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• Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2019

  Peabody Essex Museum: What Next?

  V. Kasturi Rangan and Jeffrey F. Rayport

  • The case describes the 25-year transformation of Peabody Essex Museum, which was created in 1993 by the merger of two sub-scale predecessor cultural institutions, operating since 1799, in Salem, Massachusetts. Dan Monroe, its founding CEO, began a process of building the institution, which, when he arrived, had a budget of $3 million and an endowment of $23 million in 1993, as compared to a budget of $33 million and an endowment of $650 million in 2018. Monroe made changes in practically every aspect of the museum’s operations as PEM broke into the ranks of the top 15 museums in the U.S. All of this was happening at a time when museums in general had lost some 20% in visitation as a result of significant shifts in population demographics and what they understood by “cultural experience.” As Dan Monroe handed off the reins of an institution that had successfully run counter to trend to his successor in 2019, the trustees of the museum and its new CEO faced the challenge of how to keep the positive momentum going – and how potentially to reinvent PEM again for a rapidly changing world.

  Keywords: museums; Strategy; Leadership; Transformation; Innovation Leadership; Strategic Planning;

  Citation:

  Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Jeffrey F. Rayport. "Peabody Essex Museum: What Next?" Harvard Business School Case 520-009, July 2019.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2019 (Revised June 2019)

  Wayfair

  Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie L. Ma and Matthew G. Preble

  In 2016 Niraj Shah and Steve Conine, founders of online home goods retailer Wayfair, are faced with a decision about how to improve user experience on their e-commerce sites. A key driver of consumer interest and conversion to purchase in the home category is visual imagery, which has traditionally been generated not by the retail channel rather than by manufacturers. Catalog retailers, in particular, are famous for visually romancing the category. As a comprehensive offering, Wayfair hosts over seven million SKUs on its site, so it must solve for the lack of visual assets from manufacturers by generating visual assets of its own. Initially, the company embarks on a plan to produce these images using traditional photography studios and professional staffs, but costs mount and throughput is too slow. Seeking a solution, Shah and Conine assess the likelihood of using technology – specifically, high-resolution 3D modeling from low-resolution 2D images – to address the challenge. Resolving this issue is especially pressing, given that Wayfair has just launched private label lines and a host of what it calls lifestyle brands, which require support from high-end visual merchandising. As a consequence, the question of how to provision visual assets becomes a question of how fast Wayfair can grow. This case presents the factors involved in deciding what direction to take – a reliable path using traditional methods or a risky path using bleeding-edge technologies.

  Keywords: visual assets; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Business or Company Management; Growth Management; Innovation and Invention; Operations; Strategy; Technology; Retail Industry; Service Industry; United States; Massachusetts;

  Citation:

  Rayport, Jeffrey F., Susie L. Ma, and Matthew G. Preble. "Wayfair." Harvard Business School Case 819-045, April 2019. (Revised June 2019.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018 (Revised May 2019)

  Khan Academy 2018

  William Sahlman and Nicole Tempest Keller

  Founded in 2008, Khan Academy was a global educational nonprofit with a mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone anywhere in the world. By 2018, the organization had expanded into numerous content areas, product areas, and geographic markets. However, a newly minted 3-year strategic plan called for greater focus and prioritization to enable the young organization to maximize its impact. It also called for increased fundraising efforts to ensure long-term sustainability. The case poses several questions: How can the organization balance its far-reaching aspirational vision for transforming education globally with the short-term need for greater focus? Would the priorities set in the strategic plan enable Khan Academy to create systemic global change? How should donors evaluate the attractiveness and impact of a potential investment in Khan Academy relative to other organizations in the educational market? Was Khan Academy on the right path to ensuring long-term sustainability? What should Khan Academy’s management team do?

  Keywords: entrepreneur; sustainability; scaling; Social Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Education; Entrepreneurship; Teaching; Education Industry; California;

  Citation:

  Sahlman, William, and Nicole Tempest Keller. "Khan Academy 2018." Harvard Business School Case 819-064, October 2018. (Revised May 2019.)  View Details

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