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The first company under the Amara Raja Group was established in 1984, i.e. Amara Raja Electronics Limited (AREL) followed by Amara Raja Batteries Limited (ARBL). Its founder leveraged the presence of his family in Renigunta, a rural village in South India, and chose to start the industry there to create employment opportunities. Preference is given to local population in all ARG enterprises. Despite its strong people orientation, the HR department/function at ARG got strengthened only after Jaikrishna strived to make it central to business. The department's evolution has been demarcated in three phases. The first and second phase saw few initiatives, and during the third phase the HR department was structured according to the Dave Ulrich Strategic HR Model. While this structure had been successful until now, certain sections in ARG still doubted its sustainability.

This case study is related to start-up post-listing investment analysis. Through this case study, students will be able to perform the business analysis guided by the Venture Evaluation Metric tool, perform financial analysis using the discounted cash flow methods and perform investment analysis recommendation with justifications from the business and financial analysis performed above.

This case study sets out the study of a scalable start-up, Zomato, which is a successfully listed start-up firm in India. Despite the start-up development success in the pre-listing, the firm has exhibited a continuous unprofitable finance performance in the post-listing and has further experienced a volatile share price performance, both of which have puzzled existing and potential investors. In addition, some analysts are in the opinions that the firm share price valuation have been inflated with overvaluation since in the initial public offering stage and remain traded with overvaluation in the market. Notably, considering the negative indicators mentioned above, investors are concerned about long-term sustainability of the firm business and financial performance. In the context of post-listing investment, the following questions are material to investors: What is the realistic growth trajectory for Zomato in the medium term? What is Zomato’s share fair value in the medium term? Can one see opportunities or risks ahead of investing in Zomato’s shares? What will be the investment strategy for new investors?

This case study is suited to bachelor’s and master’s level in business schools studying entrepreneurial finance analysis.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

The case describes the internal growth workshop initiative at Vedanta Group. Anil Agarwal in 1976 founded Vedanta as a scrap-metal dealership in Mumbai (then Bombay). Over the years, Anil pursued a very aggressive growth journey with a vision to create a leading global natural resource company. The principal objective of discussing this case is to understand how Vedanta introduced this initiative and how it fits within the strategic human resource management at the group.

Strategic change for business sustainability.

The case is targeted at the BA level and MBA level, and strategic management courses.

The case study focuses on strategic change for business sustainability in the commercial bank sector in Thailand. It describes how Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) developed and implemented strategic change to achieve business sustainability in the economic fluctuations, and the competition in the banking market. SCB is a very long established bank which held the highest market capitalization among Thai Financial Institutions, and it was on the verge of bankruptcy in the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

These include developing students' understanding of the context and practices of strategic change and the nature of theoretical traditions in the field of strategic change.

Teaching notes are available; please consult your librarian for access.

Aster Retail (AR) is the retail pharmacy division of the Aster Dr Moopen's Healthcare (ADMH) Group. The group delivers healthcare services across the Middle East, India and the Far East, with a portfolio of hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and retail pharmacies. AR, under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jobilal Vavachan, is well known for its people-centric approach, unique culture and innovative human resource (HR) practices. AR has won multiple awards for HR practices, service quality and business performance. In a recent corporate restructuring (2018), “Aster Primary Care” was carved out by combining the group's Clinics and Retail businesses. This case discusses the evolution of AR's HR journey and the challenges associated with integrating culturally diverse businesses without compromising the values of ADMH and its promise, “We'll Treat You Well.”

This telecommunications international business case study is the second in a series (A, B and C) of Vodafone cases.

This case is intended to be used in MBA graduate and undergraduate business courses in strategy, cross-cultural management and human resources.

This case examined organizational structures and human resource operating strategies of Vodafone Egypt from 2002 until 2007. Vodafone’s business model, how Vodafone addressed the differences in national culture between Britain and Egypt and how Vodafone fostered adoption of the Vodafone corporate culture are the main themes of this case. Further, this case examined business issues, products, processes and people systems that challenged Vodafone to grow quickly from zero local operations in 1998 to 4,000 employees and national mobile coverage in 2007.

The students who have used this case in the author’s classes have gained a clearer understanding of how international managers often have to develop a change culture and structure as a catalyst for firm growth in emerging markets. Adaptation to the local culture may not be an option for fast growth technology firms and may be ill-suited to meet corporate objectives.

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 5: International Business.

This case will help students to improve their understanding of several important aspects of an organization’s culture and the importance of ethics in developing an organization’s culture. Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the concept of values and their importance in business and learn what organizations should do to make their culture more value-driven. Students will be able to identify the impact an organization’s blurred culture causes and understand the concept of “value congruence” and its need to get higher employee performance. Students will be able to understand the importance of Holland’s person-job fit theory, in an organizational context, along with the impact of Hofstede’s national culture on the organizations’ culture of a country. Students will realize how a result-driven performance management system impacts an employee’s morale negatively, and discover why an organization should balance on giving equal importance to both result and behavior-based performance appraisal system. Students will develop sensitivity to the application of the “triple bottom line” and deontological approach in ethics, and determine how to formulate policies for sustainable and ethical process-driven organizations.

There are two aspects to this case. On the one hand, it talks about the ethical dilemma faced by the protagonist Mr. Vijay Shekhar while working with Smartschool.com, with its head office in Bangalore, India. On the other hand, the case focuses on the performance management system at Smartschool.com, its existing framework and the impact it has on employees and other stakeholders. It also emphasizes the importance of establishing a value-driven culture in an organization for its long term sustenance.

Graduate and under-graduate business students/MBA level.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to explain the importance of rationalizing business operations to achieve efficiencies. To explain the importance of constantly re-inventing the product portfolio and the business for the survival and growth of the business. To discuss the use of product-market expansion strategies as used by businesses for growth and sustainability. To evaluate the internal challenges faced by a company as they adopt business strategies for business growth. To discuss a firm’s strategy to exploit significant opportunities in an evolving business environment.

Panasonic Life Solutions India Limited (PLSIND) an electrical products company with operations in India – an emerging market has set a Vision 2022 to achieve INR 69.21bn revenue target by the year 2022. PLSIND is marketed through the distributor business to consumer sales channel. To achieve the new growth targets, it was imperative for them to expand the product portfolio and explore marketing through the new business to business (B2B) and business to government (B2G) sales channels. Dinesh Aggarwal the Joint Managing Director of PLSIND was tasked with this responsibility. Both propositions depicted attractive business potential but at the same time came with additional risks of a longer sales/revenue cycle. PLSIND to a certain extent had ventured into new business projects with the launch of home automation, solar solutions for industries and smart street lighting business projects. In 2019, they also made a modest beginning by achieving revenues of INR 3.4bnn (constituting 10% of their aggregate revenues of INR 34bn) from B2B/B2G sales channels. Aggarwal believed that this was a good beginning. However, to achieve 2022 growth targets, they had to aggressively move forward with the new business strategy. Aggarwal had to work with the management team to gain acceptance and then to manage these additional risks for growth that came with this new business strategy. How could he win the confidence of the management team? How could he best reorganize the business teams and processes internally to enhance the required operational efficiencies for business growth?

This case is designed for business students at the MBA or executive MBA level courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Upon completion of the analysis of the case, the students will be able to distinguish between a family business and a non-family business, evaluate the professionalization strategies used by Jeff Hamilton and categorize the type of family business that Jeff Hamilton is so far using the model of professionalization developed by Dekker et al. (2013). The model classifies family firms into four types according to their level of professionalization: autocracy, domestic configuration, administrative hybrid and a clench hybrid.

The case highlights how Jeff Hamilton, a family business that began in Kenya and has grown regionally in East Africa, has professionalized its operations and, by so doing, facilitated its growth. The family business is run by Major Boke and his wife Lucy Boke and was ranked number 31 in the 2019 top 100 SME survey conducted yearly by KPMG in collaboration with Nation media group – a Kenyan media company. The dilemma revolves around decision-making in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic, where structures put in place to professionalize the business facilitated the decision-making.

The case can be taught to undergraduate and graduate-level entrepreneurship and family business courses. It can also be taught to executive education short courses on family business and entrepreneurship.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

In January 2012, Ellen Kullman, CEO and chairman of DuPont, must decide whether to retain or sell the company's Performance Coatings (DPC) division. This is an introductory case on valuing a leveraged buyout. The case focuses on a publicly listed corporation's decision to divest a large division and asks students to compare the division's value if it remains under DuPont's control or is sold to an outside party. The transaction size of approximately $4 billion is too large for potential strategic buyers in the industry, making private equity (PE) firms the most likely bidders. The case provides a base-case adjusted present value (APV) model of DPC as a stand-alone company and gives students specific assignments to adjust it to reflect the division's potential value under PE ownership (e.g., EBITDA growth, multiple arbitrage, and increased leverage).

The case is designed to illustrate and discuss the differences between a public company's valuation based on unlevered free cash flows and a PE sponsor's valuation based on residual (levered) cash flows.

This case has been successfully taught in a second-year elective course covering entrepreneurial finance and private equity and in an advanced undergraduate course on corporate finance. It is appropriate for use in classes on private equity, advanced corporate finance, or deal valuation.