.