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• Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2019

  Wayfair

  Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie Ma and Matthew 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 Ma, and Matthew Preble. "Wayfair." Harvard Business School Case 819-045, April 2019.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2019

  CareerWise Colorado

  Rawi Abdelal, Joseph B. Fuller and Matthew Preble

  CareerWise Colorado (CWC) is an organization that equips high school students with the skills to build successful careers through apprenticeships. Founded in 2016, the young organization has attracted interest from different groups and civic leaders from across the U.S., some of whom want to replicate CWC’s model, and others who want CWC to bring and then operate its program in their localities. Noel Ginsburg, CWC’s founder and CEO, and Ashley Carter, COO, now have to decide how, when, and where to grow CWC. They both believe in CWC’s apprenticeship model’s widespread applicability, but so far it is still a relatively small—with just over 200 active apprentices spread across two cohorts; all of whom live in Colorado—and unproven entity. As of late 2018, no apprentices had yet completed the three year program. They did not want to scale the program too soon, but Ginsburg and Carter also did not want to miss out on the attractive opportunities being presented to them. How should they scale this organization?

  Keywords: apprenticeship; nonprofit; not for profit; labor markets; skills; Nonprofit Organizations; Education; Competency and Skills; Personal Development and Career; Growth and Development Strategy;

  Citation:

  Abdelal, Rawi, Joseph B. Fuller, and Matthew Preble. "CareerWise Colorado." Harvard Business School Case 319-001, March 2019.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2013 (Revised February 2019)

  Chobani: Growing a Live and Active Culture (Abridged)

  Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew Preble

  Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of the Greek yogurt company Chobani, Inc., was reflecting on what explained his young company's meteoric rise. The company held over half of the U.S. Greek yogurt market and nearly 20% of the total yogurt market. The company's innovative approach to product design, sales, marketing, and communication had made its yogurt a hit with consumers, and its entrepreneurial and innovative culture made it popular with its employees. But by 2012, major food companies, such as General Mills and Groupe Danone, were beginning to aggressively promote their Greek yogurt. In addition, Chobani was rolling out innovative new products and had to determine how to enter new markets. At the same time, Ulukaya was also focused on preserving the company's unique culture and approach to work as it grew.

  Keywords: innovation; culture; growth strategy; growth management; yogurt; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Agribusiness; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Canada; Australia;

  Citation:

  Margolis, Joshua D., and Matthew Preble. "Chobani: Growing a Live and Active Culture (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 414-046, October 2013. (Revised February 2019.)  View Details

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