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This case is about “Red”, a cross-border e-commerce platform developed from a community which was built to share overseas shopping experience. With sharp insights into the consumption behavior of urban white-collar women and riding on its community e-commerce advantage, “Red”, a cross-border e-commerce startup, pulled in three rounds of financing within just 16 months regardless of increasingly competitive market. On the other hand, well-established platforms such as T-mall International and Joybuy also stepped in, and their involvement will also speed up the industry integration and usher in a reshuffling period. Confronted with the “price war” started by those e-commerce giants, in what ways can “Red” adjust its shopping experience and after-sales services to enhance the brand value and sharpen its edge?

The hot breakfast cereal division of Quaker Oats was in serious decline, and the increasing American preference for speed and convenience at breakfast did not bode well for the category. The senior VP overseeing the hot breakfast division has been given an ultimatum by the CEO to turn the company's namesake product line around. She develops a marketing plan, but will it work?

To analyze a mature product category within the context of its competition and consumer trends, and apply several aspects of brand management and marketing strategy to maintain market share in the face of changing consumer preferences and intense competition.

Key State Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plan (a disguised case of an actual BCBS Plan) is the merged product of three state plans. Initially burdened with a reputation of poor customer service, Key State's executives decided to invest heavily in service improvement, eventually achieving superior levels. Key State's high-quality customer service emerged as a true competitive advantage for its customers, who were primarily businesses and health benefits consultants who influenced corporate purchasers of health insurance. The Key State brand came to be synonymous with personal service, security, choice, and dependability. But the health care insurance market was changing under Key State's feet. Spiraling costs meant that high-quality service became less of a competitive advantage as employers were lured by low-cost, low-service providers. Many employers cut or dropped health care benefits entirely, swelling the ranks of the under- and uninsured, who in turn were extremely price-sensitive when shopping for health insurance on their own. Finally, the health care insurance market was being revolutionized by financial institutions willing to hold health benefit accounts and pay providers directly, thereby eliminating the need for Key State as a mediator. Key State executives were aware of these changes but were challenged by the mindset, culture, and organizational design custom-fit to their business accounts. The case asks the reader to consider whether Key State has the right number of target markets, whether it should have one brand or several for its different target markets, what it should do for the uninsured, and how it should improve its brand experience in light of the industry's changing landscape. All of these decisions will have significant implications for the organizational design of Key State.

To better understand the challenges involved in a successful health insurance company to cope with a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment; to formulate a new strategy and a new organizational design to accomplish this adaptation.

After reading and discussing the case, the participants would be able to: apply 7S and VRIO framework for online furniture retail; evaluate the profitability of horizontal versus vertical marketplaces for selling furniture online; articulate the challenges faced by online furniture retailers; discuss the applicability of technology to enhance customer experience in online furniture retail; and discuss the omni-channel strategy which online furniture companies can adopt.

Although furniture has traditionally been an unorganized category, the online furniture platforms have been on an upward curve since past few years. Digitization of economy and usage of smartphones to access internet had given a thrust to online purchases. This case on Wakefit Innovations Private Limited is intended to provide the readers with the business and marketing insights of selling furniture using online platform. The readers will be able to understand how retailing furniture using e-commerce is full of challenges and how various marketing activities have helped Wakefit improve their customer base. The readers can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of horizontal versus vertical e-commerce marketplaces and various challenges associated with online furniture retailing. Whether Wakefit should continue setting up experience centres and the benefits that could accrue by usage of virtual reality, augmented reality and data analytics are additional dimensions which can be discussed by the readers. The case will benefit the professionals in understanding the challenges and marketing strategies used by online furniture retailers and the same can be replicated by other players in this sector.

This case is suitable for students enrolled for full credit course on e-commerce at post graduate level. The case can be discussed towards the middle of the course once the students have studied different formats of e-commerce marketplace.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Ashutosh Sinha is managing VIMPL as rural distribution business involving Villgro stores and village level entrepreneurs (VLE). After spending two years in evolving the business model which provides sustainable products to improve rural livelihood, he has recently started selling FMCG products through VIMPL network. As he decides to expand the business, he has to make choices about strategic path of horizontal expansion versus vertical expansion. The expansion decision is also linked with choosing the right type of VLEs. The case provides detailed description of VLE operations and examines the challenges in building last mile delivery models using entrepreneurs.

The Megamart case study addresses demand planning challenges that retailers often face in categories that have bulky, seasonal, imported products. Historical point-of-sale data on gas grill SKUs is provided for analysis and developing appropriate product flow plan that meets the needs of all retail supply chain stakeholders.

Andreas Stihl AG is the world's leading manufacturer of chain saws and other outdoor handheld power equipment. Based on marketing challenges in its high-volume retail channel—mass merchants such as The Home Depot and Lowe's—Stihl's U.S. unit has narrowed its distribution system to a single channel: independent retail dealers specializing in yard maintenance equipment. This risky and highly publicized decision has proved extremely successful, raising profits, attracting more dealers into exclusive relationships with Stihl, and strengthening the brand's top-quality positioning. But Stihl management are concerned that this channel system may not fit tomorrow's demographics, dominated by homeowners from the so-called Generation X and Generation Y. The case outlines Stihl's business and channel systems and customer needs, then poses a series of questions that management believes must be answered to determine whether to maintain or move away from reliance on its specialty retailers and how to adapt its system.

To understand issues related to retail channel strategy development in fast-changing consumer markets, as well as the challenges of adapting legacy routes-to-market systems to changing consumer service output demands.

This case presents an overview of the confectionary industry, a description of the Hershey Foods Corporation, and a look at the company's strategies and the impact of these strategies. The case focuses on the unintended consequences that result from the implementation of dramatic new strategies for a company and what occurs in a company town that displays a very strong paternalistic culture. Some analysts had previously thought that Hershey's profitability and its close relationship with the town, the trust and the school made the company untouchable, but events proved otherwise.

After reading this case, the reader will feel compelled to answer the following questions. What is the best strategy for future growth of Hershey? How important is organizational culture on a corporation's strategic direction? Should the company indeed be sold to a larger corporation?

By working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to conduct a marketing environmental analysis to aid strategic decisions; analyse the first-mover advantages of a retail firm and how these can be sustained; comprehend online retail business models and the challenges therein; understand the trade-offs of online/offline retail experiences specific to an emerging market’s beauty and personal care sector; conceptualize and formulate actionable growth strategies that balance the individual and collective requirements of brick and mortar and retail e-commerce environments.

The case is set in 2022, right after Nykaa – the pioneer of beauty and wellness e-commerce platforms in India makes a blockbuster stock market debut in 2021. Starting in 2012 with a disruptive online model for selling beauty and wellness products online in India, Nykaa had come a long way with expansions in physical retail and other segments such as fashion. The firm, which initially aimed to be a virtual store, is now thinking of aggressively expanding in the brick-and-mortar retail space as it opens its 85th retail outlet.

Falguni S. Nayar, founder and CEO of Nykaa, wanted to roll out 300 physical stores targeting 100 cities in India in the next couple of years. She aspired to establish Nykaa as a category leader as the “Indian Sephora” in the beauty and personal care market. Nykaa’s first-mover advantage in the online beauty and personal care marketplace worked well to establish it as a brand with positive endorsements by digital shoppers that enhanced the investment potential with potential financiers. However, the pandemic had brought every physical retailer to the online platform. Most e-commerce platforms dealing in grocery to lifestyle had added personal care products to their existing merchandise.

Additionally, several start-ups had ventured into the online marketplace. Online was a cluttered marketplace with little to no differentiation. In this bloodbath, would the first-mover advantage for Nykaa in the online space still count as a competitive advantage? Nayar was all set to expand Nykaa’s physical presence aggressively. The concern was that the beauty and personal care segment had also moved online as a function of long stay-at-home periods. In the post-pandemic times, would the customer indeed revert to brick and mortar once again? Nykaa was also into product formulations, but so was every big and small player in the space. What was the differentiated winning formula for the consumer’s heart and mind?

The case can be effectively used in foundation courses in marketing and a wide range of specialized courses on marketing management (core/foundation course), retail marketing and e-commerce/digital marketing and e-commerce for B-school learners. The complex decision points faced by an innovative e-commerce start-up firm on its road to market expansion make the case suitable for niche courses such as Marketing for Start-ups. Moreover, learners in executive MBA programs with considerable experience can benefit from the case analysis that balances a growing retail company’s long- and short-run objectives.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

This case provides a foundation for student discussion of financial ratios and the insights that may be gained through their use. The case presents textual descriptions of pairs of companies in eight different industries and asks the students to match the text description with the correct financial ratios for each company. Classroom discussion of the students' attempts to match results and companies reveals the strong influence of both industry and corporate strategy on the financial results and ratios for firms. A key lesson is that good financial and ratio analysis requires learning about both an industry's and a company's strategy. The case is also a good vehicle for discussing different financial ratios and their meaning.