Harvard Business Review Reviews

by CS Scientist

Almost every time I come across an interesting post from HBR on the internet and my LinkedIn feed after searching it in the HBR app it becomes clear that it’s not available on HarvardBusinessReview , you probably can only find the latest articles. Also HarvardBusinessReview doesn’t recognize the HBR links and won’t open automatically, so the links will lead you to the website. Didn’t meet my expectations as a premium user.

by DB3178

HarvardBusinessReview will accept my password for the subscription so I can access articles. However, I cannot create an “app” account. If I choose the option “already have an account,” I get a warning that my account name/password are incorrect. If I choose the option “create a new account,” I get a warning that an account is already associated with the email.

As a result, HarvardBusinessReview does not offer any benefit over their website. Cannot save articles or sync between devices.

by TNinMN

I have been a subscriber for many years and was an early adopter of their early iPad app. I would expect by now they’d have the bugs worked out, but apparently not. The mobile app can’t seem to sync with the HBR site. The site shows I clearly have an active subscription while the iPad app says it is expired. Contacting the vendor gets you no where - they just send you back to the HBR site for help. I’ve tried the HBR chat and the best they can do is have you reinstall HarvardBusinessReview . For the price charged for a digital subscription this is beyond ridiculous.

by Fatheroftheyear

HBR articles used to be highly informative, thoughtful, and well-researched. They were solid essays, sometimes more valuable than the books written by the same articles in parallel.
There are still some of these articles in the magazines, but whether it’s the raising of my standards of knowledge testing or whether my perception is accurate, much of the content is almost completely irrelevant.
HarvardBusinessReview is worse than other media of HBR. Its search function does not yield expected results, and it is not an effective use of time to try to gain anything from this.
I have given HarvardBusinessReview second chances over the years when I am desperate for a piece of management research that is hard to find. I am leaving this review because I’ve decided to walk away permanently unless there is some major overhaul to the entire HBR network that brings them back to usefulness beyond pop culture.

by Phx1tab

Have had a digital subscription for a long time, and recently received an email from HBR to try the mobile app. After downloading, I was not able to login. Error message indicated my subscription expired. Got online and asked live chat for help. Response was hard to understand, but basically indicated that it wouldn’t work and I should login on my mobile devices using a browser instead of HarvardBusinessReview . Really???

by DW2014

You have taken HarvardBusinessReview from a great to a crap experience. That is some skill.
In the older versions the various magazines were organized in a grid so it was very easy to pick the one that you wanted to read. In this one the pile of junk that shows up make it very difficult to flip through 10s of magazines to get to which month magazine you want to red.
In the older version it was very easy to see which one is available offline, in this version you have to flip through every one to see what is available offline.
In the older version you could see the account number that you had used to sign up. Now when switching Devices it is not possible to see the account without going back to the web and finding our account.

A real disappointment.

by Mjy0525

I cannot access any articles I save on the desktop site on HarvardBusinessReview, which to me really devalues having HarvardBusinessReview . I tried to send an email via the Help screen, but I received a message saying I have no active email account on my iPad, which is totally false. I have Outlook and Gmail accounts on my iPad I use regularly, not to mention an email account associated with my account.

Article content is very good but the user experience is horrible. Very surprised that HBR would put something out like this.

by Pichloo

I don’t understand how such a great publication has a such malfunctioning App! I am a subscriber to HBR but almost every time HarvardBusinessReview ask me to log in. What ever I save on HarvardBusinessReview , I can’t see on the computer. HarvardBusinessReview is not synchronizing my account. I can’t listen to interviews on HarvardBusinessReview , it will start from beginning when my phone goes to lock screen.
I am very disappointed at HarvardBusinessReview , and I hope you can fix it. Or at least try it for a couple of days to see my frustration.
Thanks.

by R.J. F

I can’t count the number of times I’ve had restore purchase, activate in HarvardBusinessReview , had to try to access from other apps, issues like this are constant and the support response is utterly uninterested in dealing with problems related to in app subscriptions as though the very existence of this option is somehow beneath them. (they’re all to welcoming to setup a new account without offering a price break which basically means pay for the same content twice).

I’m not sure if the problems are with the publisher or Apple. Whatever the issue, I suggest subscribing via their normal process as opposed to through Apple. Or not bothering to digital subscribe at all

by Kangaroo5383

This is really substandard work for such a reputable institution - typography and layout is a bit of a mess. At the very least whoever is working on HarvardBusinessReview should just copy the website typography for consistency. Or reference The Information’s iOS app for layout and styling as reference for what a professional content heavy app should look like.

Attention to details is sorely lacking, there’s no spacing between the url and title string when you use the share sheet. I would happily fix all this for free just so I don’t have to look at this anymore.

by Dallas61

There is no way to display content by type which seems like minimal functionality that most content providers have been providing for years. This is just an electronic version of a magazine with a list of content as an add on (but doesn’t seem to be additional content). That means the only thing this gives me is the ability to access on my iPad instead of carrying around a magazine. It could easily be so much more and should be for the premium content that it is.

by Mkimby

I used to love HarvardBusinessReview because it allowed me to “star” content of interest so I could come back to read it later. A recent app upgrade removed this extremely important feature and now HarvardBusinessReview is nearly useless. I don’t have time to log in everyday to read content before it is archived. Without the star feature I am missing content I purchased my HBR subscription for. Please bring back the starred content feature!

by Oiasjher

My benchmark is the Economist’s iOS app, which I use almost daily.

HBR doesn’t offer settings to improve readability (font size, background color). There are times when the content takes a long time to load or doesn’t load at all. HarvardBusinessReview experience isn’t all that better from getting the content on a mobile device browser, and how often is that a customers preferred choice?

by Eriklpetersen

HBR digital platforms have never been user friendly. Why, for example, do I need a subscriber number? This is left over from the days of paper subscriptions, I guess, but I had to log in three times (creating the same account twice) after I renewed my digital subscription. Now I can’t find an article when I run a search in HarvardBusinessReview even though I just read it on LinkedIn. Frustrating.

by Feller35

The subscription through HarvardBusinessReview is only on HarvardBusinessReview . You can’t access your subscription on any other device. The search function is useless for finding anything. All you can do is browse issues. If you find a cool HBR article on fb or Twitter, too bad if you’ve read your three free articles that month, HarvardBusinessReview aint going to help you out.

by JWM@HBR

HBR Readers, if you are rating the mobile experience higher than a 3 (at best), you are truly doing yourself and cohorts a disservice. For such premium services, the mobile experience is lackluster to say the least.

HBR team, the details are here in your “real” reviews, just look at the low ratings. Features, structure, it’s all there - what real reviewers want to see in HarvardBusinessReview . For anyone who’s been reading this publication for any length of time, I’m amazed at the rating, actually use HarvardBusinessReview and try to be productive and look for articles you are notified of in the weekly emails, try and download one from HarvardBusinessReview for review/further research…basics. Again, app rating can’t possibly be better than a 3. Hopefully someone at HBR actually looks into the negative feedback, it’s a goldmine for you.

by MzMillennium04

The content and my satisfaction with the materials are 5s.

HarvardBusinessReview is just OK. It’s a simple design but not beautiful. Some of the tiles hang off my screen and obstruct the illustration. It’s basic (not a compliment!).

The login process is annoying and outdated. Why can’t I use a biometric login and why does it keep logging out? It’s very frustrating.

I also wish HarvardBusinessReview took advantage some of the cool dev features I see in modern apps, things that scroll and pop. Using HarvardBusinessReview in a new, visually stimulating and exciting way is more what I expected since inclusion of HarvardBusinessReview is a selling point between subscription levels.

by SteveZima

Overall, HarvardBusinessReview is pretty straightforward and enjoyable. What I dislike is having to keep signing into my account when opening HarvardBusinessReview . Worse is that I cannot use Face ID (I know, how lazy of me), but have to keep typing in my login information whenever I return to HarvardBusinessReview . HarvardBusinessReview and being able to navigate it otherwise are clean and as I would hope.

by Praise74

I love the quality of HBR articles. Very practical information that helps me grow in my career. The design of HarvardBusinessReview is also great. My only complaint is that I can’t login on HarvardBusinessReview . I’m using the same credentials I use successfully for the website, but HarvardBusinessReview tells me they are incorrect. This needs to be addressed.

by BigCoLeader

Well designed and easy to access all HBR articles. Search function needs to be improved a bit, it’s not a major pain. Like the snackable content - video explainers.

by Raghavkhosla

I have a premium subscription yet I’m not able to access content on HarvardBusinessReview . Contacted customer service twice, they just ask me to do basic logout login task without contacting mobile app team and rectifying the issue from core. Developers please note. This is a huge drawback on user experience.

by Jnjjhhv

It doesn’t let you change the password on HarvardBusinessReview if you created the account on the website. Also, it kept telling me to put in the correct email and password even when I did. Customer support did not know what to do, after 30 minutes on the phone. This is by far the worst app I’ve come across.

by Basenjiinnyc

I pay 99 a year for this and it won’t acknowledge my subscription on my new iPad nor will it let me read anything on another device. I reached out to HBR and they say yeah it’s an Apple thing. Apple says it’s an HBR thing. Yet everyone still gets my payment. I have never had this kind of bad experience with Apple or any other app. HBR bad UX is bad for business.

by Buxton Brown

I can’t recall if I subscribed via app or website. Now it won’t push latest issues to HarvardBusinessReview . But when I log on desktop site, I have access to everything. I also thought I was subscribing for a physical magazine subscription with full online access. I may have been mistaken but it should be clearer.

by Review2578

Why remove the ability to save articles? Customer service, as so many have said, is exceptionally terrible. Weeks to receive a response that didn’t even address the question. Does the developer subscribe and read HBR? Does HBR staff use HarvardBusinessReview ? If so, it doesn’t show.

by Myopinionforfree

Great reads, but on my iphonex the page blinks weirdly when I scroll more than the text is long. I hope that makes sense to you.

by Neha Mittoor Changappa

HarvardBusinessReview is very user friendly and the very handy when I am traveling or just want a quick glance at the latest business case studies or news.

by Kenny Ogun

I have easy access to the latest research findings or reports by HBR.