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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | October 2013 (Revised August 2020)

  Amazon in 2020

  Sunil Gupta

  Amazon launched its website in July 1995 to sell books online and by 2020 it has grown to become a digital giant with over $280 billion in annual sales. A large part of its growth came from expanding into a variety of businesses that some see as unrelated. Has it spread itself too thin or is it positioning itself well for the future?

  Keywords: Online Technology; Marketing Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Business Model; Retail Industry;

  Citation:

  Gupta, Sunil. "Amazon in 2020." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 514-056, October 2013. (Revised August 2020.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2020

  Pattern Brands

  Sunil Gupta, Elie Ofek and Julia Kelley

  In March 2020, direct-to-consumer (DTC) company Pattern Brands needed to decide how to allocate resources across its different brands. Pattern Co-Founders Nick Ling and Emmett Shine hoped to avoid the pitfalls faced by some DTC companies—such as inability to scale and lack of competitive differentiation—by relying on their previous experience running a successful branding and marketing agency. Rather than focusing on a single brand, they conceived Pattern as a “DTC 2.0” model—a portfolio of 5 to 10 brands that shared a common theme of activities related to the home and a common mission of helping millennials enjoy daily life. Since its founding in August 2019, Pattern had launched cookware brand Equal Parts and home organization brand Open Spaces. Although Pattern’s team still believed strongly in the benefits of a multi-brand strategy, Open Spaces’ sales and unit economics had significantly outperformed Equal Parts’ to date. Pattern’s leadership wanted to build on Open Spaces’ early momentum with new product colors and product lines, but they debated whether to act on the results of a recent customer survey indicating a positive response to an Equal Parts product redesign. Ling and Shine now had several decisions to consider. How should they allocate resources between repositioning Equal Parts and continuing to grow Open Spaces? How and when should they continue building Pattern’s portfolio by developing a third brand? How much should they invest in marketing parent brand Pattern? More broadly, did Pattern’s model represent the future of DTC brands?

  Keywords: Brands and Branding; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Business Model; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Business Strategy; Diversification; Competitive Advantage; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; North and Central America; United States; New York (city, NY); New York (state, US);

  Citation:

  Gupta, Sunil, Elie Ofek, and Julia Kelley. "Pattern Brands." Harvard Business School Case 521-009, July 2020.  View Details

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• Supplement | HBS Case Collection | December 2019 (Revised July 2020)

  Othellonia: Growing a Mobile Game

  Eva Ascarza, Tomomichi Amano and Sunil Gupta

  Citation:

  Ascarza, Eva, Tomomichi Amano, and Sunil Gupta. "Othellonia: Growing a Mobile Game." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 520-710, December 2019. (Revised July 2020.)  View Details

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