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- 2024
- Working Paper
Does the Case for Private Equity Still Hold?
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Philipp Chvanov
Private Equity (“PE”) received a 10-fold increase in capital flows since the Great Financial Crisis (“GFC”) Investors sought higher nominal returns relative to those they could obtain in the public capital markets. This paper questions the fundamental assumptions...
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- September 2023 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Going Mobile-First? The Digital Transformation of Davivienda Bank in Colombia
By: Jorge Tamayo and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago
Set in 2017, this case describes the digital transformation strategy of Davivienda— a leading player in Colombia’s commercial banking and one of the companies belonging to Grupo Bolívar, a major Colombian financial conglomerate. The case also describes the pioneer role...
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Keywords:
Change Management;
Transformation;
Decision Choices and Conditions;
Information Technology;
Digital Strategy;
Digital Transformation;
Internet and the Web;
Mobile and Wireless Technology;
Innovation and Management;
Innovation Strategy;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Business Strategy;
Banking Industry;
Latin America;
Central America;
South America;
Colombia
- April 2023 (Revised July 2023)
- Case
Fermenting Accounting Problems at Vermont Kombucha Corp.
By: Tatiana Sandino and Marshal Herrmann
Founded in 2005, Vermont Kombucha Corp. (V-Ko) was an early mover in the fledgling U.S. market for kombucha, a drink brewed for its health benefits. Early on, the company captured more than 90% of market share. Under the leadership of its founder and CEO, Joe Williams,...
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- March 2023 (Revised August 2023)
- Case
Majid Al Futaim: Adapting the Shopping Mall to the Digital Era
By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu
The case opens in August 2022, as Ahmed Galal Ismail, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Properties and Fatima Zada, digital and omnichannel director at Majid Al Futtaim Shopping Malls, go over the plans to roll out the omnichannel mall offering for the Mall of the Emirates they...
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- December 2022 (Revised June 2023)
- Case
KKR at CHI Overhead Doors (A)
By: Dennis Campbell and Ethan Rouen
This case examines the decision by private equity firm KKR to grant equity to every employee at portfolio company CHI Overhead Doors upon purchasing the company in 2015. The case explores whether this initiative will create shared value, growing profits through better...
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- April 2022
- Teaching Note
Tempur Sealy International (A, B & C)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 718-422, 718-423, and 718-424. The cases explore the long-term relationship between Tempur Sealy (TPX, a mattress manufacturer) and Mattress Firm (MFRM, a bedding retailer and TPX's largest customer). For almost 20 years, the firms...
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Keywords:
Porter's 5 Forces;
Bargaining Power;
Buyer Power;
Customer Power;
Supplier Power;
Negotiations;
Value Capture;
Private Equity;
Consumer Durables;
Consumer Discretionary;
Mattresses;
B-2-B;
Industry Dynamics;
Leadership;
Compensation;
Corporate Strategy;
Business Strategy;
Value Creation;
Competition;
Cooperation;
Distribution;
Negotiation;
Industry Structures;
Customers;
Relationships;
Distribution Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Retail Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
United States;
South Africa
- April 2022
- Case
The First Opium War and Global Free Trade
By: Jeremy Friedman and Allison Lazarus
The First Opium War (1839-1842) symbolized the peak of the era of European imperialism, with a political and cultural legacy that remains potent to this day. The British Empire, “acquired in a fit of absent-mindedness” as one observer famously claimed, seemed to be...
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Keywords:
Imperialism;
Narcotics;
Importing;
History;
Globalized Markets and Industries;
Trade;
Social Issues
- December 2021
- Article
Employee Responses to Compensation Changes: Evidence from a Sales Firm
By: Jason Sandvik, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert and Christopher Stanton
What are the long-term consequences of compensation changes? Using data from an inbound sales call center, we study employee responses to a compensation change that ultimately reduced take-home pay by 7% for the average affected worker. The change caused a significant...
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- November 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
AppHarvest: Rebuilding the Appalachian Economy Through Agriculture
By: Joshua Lev Krieger, William R. Kerr and Christian Godwin
In 2021, AppHarvest completed construction of a 60-acre indoor farming facility, one of the world’s largest, recorded its first sales, and went public in a multi-billion dollar IPO. Described as “a force of nature,” Jonathan Webb founded the company to bring jobs back...
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- November 2021
- Case
LKQ-Stahlgruber
By: Guhan Subramanian and Caeden Brynie
Through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, LKQ Corp. became the leading aftermarket auto parts distributor in the U.S. by the early 2000s. Beginning in 2012, the company began similarly consolidating the European marketplace. However, by 2017, the...
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- September 2021 (Revised December 2023)
- Case
On the Bubble: Startup Bootstrapping
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Tom Quinn and Annelena Lobb
Bubble was a software company in the low-code/no-code market, making tools that allowed users without traditional programming backgrounds or technical skills to build software. The case covers cofounder Joshua Haas’s engineering background, as he experienced a high...
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Keywords:
Business Startups;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Business Model;
Business Plan;
Disruption;
Transformation;
Trends;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Customer Relationship Management;
Cost vs Benefits;
Decisions;
Entrepreneurship;
Venture Capital;
Equity;
Executive Compensation;
Recruitment;
Selection and Staffing;
Disruptive Innovation;
Technological Innovation;
Job Interviews;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Ownership Stake;
Opportunities;
Applications and Software;
Technology Adoption;
Technology Industry;
Web Services Industry;
New York (city, NY);
California;
France
- 2021
- Chapter
Digital Transformation and the Salesforce: Observations, Warnings, and Recommendations
Sales is a crucial test for organizational change, including productive use (or not) of new technologies. Changes in selling always have wider organizational implications, because so many other decisions and resource commitments in firms depend upon demand forecasts...
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- April 2021
- Article
The Effects of Quota Frequency: Sales Performance and Product Focus
By: Doug J. Chung, Das Narayandas and Dongkyu Chang
This study investigates the comprehensive and multidimensional effects of quota (goal) frequency on sales force performance. We develop a theory of salespeople’s behavior—aggregate effort and the product type focus—in response to the temporal length of a sales-quota...
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- March 2021 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
M-KOPA: Empowering Lives
By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Wale Lawal and Pippa Tubman Armerding
The Pay As You Go solar power company in East Africa had sales of $71 million in 2019. It wished to grow to $300 million by 2025. M-KOPA, founded by three entrepreneurs in 2011, had grown nicely in Kenya and Uganda to reach nearly 750,000 households with an innovative...
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- January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Teaching Note
Maritz Automotive
By: Ashley V. Whillans and Lamar Pierce
This case focuses on Charlotte Blank, the Chief Behavioral Officer at Maritz, as she tries to assist a major automotive manufacturer (CarCo) with increasing their sales by prepaying monthly bonuses to independently franchised car dealers and clawing them back if the...
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- July 2020
- Technical Note
Digital Natives Growing Without a Sales Force
By: Das Narayandas, Michael Norris and Amram Migdal
This brief case describes the rise of so-called digital natives (also called born-in-digital) in the 2000s and 2010s that successfully grew without a sales force. The case highlights the emergence of business-to-business Internet and cloud-based companies and their...
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Keywords:
Government Administration;
Crisis Management;
Health;
Health Pandemics;
Innovation and Invention;
Innovation Leadership;
Innovation Strategy;
Technological Innovation;
Social Issues;
Information Technology;
Mobile and Wireless Technology;
Applications and Software;
Technology Adoption;
Information Technology Industry;
Australia;
North and Central America;
United States;
Illinois;
Chicago;
California;
San Francisco
- May 2020
- Teaching Note
Chem-Ecol
By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld
Dahra Allen acquired Chem-Ecol, a machine oil recycling business, for C$13.3 million in December of 2012. Allen decided to hire a sales director and the case discussion largely focuses on selecting the sales director from her short-list of five candidates. During the...
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- February 2020
- Technical Note
Talent Management and the Future of Work
By: William R. Kerr and Gorick Ng
The nature of work is changing—and it is changing rapidly. Few days go by without industry giants such as Amazon and AT&T announcing plans to invest billions of dollars towards retraining nearly half of their respective workforces for jobs of the future. What changes...
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Keywords:
Human Resource Management;
Human Capital Development;
Human Resource Practices;
Talent;
Talent Acquisition;
Talent Development;
Talent Development And Retention;
Talent Management;
Talent Retention;
Labor Flows;
Labor Management;
Labor Market;
Strategy Development;
Strategy Management;
Strategy Execution;
Strategy And Execution;
Strategic Change;
Transformations;
Organization;
Organization Alignment;
Organization Design;
Organizational Adaptation;
Organizational Effectiveness;
Management Challenges;
Management Of Business And Political Risk;
Change Leadership;
Future Of Work;
Future;
Skills Gap;
Skills Development;
Skills;
Offshoring And Outsourcing;
Investment;
Capital Allocation;
Work;
Work Culture;
Work Force Management;
Work/life Balance;
Work/family Balance;
Work-family Boundary Management;
Workers;
Worker Productivity;
Worker Performance;
Work Engagement;
Work Environment;
Work Environments;
Productivity;
Organization Culture;
Soft Skills;
Technology Management;
Technological Change;
Technological Change: Choices And Consequences;
Technology Diffusion;
Disruptive Technology;
Global Business;
Global;
Workplace;
Workplace Context;
Workplace Culture;
Workplace Wellness;
Collaboration;
Competencies;
Productivity Gains;
Digital;
Digital Transition;
Competitive Dynamics;
Competitiveness;
Competitive Strategy;
Data Analytics;
Data;
Data Management;
Data Strategy;
Data Protection;
Aging Society;
Diversity;
Diversity Management;
Millennials;
Communication Complexity;
Communication Technologies;
International Business;
Work Sharing;
Global Competitiveness;
Global Corporate Cultures;
Intellectual Property;
Intellectual Property Management;
Intellectual Property Protection;
Intellectual Capital And Property Issues;
Globalization Of Supply Chain;
Inequality;
Recruiting;
Hiring;
Hiring Of Employees;
Training;
Job Cuts And Outsourcing;
Job Performance;
Job Search;
Job Design;
Job Satisfaction;
Jobs;
Employee Engagement;
Employee Attitude;
Employee Benefits;
Employee Compensation;
Employee Fairness;
Employee Relationship Management;
Employee Retention;
Employee Selection;
Employee Motivation;
Employee Feedback;
Employee Coordination;
Employee Performance Management;
Employee Socialization;
Process Improvement;
Application Performance Management;
Stigma;
Institutional Change;
Candidates;
Digital Enterprise;
Cultural Adaptation;
Cultural Change;
Cultural Diversity;
Cultural Context;
Cultural Strategies;
Cultural Psychology;
Cultural Reform;
Performance;
Performance Effectiveness;
Performance Management;
Performance Evaluation;
Performance Appraisal;
Performance Feedback;
Performance Measurement;
Performance Metrics;
Performance Measures;
Performance Efficiency;
Efficiency;
Performance Analysis;
Performance Appraisals;
Performance Improvement;
Automation;
Artificial Intelligence;
Technology Companies;
Managerial Processes;
Skilled Migration;
Assessment;
Human Resources;
Management;
Human Capital;
Talent and Talent Management;
Retention;
Demographics;
Labor;
Strategy;
Change;
Change Management;
Transformation;
Organizational Change and Adaptation;
Organizational Culture;
Working Conditions;
Information Technology;
Technology Adoption;
Disruption;
Economy;
Competition;
Globalization;
AI and Machine Learning;
Digital Transformation
- November 2019 (Revised April 2020)
- Case
Purple Innovation, Inc.: The Online to Offline Marketing Challenge
By: Elie Ofek and Nakisha Williams
This case focuses on Purple Innovation Inc. (Purple), a company that started out in the Direct to Consumer (DTC) mattress space. In late 2018, after a successful launch and IPO with sales predominantly originating from its website, Purple was looking to sustain its...
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- Article
Sales Methodologies and Selling
Sales methodologies play an important role. A common approach in a sales force allows for consistency, dissemination of best practices, acceleration of learning, and it helps the firm to scale because management then has common metrics to monitor and evaluate. However,...
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