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Towers Watson (TW) has always conducted its own research into alternative approaches to market cap investing. A senior investment consultant with TW, impressed by a recent presentation by the CIO of Research Affiliates (RA) about an innovative investing concept called the “Fundamental Index methodology,” thinks it might be an important innovation in applying nonmarket cap approaches. But he has some concerns about the approach and whether or not it would be appropriate for TW's clients who depend on the firm to keep them on the cutting edge of institutional investing.

Economics, business management

The case study is relevant for MBA, Master's and under graduate (economics, international and business economics) students.

Biocon is one of the top 20 companies from India in the Forbes list of “Best under a Billion” companies. It has emerged from being an enzyme-producing firm to a biotech powerhouse under the guidance of Ms Kiran M. Shaw. It is an innovative company with a varied scientific skill base and progressive manufacturing facilities for developing and commercializing biopharmaceuticals. This study attempts to explore the international foray of Biocon using the eclectic OLI framework. Entrepreneurship, need for integrated business model, innovation, quality control, etc. constituted the ownership (O) factors, important for Biocon to earn the more than compensating advantage in the overseas market. The locational factors were less important in case of Biocon as the global expansion was driven by a motive of either market seeking or cashing in on the cost advantage of its operations. The dominant mode of entry has been the joint ventures. The overseas patterns exhibited by Biocon can be captured fully by the O-L-I framework.

To understand the economic theory of OLI and the ownership, locational and internalisation advantages, link the OLI framework with the international foray of Biocon, Biocon's internationalization journey, major overseas deals signed and the economic rationale behind the deals.

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

The learning outcomes of this study include: recognizing the strategic inflexion points and related business and strategic perspectives in the life of an organization; understanding sources of sustained competitive advantage and connect it with resource-based view for internal analysis; applying dynamic capability theory to identify capabilities that help an IT company stay relevant in an IT sector characterized by VUCA (an acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) environment; analyzing the multi-dimensional and multi-contextual challenge an organization faces, or is likely to face, in the foreseeable future and the possible ways it addresses or should address them; evaluating strategies adopted at various points of an organization’s journey for their effectiveness; and helping a company co-create value for its customers.

This case of Nitor Infotech Private Limited (Nitor), a mid-sized software product outsourcing company, outlines its decade-long journey, highlighting its achievements. While the company has consistently grown by leveraging its expertise in software product engineering and its domain knowledge in the healthcare segment, it entered into a stage of its life cycle where it had to develop a long-term strategy to effectively compete in the product engineering market. Nitor’s strategy was built around product engineering and outsourced product development. The two major choices for a software company were either to develop its own product and thereby own the intellectual property (IP) or to develop modules which would be part of a product that would be owned by a client. In the latter case, the IP would be held by the client. So far Nitor chose to follow the second option by developing components for its client’s products. Although this strategy allowed it to develop expertise in a particular domain, and serve different customers in a particular market, the chances of a competitor attacking its position was high. On the other hand, if it developed its own product, it can create its own brand name and can sell packaged software to several different customers. However, the challenge with the latter is that the cost of marketing could be very high. The choice for the company in the future is to decide on selecting a specific strategy to expand its international business.

This case is appropriate for an undergraduate and postgraduate management course in the area of strategic management. The level of difficulty can be from medium to high depending on the learning level. Knowledge of management fundamentals is not a prerequisite but is desirable for case analysis.

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 11: Strategy

The case would help students to learn the concept of high involvement innovation activity and how to apply it in large service organizations to increase innovation involvement. The case will help the students to reflect on the significance of organizing structure and culture of an organization for enabling innovation and innovation process models. The case would further help the students to develop the skill to plan and implement simple, innovative innovation process models which will increase the ideation capabilities of the organization. The students will also be able to understand the role of informal learning in innovation and how to facilitate it.

Cyient – a global services firm – had always focused on innovation as a key strategic capability winning various annual client awards for over a decade. However, in 2012, Cyient missed the innovation awards which led to the introduction of Idea Tree initiative in Aerospace & Defense (AED) business unit of Cyient. Cyient was able to co-create patents and offer cost savings to its clients through the Idea Tree initiative. This cost-effective and unique initiative resulted in re-organizing the structure (from formal to a quasi-formal), culture (open to new ideas, mistakes and failures) and process (stage-gate) inside Cyient AED business unit. However, Idea Tree also suffers from challenges such as lack of a digital format, lack of corporate presence across Cyient and its highly informal nature. In this context, the CEO wants to review the Idea Tree initiative to decide on its future in Cyient.

The case is suitable for teaching multiple facets of innovation for MBA and Executive MBA classes in core Strategy, Managing Organizations and Entrepreneurship and for elective courses such as Innovation Management, Organizing for Innovation or HRM for Innovation. The case is suitable for both fresher and experienced participants.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

1. Understand how the corporate lifecycle could trigger a necessity of making a tough decision to develop new business ventures based on the corporate lifecycle theory; and how changes in the external environment could hasten such a decision.

2. Analyze how a company can leverage its internal organizational structure to share and utilize cross-departmental resources and capabilities to support new venture businesses according to the synergy effect perspective.

3. Undertake a resource-based view analysis to evaluate the external and internal resources needed for corporate new venture development.

4. Identify the best course of action for the decision-maker by comparing, contrasting, applying and evaluating the two different models of corporate new venture development in the e-commerce business: the centralized organizational model and the decentralized organizational model and evaluate the pros and cons associated with each mode in the context of Dahan’s external and internal environments.

Since its inception in 2003, Dahan’s traditional business in SMS (Short Message Services) and data had gained thousands of customers across China and won top rankings in the industry. Despite its achievements, Dahan encountered difficulties when it entered the new e-commerce market, as the domain knowledge about the new business was very different from the domain knowledge in its traditional business. Furthermore, the emerging B2B e-commerce industry was very different from the traditional business in that the former mainly targeted corporate clients and the latter targeted individual customers in the B2C industry. This case examined the critical decisions that Xiaofen Huang, the CEO of Dahan E-Commerce Corporation and Co-Founder of Dahan Tricom Group, had to make and external, especially Internal, resources the Dahan Group needed in developing its new venture.

Specifically, this case explored how Huang would go through the mental process to make the best possible decision to help the company not only to survive, but also thrive in the rapidly-changing and competitive digital environment: it urgently needed to finalize an organizational incubation model to support the further development of its e-commerce and future new venture activities with two options to choose from: the centralized organizational model or the decentralized organizational model. A key challenge facing Huang was to decide which option was best suited to motivate salespeople in different departments to help one another, especially in the new B2B e-commerce business and to grow that new business.

In the case, Dahan’s growth aspirations and its motivation to transform its traditional business into a new e-commerce business were discussed. Second, when external challenges were examined, how Dahan explored the B2B e-commerce business using a trial-and-error learning process was explained. Third, when internal challenges were examined, how Dahan incubated its new B2B e-commerce business and its practices for leveraging and sharing resources/capabilities, as well as cross-departmental and cross-divisional collaboration through a resource-based lens, were illustrated. Last, the most critical learning in the case presented an immediate decision-making dilemma on which organizational incubation models to choose from for further new business development, where students learn to analyze both external and internal factors and consider Dahan’s available resource and founder’s aspiration, available strategic options to derive a best possible decision to suit the stage of the company’s lifecycle and founders’ vision.

This case was designed for use in undergraduate courses on corporate innovation, new venture development, corporate innovation, corporate entrepreneurship, e-commerce and growth.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Against the backdrop of IBM Personal Computer Business's acquisition by Lenovo Group, this case introduces the remodeling process of Lenovo's HR organization and development team, during which the company's 5P principle, namely “Plan (think clearly before making promise), Perform (promise is to be fulfilled), Prioritize (company's interest is top priority), Practice (make progress every day in every year), Pioneering (venture any experiment to be a trailblazer), takes shape. After learning about Lenovo's recruitment of internationalized talents, cross-cultural coaches for senior leaders, cultural development in internationalization and risk aversion in international operations, we can understand what Lenovo's HR team does to avoid conflicts in corporate culture and ethnic culture in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and integration, and how to adjust and change the HR management system.

Strategy.

Undergraduate final year or MBA.

This teaching case describes the journey undertaken by Yoma Strategic Holdings (YSH) Ltd, a Singapore-listed company that operates predominately in Myanmar, to become a successful and highly profitable conglomerate business empire in Myanmar. The case provides a rich contextual description of how YSH leveraged upon its partnerships and capabilities, especially with its parent and sister companies, to pursue its conglomerate business model. To facilitate the discussion that this teaching case aims to generate among lecturers and students, we have provided a summary of the latest developments in Myanmar since the 2010 general election. This helps to give students an appreciation of the challenges involved in creating a successful business in Myanmar.

The learning outcomes that this teaching case hopes to achieve in students are as follows: Understand the concept of “economies of scope” in corporate strategy; identify and explain the various corporate strategies (i.e. diversification and vertical integration) that can be implemented to develop a conglomerate business model; recognize the organizational and managerial issues arising from implementing these corporate strategies and understand the circumstances that influence its success; and assess the relative advantages of managing a business in a conglomerate business model and advise a company on whether a particular activity should be undertaken internally or outsourced.

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

Entrepreneurship, Corporate sustainability, CSR, Supply chain.

Master's courses: Entrepreneurship, Strategic management.

In 2002, potential risks deriving from emerging normative demands in the CSR debate prompted Axel Springer (AS) to rethink their supply chain strategy for Russian wood. Being one of the first movers in CSR in the publishing business, AS realized that current practices could spark future public discussion that might put pressure on AS, a key player in these supply chains. In early 2002, AS and one of their main suppliers, Stora Enso, started a joint initiative to redesign the supply chain processes in two of the major Russian logging regions to improve their social and ecological performance. Sometime later, other major players in the publishing sector as well as critical reviewers from several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were invited to participate in the design of the new voluntary sustainability initiative called “Tikhvin Chalna project”, the second phase of which was accomplished by the end of 2006.

Learn that organizations (specifically high-brand owners) are responsible for practices within their entire supply chains (social as well as environmental performance).

Explore proactive corporate sustainability, CSR strategies are market but also institutional driven; Strategizing involves forming and transforming the rules, norms and standard models of customers as well as institutions such as NGOs or governmental bodies. Whether the initiator of such strategy is successful in increasing or manipulating demands is dependent on its resources and capabilities as well as on its network position. The case supports students in understanding resources being used to successfully transform or create institutional arrangements.

Discover that the value of a business' relationships and its network position.

Teaching note, Video files

Public Sector Management and Strategy

This case will be useful for courses in information technology (IT) innovation, public–private partnership (PPP) and strategic management. However, the use of the case will differ on the basis of the target audience who could be students of master's course or executive development course. Detailed discussion can be done on co-innovation strategy followed in a public–private partnership and to understand how a PPP can be successful in enterprise solutions. Further, the understanding on how e-procurement and e-tendering solutions work can be gained through this case. This case should be positioned when the discussion for the planning strategy of IT innovation takes place.

SAP was a market leader in enterprise application software and empowered people across the globe to work more efficiently. The e-procurement solution for OILGIAN was managed by SAP LABS India. OILGIAN entrusted SAP with the task to design and implement the e-tendering solution. SAP appointed Ramakrishna Potluri, Lead Consultant, SAP, to manage the design and implementation of the e-tendering module as a part of e-procurement solution for the public sector. The reporting and the security concerns were stated by OILGIAN, and Potluri reassured that his competent team would comply with the needs. The main predicaments that he was going through were that how best he could take the proposition forward. Should he create the innovative solutions in-house or co-create with the customers? Which business models should he follow for this public–private co-innovation to be a predecessor of successful projects?

The case illustrates the following objectives: to discuss the co-innovation strategy followed in a public–private partnership; to understand how a public–private partnership can be successful in enterprise solutions; and to understand how e-procurement and e-tendering solutions work.

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

The case is designed to be used with the digital business model framework developed by Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Weill and Woerner, 2015) and is referred to as the W & W framework. This approach provides a useful structure for thinking through the strategic options facing environments ripe for digital transformation.

Research for this case was conducted through face-to-face interviews with the protagonist, as well as through a review of their business planning documents and other data and documentation provided by the founder. Some of the market and industry data were obtained using secondary research and industry reports. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed to ensure accuracy.

The case follows the story of Kurt Waltenbaugh, a Minnesota entrepreneur who shared the dream of using data analytics to reduce costs within the US health-care system. In early 2014, Waltenbaugh and a physician colleague founded Carrot Health to bring together their personal experience and expertise in both consumer data analytics and health care. From the beginning, they focused on how to use data analytics to help identify high-risk/high-cost patients who had not yet sought medical treatment. They believed that they could use these insights to encourage early medical interventions and, as a result, lower the long-term cost of care.

Carrot’s initial success found them in a consultative role, working on behalf of insurance companies. Through this work, they honed their capabilities by helping their clients combine existing claims data with external consumer behavioral data to identify new potential customers. These initial consulting contracts gave Carrot the opportunity to develop its analytic tools, business model and, importantly, to earn some much-needed cash flow during the start-up phase. However, they also learned that, while insurance companies were willing to purchase data insights for one-off market expansion projects, it was much more difficult to motivate them to use data proactively to eliminate costs on an ongoing basis. Waltenbaugh believed that Carrot’s greatest potential lay in their ability to develop predictive models of health outcomes, and this case explores Carrot’s journey through strategic decisions and company transformation.

This case is intended for either an undergraduate or graduate course on entrepreneurial strategy. It provides an effective introduction to the unique structure and constraints which apply to an innovative start-up within the health-care industry. The case also serves as a platform to explore the critical criteria to be considered when developing a digital transformation strategy and exposing students to the digital business model developed by Weill and Woerner (2015) at MIT (referred to in this instructor’s manual as the W&W framework). The case was written to be used in an advanced strategy Master of Business Administration (MBA) class, an undergraduate specialty health-care course or as part of a health-care concentration in a regular MBA, Master of Health Care Administration (MHA) or Master of Public Health (MPH). It may be taught toward the end of a course on business strategy when students are building on generic strategy frameworks and adapting their strategic thinking to the characteristics of specific industries or sectors. However, the case can also be taught as part of a course on health-care innovation in which case it also serves well as an introduction to the health-care payments and insurance system in the USA. Finally, the case can be used in a specialized course on digital transformation strategy in which case it serves as an introduction to the MIT W&W framework.

The case is particularly well-suited to students who are familiar with traditional frameworks for business strategy and business models. The analysis builds on this knowledge and introduces students interested in learning about the opportunities and challenges of digital strategy. Equally, the case works well for students with clinical backgrounds, who are interested in how business strategy can influence changes within the health-care sphere. Finally, an important aspect of the case design was to develop students’ analytical confidence by encouraging them to “get their hands dirty” and to carry out some basic exploratory data analytics themselves. As such, the case requires students to combine and correlate data and to experience the potentially powerful combination of clinical and consumer data. Instructors should find that the insights from these activities give students unique insights into the potential for of data analytics to move health care from a reactive/treatment ethos to a proactive/intervention ethos. This experience can be particularly revealing for students with clinical backgrounds who may initially be resistant to the use of clinical data by commercial organizations.