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Jarsh Safety received an order of 500 units of its Model S helmet. However, the order must be delivered within 15 days. Jarsh Safety was founded by three engineering college peers, who conceptualized air-conditioned, industrial safety helmets. This innovative revolutionary product offered industrial workers not only safety but aesthetics and comfort. The founders hoped that the product could change the perception of safety helmets from mandatory wear to desired wear. The case details the production process, staffing, raw material required and procurement lead time.

Set in September 1992, this exercise provides teams of students the opportunity to negotiate terms of a merger between AT&T and McCaw Cellular. AT&T, one of the largest U.S. corporations, was the dominant competitor in long-distance telephone communications in the United States. McCaw was the largest competitor in the rapidly growing cellular-telephone communications industry. Prior to the negotiations, AT&T had no position in cellular communications. This case and its companion (F-1143) are designed to allow students to be assigned roles to play. The case may pursue some or all of the following teaching objectives: exercising valuation skills, practicing strategic analysis, exercising bargaining skills, and illustrating practical aspects of mergers and acquisitions.

In March 2000 a fire broke out at the Royal Philips Electronics plant, damaging its supply of semiconductor chips. Nokia Corporation and Ericsson LM relied on these chips to produce their cell phones; together they received 40 percent of the plant's chip production. Both companies were about to release new cell phone designs that required the chips. At Nokia, word of the setback spread quickly up the chain of command. Nokia's team, which had a crisis plan in place, sprang into action. With an aggressive, multipronged strategy, Nokia avoided any cell phone production loss. In contrast, the low-level technician who received the information at Ericsson did not notify his supervisors about the fire until early April and had to scramble to locate new sources for the chips. This search delayed production and proved a fatal blow to Ericsson's independent production of mobile phones. Nokia's handling of its supply chain disruption provides a dramatic example of how a company's strategic risk management can alleviate financial disaster and lay the groundwork for success in the future. Perturbations in supply chain management are inevitable, and grow harder and harder to assess as the marketplace becomes more globalized.

Students will learn the following concepts:

To understand the goals and key performance indicators of online social media marketing and the primary drivers of interaction in a social community. To analyze the challenges faced by the team during the launch of the new digital platform National Bank of Fujairah (NBF) Connect, interacting with an already online present small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) community. To analyze the concept of community marketing in an emerging country and appreciate the value of digital platforms in customer relationship management. To identify and critically evaluate insights on which ideas for marketing communication activities for NBF Connect can be built upon. To build an operational plan for NBF Connect customer engagement on online social communities.

In 2020, NBF launched a new digital platform for SMEs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) called “NBF Connect” with the purpose of redefining banking services for the small businesses sector. The digitalization wave in the UAE was revolutionizing various industry sectors. The global banking industry was already impacted by digitalization and some banks in the UAE, especially in the retail segment (Emirates NBD, 2017), had already introduced many technology-led innovations bringing more effectiveness in the processes and better customer experience. However, the SME banking segment was lagging in terms of innovation. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic situation, with compulsory lockdowns and social distancing, changed the way of doing business for entire industries and increased the pressure on banks for the provisioning of new digital products. Rose joined NBF in the first part of 2020 as Product Owner of the project NBF Connect. The new digital platform was ideated by NBF to be differentiated from other banking products. It was co-created with insights from and regular interaction with the SME community. After the deployment of the first version of the platform in April 2020, Rose realized that the user adoption and commercial results were below par. Over the next three months, only a few users were using the platform with shallow interactions. This case study looks at Rose’s journey as NBF refined and evolved its SME banking platform, including developing and positioning the digital platform in the market, identifying competitive advantages and developing the right commercial strategy to monetize NBF’s investment in the digital platform’s development.

Students are expected to have knowledge of the issues relevant to marketing and communication management, product management and business development.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing

Global Connect, a major telecommunications service provider, partners with national cable providers to bundle media and telecom services offered through voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). Global Connect provides the VoIP physical infrastructure that enables cable providers to offer VoIP phone service to their end customers. VoIP cable services are growing at a faster rate than anticipated, leaving Global Connect incapable of meeting contractual agreements with the cable partners and preventing them from capturing substantial VoIP market opportunities. Students are asked to improve the configuration of work at this service organization by identifying the types of waste in the current process. Process improvements use lean tools and their impact is quantified using time and capacity analysis.

To view a service business as a process and to understand where to find the constraints regarding customer responsiveness (flow time) and sales (throughput). This requires a rather subtle capacity analysis.

In this return on investment (ROI) for customer relationship management (CRM) case scenario, students must calculate the ROI for analytic CRM enabled by an enterprise data warehouse. The case is based upon a real-life consulting engagement with a major Fortune 100 telecommunications company. In this case the executive management team's strategic objective is to grow the customer base by 5 percent annually by customer acquisition. The internal rate of return calculated from the data given in the case is more than 800 percent for one year, and sensitivity analysis shows this is a robust projection, suggesting it should be funded without question. However, the strategy of the firm is customer acquisition in an environment of high customer churn. As a result of these dynamics, the revenues and net income of the firm are actually decreasing by hundreds of millions of dollars each year. A better solution would realize that the executive team has the incorrect strategic objective. Customer acquisition is the wrong approach in an environment of high customer churn and executives should focus on customer retention and cross-sell and up-sell to high-value customers. The case discussion therefore takes students beyond CRM ROI to focuses on the key strategic concepts of customer relationship management.

Students learn how to calculate return on investment (ROI) for analytic customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives. The case also discusses in detail the difference between operational CRM and analytic CRM. The case solution is relatively straightforward with a very good ROI. However, the true learning of the case is for students to understand the strategic context of analytic CRM and to question assumptions in any ROI model.

The broad teaching objective is underpinned by the themes of purpose and partnerships. This is taught through application of business model innovation for sustainability where the value proposition is broadened to social and environmental, and multi-stakeholder partnerships in a time of crisis. Students will be expected to analyse the above concepts through a meso (sustainable value), micro (business models) and macro (ecosystems) lens. Upon completion of the case study discussion, successful students will be able to better understand the three features that support sustainable value, explore how a global pandemic can create new business models and partnerships to create social value and analyse how business ecosystems operate against the 6 C framework.

Discovery Holdings Limited is a leading financial service organisation in South Africa, and its Digital Health division is responsible for the platform which delivers telemedicine offerings to doctors and patients. The case highlights the development of the telemedicine offering and the period that is covered spans from the launch of the Discovery DrConnect platform in 2017 to April 2020. Adrian Moss is the protagonist in the case. He is a manager in the Special Projects, Digital Health team of Discovery Health, responsible for the DrConnect project. His challenge is how to raise more awareness of the DrConnect offering and how to enhance uptake from doctors and patients. COVID-19 and the lockdown in South Africa in March and April of 2020 presented an opportunity for both doctors and patients to use telemedicine as a new way of engagement and treatment.

This case is appropriate for masters, MBA and executive education students focusing on the fields of study of environment of business, strategy, business model innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 11 Strategy.

A midwest hospital purchases new CT Scanners which are much faster than the existing technology. Processes in the radiology department are optimized to the older, existing scanners and technicians are unable to take full advantage of the new scanner speed. The hospital finds itself working to change the processes to suit the new scanners capabilities and take full advantage of their speed.

This case allows students to analyze process capacity and time performance in different settings and understand how process structure impacts both operational and financial performance.

Marketing strategy, Decision making, After sales servicing.

As part of a core marketing course; at post graduate level; marketing strategy courses where competition and co-operation business models are explored.

The case focuses on HCL Care, which had the service competence and reach, but no marketing set up for attracting customers to its ICT products service facilities. The case explores the decision choices faced by the company in deciding its market strategy. The main challenge was the out of warranty offer planned by HCL Care. It was aimed at providing a one stop solution for consumers who owned various ICT devices of different brands that could not be serviced at one point. There was no specific validation of whether this proposed, more convenient and comprehensive offer was compelling enough for the consumer to switch from the service offered by the original equipment manufacturer or from the plethora of low priced offers from independent service providers in the Indian marketplace.

These include: how to organize the different types of market and company information available to segment the market and selecting the target market; developing a positioning platform and developing the market strategy; and choosing between competition versus cooperative business models.

Teaching notes are available. Consult the librarian for access.