Dennis W. Campbell joined the faculty of the Harvard Business School in 2003. He is currently the Dwight P. Robinson Jr. Professor of Business Administration. In addition to his academic position, he also serves as the Head of the Accounting & Management unit at HBS. During his time on the faculty, he has taught in and chaired a variety of courses in the school’s MBA, doctoral, and executive education programs in Boston, Asia and the Middle East.
Professor Campbell's research and teaching activities focus broadly on the intersection between strategy, organizational culture, and management control systems. His current research examines how leaders can design and scale high performance cultures through deliberate choices in organizational structure and management systems – particularly in the context of enabling decision-making that is more responsive to local markets and customers. He has studied these issues extensively in both domestic and international contexts and has published numerous case studies across a variety of industries including retail, hospitality, financial services, and consumer-goods manufacturing. His research has been published in leading academic journals including Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management,Management Science, and the Journal of Service Research.
Professor Campbell received his doctorate from Harvard Business School and his bachelors degrees in mathematics and economics from the University of Redlands (Redlands, CA). Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, he worked at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. on research and policy related to the structure, conduct, and performance of U.S. banking institutions and markets. He is currently serving on the board of the Harvard University Employees Credit Union and is a research fellow at the Filene Research Institute. He enjoys living in Sudbury, MA with his wife, son, and daughter.
Dennis Campbell, Maria Loumioti and Regina Wittenberg Moerman
We explore whether behavioral biases impede the effective processing and interpretation of soft information in private lending. Taking advantage of the internal reporting system of a large federal credit union, we delineate three important biases likely to affect the lending process: (1) limited attention (or distraction), (2) task-specific human capital, and (3) common identity. Specifically, we find that using soft information in lending decisions leads to worse loan quality when loan officers are busy or before weekends and around national holidays, when loan officers have earlier sales experience, and when both the officers and borrowers are men. Overall, we provide novel evidence of non-agency-related costs in the use of soft information in lending decisions.
Fifty years ago a good blue-collar job was with a large manufacturer such as General Motors or Goodyear. Often unionized, it paid well, offered benefits, and was secure. But manufacturing employment has steadily declined, from about 25% of the U.S. labor force in 1970 to less than 10% today. Now a decent living entails more than a generous wage; it involves sharing the company's success with employees. Some companies offer a direct stake in the company's performance through stock, a share in profits, or both. Companies with employee stock ownership plans report significantly higher sales growth and higher revenue per employee than do conventionally owned companies in the same industry. However, virtually all the gains to be had go to those that create an ownership culture, by building in participative management and helping employees learn to think and act like owners.
When does increased service quality competition lead to customer defection, and which customers are most likely to defect? Our empirical analysis of 82,235 customers exploits the varying competitive dynamics in 644 geographically isolated markets in which a nationwide retail bank conducted business over a five-year period. We find that customers defect at a higher rate from the incumbent following increased service quality (price) competition only when the incumbent offers high (low) quality service relative to existing competitors in a local market. We provide evidence that these results are due to a sorting effect, whereby firms trade off service quality and price, and in turn, the incumbent attracts service (price) sensitive customers in markets where it has supplied relatively high (low) levels of service quality in the past. Furthermore, we show that it is the high-quality incumbent's most profitable customers who are the most attracted by superior quality alternatives. Our results appear to have long-run implications whereby sustaining a high level of service quality is associated with the incumbent attracting and retaining more profitable customers over time.
Dennis Campbell, Srikant M. Datar, Susan L. Kulp and V.G. Narayanan
We analyze balanced scorecard data from a convenience store chain, Store24, during the implementation of an innovative, but ultimately unsuccessful, strategy. Quarterly strategic reviews, based in part on the firm's balanced scorecard, led executives at Store24 to identify problems with, and eventually abandon, this strategy over a two-year period. We find that formal statistical tests of the hypotheses underlying the firm's balanced scorecard and strategy map reveal problems with the strategy on a timelier basis. We also test alternative hypotheses to those underlying the firm's formal strategy map and scorecard that are consistent with concerns expressed by some of Store24's top executives during the initial stages of implementing the new strategy. Our analysis demonstrates that this firm's balanced scorecard contained useful and timely information for distinguishing between these alternatives. These results provide some of the first field-based evidence on the potential for a firm's balanced scorecard to provide useful information for detecting problems in its strategy.
Theories from the economics, management control, and organizational behavior literatures predict that when it is difficult to align incentives by contracting on output, aligning preferences via employee selection may provide a useful alternative. This study investigates this idea empirically using personnel and lending data from a financial services organization that implemented a highly decentralized business model. I exploit variation in this organization in whether or not employees are selected via channels that are likely to sort on the alignment of their preferences with organizational objectives. I find that employees selected through such channels are more likely to use decision-making authority in the granting and structuring of consumer loans than those who are not. Conditional on using decision-making authority, their decisions are also less risky ex post. These findings demonstrate employee selection as an important, but understudied, element of organizational control systems.
Using a new database, we document the factors that relate to the extent of involuntary consumer bank account closure resulting from excessive overdraft activity. Consumers who have accounts involuntarily closed for overdraft activity may have limited or no access to the formal banking system. In the period 2000 through 2005, there were approximately 30 million checking accounts reportedly closed for excessive overdrafting. Closure rates jointly reflect (a) financial mismanagement on the behalf of families and (b) bank forbearance policies regarding overdrawn customers. We focus on five factors to explain the incidence of involuntary closures: personal traits, community traits, economic trends, bank policies, and credit access through the alternative financial services sector. We find that involuntary closures are most frequent in U.S. counties with high rates of households headed by single mothers, low levels of college education, high rates of property crime, a strong presence of multi-market vs. local banks, higher levels of competition among banks, and low rates of electoral participation. Negative shocks to income and rates of employment are also associated with increases in closure activity within counties over time. We interpret these results as consistent with involuntary consumer account closures being jointly driven by thin margins between income and expenditures, general consumer inability to budget and forecast, bank incentives, and community norms and social capital. Furthermore, using both national data and a natural experiment, we find that access to payday lending seems to lead to higher rates of involuntary account closure.
We empirically document factors that influence how local operating managers use discretion to balance the tradeoff between service capacity costs and customer sensitivity to service time. Our findings, using data from one of the largest financial services providers in the U.S., indicate that customer sensitivity to service time varies widely and predictably with observable market characteristics. In turn, we find evidence that local operating managers account for market specific customer sensitivities to service times by deviating frequently and in predictable ways from the recommendations offered by a centralized capacity planning model. Finally, we document that these discretionary capacity supply decisions exhibit a strong learning effect whereby experienced operating managers place more weight than their less experienced counterparts on the market-specific tradeoff between service capacity costs and customer sensitivity to service times. Overall, our results demonstrate both the importance of local knowledge as an input in service operations and the potential for incorporating richer data on customer behavior and preferences into service cost and productivity standard metrics.
This paper investigates the relationship between monitoring, decision making, and learning among lower-level employees. We exploit a field-research setting in which business units vary in the "tightness" with which they monitor employee decisions. We find that tighter monitoring gives rise to implicit incentives in the form of sharp increases in employee termination linked to "excessive" use of decision rights. Consistent with these implicit incentives, we find that employees in tightly monitored business units are less likely than their loosely monitored counterparts to 1) use decision rights and 2) adjust for local information, including historical performance data, in their decisions. These decision-making patterns are associated with large and systematic differences in learning rates across business units. Learning is concentrated in business units with "loose monitoring" and entirely absent in those with "tight monitoring." The results are consistent with an experimentation hypothesis in which tight monitoring of decisions leads to more control but less learning.
This paper uses the context of online banking to investigate the consequences of employing self-service distribution channels to alter customer interactions with the firm. Using a sample of retail banking customers observed over a 30-month period at a large U.S. bank, we test whether changes in service consumption, cost-to-serve, and customer profitability are associated with the adoption of online banking. We find that customer adoption of online banking is associated with (1) substitution primarily from incrementally more costly self-service delivery channels (ATM and voice response unit); (2) augmentation of service consumption in more costly service delivery channels (branch and call center); (3) a substantial increase in total transaction volume; (4) an increase in estimated average cost-to-serve resulting from the combination of (1) through (3); and (5) a reduction in short-term customer profitability. However, we find that use of the online banking channel is associated with higher customer retention rates over one-, two-, and three-year horizons. The documented relationship between the use of online banking and customer retention remains positive even after controlling for self-selection into the online channel. We also find evidence that future market shares for our sample firm are systematically higher in markets with high contemporaneous utilization rates for the online banking channel. This finding holds even after controlling for contemporaneous market share suggesting it is not simply the result of increased market power leading to the acquisition of online banking customers.
This paper investigates the impact of self-service technology (SST) usage on customer satisfaction and retention. Specifically, we disentangle the distinct effects of satisfaction and switching costs as drivers of retention among self-service customers. Our empirical analysis examines 26,924 multi-channel customers of a nationwide retail bank. We track each customer's channel usage, overall satisfaction, and retention over a 1-year period. We find that, relative to face-to-face service, customers who use self-service channels for a greater proportion of their transactions are either no more satisfied, or less satisfied with the service they receive, depending on the channel. However, we also find that these same customers are predictably less likely to defect to a competitor if they are heavily reliant on self-service channels characterized by high switching costs. Through a mediation model, we demonstrate that, when self-service usage promotes retention, it does so in a way that is consistent with switching costs. As a robustness check, we examine the behavior of channel enthusiasts, who concentrate transactions among specific channels. Relative to more diversified customers, we find that self-service enthusiasts in low switching cost channels defect with greater frequency, while self-service enthusiasts in high switching cost channels are retained with greater frequency.
Buell, Ryan W., Dennis Campbell, and Frances X. Frei. "Are Self-service Customers Satisfied or Stuck?"Production and Operations Management 19, no. 6 (November–December 2010). (Awarded the Decision Sciences Institute Stan Hardy Award for Outstanding Paper Published during 2010 in the Field of Operations Management.)
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Many companies operate units that are dispersed across different types of markets, and thus serve significantly diverging customer bases. Such market-type dispersion is likely to compromise the headquarter's ability to control its local managers' behavior and satisfy the divergent needs of different types of customers. In this paper we find evidence that market-type dispersion is an important determinant of delegation and the provision of incentives. Using a sample of convenience store chains, we show that market-type dispersion is related to the degree of franchising at the chain level as well as the probability of franchising a given store within a chain. Our results are robust to alternative definitions of market-type dispersion and to other determinants of franchising such as the stores' geographic distance from headquarters and geographic dispersion. Additional analyses also suggest that chains that do not franchise at all may cope with market-type dispersion by decentralizing operations from headquarters to their stores, and, to a weaker extent, by providing higher variable pay to their store managers.
Metrics overload is a common problem that can have serious consequences: Specifically, it can make it difficult for employees to see what actions they should take to execute strategic objectives. Having too many metrics dilutes the focus and invariably means many are irrelevant. Here, accounting and performance measurement expert Dennis Campbell traces a major Canadian bank's experience in overhauling its customer satisfaction metrics to make them meaningful--and actionable--to frontline employees.
This chapter examines patterns in the cost structure of asset management firms and establishes two important trends in cost behavior. First, when revenues are growing, "indirect" costs related to sales, distribution, marketing, personnel, technology, and occupancy are far from fixed in this industry. In some cases they are "supervariable" or rising at a faster rate than sales. Second, and in contrast, such indirect costs appear relatively fixed in the face of sales "declines" in this industry. We discuss potential sources of these cost-structure patterns and their implications for cost management efforts as asset management firms move forward from the financial crisis of 2008.
Campbell, Dennis, and Frances X. Frei. "Cost Structure Patterns in the Asset Management Industry." Chap. 8 in Operational Control in Asset Management: Processes and Costs, edited by Michael Pinedo, 154–168. Denmark: SimCorp StrategyLab, 2010.
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This paper investigates the impact of customer compatibility—the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them—on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the relative importance of customer, employee, process, location, and market-level effects on customer satisfaction. In our models, which explain roughly a quarter of the aggregate variance, differences among customers account for 96% to 97% of the explainable portion. Further analysis of interaction-level data from banking and quick service restaurants reveals that customers report relatively consistent satisfaction across transactions with particular firms but that some customers are habitually more satisfied than others. A second set of empirical studies provides evidence that these customer-level differences are explained in part by customer compatibility. Customers whose needs, proxied by differences in demographics and product choices, diverge more starkly from those of their bank’s average customers report significantly lower levels of satisfaction. Consistently, banks that serve customer bases with more dispersed needs receive lower satisfaction scores than banks serving customer bases with less dispersed needs. Finally, a longitudinal analysis of the deposit and loan growth of all federally insured banks in the United States from 2006 to 2017 reveals that customer compatibility affects a firm’s financial performance. Branches with more divergent customers grow more slowly than branches with less divergent customers. Institutions serving customer bases with more dispersed needs have branches that exhibit slower growth than those of institutions serving customer bases with less dispersed needs.
Campbell, Dennis, Kerry Herman, and Annelena Lobb. "Banking in the Nordic Context: 2019." Harvard Business School Technical Note 120-052, October 2019.
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An organization’s culture can be a significant source of sustainable competitive advantage. For the organization, it can attract job candidates who fit and align employees working in different teams around common goals. For employees, a strong culture can generate pride, satisfaction, and purpose. However, a strong organizational culture can easily decay with a company’s growth as new employees join the firm and business units develop cultures of their own. This technical note proposes that the growth a company can sustain while preserving its culture is governed by its ability to attract employees who fit with its purpose and values and to preserve and foster this alignment over time. To achieve this, an effective leader must formally articulate the purpose and values of the company and rely on four management systems that can be collectively thought of as a “North STAR” orienting managers’ and employees’ attention in the intended direction. This note details these organizational capabilities and management systems and describes the steps that successful companies take in order to preserve a strong culture through periods of growth.
Campbell, Dennis, Tatiana Sandino, and Kyle Thomas. "Whole Foods under Amazon." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 119-080, February 2019.
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Mills, Karen, Dennis Campbell, and Aaron Mukerjee. "Eastern Bank: Innovating Through Eastern Labs." Harvard Business School Teaching Plan 319-037, September 2018.
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Dennis Campbell, Tatiana Sandino, James Barnett and Christine Snively
In August 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods was struggling with high costs and faced growing competition from traditional supermarkets offering more organic products. Prior to the acquisition, Whole Foods began rolling out a new order-to-shelf (OTS) inventory management system that many observers believed had led to shortages. For years, store team leaders at Whole Foods were empowered to make inventory decisions and tailor their stores to meet local needs, but the OTS system, and an increasing number of strict rules for purchasing and displaying goods, upset many employees. Should Amazon push Whole Foods to improve performance by emphasizing efficiency and standardization? Or should it aim to maintain a sense of empowerment among employees?
Campbell, Dennis, Tatiana Sandino, James Barnett, and Christine Snively. "Whole Foods Under Amazon." Harvard Business School Case 118-074, March 2018. (Revised July 2018.)
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Srinivasan, Suraj, Dennis W. Campbell, Susanna Gallani, and Amram Migdal. "Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 118-022, March 2018.
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Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments to become the top SBA lender in New England in the midst of the Great Recession, when other banks were pulling back. But with technology threatening to disrupt Eastern’s relationship banking model, CEO Bob Rivers is getting worried. Looking to spur innovation at the bank, he set up meetings at MIT to talk with “fintech” entrepreneurs. In a deliberate quest for innovation talent, Rivers finds his way to Dan O'Malley, co-founder of the payments division at Capital One and, most recently, CEO of a failed online bank. O'Malley agrees to join the bank as Chief Digital Officer, leading product development, customer support, and “Eastern Labs”—a new office enclosed by glass walls and located in the middle of Eastern's main lobby. Rivers provides Labs with $4 million annually—1% of gross revenues—to develop new banking technologies, and promises to help O’Malley spin out his own company if he develops product that can be monetized. O’Malley conducts tests in insurance cross-selling and small business lending, eventually launching a completely automated small business lending product. Rivers keeps the promise by helping O'Malley spin out a bank technology company called Numerated, and secures a 25% equity share for Eastern. But by the time of the spin out, Rivers is reassessing the success of the effort. Did Rivers have the right intrapreneurship model? Did he change the culture at Eastern? Did he make a mistake spinning off Numerated into a separate company? What lessons can he learn for “Labs 2.0”?
Campbell, Dennis, Marshall Meyer, Bonnie Yining Cao, and Dawn H. Lau. "GE Appliances: Implementing Haier’s Made-In-China Management System." Harvard Business School Case 119-099, April 2019.
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Set in early 2017, this case examines widespread sales misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank. Wells Fargo's governance and controls are described in the lead up to the September 2016 announcement that Wells Fargo had settled with regulators for $185 million in relation to the years-long period of misconduct in sales. Subsequent investigations, terminations, compensation clawbacks, and other consequences are described.
In December 2014, in preparation for the year-end board presentation, Hilmi Guvenal (PMD 1993), shareholder and CEO of Turkasset, and Ilker Yoney, COO, sat down to discuss Turkasset’s five- and ten-year strategic plans. Since taking leadership of the company in 2009, Guvenal had supervised Turkasset’s growth from a single office of 20 people into a nationwide firm with over 300 employees at six different branches. By 2014, Turkasset had made a name for itself as a data-driven, customer-friendly collection agency. Nonetheless, the Turkasset board felt the company had managed to establish itself a customer-centric niche in the Turkish AMC market. However, Turkasset’s overall collection rates on acquired portfolios remained largely on a par with those of the competition. So, board members had yet to confirm whether the culture of prioritizing the customer had led to increased shareholder value.
The case describes the elements that help put together a customer-centric philosophy at Turkasset, an NPL management and collection agency in Turkey. The case describes the evolution the company went through in face of the pro-consumer era in financial markets and how it established itself a competitive angle through a customer-focus. The case provides the context for the students to identify the design elements underlying Turkasset’s operational design and helps them explore the link between customer focus in a collections business and employee training and empowerment, as well as analytics and IT. The case challenges the students to deliberate whether the amount collected through a soft-collections method over time justifies the investments in customer-centricity.
Campbell, Dennis, and Gamze Yucaoglu. "Turkasset: Bringing Customer-Centricity to Debt Collection." Harvard Business School Case 117-023, October 2016.
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Bhidé, Amar, Dennis Campbell, and Kristin Stack. "Handelsbanken: May 2002." Harvard Business School Case 116-019, September 2015. (Revised July 2016.)
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Retailing requires attention to detail and customer and employee loyalty. Wawa is a 50-year old food retailer with almost a cult-like following. With $9 billion in revenues, Wawa is the 50th largest privately-held company in the US. Learn how they have accomplished consistent 15% annual shareholder returns. The Wawa associates (name for employees) have an ESOP which plays a key role in Wawa's culture of ownership. This case explores the role of incentives and levers of control to create a successful retail chain.
McGarvie, Blythe J., Dennis Campbell, and Kristin Stack. "Wawa Inc." Harvard Business School Case 114-086, April 2014. (Revised June 2014.)
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The executive team at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union has pushed the concept of members first deeply throughout the organization, empowering employees to put member-owners' interests ahead of either the organization's interests or their own interests. As a result of this focus, the credit union must determine what to do with its profitable indirect auto lending business, which some see as inconsistent with the strategic direction set by the management team.
Campbell, Dennis, and Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez. "Slots, Tables, and All that Jazz: Managing Customer Profitability at the MGM Grand Hotel (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 107-072, April 2007. (Revised April 2011.)
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Campbell, Dennis, and Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez. Dataset for "Slots, Tables, and All That Jazz: Managing Customer Profitability at the MGM Grand Hotel" (CW). Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 111-711, February 2011.
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The case illustrates the role of performance measurement and analytics in translating TD-Canada Trust's service model of "comfortable banking" into operational terms. In 2000, in a banking market where consumers and regulators were typically hostile to mergers and acquisitions, Canada's fifth largest commercial bank, Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank), undertook a merger with a relatively small trust company, Canada Trust, which was known for exceptional customer service. To assuage the concerns of regulators, consumer groups, and newly acquired customers, TD Bank made several public pronouncements promising to maintain Canada Trust's high customer service standards and to deliver a "comfortable banking" experience. Chris Armstrong, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, was now faced with the task of defining the comfortable banking model and consistently delivering on these promises. Armstrong and his team undertake a systematic analysis of the drivers of customer satisfaction and branch network profitability and, based on the results, must decide how to change TD-Canada Trust's branch compensation and performance reporting systems to consistently, and profitably, deliver a "comfortable banking" experience.
The case series illustrates the role of performance measurement and analytics in translating TD-Canada Trust's service model of "comfortable banking" into operational terms. In 2000, in a banking market where consumers and regulators were typically hostile to mergers and acquisitions, Canada's fifth largest commercial bank, Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank), undertook a merger with a relatively small trust company, Canada Trust, which was known for exceptional customer service. To assuage the concerns of regulators, consumer groups, and newly acquired customers, TD Bank made several public pronouncements promising to maintain Canada Trust's high customer service standards and to deliver a "comfortable banking" experience. Chris Armstrong, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, was now faced with the task of defining the comfortable banking model and consistently delivering on these promises. Armstrong and his team undertake a systematic analysis of the drivers of customer satisfaction and branch network profitability and, based on the results, must decide how to change TD-Canada Trust's branch compensation and performance reporting systems to consistently, and profitably, deliver a "comfortable banking" experience.
Supplements the (A) case. Late in October 2006, China Resources (Holdings) Co., Ltd. (CRC) CEO Charlie Song Lin, CFO Jiang Wel, and Information Center GM Derek Cheng were traveling from Hong Kong to Wuxi, China to attend the first ever meeting of China Resources Microelectronic's (CRM) newly established Office of Strategy Management. The team had high hopes for this meeting as CRM was not only one of CRC's most strategically important profit centers, but also a potential model for the implementation of the CRC 6S management system in all of CRC's 19 profit centers.
Dennis Campbell, Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Peter Tufano and Emily McClintock
The "Central Bank" series analyzes the use of information and product design for managing the counterparty risk of newly acquired customers. Central Bank, a mid-sized regional U.S. bank, was attempting to grow its customer base by increasing the number of new checking accounts. Like many banks, Central saw checking accounts as an important tool for customer acquisition and loyalty-building. However, the bank realized that the aggressive pursuit of new accounts could result in an increased number of overdrafts and, ultimately, customer defaults. The first case, "Central Bank: The ChexSystems(SM) QualiFile(R) Decision," analyzes how QualiFile, a debit scoring product commercialized by ChexSystems, can be used to manage this risk.
Campbell, Dennis, and Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez. "Central Bank: The ChexSystemsSM QualiFile® Decision (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 208-038, April 2008.
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Frei, Frances X., and Dennis Campbell. "Managing Service Operations: The Managerial Research Design Process." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 608-155, April 2008.
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Frei, Frances X., and Dennis Campbell. "Store24 (TN) (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 606-107, March 2006. (Revised April 2008.)
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Frei, Frances X., and Dennis Campbell. "Pilgrim Bank (A): Customer Profitability (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 608-115, January 2008. (Revised April 2008.)
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Frei, Frances X., and Dennis Campbell. "Pilgrim Bank (B): Customer Retention (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 608-116, January 2008. (Revised April 2008.)
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Frei, Frances X., and Dennis Campbell. "Pilgrim Bank (C): Electronic Billpay (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 608-117, January 2008. (Revised April 2008.)
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Taught as the third module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations: Understanding the Customer Operating Role (606-092). Explores how firms can systematically leverage their customer-operators in the organizational improvement process is investigated in the third module. This opportunity is addressed in two ways, (1) by surfacing and evolving the assumptions about customer-operators that are often built into service models, and (2) by utilizing the operational insight of customers. Both focal points build on firms' traditional use of employees to improve operations.
Campbell, Dennis, Susan L. Kulp, and V.G. Narayanan. "Store24 (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 103-078, April 2003. (Revised April 2008.)
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Frei, Frances X., and Dennis Campbell. "GuestFirst Hotel (TN) (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 606-062, March 2006. (Revised April 2008.)
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In November 2006, Symon Bridle, the newly appointed chief operating officer of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, was thinking about a number of organizational issues that presented challenges to Shangri-La's rapid expansion strategy. There were three major issues at hand: (1) the company was expanding into high-wage economies in Europe and North America; (2) the company was expanding its presence in China-a country where front-line employees were not used to exercising decision-making authority; and (3) newcomers in the Chinese hotel market were poaching Shangri-La's staff and driving up wages in historically low-waged markets. As a COO, Bridle needed to ensure that Shangri-La's signature standards of "Asian Hospitality" were maintained during this expansion.
Chairman Yin Jiaxu must communicate that the company's extraordinary reported performance in 2002 reflects Changan's unique strategy within the competitive dynamics of China's automobile industry. Changan's 2002 annual report demonstrated an extraordinary level of success for the company, with net income growth of 421% over the prior year. Chairman Yin viewed this astonishing level of growth as the reward for the company's strategic shift in sales mix toward Changan's higher margin automobiles, coupled with component price decreases and hard-fought internal cost reduction efforts. However, an anonymous article posted on the Internet attributed Changan's reported success to fraudulent financial reporting, attracting the attention of the press, analysts, and financial Web sites. At the heart of the concerns raised in the article were fluctuations in Changan's quarterly gross margins, including a large increase in gross margin in the fourth quarter, a large amount of accrued marketing expenses on its balance sheet, and high reported margins on one of its top selling models, the Star of Changan SC6350 minivan. Facing suspension of trading in Changan Automobile Co.'s shares on the Shenzen Stock Exchange amid widespread investor concern over the company's financial reporting practices, Chairman Yin must devise a communication strategy to convince investors that the company's financial reports reflect the underlying economics of the company.
In 2006, Jiang Wei, CFO of China Resources Corporation, was seeking to implement a variety of new management control systems in a complex diversified corporation during a period of rapid economic expansion in mainland China. Instilling efficiency, productivity, management, and control into what had been a traditional state-owned enterprise posed challenges on many fronts. The case enables a discussion of the various ways in which balanced scorecards and strategy maps can be integrated with traditional management control systems to govern strategy implementation in a diversified corporation. Additionally, it allows students to appreciate the benefits and challenges of using highly formal performance management systems in the face of strategic uncertainty.
Provides a hotel context in which to explore the link between customer loyalty and financial performance, using four years of hotel data. Challenges students to find the extent of the relationship between loyalty and performance.
Dennis Campbell, Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Marc Epstein and Joshua Bellin
The MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas had detailed information on loyal gaming customers, but could its information systems also be tailored to nongaming customers? As the nongaming business sectors became increasingly profitable both at the MGM Grand and in Las Vegas generally, understanding the nongaming customers appeared to be of critical importance to the continuing growth of the resort.
Taught as the third module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations. Explores the role of data analysis in ongoing service management. Describes how to realize the maximum amount of value from analyses and use this information in decision-making while overcoming associated organizational resistance. Also addresses common pitfalls to designing and applying data analysis methods.
Explains the financial operations of retail banking, highlighting profitability challenges facing the industry. For U.S. banks, it is quite common for more than half of the customer base to be unprofitable and to have relatively few customers make up the vast majority of profits. Attempts to explain how retail banks generate revenue and incur costs while serving their customer base.
Explores the contextual elements of Major League Baseball and presents data to allow for an analytic examination of alleged market inefficiencies within the sport.
Provides a context in which students can explore managerial decision making that is critically informed by data analysis. The setting is a retail bank and the decision making relates to the bank's policy toward online banking. The management team is evaluating whether the bank should charge for access to online banking, provide incentives to use the service, or devise some other policy altogether. With thousands of customers already using the online site, the bank is well positioned to assess the impact of the service on customer profitability and retention before making final policy decisions. Told from the perspective of a recent MBA graduate who was charged with performing the necessary data analysis and ultimately coming up with policy recommendations.
BigEast is considering adopting a relationship-centric view in its credit card approval process. This would shift the bank's current practice of analyzing applications based on the merits of a single product to one where the customer's existing relationship is considered in the approval process.
Kulp, Susan L., V.G. Narayanan, and Dennis Campbell. "Store24." Harvard Business School Case 103-058, February 2003. (Revised March 2004.)
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The Boston Lyric Opera was the fastest growing opera company in North America during the 1990s. Having successfully completed a move to a larger facility in 1999, the board and general director recognize the need to develop a formal strategic planning and governance process to guide the company into the future. Board members, senior managers, and artistic leaders use the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as the focus of a multi-month strategic planning process that develops a strategy map and objectives in the four BSC perspectives for three core strategic themes. This case describes the high-level scorecard development, its cascading down to departments and individuals and the directors' interactions--using the Balanced Scorecard--with the artistic leaders and board of directors.
