Credit Suisse Group: Managing Equity Research as a Business

Boris  Groysberg; Paul M. Healy; Sarah  Abbott

Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2010 (Revised April 2010)

Credit Suisse Group: Managing Equity Research as a Business

by Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Sarah Abbott

Abstract

In 2003, in the midst of industry turmoil and company-specific challenges, Stefano Natella was named Global Head of Equity Research at Credit Suisse. Over a six-year period, Natella implemented and refined a new methodology for valuing equity research analysts, both individually and as a collective unit. Natella's system, known as the 'Scorecard' was also used as the basis for compensating, hiring, and promoting analysts. Over time, the Scorecard was refined to allow Credit Suisse to improve its customer service efforts in a way that maximized profitability for the firm.

Keywords: Business Model; Change Management; Customer Satisfaction; Compensation and Benefits; Selection and Staffing; Balanced Scorecard; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Services Industry;

Format: Print

16 pages

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Citation:

Groysberg, Boris, Paul M. Healy, and Sarah Abbott. "Credit Suisse Group: Managing Equity Research as a Business." Harvard Business School Case 410-073, January 2010. (Revised April 2010.)

Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2018 (Revised July 2020)

Revenue Recognition at HBP

Paul Healy and Siko Sikochi

In early 2014, Paul Bills, CFO of Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), sat down with David Wan, the company’s CEO, to discuss budget preparations for the coming year. Bills noted that the performance of Corporate Learning, one of HBP’s three business units, would be affected by a business model change for its largest product that required a change in the timing of revenue recognition. Corporate Learning was in the process of revamping its flagship product, Harvard Manage-Mentor (HMM) from version 11.0 (HMM11) to version 12.0 (HMM12). The revamped software would be hosted exclusively on HBP’s server rather than on its clients’ servers, allowing updates to take place continuously. Given the change, accounting standards required HBP to change the recognition of revenue from the date of software delivery (for HMM11) to ratable recognition over its contract life (for HMM12). As Bills and Wan discussed the accounting change, they recognized that its impact on Corporate Learning’s and HBP’s performance could be material and would have to be reflected in the budget. In addition, they wondered how the new accounting would affect the company’s policy for awarding sales incentive compensation on HMM, as well as how they communicated with employees and the firm’s sole shareholder, the Harvard Business School.

Keywords: Accrual Accounting; Budgets and Budgeting; Revenue Recognition; Financial Reporting; Publishing Industry; Education Industry; United States;

Citation:

Healy, Paul, and Siko Sikochi. "Revenue Recognition at HBP." Harvard Business School Case 119-029, August 2018. (Revised July 2020.) View Details

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Credit Suisse Group: Managing Equity Research as a Business

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