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Appreciate changing contours of business to business (B2B) purchase and how sellers should adapt their selling style and promotions.

In the past two decades, imaging Goa (IG) and Azim Shaikh had weathered many business crises. However, as the COVID 19 pandemic unfolded, he became aware of critical fault lines in his B2B selling model. IG offered customised digital display solutions, but its primary source of revenue was B2B selling of interactive flat panel display (IFPD) devices. It, respectively, controlled about 35% and 3% of the market share of IFPD sales, respectively, in Goa and western India. IG’s success in the B2B segment was because of Shaikh’s ability to build strong relationships and customised solutions in an emerging market context. To deal with the COVID pandemic, the Indian Government had imposed a country-wide lockdown, which forced organisations to adopt work from home. This, in turn, created a pull for IFPDs. Yet, very soon Shaikh realised, in the new normal, there was a growing mismatch between his selling efforts and outcomes. Though overall revenue had not fallen much, but the veteran seller had started doubting his tried and tested relational solution selling model. Case dilemma involves the selection of appropriate selling approaches e.g. solution, insight or tiebreaker selling for different situations. This case also offers an opportunity to discuss, how to use online channels to complement B2B selling.

This teaching case study is suitable for the graduate-level programme in marketing management.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing

After working through the case and the assignment questions, students will be able to understand the current practices and importance of influencer marketing strategies within overall marketing strategies; appreciate both the debate and dissonance that surround influencer performance measures; outline the key elements of Qoruz.com’s investments and efforts that brought them success; understand the strategic intent and justify the logic of operationalisation of Qoruz.com by creating two different SBUs after they launched a vastly improved tech platform; and evaluate potential strategies that Qoruz.com could use to move ahead and cement its supremacy in the influencer marketing space.

Interest in influencer marketing which found many takers during the pandemic was expected to intensify and form the core of many brand strategies. Coupled with this heightened interest and increased budget overlay, demands from brands and agencies alike for clearer ROI linkages and KPIs that have better correlation with business goals, have gained momentum. Qoruz, an early entrant in the influencer marketing space in India, attributed their success to their focus on product innovation and service quality. From a predominantly narrow service offering providing analytics that facilitated decision-making for influencer marketing campaigns, their recently launched multi-feature platform enabled them to expand their services and consolidate their position. However, today, in an increasing volatile market, drawn by the high growth trajectory of the influencer marketing space, many players had jumped in and tried to introduce technology-based platforms with almost similar features while aggressively playing the price card. With the monetary and economic conditions under pressure and constantly changing demands of clients, Qoruz.com found itself faced with a dilemma to protect their first mover advantage. The co-founders of Qoruz realised that to give confidence to their loyal client base, and really cement their leadership, they would need to urgently take stock and relook at their strategy afresh relying on their deep experience of the industry, loyalty of their customers and their tech-centric DNA to build a holistic and ambitious strategy.

This case is designed for use by graduate and under-graduate level students in marketing management and strategic management courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This corporate strategy case shows how PepsiCo stopped worrying about competing with Coca-Cola, figured out what its real business was, and decided how to build its future. Redefining itself as a beverage and snack business, PepsiCo sheds its restaurant business and acquires Quaker and Tropicana. By rethinking the synergistic relationship between the complementary, combined strengths of the merged companies, it strategizes to develop innovative products that will compete in a changing demographic, cultural, and geographical world. Will this strategy work in an increasingly competitive environment?

Emami is facing the heat from activist-consumers as well as its competitors. Competitors have renamed their cosmetic products by dropping the controversial word ‘fair.’ This was in response to the Black Lives Movement that erupted in the United States in May 2020. However, the movement against fairness is somewhat muted in India and is mostly occurring amongst urban, highly educated, younger cohort who are unlikely to be the users of the product anyway. The significant consumer base yearns for fairness and is willing to spend money on products which help them achieve the same. In such a scenario, how should Emami respond to competitor actions and consumer-activist pressure?

The case provides an opportunity to discuss the significance of the brand name, role of advertising and gender stereotypes.

Kaleidofin was co-founded in 2017 by Puneet Gupta and Sucharita Mukherjee; former CFO and CEO of IFMR (Institute for Financial Management and Research) Holdings Pvt Ltd. As part of their roles at IFMR, Gupta and Mukherjee focused on designing products and developing technology to push for financial inclusion. In their field interactions, the co-founders had an epiphany of the challenges faced by people while trying to save towards important life goals. They saw an opportunity in the large segment of financially under-served people in India and quit their jobs to start Kaleidofin. Kaleidofin was conceptualised as a digital platform that offers customised financial solutions to help customers meet their life goals. The start-up partnered with mutual fund companies for solutions on one hand and network partners (NGOs, microfinance organizations, cooperative banks) on the other for access to their existing customers.

Kaleidofin grew from 50 customers in January 2018 to 15,000 customers by March 2019. Aiming to grow to 1 million customers in the next 30 months Kaleidofin faces a dilemma about its future course. The start-up could continue to grow by expanding its current target segment which is the low-income households and preserve its vision at the risk of increasing costs. The second option would be to look at other potential target segments, such as, middle-income households and risk diluting their vision. The case study highlights the unique customer-centric model of Kaleidofin and the need for start-ups to understand the value proposition of their products/services.

Focuses on a simple question: should Zimmer develop a gender-specific artificial knee? The decision is complicated because while the idea seems to make sense, there is little clinical evidence that a gender-specific knee produces superior patient outcomes, and orthopedic surgeons are likely to be skeptical of the innovation.

To teach new product strategy and growth strategy, and introduce students to the medical device industry.

The subject areas are entrepreneurship, start-up ventures and business strategy.

The case is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate MBA.

Shikhar Veer Singh (Singh), a post graduate in Medical Biotechnology, quit a cushy corporate job to start his own food venture WoknStove Foodworks Pvt. Ltd. (WSFL) in October 2015. WSFL sold the ubiquitous popular Indian snack food “Samosas” under the brand name of “Samosa Singh”. “Samosa” – a deep fried triangular in shape with conical edges crispy wrap with variety fillings of potatoes/vegetables – was part of unorganized sector and sold by small shops and road-side hawkers. Singh spotted an opportunity to “brand” the “Samosas” that as well was gaining momentum in the international convenience food markets. The company set up a central kitchen near Electronic city, Bangalore, and started experimenting with different fillings. In February 2016, WSFL opened its first quick service restaurant (QSR) in Electronic city, Bangalore. It was an instant hit with consumers of all age groups. Gradually, the company started supplying bulk orders to various other customer segments such as corporate customers, schools and movie theatres/event stalls, that resulted in revenue growth. By January 2017, his monthly annual revenues amounted to INR […] Singh had ambitious plans to expand his business from a single QSR to 15 QSRs across the city by 2018. However, to cater to the increasing demands and support his expansion plans, he was yet to find out the most suitable back-end processes. He had adopted few standard operating procedures (SOPs) for quality operations and implemented 30 per cent of automation for backend processes at his central kitchen. Singh was aware of the automated machinery available in international markets that had conveyor belt arrangements where one could place the flour dough and filling consecutively to get the end product in a shape, unlike the shape of the Indian “Samosas”. The triangular shape with conical edges of the Indian “Samosas” was of utmost importance for the Indian consumers, as the shape associated them with the favourite snack, the “Samosas”. Singh preferred the method of manual filling to maintain the shape and decided to focus on increasing the shelf life of the “Samosas” instead. He felt that an increased shelf life would better equip him to cater the increased market and seasonal demands. However, the question was that whether this was a feasible option to support his ambitious expansion plans (with only 30 per cent automation)? Was Singh’s thinking right with respect to the business operation? More importantly, whether WSFL venture would be able to make an attractive business proposition for investments from any future institutional/angel investor? Singh’s mood turned reflective as he pondered on the above questions.

The case is structured to discuss the structure of Indian QSR market and factors contributing to its growth, evaluate WSFL’s ability to leverage the Indian QSR market potential, its strengths and shortcomings, to highlight the steps of consumer decision making process in terms of selection of a QSR and discuss WSFL’s business model and its future sustainability.

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

After reading and analysing the case study, the students would be able to understand the various challenges in terms of credit expansion for a rural co-operative bank, discuss the role of an apex co-operative bank within the three-tier credit structure, understand the co-operative banks’ product offerings in the agribusiness space and understand the various styles of leadership and change management models within a rural bank.

This case study exemplified the enabling role played by a co-operative credit institution, Andhra Pradesh State Co-Operative Bank (APCOB). It discussed the issues and challenges APCOB faced in mainstreaming an unconventional lending process through its lower tiers. Although the three-tier credit structure played a significant role in the disbursal of short-term loan to farmers, the managing director strongly felt the need to reach out to farmer institutions like farmer producers organization through suitable product offering and right processes.

This case study could serve as an introduction to rural credit co-operatives in MBA courses such as bank management, agricultural finance and rural credit and organizational behaviour. The case study could also be administered as a part of training programmes for state co-operative banks, district central co-operative banks and urban co-operative bank that are involved in planning and execution of development strategies in the area of co-operative banking and agribusiness development.

Teaching notes are available for educators only

CSS: 1: Accounting and Finance.

Entrepreneurship, new venture management, new venture planning.

The case involves various issues within entrepreneurship and the new venture management field such as business model, SWOT analysis, Pros and Cons analysis and challenges faced during the idea commercialization phase. Thus, this case can be used for covering multiple perspectives related to entrepreneurship and new venture planning. This case is useful for discussion in a session on opportunity recognition at ideation stage. This case is also ideal to teach the “Business Model Canvas”, which is fast gaining centre-stage for modern enterprises. The case also covers issues within strategic management such as what actually constitutes a strategy.

The case is based on a field study and primary data collected by interviewing the co-founder of the portal www.drivers420.com. This case describes a situation in which Malkit Singh Bal (Bal) Partner of Bal Road lines shares with Mr Amarpreet Singh (Singh), who was about to be hired as a consultant for Bal Roadlines, information regarding the rise in fraud and crime carried out by fleet drivers and asks him to help him find a solution to the problem.

Prepare a “Business Model Canvas” for the successful operation of business by identifying intended customer segment, value proposition, cost structures and revenue streams. Conduct “Pros and Cons” analysis for starting a business. Conduct “SWOT” analysis for starting a business. Understand what actually constitutes a strategy and understand the five elements constituting strategy.

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 3: Entrepreneurship.

This case, “One Mission, Multiple Roads: Aravind Eyecare System in 2009” is a sequel to the earlier case, “Aravind Eyecare System: Giving Them the Most Precious Gift” (BP 0299). It describes the new challenges facing AECS in 2009. It presents the strategic choices facing a mission driven organization like AECS. For its future growth it had the option of several paths. Following any of these paths would not dilute its mission and yet it could not pursue all of them at the same time. It would have to prioritize them. The case encourages participants to develop criteria for this prioritization.