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• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2013

  Monitoring and the Portability of Soft Information

  Dennis Campbell and Maria Loumioti

  We study the portability of soft information in a decentralized financial institution. Theories from a variety of literatures suggest that difficulties in capturing, storing, and communicating soft information can inhibit its portability over time and across individuals within the organization. Using unique data on lending decisions made by employees in a highly decentralized financial services organization, we show that a monitoring system which captures soft information for vertical communication (to superiors) purposes also facilitates the horizontal communication of soft information (across employees) for decision-making purposes. Contrary to prevailing views on the limited portability of soft information, our results provide evidence that the "stock" of soft information accumulated in this system has persistent effects on the lending decisions of employees. We show that employees rely on this information to increase access to credit for borrowers, provide more favorable pricing terms, and reduce the ex post risk of their lending decisions. These effects remain even when this information was acquired by employees other than the decision-maker, and they are not diminished by the physical separation of employees working in different business units.

  Citation:

  Campbell, Dennis, and Maria Loumioti. "Monitoring and the Portability of Soft Information." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 13–077, March 2013.

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2009 version)

  Lawson: Becoming the Community Store of 9,000 Japanese Communities

  Linda A. Hill, Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Masako Egawa, Emily Stecker and Mayuka Yamazaki

  Keywords: Retail Industry; Japan;

  Citation:

  Hill, Linda A., Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Masako Egawa, Emily Stecker, and Mayuka Yamazaki. "Lawson: Becoming the Community Store of 9,000 Japanese Communities." Harvard Business School Case 409-112, March 2013. (Revised from original April 2009 version.)

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2010 version)

  HubSpot: Lower Churn through Greater CHI

  F. Asis Martinez Jerez, Thomas Steenburgh, Jill Avery and Lisa Brem

  HubSpot, a web marketing startup is under pressure from VCs to rapidly acquire new customers and to maintain a low level of customer churn. In the case, students explore the drivers of customer churn and uncover opportunities to increase customer retention across the customer selection, selling, and training processes. Students assess a metric, CHI (Customer Happiness Index) which HubSpot uses to predict which customers will churn, and suggest alternatives to improve the firm's predictions. Students develop programs to reduce churn post-hoc and then reengineer the company's marketing, selling, and customer relationship management processes to manage churn proactively through market segmentation and targeting, product design, and customer interactions.

  Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Customer Value and Value Chain; Forecasting and Prediction; Consumer Behavior; Happiness; Consulting Industry;

  Citation:

  Martinez Jerez, F. Asis, Thomas Steenburgh, Jill Avery, and Lisa Brem. "HubSpot: Lower Churn through Greater CHI." Harvard Business School Case 110-052, March 2013. (Revised from original January 2010 version.)

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