Vineet Kumar
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Vineet Kumar is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Marketing Unit. He teaches the first-year required M.B.A. course on Marketing, and in the executive education program Taking Marketing Digital.
Vineet's research focus is on understanding the drivers of value creation in technology products and services, and strategies that firms should adopt in designing such products. His current interests cover a broad range within the technology+marketing interface, including studying: (a) product strategy and technological innovation, (b) designing social products to engage consumers, (c) gamification strategies to create consumer value (d) product design and development using a freemium model.
Vineet received his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, and completed his masters and doctoral studies at Carnegie Mellon University. His doctoral thesis research, which used structural econometric modeling to unravel the drivers of value creation for social products, was awarded the William W. Cooper Doctoral Dissertation Award. Vineet has held positions in the technology industry, working at established as well as start-up companies prior to his doctoral studies.
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Article
| Marketing Science
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Competitive Strategy for Open Source Software
Vineet Kumar, Brett Gordon and Kannan Srinivasan
Commercial open source software (COSS) products-privately developed software based on publicly available source code-represent a rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar market. A unique aspect of competition in the COSS market is that many open source licenses require firms to make certain enhancements public, creating an incentive for firms to free ride on the contributions of others. This practice raises a number of puzzling issues. First, why should a firm further develop a product if competitors can freely appropriate these contributions? Second, how does a market based on free riding produce high-quality products? Third, from a public policy perspective, does the mandatory sharing of enhancements raise or lower consumer surplus and industry profits? We develop a two-sided model of competition between COSS firms to address these issues. Our model consists of (1) two firms competing in a vertically differentiated market in which product quality is a mix of public and private components and (2) a market for developers that firms hire after observing signals of their contributions to open source. We demonstrate that free-riding behavior is supported in equilibrium, that a mandatory sharing setting can result in high-quality products, and that free riding can actually increase profits and consumer surplus.
Keywords: Software;
Competitive Strategy;
Product Development;
Growth and Development;
Markets;
Motivation and Incentives;
Quality;
Policy;
Perspective;
Profit;
Open Source Distribution;
Emerging Markets;
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Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2012
The Dynamic Effects of Bundling as a Product Strategy
Timothy Derdenger and Vineet Kumar
Several key questions in bundling have not been empirically examined: Do consumers value bundles over and beyond their component products, indicating synergy? Is mixed bundling more effective than pure bundling or pure components? Does correlation in consumer valuations make bundling more or less effective? Does bundling serve as a complement or substitute to network effects? To address these questions, we develop a consumer-choice model from micro-foundations to capture the essentials of our setting, the handheld video game market. We provide a framework to understand the dynamic, long-term impacts of bundling on demand. We find evidence that bundles have a significant negative synergy effect and that consumer valuations for component products are positively correlated. Despite these effects, bundling can be effective through a third previously unexamined effect: dynamic consumer segmentation. Our results, therefore, contradict prior static models: bundling can be profitable even when consumer valuations for components are highly correlated. In the absence of bundling, both hardware and software sales decrease, and consumers who had previously purchased bundles might delay purchases, resulting in lower revenues. We also find that mixed bundling dominates pure bundling and pure components in terms of both hardware and software revenues.
Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain;
Framework;
Marketing;
Demand and Consumers;
Network Effects;
Product;
Sales;
Hardware;
Valuation;
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Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
(Revised from original 2012 version)
The New York Times Paywall (TN)
Vineet Kumar and Sunil Gupta
Citation: Kumar, Vineet, and Sunil Gupta. " The New York Times Paywall (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 512-099, November 2012. (Revised from original June 2012 version.)
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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2013
(Revised from original 2012 version)
The New York Times Paywall
Vineet Kumar, Bharat Anand, Sunil Gupta and Felix Oberholzer-Gee
On March 28, 2011, The New York Times website became a restricted site where most of the content was protected behind a "paywall." Users who exceeded the limit of 20 free articles per month were required to pay for either a digital or print subscription. The newspaper industry had been suffering from revenue declines over the past decade, and the transition to digital media was difficult to navigate. Revenues from online advertising were not sufficient to replace the loss of print revenue, and many publishers had explored charging readers for content, with mixed success, where specialized sources like The Wall Street Journal were successfully using the model, but several other general news sites had failed. Newspapers and content creators in general were very interested in understanding whether transitioning to the paywall at the most popular news website would succeed, and whether it could become a blueprint for future success as a sustainable business model. There were several difficult issues to examine in determining the digital strategy for The Times. Would consumers remain as engaged with a site protected by a paywall? Would advertisers react positively to such a move that walled off readers? Would readers value both the print and digital versions of the content, or would it become necessary to create new content? The Times had several choices in designing the paywall, including determining the digital content, pricing, as well as how to interface with readers of secondary news websites like blogs that posted links to news articles. Should they design a "leaky" paywall where determined users could easily slip through, or a "bulletproof" paywall like the Financial Times had done, where users had to pay before they could access any content? What choices would provide the foundation for a successful business model?
Keywords: Newspapers;
Strategy;
Journalism and News Industry;
Publishing Industry;
Citation: Kumar, Vineet, Bharat Anand, Sunil Gupta, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. " The New York Times Paywall." Harvard Business School Case 512-077, January 2013. (Revised from original February 2012 version.)
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Healthymagination at GE Healthcare Systems
Vineet Kumar and V. Kasturi Rangan
Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, introduced a new innovation strategy named "healthymagination" in 2009. With cost, quality, and access as its three pillars, healthymagination ensures a strong focus for new product introduction efforts all around GE. But will this focus enable GE to achieve and maintain market leadership across a healthcare market that is being buffeted by strong currents, including cost pressures, changes in chronic disease patterns, and rationalization of buyer behavior? Moreover, healthcare spending is also increasing in emerging economies, which could provide a strong growth engine for the future. Tom Gentile, the CEO of GE Healthcare Systems (GEHS), a key player in the Medical Imaging market, wonders how the innovation strategy might respond to these changes. GE has historically been a technology leader, selling the most advanced equipment to a variety of medical establishments. Will a complete shift to healthymagination allow GE to demonstrate strong organic growth through innovation, as Immelt had charged executives at GE?
Keywords: Innovation and Invention;
Product Marketing;
Marketing Strategy;
Medical Devices and Supplies Industry;
Health Industry;
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