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After completion of this case, students would be able to understand the challenges faced by social entrepreneurship in a time of pandemic, as well as gain a perspective of the background, history, evolution and the setup of such organizations; appreciate the role of marketing methods in tackling the challenges faced and how the management of such enterprises could use them on the ground; evaluate possible future options/pathways that could be taken in the backdrop of a pandemic and, more importantly, in a developing country context; and apply the elements of social entrepreneurship theory and suggest a way ahead for ThankUfoods (TUF).

TUF is a social enterprise that empowers visually and physically challenged people by using while profitably selling food products. Few years of existence, it was facing a major dilemma regarding strategies to continue its existing business and the way forward. Because of the pandemic, the traditional offline business models became redundant on which TUF was heavily dependent. At the same time, TUF had to balance providing support to its employees, staying financially afloat and upholding its parent organization’s core objectives, the India Association for Blind (IAB). IAB was founded to rescue and provide livelihood for specially abled people. TUF was formed as a sister concern that combined charitable work and profit earning to make visually challenged people self-sufficient. At this juncture, the protagonist of the case Mr Abdul Raheem, chief executive officer of TUF and vice president of IAB, approached consultants to chart the way forward. He was forced to explore novel options ranging from conceptual ones, such as setting the right objectives and revisiting mission and vision, to more operational ones, such as venturing into online space, increasing advertisements and achieving breakeven sales. This case study highlights the overall journey of TUF, the underlying constraints, the new challenges faced and the dilemma ahead. Further, it covers the context and challenges peculiar to an emerging market setting. More importantly, it provides a setting for the students to be in the protagonist’s position and ponder – how should a social enterprise functioning in an emerging market function in times of pandemic crises? If it decides to explore novel options, what should be those, how can it proceed, and what to be cautious about.

The target audience for the case study are students from MBA and BBA courses, management trainees who are interested to learn about the challenges social entrepreneurship face at the time of crisis. This case study could be used to explain concepts about social entrepreneurship, brand positioning, e-commerce marketing and decision-making in the time of pandemics/crises. The case is also suitable for senior management personnel who participate in executive education programs.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

This case study is developed using secondary sources, including newspapers, periodicals and academic references.

This case study examines the challenges of a market leader in a changing industry and how that leader might respond. Growth was becoming exceedingly difficult for Netflix due to various external forces. For a company that relied on radical innovation to reinvent the video market industry and gain market dominance, Netflix appeared to be focusing on protecting its market position through strategies designed to reinforce its existing strengths and assets. Could Netflix maintain its leadership position and reignite growth by pursuing a reinforcement strategy, or was it time for another reinvention?

This case was written for strategic management classes at the graduate and undergraduate levels. The case was classroom tested with undergraduate business students in a strategic management course and masters-level organizational leadership students in a strategic innovation and change management course.

This case introduces a framework for cost modeling. Two data sets (one for injection-molded plastic parts and another for compressors) allow students to apply the cost-driver framework in conjunction with basic spreadsheet and regression analyses. Although obviously applicable in a course on supply chain management, the case can also be used to teach competitive cost analysis for strategic decision making.

This case study aims to yield the following learning outcomes: understand the key performance indicators of successful human resource management (HRM) in the hospitality and tourism sector, especially during pandemics; identify the various concepts and strategies of HRM and recruitment over a short period; conceptualize the types of HRM practices such as safety and health, recruitment and promotion and rewards when facing pandemic conditions as well as the handling of hotel staff in strained times; evaluate the crisis management solutions used by human resources to lower the employee turnover rate; and develop a crisis management plan from a human resource standpoint in a pandemic situation.

A five-star hotel in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bab Al Qasr Hotel & Residence (BAQHotel) opened in October 2016. In April 2020, the hotel began accepting patients with COVID-19 in conjunction with the Abu Dhabi’s Healthcare Company (SEHA), as a support to the UAE Government, through Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi (DCTAD), to meet the local needs and sustain business during these unforeseen circumstances, which heavily impacted the whole World. Samer Majari, the Human Resource Director of BAQ hotel was responsible for recruiting and supervising delegates, while ensuring the comfort of hotel staff, arranging for their transportation, catering, safety and well-being. To combat the high staff turnover, including COVID-19-positive staff, Majari reviewed the existing staff model; divided the staff into two groups for providing services to both sides of the hotel; arranged for separate accommodations, food and transportation; and retained the existing resources and recruited new workers. This study aims to provide management solutions that concern hiring of staff from the existing UAE market and highlights ways of creating a lower staff turnover rate through incentives and compensations, while also managing staff by motivating them and also safeguarding them against COVID-19.

This case study intends to provide a context for creative solutions to human resource challenges facing organizations during a pandemic. It also involves swift responses to crises faced by HR managers and the immediate solutions required. Therefore, this case study can be used in undergraduate level courses for students pursuing a bachelor’s or a master’s degree in HRM, hospitality management, crisis management or international business studies. Moreover, this case study can be used for corporate training and to help hospitality industry staff, mid-level human resource managers and organizational development practitioners to better understand crisis management in their hotels.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management

International business, international marketing.

Senior students majoring in international business and/or marketing.

Internationalization processes for organizations represents a hard turmoil that some excel in and a few enjoy its benefits. Cilantro Café represents a landmark in the Egyptian economy for its success in turning from a local coffee shop house chain to a global one in less than a decade from its earlier inception. Such success relied heavily on their internationalization strategy as well as their marketing communications. The main learning objective in this case is presenting Cilantro's path for internationalization as a model for local organizations striving to go global.

Identifying the internationalization process, explaining a success story in moving from local to global business operations, and highlighting the post 25th of January cultural implications in Egypt.

Teaching note.

In 2008 San Francisco International Airport (known by its three-letter airport code, SFO) had announced a $383 million plan to renovate and reopen Terminal 2. Assistant deputy director of aviation security Kim Dickie and her team had selected Quantum Secure's SAFE software suite as the new Terminal 2 credentialing system, but she needed to develop a business case quickly that would convince senior management to give the green light to fund the purchase. The case describes a scenario that occurs frequently in the real world, in which a decision offers some real but qualitative value in ways that are difficult or impossible to quantify. The discussion and analysis gives students the opportunity to consider the factors that will drive the internal rate of return (IRR), net present value (NPV), and discounted payback period calculations without constructing comprehensive spreadsheet models. Analyzing the case suggests the limits of such approaches in cases where perceived value is difficult to quantify. The case prepares students to evaluate and justify purchasing requests when interacting with financial gatekeepers such as CFOs and CEOs by introducing a framework to analyze the quantifiable benefits of a capital expenditure while keeping in mind important intangible benefits.

After analyzing the case, students should be able to: Understand how return on investment (ROI) calculations work, with an emphasis on identifying incremental effects Decide how to use results from similar entities making similar purchases to estimate the incremental benefit of a proposed solution Identify and use the best data available in making assumptions Justify the validity of benefits that are difficult to quantify in conjunction with the presentation of a traditional ROI analysis

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 describes how eight entrepreneurs discover different opportunities for new businesses to exploit a single technological invention. The case focuses on the process of entrepreneurial discovery and its implications for the creation of new firms. Many of the teaching materials on entrepreneurship assume that entrepreneurs have already discovered an opportunity. While these materials provide useful information about the process of creating new enterprises, they miss the crucial first step in the entrepreneurial process: identifying an opportunity. The case illustrates the theoretical concept of the role of information in the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities. It can be used in a class on entrepreneurship or management of technology.

This case study outlines the marketing, strategic and organizational issues facing the ever-expanding agri-inputs market in India, through the perspective of Agroy – an agri-products company. This case can be used to assist in the teaching courses such as marketing management, rural marketing, business strategy, operations and logistics management, among others, for students of MBA or other specialized courses in management. The case has been developed to make students aware and to understand the arduous nature of setting up a company catering to the huge Indian agri-inputs market. This case delves into the complexities of marketing in rural India that is characterized by low technological awareness, low volumes of digital transactions and immense language barriers. The Indian agricultural market is huge and has undergone a considerable amount of change owing to competition among multinational companies and traditional local micro-retailers. This case discusses the various challenges faced by multinational companies in entering India and how they need to strategize to modify their Western model of a distribution channel which faces huge challenges when put to test in India. Specific learning outcomes include: the case study would help students to comprehend the new business strategies that an MNC could adopt in emerging markets. Some companies work on changing traditional and conventional value chains of activities to fit the emerging market customer’s best and hence companies needs to figure out a unique business model to compete in emerging markets. This case study gives readers the opportunity to think about strategy in an uncertain environment. The case illustrates the challenges associated with innovating new business ideas that would help the company serve a greater number of people from a diverse background. It highlights the importance of thinking about real options, a portfolio of projects and the type of organizational structure required to tackle the uncertainties associated with foreign companies aiming to enter the Indian market. It also explores marketing and distribution issues – which are the type of customers to target and which are the suitable geographic areas with suitable linguistic compatibility in which there shall be ease in doing business. Finally, it is an avenue for students to think about the changes necessary throughout the distribution channel to successfully implement and commercialize a project in rural India. The case is intended to work well as a learning tool for strategy implementation where uncertainty is inherent and as an application to lectures on real options and risk or for discussions related to marketing and distribution channels and its challenges.

The Indian agricultural market plays an important role in India’s economy having a staggering 58 per cent of rural households depending on it as the principal means of livelihood. However they have very small landholdings, and hence, they find it difficult to order either large quantities or in bulk, as a result of which the cost of agricultural inputs gets enhanced. Agroy, an MNC, is one of the many companies that have stepped in to bridge this gap by trying to tap into the huge agricultural market. Agroy aspires to be the “UBER of agriculture.” Agroy is a cloud-based buying platform for farmers to buy agri-inputs efficiently at scale and at the best price from around the world. With big data and smart farming, the company aims to enhance farm sustainability and productivity. Agroy’s competitors like Agro Star and Big Heart also have similar business models and hence the competition is stiff. The three debatable questions that the case poses are: Will Agroy be able to shatter the age-old loyalty that Indian farmers have toward local retailers and other Indian companies that have an existing strong foothold in the market? Will similar distribution models as practiced in developed Western countries work in India, given the distribution challenges in deep rural Indian hinterland? Will Agroy be able to create sustainable business models by marketing agri-inputs at low prices in India?

MBA in courses such as entrepreneurial marketing, strategic marketing, agricultural marketing.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The case can be used at undergraduate and postgraduate level, in management development programmes or in Executive Education programmes.

Social entrepreneurship, social inclusion, business model innovation, sustainability, strategy design and strategy execution.

The case explores the development of MITTI Café, an organisation that trains and employs individuals with intellectual, physical and/or psychiatric disabilities to work in inclusive kitchens and cafes in India. The protagonist is the founder of the café, Alina Alam, who has won several international awards for her work. The case highlights Alam’s approach and how she is trying to challenge societal and business perspectives relating to disability. From 2017 to 2021, Alam has scaled and operationalised the business, building her core team, leveraging several partnerships with stakeholders and putting into place offerings, processes and procedures that created a sustainable business model and blueprint.MITTI Café aligns itself with several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with sustainability and social impact at the core of its strategy. As Alam considers the future in July 2021, what else needs to be taken into consideration to scale either within India or abroad?

Following reading and exploring the case, students should be able to identify how social exclusion and inclusion manifests in a business context, and how social entrepreneurship ventures such as MITTI Café can address this challenge; identify capabilities in the context of people with disabilities; recognise how stakeholder relationships can be leveraged as a force for good and for growth, and address SDGs through social enterprise; identify and categorise resources and capabilities within organisations; evaluate opportunities for growth and scale.

The case explores how the protagonist is challenging the concept of “ability” and through her work with the differently abled providing scalable opportunities for social inclusion and dignity.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.