Cold Call

Israel turned 70 years old in May of 2018, but its brand image internationally was less than ideal. Market research revealed that many people associated Israel primarily with military conflict. Harvard Business School professor Elie Ofek discusses efforts to rebrand the country in his case, “Israel at 70: Is it Possible to (re)Brand a Country?”

Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta explores the infiltration of Amazon into dozens of industries including web services, grocery, online video streaming, content creation and, oh, did we mention physical bookstores? What’s the big plan? Is the company spread too thin, or poised for astronomical success? Gupta is the author of the case study, “Amazon 2019.”

Challenges related to managing religion in the workplace are on the rise, as are religious discrimination claims and monetary settlements in the U.S. and around the world. Harvard Business School professor Derek van Bever discusses two examples in his case, “Managing Religion in the Workplace: Abercrombie & Fitch and Masterpiece Cakeshop.”

Toronto is experimenting with smart city concepts envisioned by Google spin-off Sidewalk Labs. Harvard Business School professors Leslie John and Mitch Weiss discuss the tradeoffs of using technology to improve modern city life at potential costs to digital privacy from their case, “Sidewalk Labs: Privacy in a City Built from the Internet Up.” Is it worth it?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced a crucible moment in 2018 after Cambridge Analytica accessed data from 87 million Facebook accounts. Harvard Business School professor Bill George discusses his case, “Facebook Confronts a Crisis of Trust,” including why Zuckerberg handled the crisis as he did, the role of companies in protecting privacy, and the pros and cons of regulation.

Fishbowl's founders have built a social media platform allowing professionals to connect anonymously and with candor within their companies and industry. But the app is still largely limited to the consulting industry. Can they extend the app into other sectors? What’s the winning business model? Will adding employers to the mix pay off or kill the value? Harvard Business School professor Leslie John discusses her case study exploring the boundaries of social media and personal privacy.

Harvard Business School professor Geoff Jones examines the career of Helena Rubinstein, one of the trailblazing female entrepreneurs of the 20th century. Using guile, brilliant branding, and more than a few falsehoods, Rubinstein lifted cosmetics from an accessory item for prostitutes to a great luxury item during the Great Depression.

What happens when Intermountain Healthcare invests resources in an innovative precision medicine unit to provide life-extending, genetically targeted therapies to late-stage cancer patients? Harvard Business School professors Richard Hamermesh and Kathy Giusti discuss the case and its connections to their work with the Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator.

Have you ever wondered how Hershey chocolate came to be so popular? Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn discusses the life and vision of Milton Hershey, the entrepreneur and philanthropist behind the Hershey chocolate bar, the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, and the Milton Hershey School.

Harvard Business School professor Ray Goldberg discusses how Wegmans CEO faced a food safety issue and then helped the industry determine how it could become more proactive in the future.

How deeply does the culture of a startup matter? Can it be shaped? Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey Rayport discusses WeWork cofounder Miguel McKelvey’s innovative role in building a company culture to support rapid growth.

Was Eastern Labs a huge success or an expensive mistake? Eastern Bank CEO Bob Rivers innovates from within by partnering with fintech entrepreneur Dan O’Malley to launch a completely automated small business lending product. Harvard Business School professor Karen Mills discusses key questions from the case: 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?

After thirty years of research and development, the HondaJet is now the top selling jet in the very light jet segment of the market. Harvard Business School professor Gary Pisano discusses how Honda Aircraft Corporation CEO Michimasa Fujino brings the jet to life, and must now decide on ways to grow the business.

Feeding America is the third largest nonprofit in America, managing a network of more than 200 food banks nationwide. Harvard Business School professor Scott Duke Kominers and University of Chicago professor Canice Prendergast discuss how the organization designed a marketplace that was efficient and fair for all participants.

Is it time to throw out the creative director and rely on big data to predict what consumers want to wear next? Harvard Business School professor Ayelet Israeli discusses how Gap CEO Art Peck considers this bold idea to boost sales.

Harvard Business School professor Bill Kerr discusses how Vodafone, one of the largest companies in the telecommunications space, incorporated technological advancements like big data, automation, and artificial intelligence to improve productivity while ensuring new opportunities were created for the next generation of workers.

Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane brought a data driven and unconventional approach to winning baseball games. By setting strategy and articulating the metric to evaluate and acquire the players who would ultimately implement his strategy on the field, Beane’s sabermetrics approach brought about a cultural shift in baseball from the players and managers to coaches and scouts. Harvard Business School professor Srikant Datar discusses how strategy and metrics work hand-in-hand, and how Beane’s story provides companies with important lessons in data science.

Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones examines the career of Ernesto Tornquist, a cosmopolitan financier considered to be the most significant entrepreneur in Argentina at the end of the 19th century. He created a diversified business group, linked to the political elite, integrating Argentina into the trading and financial networks of the first global economy. The case, "Ernesto Tornquist: Making a Fortune on the Pampas," provides an opportunity to understand why Argentina was such a successful economy at this time, and to debate whether its very success laid the basis for the country’s subsequent poor economic performance.

American President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change just over a year ago. What does that mean for the role of United States companies and business leaders in confronting climate change challenges? Harvard Business School professor Vincent Pons looks at the historical debate and what the road ahead looks like for the role of business in improving the environment.

Coming out of the financial crisis, Wells Fargo was one of the world’s largest and most successful banks, viewed as a role model in how to manage in times of crisis. The news of its sales misconduct -- opening more than 2 million fake accounts -- in 2016 rocked consumer confidence and inundated the news. Harvard Business School professor Suraj Srinivasan discusses how sales culture, leadership, board oversight, and risk management all played a role.