The Harvard Business School Report on Beyonce
Last month, Billboard reported that the Harvard Business School had taken a close look at the release of Beyonce's surprise, self-titled album, dropped upon an unprepared world last December. At the time of Beyonce's midnight release, Billboard covered the event in depth, talking to the people involved and getting the inside scoop. But nearly a year later, Harvard Business School has dug even deeper into what went on behind the scenes of the reveal and Billboard got an exclusive sneak peek.
Anita Elberse, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and Stacie Smith, a former student of Professor Elberse, have co-written the final word on how Beyonce landed like a meteorite on the dinosaurs last winter with their 27-page report titled, fittingly, "Beyonce." The study -- which will be taught in Elberse’s course “Strategic Marketing in Creative Industries” in early October -- takes a bird's-eye look at the music industry's current standing and Beyonce's early career, before moving on to the juiciest bits: Beyonce's founding of her own company (Parkwood Entertainment, operated as a joint venture with Rob Stringer's Columbia Records), her role at the company (CEO, lighthouse) and the planning of her opus.
For the report, Elberse and Smith interviewed key employees at Parkwood and Columbia, as well as those at Apple and Facebook directly involved in the release of Beyonce. Here are some of the most fascinating details:
How Beyonce Holds a Meeting
“ doesn’t often sit in her office,” Lee Anne Callahan-Longo, Parkwood's general manager, told the pair. “She usually walks from one office to the other, speaking with the staff. She’ll come to my office and talk to me, or she will sit in the back and give notes on projects we are working on... She has got a really good sense of the business side, but she doesn’t like to live there always. We often laugh about how an hour into a business meeting she will get up and will start walking around. I can see it then -- that I’ve lost her, and that I have satiated the amount of business that she wants to discuss that day. I’ll usually say something like ‘Let’s stop. You are going to say "Yes," but you are not listening to me anymore.’ She knows herself, will laugh, and say ‘You are absolutely right, I am done.’ Because at the end of the day she is an artist, and her passion for art drives her.”
Anita Elberse, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and Stacie Smith, a former student of Professor Elberse, have co-written the final word on how Beyonce landed like a meteorite on the dinosaurs last winter with their 27-page report titled, fittingly, "Beyonce." The study -- which will be taught in Elberse’s course “Strategic Marketing in Creative Industries” in early October -- takes a bird's-eye look at the music industry's current standing and Beyonce's early career, before moving on to the juiciest bits: Beyonce's founding of her own company (Parkwood Entertainment, operated as a joint venture with Rob Stringer's Columbia Records), her role at the company (CEO, lighthouse) and the planning of her opus.
For the report, Elberse and Smith interviewed key employees at Parkwood and Columbia, as well as those at Apple and Facebook directly involved in the release of Beyonce. Here are some of the most fascinating details:
How Beyonce Holds a Meeting
“ doesn’t often sit in her office,” Lee Anne Callahan-Longo, Parkwood's general manager, told the pair. “She usually walks from one office to the other, speaking with the staff. She’ll come to my office and talk to me, or she will sit in the back and give notes on projects we are working on... She has got a really good sense of the business side, but she doesn’t like to live there always. We often laugh about how an hour into a business meeting she will get up and will start walking around. I can see it then -- that I’ve lost her, and that I have satiated the amount of business that she wants to discuss that day. I’ll usually say something like ‘Let’s stop. You are going to say "Yes," but you are not listening to me anymore.’ She knows herself, will laugh, and say ‘You are absolutely right, I am done.’ Because at the end of the day she is an artist, and her passion for art drives her.”
