Competitive Strategy →
- 20 Nov 2017
- Research & Ideas
How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com
Ryan Raffaelli set out to discover how independent bookstores managed to survive and even thrive in spite of competition from Amazon and other online retailers. His initial findings reveal how much consumers still value community and personal contact. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 05 Sep 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Structural Transformation: A Competitiveness-based View
A critical challenge for many economies is how to accelerate structural change when market forces alone seem insufficient. This paper explores the relationship between two approaches. The Structural Transformation framework argues for identifying and supporting target sectors in line with ‘latent’ competitive advantages. The competitiveness framework emphasizes the need to systematically strengthen competitive advantages, with new sectors the outcome rather than the driver of competitiveness upgrading.
- 23 Mar 2017
- Cold Call Podcast
Cost-cutting Leads to Turbulence in the Airline Industry
When a business known for delivering an exemplary customer experience faces cutbacks, what services get chopped? Assistant Professor Susanna Gallani discusses a recent case study about an airline that looks not just to survive a downturn but emerge stronger. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Dec 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Assortment Rotation and the Value of Concealment
Assortment rotation is the retailing practice of changing the assortment of products offered to customers throughout a selling season. It is used by both brick-and-mortar and online retailers as a strategy for gaining competitive advantage. This paper studies assortment rotation in product categories such as apparel, accessories, and toys, where consumers typically make multiple purchases during a season. The authors identify and explain a new reason for retailers to frequently rotate their assortment: Consumers may purchase more products throughout the selling season if a retailer conceals a portion of its full product catalog from consumers by rotating its assortment. Aside from its scholarly contributions, the paper provides practical insights to retailers to guide their assortment rotation strategy decisions.
- 23 Nov 2016
- Cold Call Podcast
Digital Change: Lessons from the Newspaper Industry
In a podcast, Professor Bharat Anand discusses Norwegian media giant Schibsted’s resounding success in the newspaper business through modernization of classified ads, bringing users together, and adopting a digital-first approach. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 21 Sep 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Android and Competition Law: Exploring and Assessing Google's Practices in Mobile
Benjamin Edelman and Damien Geradin argue that Google’s restrictions on device manufacturers wishing to develop commercially-viable Android devices harm competition to the detriment of consumers, as well as harming device manufacturers and developers of competing apps and services. Proposed remedies include allowing device manufacturers to install Google apps in whatever configurations they find convenient and in whatever way they believe the market will value.
- 19 Jul 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Towards a Prescriptive Theory of Dynamic Capabilities: Connecting Strategic Choice, Learning, and Competition
This paper explore how firms’ choices about capability investments shape competitive outcomes. In essence, while general-purpose management capabilities rooted in such activities as quality management systems and corporate governance may contribute to performance differences across firms, firms also need to develop market-specific capabilities to compete. It is also crucial to manage two types of uncertainty: supply side uncertainty to create new capabilities and demand side uncertainty about the value of those capabilities.
- 13 Jul 2016
- HBS Case
How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers
Thales Teixeira studies three of the most successful “platform” startups to understand the chicken-and-egg challenge of how companies can attract their first customers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 07 Apr 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Strategic Channel Selection with Online Platforms: An Empirical Analysis of the Daily Deal Industry
Platform businesses grow by connecting groups of customers. This study sheds light on the relative bargaining power of platforms and merchants, demonstrating that price bargaining power is an important factor to consider in platform competition. When the platform is too big and powerful, its strong bargaining power may push away some business partners and hence slow down growth.
- 29 Feb 2016
- HBS Case
Bigbelly's Big Bet on the Digital Trash Can
Bigbelly wants to transform its solar-powered trash cans into digital hubs offering Wi-Fi access, advertising, and data-collecting sensors. (Oh, and garbage receptacles, too.) A new case study by Mitchell Weiss explores the challenges of a bold strategy pivot. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Feb 2016
- Research & Ideas
The ‘Mother of Fair Trade’ was an Unabashed Price Protectionist
Historian Laura Phillips Sawyer unearths the story of little-known drug store owner Edna Gleason who, in a man’s world, helped fire a progressive movement to protect small-business owners from price-slashing chains. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 Dec 2015
- Research Event
When Hosts Attack: The Competitive Threat of Online Platforms
Online retail platforms like Amazon are great for the third-party businesses that use them—until the platform’s owner decides to start competing with them. Feng Zhu looks at the factors that turn hosts into predators. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 28 Oct 2015
- Research & Ideas
A Dedication to Creation: India's Ad Man Ranjan Kapur
How do you build a brand amid the uncertainties and opportunities of a developing market? Harvard Business School Professor Sunil Gupta shares lessons learned from Ranjan Kapur, an iconic figure in the Indian advertising industry. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Oct 2015
- Working Paper Summaries
A Normative Theory of Dynamic Capabilities: Connecting Strategy, Know-How, and Competition
Gary Pisano examines how companies compete on "know how" by analyzing how they invest in different capabilities.
- 09 Sep 2015
- Research & Ideas
Leadership Lessons of the Great Recession: Options for Economic Downturns
In the new case study “Honeywell and the Great Recession,” Sandra Sucher and Susan Winterberg explore employer tradeoffs when a downturn hits: conducting layoffs vs. orchestrating furloughs. Plus: Video interviews with Honeywell CEO Dave Cote. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 04 Sep 2013
- What Do You Think?
How Relevant is Long-Range Strategic Planning?
Summing Up: Jim Heskett's readers argue that long-range planning, while necessary for organizational success, must be adaptable to the competitive environment. What do YOU think? Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 03 May 2010
- Research & Ideas
What Is the Future of MBA Education?
Why get an MBA degree? Transformations in business and society make this question increasingly urgent for executives, business school deans, students, faculty, and the public. In a new book, Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads, Harvard Business School's Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin, and Patrick G. Cullen suggest opportunities for innovation. Q&A with Datar and Garvin plus book excerpt. Key concepts include: Executives and business school deans raised multiple concerns about the MBA landscape when the authors interviewed them for an HBS Centennial colloquium in 2008 on the future of MBA education. The challenges: Stakeholders question the value-added of MBA degrees. And MBAs lack sufficient leadership development, a "global mindset," and skill in navigating organizational realities. Rethinking the MBA examines each challenge in turn, and provides six case studies of schools that demonstrate flexibility and innovation in MBA education. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 01 Mar 2010
- Op-Ed
A Golden Opportunity for Ford and GM
With Toyota caught in a downshift, competitors should make aggressive moves to capitalize, says HBS professor Bill George. For starters, they need to improve their auto lineups for the long term. He explains how Ford and GM can best navigate the industry landscape ahead. Key concepts include: For U.S. automakers to accelerate production while Toyota remains wounded is not a long-term strategy for success. The companies should cut costs while simultaneously transforming their organizations and revamping product lineups. Ford and GM could secure market share gains by investing windfall profits into making products more competitive for the next decade. In this regard, Ford has the jump on GM. Chrysler is missing a golden opportunity to revamp, reposition, and reorganize. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 24 Nov 2009
- Working Paper Summaries
From Strategy to Business Models and to Tactics
Drivers such as globalization, deregulation, or technological change, just to mention a few, are profoundly changing the competitive game. Scholars and practitioners agree that the fastest-growing firms in this new environment appear to have taken advantage of these structural changes to compete "differently" and innovate in their business models. However, there is not yet agreement on what are the distinctive features of superior business models. This dispute may have arisen, in part, because of a lack of a clear distinction between the notions of strategy, business model, and tactics. HBS professor Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Joan Enric Ricart present an integrative framework to distinguish and relate the concepts of business model, strategy, and tactics. Key concepts include: An integrative framework that cleanly separates the realm of business model, strategy, and tactics will help guide the search for novel, interesting, and profitable new ways to compete. "Business model" refers to the logic of the firm, the way it operates, and how it creates value for its stakeholders. "Strategy" refers to the choice of business model through which the firm will compete in the marketplace. "Tactics" refers to the residual choices open to a firm by virtue of the business model that it employs. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
Trials and Terminations: Learning from Competitors' R&D Failures
When companies terminate R&D projects, it has ripple effects on the project selection decisions of rival firms and the broader competitive environment. Examining firm responses to others’ failures, this paper introduces a new model of R&D investment decisions, and empirically investigates when knowledge generated by rivals directly enters specific project investment decisions.