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• 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

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2017 (Revised May 2018)

  Amazon Buys Whole Foods

  José B. Alvarez, David Lane and Joni Coughlin

  The June 2017 news that e-commerce giant Amazon was paying $13.7 billion for organic supermarket chain Whole Foods precipitated a broad sell-off in the shares of grocery retailers and suppliers. Behind the precipitous declines lay recognition that Amazon’s bold move into brick and mortar assets offered transformational opportunities. Amazon could gain expertise in perishable product sales and procurement, plus access to 30 million well-off shoppers and 463 grocery stores in key U.S. markets. Whole Foods could absorb Amazon’s technology and process expertise to modernize and reduce its operating costs, which were among the highest in the industry. For grocery retailers and suppliers, the deal portended increased competitive pressures in a saturated market. As 2018 dawned, all parties were assessing the deal’s implications. Had the stock market overreacted to news of the deal? Why was Amazon buying Whole Foods? What were the long-term implications of the deal for the food value chain?

  Keywords: Amazon; Whole Foods; grocery; grocery delivery; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; e-commerce; business models; Agribusiness; food value chain; Agribusiness; Mergers and Acquisitions; Operations; Competitive Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States;

  Citation:

  Alvarez, José B., David Lane, and Joni Coughlin. "Amazon Buys Whole Foods." Harvard Business School Case 518-056, December 2017. (Revised May 2018.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2017 (Revised April 2018)

  Area One Farms

  Forest Reinhardt, Jose B. Alvarez and Annelena Lobb

  In 2017, Joelle Faulkner, CEO of Area One Farms, a Canadian private-equity fund focused on investing in the best Canadian farms and helping them expand, considered the merits and disadvantages of expanding her business to the U.S. While the markets shared some similarities, Faulkner did not know the U.S. market as well as the Canadian one. Could her joint venture partnership model work as well in the U.S. as it had in her home country?

  Keywords: Expansion; Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Canada; United States;

  Citation:

  Reinhardt, Forest, Jose B. Alvarez, and Annelena Lobb. "Area One Farms." Harvard Business School Case 518-069, December 2017. (Revised April 2018.)  View Details

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