More from the Author

• Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2018 (Revised November 2018)

  Index

  Jose Alvarez and Julia Kelley

  In December 2017, Marc Freed-Finnegan and Jonathan Wall, the co-founders of retail technology company Index, had to discuss the company’s direction as they entered 2018. Five years earlier, Freed-Finnegan and Wall had founded Index after observing the technological advantages that Amazon and other online retailers had over brick-and-mortar retailers. Index’s first product was a customer database tool that allowed brick-and-mortar retailers to collect customer contact information (e.g., email addresses) at the time of checkout. Index soon added automated marketing tools and payment/security tools (e.g., encryption) to its product portfolio. However, selling to large retail chains had proved challenging—many stakeholders were involved in the buying decision, creating a long sales process, and some retailers did not understand why they should trust a small, young company with their payment security. By late 2017, Index had made some changes to reduce the average sales cycle, but there was still room for improvement. Now, Index was preparing to launch a new product, Index Connect, that would essentially allow retailers to pool customer contact data and be more competitive with Amazon. Participants must evaluate whether Index was taking the right approach to sales and marketing and consider how the company could position Index Connect to be a success.

  Keywords: Product Launch; Product Positioning; Sales; Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Retail Industry; Technology Industry;

  Citation:

  Alvarez, Jose, and Julia Kelley. "Index." Harvard Business School Case 518-038, January 2018. (Revised November 2018.)  View Details

  CiteView DetailsEducators

  Related

• Background Note | HBS Case Collection | October 2018

  Note on Managing Workforce Reductions

  Ethan Bernstein and Carin-Isabel Knoop

  Each individual who enters an organization will, at some point, leave. And yet most future leaders spend significantly more effort learning about recruiting than departures, despite the sensitivity and challenges associated with the latter. This note is intended to help address that imbalance. This note provides a roadmap for managers and employees to follow when instituting or facing layoffs. It aims to help managers consider the broader implications that should be taken into account when conducting layoffs, including how to structure and execute them effectively; how to minimize the negative impact on laid-off employees, “surviving” employees, the firm’s reputation, and the community; and what alternatives any firm contemplating layoffs should consider.

  Keywords: layoffs; downsizing; workforce; workforce reductions; delayering; Human Resources; Employees; Resignation and Termination; Management; Organizations;

  Citation:

  Bernstein, Ethan, and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "Note on Managing Workforce Reductions." Harvard Business School Background Note 419-039, October 2018.  View Details

  CiteView DetailsEducators

  Related

• Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2018 (Revised September 2018)

  Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?

  George A. Riedel and Carin-Isabel Knoop

  Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has built a phenomenally successful business at global scale to become the fifth most valuable public company in the world. The revelation of Cambridge Analytica events in March 2018, where 78 million users' information was leaked in a 2016 U.S. election cycle, exposed a breach of trust/privacy among its user community. In the past, growth at any costs appeared to be the de facto strategy. Now many voices such as regulators, advertisers, ethicists, shareholders and users argued for a more responsible approach to addressing their concerns. Mark Zuckerberg (CEO/Chair/Founder) and Sheryl Sandberg (COO) mapped out their six-point plan to address this existential threat. Could they continue to grow and rectify the breach of trust/privacy? Did other stakeholders have some greater responsibility too? In addition to issues of privacy and trust, there is a growing chorus of concern about “content moderation”—not for the easy topics like spam or copyright material—but for the hard things revolving around political points of view, hate speech, polarizing perspectives, etc. How will Facebook strike the balance between free speech and corrosive content across billions of users and dozens of languages? Are they the arbiters of truth/censorship in the digital world?

  Keywords: Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Trust; Business Model; Corporate Accountability;

  Citation:

  Riedel, George A., and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?" Harvard Business School Case 319-030, August 2018. (Revised September 2018.)  View Details

  CiteView DetailsEducatorsPurchase

  Related