Cold Call

HBR Presents / Brian Kenny

Cold Call distills Harvard Business School's legendary case studies into podcast form. Hosted by Brian Kenny, the podcast airs every two weeks and features Harvard Business School faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.

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291 episodes
Updated July 21

Episodes291

Newest first

Mar 22, 2019 · 19 min
Will Startup Fishbowl Become the Social Media App for Your Industry?
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, entitled “Fishbowl.”
Mar 12, 2019 · 24 min
How Helena Rubinstein Used Tall Tales to Turn Cosmetics into a Luxury Brand
Harvard Business School professor Geoff Jones discusses his case entitled “Helena Rubinstein, Making Up the Modern Woman,” which 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.
Feb 26, 2019 · 26 min
Pursuing Precision Medicine at Intermountain Healthcare
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 their case — entitled “Intermountain Healthcare: Pursuing Precision Medicine” — and its connections to their work with the Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator.
Feb 13, 2019 · 25 min
The Delicious History of Hershey Chocolate
Have you ever wondered how Hershey chocolate came to be so popular? Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn discusses her case entitled “Candy Land, the Utopian Vision of Milton Hershey,” which explores 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.
Jan 29, 2019 · 16 min
How Wegmans Became a Leader in Improving Food Safety
Harvard Business School professor Ray Goldberg discusses his case study, “Wegmans and Listeria: Developing a Proactive Food Safety System for Produce” — how Wegmans CEO faced a food safety issue and then helped the industry determine how it could become more proactive in the future.
Jan 9, 2019 · 26 min
Can Miguel McKelvey Build the “Culture Operating System” at WeWork?
How deeply does the culture of a startup matter? Can it be shaped? Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey Rayport discusses his case “WeWork” regarding cofounder Miguel McKelvey’s innovative role in building a company culture to support rapid growth.
Dec 18, 2018 · 18 min
Using Fintech to Disrupt Eastern Bank from Within
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 her case, “Eastern Bank; Innovating Through Eastern Labs”: 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?
Dec 5, 2018 · 21 min
Honda Created a Civic for Very Light Jets: How High Will it Fly?
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 his case study entitled, “Flying into the Future: HondaJet” — how Honda Aircraft Corporation CEO Michimasa Fujino brings the jet to life, and must now decide on ways to grow the business.
Nov 19, 2018 · 25 min
Building a Nonprofit Marketplace System to Feed America
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 Kominers’ case, “Feeding America (A)” — how the organization designed a marketplace that was efficient and fair for all participants.
Nov 7, 2018 · 18 min
Could Big Data Replace the Creative Director at the Gap?
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 her case study, “Predicting Consumer Tastes With Big Data at Gap” — how Gap CEO Art Peck considers this bold idea to boost sales.
Oct 24, 2018 · 23 min
Vodafone’s Innovative Approach to Advanced Technologies
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. Kerr is the author of the case study, “Vodafone: Managing Advanced Technologies and Artificial Intelligence.”
Oct 10, 2018 · 16 min
Baseball’s Billy Beane Shows Companies the Power of Data
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 his case study entitled, “The Oakland Athletics: Strategy and Metrics for a Budget,” co-written with Caitlin N. Bowler about how strategy and metrics work hand-in-hand, and how Beane’s story provides companies with important lessons in data science.
Sep 19, 2018 · 22 min
Did Entrepreneur Ernesto Tornquist Help or Hurt Argentina?
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.
Sep 5, 2018 · 18 min
Should U.S. Companies Still Care About the Paris Climate Change Agreement?
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. Pons is the author of the case entitled “Climate Change: Paris and the Road Ahead.”
Aug 17, 2018 · 24 min
Two Million Fake Accounts: Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo
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 his case titled “Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank” — how sales culture, leadership, board oversight, and risk management all played a role.
Jul 10, 2018 · 18 min
The Transformation of Microsoft
In early 2015, Amy Hood, CFO of Microsoft, and the rest of the senior leadership team faced a set of fundamental choices. The firm had opportunities to serve customers in ways that would be associated with higher growth but lower margin. Harvard Business School professor Fritz Foley discusses his case entitled “The Transformation of Microsoft” — how leaders faced these difficult decisions, and worked to get investors and employees on board.
Jun 27, 2018 · 22 min
LA Philharmonic Shows the American Symphony Orchestra Isn’t Dead Yet
The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra faced real challenges, as all U.S. orchestras did: an aging subscriber base, disinterest from younger audiences, and development of a pipeline of donors for the future. Harvard Business School professor Rohit Deshpande discusses his case entitled “The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra: Cultural Entrepreneurship” — how protagonist Deborah Borda positioned the orchestra for continued success, building on healthy financials, a celebrity music director (Gustavo Dudamel), the beautiful Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the development of a youth orchestra.
Jun 13, 2018 · 19 min
How Chase Sapphire Made Credit Cool for Millennials
The Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card was one of the hottest product launches in 2016 enthusiastically received by millennial consumers, a group that had previously eluded JPMorgan Chase and its competitors. Harvard Business School professor Shelle Santana discusses her case, “Chase Sapphire: Creating a Millennial Cult Brand” — how protagonists Pam Codispoti and Eileen Serra shifted their focus to retaining customers attracted by the one-time signup bonus of 100,000 reward points and on acquiring new customers now that the bonus had been reduced.
May 29, 2018 · 18 min
Careem: Riding the First Unicorn in the Middle East
Ride-hailing service Careem, the “Uber of the Middle East,” experienced expansion so dramatic that it monitored its growth target every 15 minutes. Was this a fabled startup unicorn? But doubling the size of the company every six months took its toll. Harvard Business School professor Shikhar Ghosh discusses his case, “Careem: Raising a Unicorn” — how the founders approached a number of critical organizational and cultural issues to keep its 4 million customers satisfied.
May 9, 2018 · 18 min
Candy Crush was a Blockbuster; Can King Digital Capitalize?
Riccardo Zacconi was the co-founder and CEO of King Digital Entertainment, the video game company that had quickly established itself as the world’s leading maker of casual games for mobile devices after the sensational success of its game “Candy Crush Saga.” He’s faced with the central question of whether and how to scale the company through an astronomical period of growth. Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey Rayport discusses his case “King Digital Entertainment” — whether a single creative studio can scale to manage a portfolio of almost 200 games, when one of them is the mammoth hit Candy Crush.

Cold Call

Will Startup Fishbowl Become the Social Media App for Your Industry?

How Helena Rubinstein Used Tall Tales to Turn Cosmetics into a Luxury Brand

Pursuing Precision Medicine at Intermountain Healthcare

The Delicious History of Hershey Chocolate

How Wegmans Became a Leader in Improving Food Safety

Can Miguel McKelvey Build the “Culture Operating System” at WeWork?

Using Fintech to Disrupt Eastern Bank from Within

Honda Created a Civic for Very Light Jets: How High Will it Fly?

Building a Nonprofit Marketplace System to Feed America

Could Big Data Replace the Creative Director at the Gap?

Vodafone’s Innovative Approach to Advanced Technologies

Baseball’s Billy Beane Shows Companies the Power of Data

Did Entrepreneur Ernesto Tornquist Help or Hurt Argentina?

Should U.S. Companies Still Care About the Paris Climate Change Agreement?

Two Million Fake Accounts: Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo

The Transformation of Microsoft

LA Philharmonic Shows the American Symphony Orchestra Isn’t Dead Yet

How Chase Sapphire Made Credit Cool for Millennials

Careem: Riding the First Unicorn in the Middle East

Candy Crush was a Blockbuster; Can King Digital Capitalize?