Nectar (A)

Jeffrey F. Rayport; Thomas O. Jones

Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2018 (Revised April 2018)

Nectar (A)

by Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones

Abstract

In late 2017, Nectar was a rapidly emerging player in the “bed-in-a-box” online market for direct-to-consumer foam memory mattresses. Barely a year old, it had achieved a revenue run rate of $85M and looked ahead to another year of blistering growth. The founding team of three had chosen to operate as a triumvirate, without a CEO, and each of the founders had already realized impressive business success as operating executives and investors. As they evaluated their year-end results, they were considering a range of growth scenarios for 2018 and 2019. At the same time, they were wrestling with key decisions regarding product line diversification to target additional customer segments and a potential refactoring of production operations. The founders also speculated on the land grab opportunity, both U.S. and international, which amped up urgency to decide how to manage growth.

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Product; Diversification; Decision Making; Growth Management;

Language: English

Format: Print

24 pages

Educators

Citation:

Rayport, Jeffrey F., and Thomas O. Jones. "Nectar (A)." Harvard Business School Case 818-112, March 2018. (Revised April 2018.)

Catalant, founded in 2013 as an online marketplace where MBAs could bid on consulting projects posted by small- to medium-sized businesses, had expanded by 2016 to provide Fortune 1000 companies with access to over 35,000 independent experts. The founders envisioned extending their matching solutions to help enterprises staff projects with a mix of current employees and external experts, hypothesizing that the “future of work” would involve more flexible employment arrangements. They debated how much to invest in new functionality versus improving their existing marketplace and how to pitch their evolving strategic vision to investors.

Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2018 (Revised May 2018)

The Powers That Be (Internet Edition): Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft

Jeffrey F. Rayport, Julia Kelley and Nathaniel Schwalb

As of early 2018, five U.S. technology companies—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft—were among the largest companies in the world. Similarly, three Chinese technology firms—Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, or BAT—had emerged as global players due in part to the protection of China’s “Great Firewall,” which made it more difficult for foreign companies to compete in Chinese markets. As these companies continued to scale by branching into new businesses, such as voice AI and self-driving vehicles, they also faced new and challenging questions about user privacy. The European Union had recently passed the General Data Protection Regulation, a comprehensive set of consumer data protection laws that would require technology companies to make significant changes to their operating model. Meanwhile, social media giant Facebook was facing allegations that Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, had accessed information on tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent, prompting calls for big technology firms to be more strictly regulated. How would the five U.S. companies and BAT respond to these concerns? And, looking forward, in what ways would these big companies compete with one another, and which would come out ahead?

Keywords: Internet; Business Ventures; Customers; Data and Data Sets; Safety; Corporate Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Technology Industry;

Citation:

Rayport, Jeffrey F., Julia Kelley, and Nathaniel Schwalb. "The Powers That Be (Internet Edition): Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft." Harvard Business School Case 818-111, May 2018. (Revised May 2018.) View Details

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