HBR Store - Business Case Studies (2024)

Case

Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

By David A. Garvin, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld, Liz Kind,

Google's Project Oxygen started with a fundamental question raised by executives in the early 2000s: do managers matter? The topic generated a multi-year research project that ultimately led to a comprehensive program, built around eight key management...

April 03, 2013

Case

Big Hit Entertainment and Blockbuster Band BTS: K-Pop Goes Global

By Anita Elberse, Lizzy Woodham,

Bang Si-Hyuk ('Hitman Bang') is the founder and co-chief executive officer of Big Hit Entertainment, the company behind BTS, a 'K-pop' band that has found unparalleled success around the globe-a remarkable feat given that most of their songs are in...

June 08, 2020

Case

Cirque du Soleil

By Thomas J. DeLong, Vineeta Vijayaraghavan,

Retaining talent is an issue for any company whose success relies on the creativity and excellence of its employees. This is especially true for Cirque du Soleil, the spectacularly successful "circus without animals," whose 2,100 employees include 500...

July 18, 2002

Case

GE's Two-Decade Transformation: Jack Welch's Leadership

By Christopher A. Bartlett,

GE is faced with Jack Welch's impending retirement and whether anyone can sustain the blistering pace of change and growth characteristic of the Welch era. After briefly describing GE's heritage and Welch's transformation of the company's business...

April 28, 1999

Case

Pinckney Street

By William J. Poorvu, Arthur I Segel, John H. Vogel, Lisa Strope, Erich Dylus,

Although inexperienced in real estate, Edward Alexander hopes in June 2013 that youthful enthusiasm and an $240,000 in savings and inheritance will help him enter the real estate business. His experience chronicles the process of finding, evaluating, and...

May 31, 2013

Case

Army Crew Team

By Scott A. Snook, Jeffrey T. Polzer,

The coach of the varsity Army crew team at West Point assembled his top eight rowers into the first crew team and the second tier of rowers into the second team using objective data on individual performance. As the second boat continually beat the first...

January 31, 2003

Case

Chase Sapphire: Creating a Millennial Cult Brand

By Shelle Santana, Jill Avery, Christine Snively,

The Inside the Case video that accompanies this case includes teaching tips and insight from the author (available to registered educators only). The launch of the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card was enthusiastically received by Millennial consumers,...

September 28, 2017

Case

Trader Joe's

By David L. Ager, Michael A. Roberto,

The Inside the Case video that accompanies this case includes teaching tips and insight from the author (available to registered educators only). Based on a variety of metrics, Trader Joe's ranked as one of the most successful grocers in the United...

September 07, 2013

Case

Amazon.com, 2021

By John R. Wells, Benjamin Weinstock, Galen Danskin, Gabriel Ellsworth,

In February 2021, Amazon announced 2020 operating profits of $22,899 million, up from $2,233 million in 2015, on sales of $386 billion, up from $107 billion five years earlier (see Exhibit 1). The shareholders expressed their satisfaction (see Exhibit...

August 03, 2015

Case

Leadership in Crisis: Ernest Shackleton and the Epic Voyage of the Endurance

By Nancy F. Koehn, Erica Helms, Phillip Mead,

Provides an opportunity to examine leadership and entrepreneurship in the context of Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Antarctic expedition, a compelling story of crisis, survival, and triumph. Summarizes Shackleton's career as an officer in the British Merchant...

April 02, 2003

Case

The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations

By Mihir A. Desai, Suzanne Antoniou, Leanne Fan,

The Inside the Case video that accompanies this case includes teaching tips and insight from the author (available to registered educators only). How should historic social injustices be addressed? Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their...

November 10, 2020

Case

Podimetrics: Next Steps for Diabetes Care

By Regina E. Herzlinger, Ben Creo,

Podimetrics, a virtual care management company treating adults with acute diabetes, sat at the intersection of medical device technology, digital health, and health services. Its SmartMat had demonstrated that it could help prevent amputations and that...

October 03, 2022

Case

Revenue Solutions, LLC

By Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff,

July 17, 2012

Case

Managing Science: Perspectives from Postdocs

By Kyle R. Myers, Rembrand Koning, Solene Delecourt, Katelyn Cranney, Kris Gulati, Scott Sawaya,

August 15, 2024

Case

Para: Pay Transparency and Gig Drivers' Rights

By Christopher Stanton, George Gonzalez,

The case presents the founding vision and early days of a young startup that seeks to empower delivery drivers with tools and transparency. The company's flagship mobile app has been taken up by tens of thousands of delivery drivers across major U.S...

November 16, 2022

Case

Tesco Business Solutions: Enhancing Employee Experience Through Hyper-Personalization of the Employee Value Proposition

By Debolina Dutta,

Established in 2004 as a Global Business Services (GBS) hub for Tesco PLC, Tesco Business Solutions (TBS) in Bangalore had grown impressively to more than 2600 employees by April 2023. Spearheaded by Sumit Mitra, CEO of TBS, and supported by Somnath...

September 01, 2024

Case

Stellar Development Foundation

By Shai Bernstein, Scott Duke Kominers, George Gonzalez,

Blockchain pioneer Stellar Development Foundation partners with cross-border payments provider MoneyGram to connect digital cryptocurrencies with real-world assets.

July 01, 2024

Case

SuperMonkey: A Pay-Per-Session Gym

By Yi Lu, Hua Zhang, Xiayan Huang,

Founded in 2014, SuperMonkey is an innovative gym brand that has disrupted the traditional gym membership model with its "pay-per-session, no annual memberships; professional coaches, no sales pitches" approach. Initially, SuperMonkey offered a unique...

June 28, 2024

Supplement

Salesperson Job Offer Negotiation (B): Dakota Gatti

By Ann C. Frost, Samir Hudda,

This exercise provides students with an engaging two-person negotiation between an employer and a job candidate over the details of a sales role with The Peak, a small but rapidly growing news-media start-up in Canada. The Peak's co-founder and chief...

June 26, 2024

Supplement

Salesperson Job Offer Negotiation (A): Brett Chang

By Ann C. Frost, Samir Hudda,

This exercise provides students with an engaging two-person negotiation between an employer and a job candidate over the details of a sales role with The Peak, a small but rapidly growing news-media start-up in Canada. The Peak's co-founder and chief...

June 26, 2024

Exercise

Salesperson Job Offer Negotiation

By Ann C. Frost, Samir Hudda,

This exercise provides students with an engaging two-person negotiation between an employer and a job candidate over the details of a sales role with The Peak, a small but rapidly growing news-media start-up in Canada. The Peak's co-founder and chief...

June 26, 2024

Case

By Ming Dong, Qi Sun, Ning Su,

The World Economic Forum and the consulting firm McKinsey & Company collaborated with academics to create the concept of lighthouse factories in 2018. The concept represents a vision for manufacturing in the digital age, in which cutting-edge digital...

June 27, 2024

Case

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited: Digitizing Payment Systems

By Bikramjit Rishi, Mona Srivastava, Agniv Bhattacharya,

In February 2019, D. K. Ram, the executive director of liquid petroleum gas at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), read a newspaper headline in his office in Mumbai. The paper reported that two delivery boys had been killed while returning to a...

June 17, 2024

Case

Wendy's: A "Frosty" Reception for Dynamic Pricing

By Fabrizio Di Muro,

In February 2024, Wendy's CEO Kirk Tanner announced that the company planned to test dynamic pricing at select US locations sometime in 2025. However, the company's announcement generated a significant negative public reaction, to such an extent that...

June 19, 2024

Case

Toyota's Future: Hydrogen- and Battery-Powered Vehicles

By Yuri Taira,

Despite the supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) managed to increase its sales and retain its title as the world's top-selling carmaker for three consecutive years from 2020. However, the gradual...

June 14, 2024

Case

Balmer Lawrie: Developing and Scaling Up an Effective and Sustainable Mentorship Program

By Atul Arun Pathak, Ashis Sen,

In September 2022, Balmer Lawrie & Co Ltd., a highly diversified Indian public-sector enterprise, was reviewing the outcomes of its mentorship program, which had been launched as a pilot initiative about a year earlier. The company had hired an external...

June 13, 2024

Case

Gopuff: In Search of Profitable Strategies in the Q-commerce Sector

By Arpita Agnihotri, Saurabh Bhattacharya,

In March 2023, Gopuff, a player in the quick commerce (Q-commerce) industry, was experiencing intense competition and was also unprofitable. Gopuff's vertical integration model was different than other e-commerce or marketplace companies like Amazon or...

June 17, 2024

Case

Toters Delivery: Culture Driving Performance

By Alain Daou, Anas Kharpoutly, Raghida Abdallah Yassine,

Within a single year, Lebanon experienced multiple adversities, from the economic crisis in October 2019, to the COVID-19 pandemic, to the Port of Beirut explosion on August 4, 2020. Many start-ups had to shut down during this period. This case...

June 04, 2024

Supplement

ZS Associates: Research and Development Specialist (HANDOUT 3)

By Panos Markou, Amy Klopfenstein,

Handout for case UV8564

July 02, 2024

Case

Private Equity and Infrastructure: Antin's TowerCo Deal (A)

By Denis Gromb,

Set in 2012, the case centers on Antin IP, a young private equity firm targeting brownfield infrastructure assets in Europe, and its acquisition of over 2,000 cell towers from French telecommunications company Bouygues Telecom. The case epilogue reviews...

August 07, 2020

Industry and Background Note

Moral Disengagement in Decision-Making

By Sean Martin,

This technical note describes an important rationalization process called moral disengagement that helps explain why and how people make decisions that stray away from the values they claim to hold. This reading explains what moral disengagement is, how...

July 24, 2024

Case

Oli: Can Artificial Intelligence Support Personal Well-Being?

By Roshni Raveendhran, Amy Klopfenstein,

Set in March 2024, this case asks students to take the perspective of Oli cofounder and CEO Sathish Gangichetty as he approaches an impact investor for seed funding. Oli is an app that draws on artificial intelligence (AI) to improve users' mental...

July 23, 2024

Case

Wabanaki Maple: Building for Growth

By Jane Fraser, Mary Oxner,

The case focuses on the required financing for a new building for Wabanaki Maple, founded by Jolene Johnson and located in Tobique, New Brunswick, Canada. Johnson had to prepare financial information in advance of a meeting with an economic development...

June 19, 2024

Case

Bone Brox: From a Startup to an Established Business

By Christoph Engl, Sophia Pauer,

Cofounders of the Berlin-based startup Bone Brox developed a traditional bone broth made from organic, pasture-fed cattle and free-range chickens. Although they had a polarizing product, the founders tapped into the health and awareness trend and managed...

June 13, 2024

Case

The Renaissance Suzhou Hotel: Turning Crisis into Opportunity

By Steven Zhou, Wen Chang, Abby Zhou, Xiaoyun Zheng, Jiang Yun,

On the morning of November 25, 2021, the general manager of the Renaissance Suzhou Hotel received a call from the administrative committee of a nearby business district informing him that some guests who had stayed at the hotel a few days earlier had...

June 13, 2024

Case

RSM Canada: Generation Z Post-COVID Work Design

By Sofy Carayannopoulos,

Rhonda Klosler, chief operating officer at RSM Canada (RSM) is chairing a meeting to discuss post-COVID-19 pandemic work design. RSM has recognized that remote work offers employees greater flexibility and work satisfaction, while giving RSM the...

June 12, 2024

Case

Indus Motors: Inventory Management

By Joshin John, Neetha J. Eappen, Kingsly Sam Raj S,

Indus Motors was a large automotive dealer and service provider in the state of Kerala (India), with a network of five zonal warehouses and 76 service centres. The company was grappling with inventory management issues, such as excess stock and...

June 05, 2024

Case

WhatKnot Photography: Value versus Volume

By Binata Banerjee, Sakhhi Chhabra, Gita Bajaj,

In June 2021, Mumbai-based WhatKnot Wedding Photography faced a critical decision between pursuing high-value celebrity weddings or maintaining their focus on mid-size clients. A potential celebrity wedding contract posed a significant opportunity for...

June 07, 2024

Case

Haveli Ram to Havells: A Global Giant's Challenge

By Arup Majumdar, Tapan Sarker, Subba Lakshmi Prabha,

In March 2023, Havells India Ltd., founded by Haveli Ram Gandhi and later acquired by Qimat Rai Gupta, reported a significant increase in turnover to $2.06 billion from a low of $1.14 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Despite its...

June 11, 2024

Case

Sri Sabari Engimech Pvt. Ltd.: Hard Times and Recovery in the Operations and Maintenance Market

By Minu Zachariah, Neetha Mary Avanesh, Matthew J. Manimala,

Sri Sabari Engimech Private Limited (SSEPL), a firm founded in 2001, provided contract-based staff for the operations and maintenance (O&M) of plant and machinery (P&M), mainly in the petrochemical sector. The founder reaped profits from the first month...

June 25, 2024

Case

MacKinnon Brothers Brewing Company: Building a Farm-Based Brewery

By Neil Maltby,

Ivan and Dan MacKinnon grew up on a farm in Bath, Ontario, where the brothers learned about the importance of farming and local supply chains. In 2014, the brothers put together their farming assets and brewing and engineering skills and launched their...

June 17, 2024

Case

Growth at Menstrupedia: Battling Social Injustice or Chasing Pure Profits?

By Deepa Kumari, Ritu Srivastava, Meeta Dasgupta,

When they are posed with two intriguing offers on the fund-raising television show Shark Tank India, the co-founders of Menstrupedia Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Menstrupedia), Aditi Gupta and Tuhin Paul, are faced with a tough decision. Should they forgo the...

June 20, 2024

Case

Busy Corner: Launching New Business in Uncertain Times

By Steven Zwane, Anastacia Mamabolo,

Phumlaphi Rita Zwane, founder of Busy Corner, a thriving Shisanyama (African barbeque) business in Thembisa, South Africa, faced a pivotal decision amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Motivated by aspirations for business expansion and the pursuit of new...

June 07, 2024

Case

Building a Training Culture at Montecarlo Limited

By Jatin Christie, Jignesh Shah,

Montecarlo Limited (MCL), a 25-year-old infrastructure and construction company in India, had invested in building effective human resources (HR) processes and a better employee experience. While it was unconventional for companies in this industry,...

June 06, 2024

Supplement

Matteo Hill at Drawn, Inc. (C)

By Roshni Raveendhran, Devin Kurt, Gerry Yemen,

This case, which concludes the scenario set up in "Matteo Hill at Drawn, Inc. (A)" (UVA-OB-1293) and "Matteo Hill at Drawn, Inc. (B)" (UVA-OB-1459), reveals the outcome of the heated discussion about recently acquired start-up Drawn, Inc., sharing the...

July 24, 2024

Case

Matteo Hill at Drawn, Inc. (A)

By Roshni Raveendhran, Devin Kurt,

This case uses the context of a recently acquired computer animation start-up, Drawn, Inc., to surface the tension around the differences between team members' backgrounds and their experiences within an organization. When the raw data from a weekly...

July 12, 2019

Industry and Background Note

A Conceptual Introduction to Customer Lifetime Value

By Zhihao Zhang, Kimberly Whitler,

An important metric that plays a pivotal role in marketing is customer lifetime value (CLV). Given the constraint of limited marketing budgets, a company can enhance the return on its marketing investment by strategizing to allocate marketing resources...

July 24, 2024

Case

Enowa: Powering an Entire Region with 100% Renewables

By Stefan Reichelstein, Rezvan Derayati, Margot Sutherland,

In August 2023, Jens Madrian considered the final question arising from his presentation to researchers at Stanford on designing a 100 percent renewable energy system for an ambitious development initiative named NEOM, signifying new future, in Saudi...

August 09, 2024

Case

Anthyesti Funeral Services: Time for Business Model Transformation

By Saumya Sindhwani, Vinodini Saihjpal, Geetika Shah,

It was November 2022. Shruthi Reddy, Founder and Director of Anthyesti Funeral Services (hereinafter Anthyesti), sat in her Bengaluru office, reflecting on the past five years. Reddy had established Anthyesti in Kolkata, India, in 2017. The societal...

June 26, 2024

Case

Tatung: Lin Family Ousted in Third Generation, Outsiders Win Control

By Morten Bennedsen, Chung Hsi-Mei, Yi-Chun Lu, Henry Brian,

This case explores the downfall of a century-old family-owned and managed firm in Taiwan called Tatung. It follows its history from a construction company firm with large land holdings in Northern Taiwan to one of the most well-known makers of electronic...

July 03, 2024

Supplement

The Evolution of the Hotel Industry (B): Blue Ocean Perspective W Hotels - The W Way Leading the Boutique Hotel Industry

By Guoli Chen, Ningzi Li, Yixing Tong,

This case focuses on the evolution of the hotel industry (red ocean and blue ocean perspectives) and the strategic and innovative creation of a leading boutique hotel brand - W Hotels. Emerging at a time when the industry was relatively stagnant, W...

July 03, 2024