Posts in Featured Business/Tech
"Live Better Now"

“Live Better Now”
Tuck
July, 2018

Tuck’s 53 faculty members are world-renowned scholars and teachers whose work is aimed at a business-oriented audience: colleagues and academics who read their research papers, students who take their courses, and practitioners out in the business world.

But their knowledge has a utility in everyday life, too. Business is, after all, people-oriented. If we can become more aware of our biases, or more methodical in our approach to all kinds of challenges, or even more mindful of who we are, everyone benefits. To that end, here’s how five Tuck professors can help you lead a better life.
"The High Cost of Free Shipping"
It’s unclear when, exactly, the trend of free shipping began, but a good starting point is probably the 1999 launch of Zappos, an early online shoe seller. 

The company worried that consumers wouldn’t be willing to buy shoes without trying them on, so it offered free shipping and free returns, thus eliminating the risk the shoes didn’t fit. These days, free shipping is among the most popular promotions online retailers deploy, and consumers have come to expect them whenever they shop online. At the same time, the rate of product returns has grown immensely. A study in 2006 found that 5.6 percent of online purchases were returned. By 2013, that number had increased to almost 37 percent.
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"Major Player"

"Major Player"
Vermont Life | Spring 2018

Judging by statistics, the Champlain Game Studio’s formula — a rigorous, collaboration-based curriculum combined with real-world learning — produces results. Eighty-one percent of the class of 2016 secured a game-related job within six months of graduation, and, Walker says, they are steeled for the task ahead.
"The Builder"

"The Builder"
Tuck Today: The Alumni Magazine of the Tuck School of Business
January 2018

Christopher J. Williams T’84 is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the Williams Capital Group and Williams Capital Management, one of the most active co-managers of U.S. investment-grade new issue debt financings. In 2002, Williams was selected by Fortune as one of the 50 most powerful African Americans in Corporate America. Crain’s New York Business, in 2003, listed him as one of the top 100 minority business leaders. Williams has also been the subject of numerous articles on management in both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. What most people don’t know about Williams is that, at heart, he’s a gifted artist and designer who can bring a sense of craftsmanship to a profession known more by its numbers than its creativity.
 
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"Big Carts, Big Calories"

"Big Carts, Big Calories"
Tuck
November 29, 2017

There’s a certain logic to the stores’ low prices and bulk packaging: you can get more for your money, and make fewer trips to your regular grocery store. And the membership fee of $50 or $100 pays for itself in the money you save versus shopping at a traditional supermarket. The club store industry has been riding that calculation to great success.

Between 1992 and 2013, club stores and supercenters were the fastest growing retail category in the U.S., with sales rising from $40 billion to $420 billion, and the number of club stores exploding to more than 1,600.

There’s just one problem. The whole value proposition basically falls apart in practice. As Kusum Ailawadi, the Charles Jordan 1911 TU’12 Professor of Marketing, finds in a new research paper, people who shop at club stores are spending more on food and making more shopping trips than they would if they didn’t shop there, and they’re eating more too. “We are not saving time, we are not saving money,” Ailawadi says, “and we’re increasing our consumption of non-perishable and impulse foods.”
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"Improve urban infrastructure? There's an app for that"
Every weekday morning at approximately 6:30, Willem Heydendael, a 35-year-old medical consultant, hops on his bike and rides 15 miles along the Schuylkill River from his home in the Passyunk Square neighborhood of South Philadelphia to his office in Conshohocken, a suburb northwest of the city. Before he takes a pedal stroke, he performs an important ritual: he launches the Strava application on his iPhone and starts recording his ride. When he gets to work, he uploads the commute to Strava’s website, where he can see his route overlaid on a Google map, along with his average speed, distance, elevation gain, and a host of other metrics. “I like it because the rides add up and it’s nice to see the mileage I’ve done,” he says.
 
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