HBR On Strategy · Harvard Business Review

A Lesson on Balancing Scaling with Stability

·28 min
HBR on Strategy interviews Harvard professor Jeffrey Rayport about his case study on Ryan Cohen's pivotal 2013 decision to insource Chewy.com's fulfillment operations. Discussion covers the dilemma of growth vs. stability, how Chewy differentiates through high-touch service at scale, and the market shift toward pet humanization.

As heard by us

A sharp case study in when control matters more than easy growth.

This episode tracks a startup deciding whether to keep outsourcing the hardest part of growth or build the machinery itself. In late 2013, Chewy was growing fast, but its third-party logistics partner could not keep up, and Ryan Cohen had to choose between preserving that…

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Why you'd press play

When growth outruns the machinery holding it up, and you have to choose the riskier fix.

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