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The case is intended to assist students to:1. understand the customer’s purchase decision with reference to channel values;2. evaluate and assess the channel strategy using conventional and digital channels; and3. design the channel strategy for start-ups in emerging markets.

The subject area for this teaching case was marketing management. The teaching case could be used for the undergraduation and graduation levels of students. The case was about the marketing channel strategy of a small start-up boutique called Chirmi in India, with the theory of consumption values explained. In this case, primary data was taken directly from Chirmi, whereas secondary data for market analysis was taken from various reports, articles and other sources. Because the owner provided the records and documentation, the account was therefore substantiated by the collected first-hand information. The case uses quantitative methods to make students understand the channel arithmetic and consumption values of all the channels used by Chirmi.

In the course of core marketing classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels, this case may be used. The case addresses the channel structure, including wholesaling, retailing and e-commerce. Distribution channel management, the theory of consumption values and e-commerce marketing management are explained. Evaluation of channel strategy, design, implementation and management is emphasized.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 8: Marketing.

As an Internet fashion brand, HSTYLE has developed into an Internet enterprise with annual sales of 1.5 billion RMB within 10 years, establishing its position as the top industry performer in China. This case studies HSTYLES' innovation in business model and organizational management. HSTYLE's workgroups have achieved the balance of responsibilities and rights in a small team of three members at minimum, while mobilizing the enthusiasm and initiative of the line managers with the support of public service sector. At the same time, HSTYLE enriches its brand style, establishes a fashion cloud platform, and integrates individual and organizational consumers into its existing fashion design, manufacturing and sales system.

Data used to develop the case included primary data from employees and supervisors of a commercial floorcovering manufacturing plant in Northwest Georgia. The case company is not disguised.

The survey was developed using existing instruments from the Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Literature. Instruments were listed in Exhibits 2 through 7. The survey administration had the support of the Vice President for Resources and Facilities, and employees and their supervisors were given time to complete the surveys. The data gathered was analyzed by the researcher using SPSS statistical software.

Established in 1957, J&J started as a family-owned business but had grown and diversified its product offerings by focusing on commercial flooring. It survived several economic downturns and remained competitive in a market dominated by more prominent flooring manufacturers. J&J Industries strived to empower its 800 employees with various incentive programs. Employees remained loyal to J&J; many had worked for the company for over 15 years. However, management wanted to measure the impact of empowering and initiatives on employee performance and satisfaction to determine the real power of employee incentive programs. The Resources and Facilities Vice President employed Professor Lopez, a Management Professor, to develop a survey to measure these constructs and analyze the data to guide future incentive programs. Data from the employee and supervisor survey was provided along with the statistical analysis results for interpretation and recommendations for VP Fordham.

The target audience for this case is primarily students in a research methodology course and students studying quantitative regression analysis and interpretation. The focus is predominantly on graduate-level students in Master of Business Administration or Master of Accounting programs in business. Graduate students should have completed courses in management or organizational behavior, business statistics or quantitative methods or data visualization and cleaning as background knowledge for this case. Specifically, students should understand regression analysis and know when and how the tool is used for managerial decision-making.

After completing the case study, the students will be able to explore, create and capture the dilemmas of a platform strategy; compare, contrast and configure strategies for successful platform adoption; develop fitting configurations for marketplace design; and use temple framework to evaluate the dilemma of the element of time (do it sooner, delay for later or dismiss forever) in launching a new marketplace.

Shoppre was a parcel-forwarding firm established in 2017. In a short period, Shoppre turned out to be one of the best parcel forwarding and cross-border commerce companies in India, thanks to the first-mover advantage it enjoyed. Shoppre had offerings of shopping and shipping of cross-border e-commerce. As a new firm looking forward to increasing its market power, Shoppre faced the dilemma of whether to launch the marketplace, and if yes, whether to do it soon or delay it for the future. There was also confusion in the marketplace’s design and implementation. Nikkitha Shankar’s (she/her) worry was that if Shoppre did not decide quickly on this, there would be possible crises in managing the partners and their financial performance. Shankar was brainstorming the issues with the founding partner and was gauging the dimensions. This case study presented new marketplaces’ dilemmas along with managing sellers, customers, markets, finance, logistics and digital transformation.

The case study is suitable for undergraduate- and graduate-level students pursuing courses in business programmes and senior management professionals participating in executive education programmes. The case study will also fit well for courses such as the “Platform strategy: building and thriving in a vibrant ecosystem” course [1], digital business models [2] and digital business strategy [3].

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows: this case deliberates the strategic design and business model that provides entrepreneurial opportunities to re-sellers and small business owners; this case discusses the complexities and opportunities related to using social media (Facebook) as a selling platform; this case provides a thorough understanding of the direct-to-consumer model; this case helps students understand the concept of social commerce in emerging markets; and this case discusses brand-building tactics, particularly for online businesses.

This case is about the entrepreneurial venture of three women on Facebook. A venture that started with the simple thought of creating a trusted selling and buying platform with convenience has turned into an opportunity for thousands of other women to become entrepreneurs and start their businesses with minimum investment and low risk. Shoppers Darbar is an online shopping portal on Facebook that started in 2016. This is a private group exclusively for women with more than 165,000 registered members, which saw a boom during the pandemic and merged as a parallel platform of e-commerce retail sites and physical stores and exhibitions. Although social commerce in India is still in its growing stage, it is facing indirect competition and an identity crisis. Hence, to build Shoppers Darbar as a brand and retain vendors, founders need to find methods within Shoppers Darbar’s limited means to sustain and create a community of sellers and buyers for getting more and more business for the vendors associated with them.

Postgraduate level.

Teaching Notes Consent Letter Annexure 1.

CCS 3: Entrepreneurship

In China, supply chain finance (SCF) has gradually emerged as a new service for the retail industry. This case systematically discusses how JD conducts product design and risk control of supply chain finance and related financial services, and analyze the impact of supply chain finance on JD's retail operations. The case also analyzes the relationship between JD supply chain finance and traditional financial institutions, and explore the future development of retail supply chain finance.

This case study has been developed based on the primary data obtained through a series of interviews held with the senior management of Cargills, and the secondary data obtained from the company’s corporate website www.cargillsceylon.com/,annual reports and publicly available sources of information such as newspaper articles.

This case study focuses on the strategic responses employed by Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – a leading business conglomerate in Sri Lanka – in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The duration of this case study is from January 2020 to September 2021. The case study particularly examines the key business sectors of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – retail, food manufacturing and quick service restaurants – which elaborate on the change management practices and strategies deployed by the company in each of these sectors during this challenging period. This study is based on the primary data gathered from the interviews held with the Cargills (Ceylon) PLC team, and the secondary data obtained from the corporate website of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC. This case study is most suitable to be taught in academic courses related to strategic change management.

The case is most suited to be discussed with undergraduates (3rd year and 4th year) following business and management studies related disciplines. While the pivotal area around which the case has been developed is strategic change management, covering environmental analysis, strategic analysis and process of change management, the case could also be used in strategic management classes, to discuss environmental analysis, strategic planning approaches and business and corporate level strategies.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Razorpay is a four-year-old Indian B2B fintech startup in digital payments which is venturing into digital lending. It aims to simplify digital payment flows involved in acceptance, processing, and disbursement of payments through superior technology and automation. This case details how Razorpay creates value for businesses by offering service convenience in B2B space. Razorpay started as a payment solutions provider, primarily known for their payment gateway. Over time the market for digital payment in India has matured, with multiple providers offering similar products making it difficult for Razorpay to sustain its growth by using technological leadership and service differentiation. To maintain its growth trajectory, Razorpay has launched multiple new products in the digital payment space as well as announced a foray into creating a marketplace for digital lending through launch of Razorpay Capital. The case provides details of the growth of Razorpay and its move from its core strength of payment gateway

After reading and analyzing the case study, the students would be able to understand the critical role of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)-compliant accounting principles in facilitating strategic alliances between publicly traded international corporations and emerging companies in informal business environments, design the company’s accounting system to ensure the application of the accounting standards contained in IFRS and understand the accounting process for properly recording a company’s transactions.

This case study deals with Giulia’s decision to take on the proposal of a conglomerate to acquire a 45% stake in her travel agency, Know Cuba First Travel Agency (KCF). Giulia was an Italian entrepreneur based in Havana, Cuba. She has dealt with informal business practices in the Cuban tourism industry. However, Foreign Investments Ltd., a publicly listed company, needs formal accounting if investing in the venture. If Giulia agrees with the proposal, an accounting information system would have to be implemented to comply with the investor’s requirements.

This case study is suitable for financial accounting undergraduate courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

The learning outcome of this study is to bring to the table of a wider intellectual audience, a unique model of community-based entrepreneurship, which is working wonders with its unique selling points (USPs) in promoting sustainability and conserving the ethos of villages and, at the same time, generating livelihoods through traditional farming techniques adopted by the rural population residing in the Himalayan region of India.The proposed case study can be used as a replicable model in other parts of rural India and other emerging economies to start and scale up a similar “integrated rural development model” through effective policy advocacy and public–private partnerships and to develop sustainable farmlands and livelihoods for rural India. It has a definite potential to be used as a pedagogical tool in postgraduate programmes offering courses in microfinance, financial inclusion, social and community entrepreneurship, sustainability, entrepreneurship, community development finance and rural immersions and public policy.

This case study is set in the backdrop of 2023 having been declared by the UN as the International Year of Millets and India being the homeland for millet cultivation. The objective of the case study is to bring to the table of a wider intellectual audience, a unique model of community-based entrepreneurship operating in the Himalayan region of rural India. The community-based entrepreneurship model works on the USP of promoting sustainability and conserving the ethos of villages and generating livelihoods through traditional farming techniques. This case study traces the journey of Roopesh Rai (protagonist and the founder of Bakrichhap), the community-based entrepreneur and his challenges in setting up the enterprise. The narrative is built in the light of a series of interviews with Rai, the main protagonist and the founder of Bakrichhap, as well as the people of Goat village by Komal, a post-doctoral fellow in the area of community-based enterprises (CBEs). Through this narrative, the case writers’ endeavour was to understand how CBEs such as Bakrichhap were providing a means of integrated rural development in the hilly region of Uttarakhand, India. Also, how such enterprises were thereby curbing distress migration, unemployment and a large-scale erosion of the cultural heritage and traditional and indigenous farming techniques of the land. In the first seven years of the operations of this uniquely curated CBE, Rai endeavoured to iron out many bottlenecks. This case study also highlights the gamut of challenges faced by community-based entrepreneurs like Rai in designing strategy for growth and expansion. What strategy should Bakrichhap follow for expansion to the other regions of the country? Should all the three existing verticals of the enterprise be scaled up parallelly or should each individual vertical be expanded one after the other in a phased manner? Stemming out from the main dilemma of strategic expansion were the related issues of funding (finance) and the formation of an effective team (HR).

This case study can be used in undergraduate, graduate and executive programmes offering courses in microfinance, financial inclusion, social and community entrepreneurship, sustainability, entrepreneurship, community development finance and rural immersions and public policy.

This comprehensive case study is written by using the triangulation of data collected through a series of personal interviews, website information, news articles, personal observation and field visits. The research design used is single case (holistic; Yin, 2003, 3rd edition). The timeline of this case study is 2021 to 2022 and place is Nag Tibba, Uttarakhand, a Himalayan state in North India.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.