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The learning outcomes provide insights into how organisations have emerged out of such changes in the external environment, additional complexities that female entrepreneurs have to navigate in patriarchal societies and complexities of handing over control of a family business by the founding generation takes.

This case is about Rita Zwane’s dilemma as she was about to hand over the management and leadership of Imbizo Shisanyama Restaurant to her son. As founder and Chairperson of the enterprise, Zwane founded the business over 20 years ago and had seen it grow from being housed in a customised shipping container to annually turning over millions of rands per year. Her dilemma was borne out of the belief that many family businesses collapsed after being taken over by the second generation. While Zwane grudgingly admitted that Senzo’s involvement in the business had increased turnover and efficiencies, she was reluctant to let go. This raises a question of whether her dilemma was not only her concern on Senzo’s management abilities but also her difficulty in letting go. The case is suitable for management and change leadership courses on a post graduate level where theories such as attachment theory could be taught to demonstrate that the problem is not always the new leadership in transitioning businesses from the founding generation to second generation of leaders. This is particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises where Imbizo Shisanyama Restaurant is situated. Imbizo Shisanyama Restaurant was founded in 1997 during a period when the abolition of many apartheid laws saw an unprecedented urbanisation process leading to the mushrooming of informal settlements. It is this mushrooming of informal settlements that enabled the establishment of Imbizo Shisanyama Restaurant. The case will provide some insights into opportunities that opened up for Zwane in this pivotal period.

Post Graduate Level

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The learning outcomes are as follows. Students can assess effective business strategies, determine the role of business in shaping informal institutions, understand managing issues in social enterprises, from talent management to expansion to mission drift, and develop deeper understanding of the African context.

The case presents the challenges facing the award-winning CEO/Founder of Tanzanian social enterprise Girls’ Technical Education (GTE). GTE provides technology and coding skills in Tanzania, focussing on educating women and girls. GTE has experienced significant success – expanding into neighbouring Malawi. GTE has a strong vision and mission, clearly articulated and prioritised by the Founder and his Board. Hybrid organisations, blending a social and financial mission, are expected to experience management tensions or mission drift, yet GTE seems to have avoided this. As an emerging organisational form, social enterprises – like GTE – often face hurdles regarding legitimacy and acceptance in the markets in which they operate. GTE is working to understand the Tanzanian and regional contexts and challenges in these ecosystems, seeking to influence norms and bring about positive impact.

Postgraduate courses including MBA, Executive Education and courses focussing on Organisation Studies, Management and Strategy.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 7 Management Science.

To examine and create an ideal pathway model that can implement aiming to change the current improper practices in managing municipal solid waste (MSW) to sustainable practices. To acquire a better understanding of public participation and community culture helps in achieving the aim of reducing the amount of waste generation, sending less waste to landfill sites and encouraging the reuse and recycling of materials instead. To help students whom the awareness in the community regarding the importance of protecting the environment and acting in a civilization way has increased. To improve the MSW sustainability practices and enhance the waste sustainability practices together with energy and material conservation. To have more extensive knowledge and awareness of issues in waste management and some of the dilemmas managers of strategic and operations face.

Abu Dhabi’s center of waste management is known as Tadweer is a governmental entity under the Abu Dhabi Executive Council. Tadweer is responsible for managing every MSWs includes collecting, transferring, segregating, treating, recycling, reusing and tracking all kinds of wastes. CEO of Tadweer Dr Salem Alkabi called his team that manages various departments such as strategy, operations, projects and licensing. The meeting was to discuss Tadweer’s future directing and strategy for mismanagement of solid waste dumping into landfills in Abu Dhabi. Dumping in landfills is the main challenge Tadweer faced. Mr. Abdulrahman Albloushi’s strategy and business development executive director of Tadweer highlighted to Alkaabi how Tadweer could improve the waste management practices to make it more sustainable. Furthermore, assisting the center gets more benefit from the waste s instead of losing this valuable waste into landfills. Consequently, Mr. Abdulrahman must grapple with some difficult questions: how much the effectiveness in collecting waste from where it generated and removing it out-of-sight?

This case study is designed for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and executive MBA students of business management programs, especially for waste management, environmental management and strategic management courses.

Teaching Notes are available upon request.

CSS 4: Environmental management.

Upon completion of this case study, students are expected to be able to reflect on strategic industry sectors and the formulation of long-view public policies; understand some of the main biases that affect making decisions in environments of high uncertainty; and build and apply judgment models to support decision-making processes.

Motivated by recent international events responsible for causing supply shock and great volatility in the price of imported fertilizers, Brazil, which in 2022 was responsible for producing only 15% of all the fertilizer consumed by its agribusiness, ran against time by launching a new national fertilizer plan (PNF). The plan proposed to boost Brazil’s national fertilizer industry to fulfil a long-term vision of reducing the country’s external dependence by 2050. While awaiting the first results of the PNF, this case study casts the student participants in the role of Breno Castelães, chief advisor of the special secretariat for strategic affairs of the presidency of the republic, whose role is to recommend the country’s position in the face of external pressures to adopt international embargoes of Russian fertilizers because of its war with Ukraine.

This case study is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students of business administration and public management courses who want to deal with topics such as public policy, judgment and decision-making.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 10: Public sector management.

The student will examine from a systemic perspective qualitative information from a company to propose improvements to its business model.

After working for more than 10 years with a global company, in January 2006 the Guadalajara-based jewelry SME, Divine Jewelry Co. (DJC), was facing liquidity problems, overstock and a debt from a bank loan, among others. The planned expansion of DJC, a family business founded in 1980, had resulted in just the opposite. Daniel, the owner and CEO of DJC, was determined to reverse the company's precarious situation as soon as possible. Some of the questions he asked himself centered on what actions he should take to pay off liabilities and try to survive in the industry his business had held a place in for 25 years. Daniel wondered whether, to pay off debts and have sufficient liquidity to have working capital and move forward, it would be enough to make efforts to recover those clients they had stopped serving, along with getting new ones. In addition, he thought it was necessary to formulate a plan to use the remaining proceeds from the sale of the property if they had to dispose of it. The case is about analyzing the strategic management of a company, specifically its business model, considering the context of its industry. The case also illustrates the problems that arise from focusing on serving a single client.

The case “Divine Jewelry Co: From Expansion to Survival” has been designed to be used by university students in initial management or strategic management courses on the following topics: Business modelsPorter's Five Forces ModelFormulation of strategies

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS11: Strategy.

International business – sell-off and joint venture.

This case is suitable for graduation and post graduation (BBA, MBA) and other management programs. The courses include multinational business environment and strategic management

A significant increase in the Asian electronics business has created a global platform for international vendors and customers. Indeed, Chinese and Korean firms have become the foremost manufacturing and fabrication nucleus for electronic supplies in the world economy. In fact, it is an example of success from Asian emerging markets. This case presents the strategies of Asian rivals in the electronics business that shows both Bolipps and Canssonic redesigning and restructuring global tactics for long-term sustainable success in the given market. It also discusses the reasons behind their current mode of business and post-deal issues.

The case describes a way to impart managerial and leadership strategies from regular business operations happening in and around the world. Solely it focuses on designing inorganic choices such as sell-offs, joint ventures, shuffle and merging strategies through theory to application.

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Business ethics, sustainability and economic development.

This case is suitable for both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The case presents a pioneering initiative run by the Egyptian General Authority for Investment (GAFI) to mitigate the implications of the 25th of January revolution on SMEs. The case describes the “Business Clinic” program that was designed to provide SMEs with world class consultancy services through the CSR programs of large local and multinational consultancy firms.

The case should help students in: defining corporate social responsibility and describing its importance; describing the role of SMEs in economic development; identifying the different growth obstacles that face SMEs; relating theories in different managerial fields that could be linked to CSR and development; investigating the Arab Spring and describing its repercussions on economic development and sustainability; and illustrating CSR role in solving SME problems.

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Pricing, digital marketing, marketing management and strategic marketing.

The case can be used for pricing or digital marketing courses as well as marketing management courses to MBA students and/or for management development programmes.

Goldfinch Mobile Solutions, a Hong-Kong based value added services (VAS) and gaming platform provider, had an exclusive tie up with Bharti Airtel in India for providing value added voice applications on an interactive voice response system (IVRS) platform. The Goldfinch flagship service is “Guru Ki Bani” which may be subscribed to by dialing the short code 58282. This “58282” service has a repository of all Sikh religion daily prayers, religious songs, teachings, stories from Guru's life and similar information that is derived from the Sikh Holy book Guru Granth Sahib Ji. As per mutual agreement between Goldfinch Mobile Solutions and Bharti Airtel, the telecom operator had the responsibility to promote Goldfinch's Guru Ki Bani service amongst its subscriber base through its below the line (BTL) promotional channels such as short messaging service (SMS), outbound calls, cell information, notification SMS after call and above the line (ATL) activities such as posters, leaflets, print, promoters, regional TV, outdoors, etc. The revenue sharing arrangement between Airtel and Golfinch was in the ratio of 75 percent and 25 percent. However, with recent changes in the policies of Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), promotional marketing used by telecom operators has been constrained. Declining customer share, decreasing profits (after Bharti Airtel halted promotions) and increasing organization cost per customer have made MD and CEO Mr Newton Bubber think of various options including low-cost marketing initiatives besides digital marketing to promote Guru Ki Bani services. Value communication to its huge potential customer base, i.e. 184.19 million Bharti Airtel subscribers was another challenge facing Mr Newton and his marketing team at Goldfinch.

The case enables students to learn the concepts and application of value creation, effective value communication, price waterfall analysis, importance of costing parameters in pricing decisions, low-cost marketing strategies and digital marketing.

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strategic alliances/collaborative strategies;

defending against global competitors;

related diversification;

entrepreneurship-organizational life cycle; and

evaluating strategies for firm growth.

MBA/PGP level programmes in management and/or entrepreneurship.

Aztec Fluids & Machinery, set up just over four years ago in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India, caters to the printer hardware, spares and consumables needs of the digital ink jet printing market. The company has identified vendors principally from the UK and China for its printers and consumable sourcing and presently markets these using a hybrid channel structure of direct selling and through 12 distributors in ten cities of India. A recent development of note is the successful transformation of a flexible roll printer into a flat-bed type one by the co-founder. The experiment assumes significance since the cost of a conventional flat-bed screen printer is almost five times that of the improvised printer. The huge, fragmented, price-sensitive, yet quality-conscious market in India offers immense potential for this innovation. At the same time, Aztec's recent interactions with a couple of its UK-based vendors present other alternatives for growth.

To explore organizational life cycle: the introduction and early growth phases.

To understand alliance dynamics for early-stage entrepreneurs –rationale, management and the manifestation of trust between different types of partners: suppliers and customers.

To understand how small firms prepare for and evaluate the challenges of growth.

Teaching note.

The learning outcomes are as follows: successful students will demonstrate an understanding of challenges in producing and delivering a product in emerging economies; they will be able to analyze the tradeoffs in operational decisions of a social enterprise; and students will apply supply chain principles to solve social and environmental challenges.

Carbon Roots International is a social enterprise in Haiti producing and selling charcoal from sugar cane waste. Their operational challenge is designing a supply chain, which enables them to accomplish their social goals while building a profitable enterprise.

This case can be used in graduate operations management and supply chain management courses. The company in the case is a social enterprise.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics