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The case describes the launch of Twiga Hosting Ltd, a company providing information and communication technology (ICT) services to the underserved small and medium enterprise (SME) sector in Tanzania and in a many countries in Africa.

This case targets a range of audience from undergraduate students taking both Bachelor of Commerce and those taking Bachelor of Business Administration; and Postgraduate students taking business-related courses. Nonetheless, the case may be used by all other learners of advanced studies in entrepreneurship and innovation management.

The case addresses a number of issues including:

• Issues to be considered when starting an ICT enterprise.

• Strategic management.

• Business revenue models.

Issues to be considered when starting an ICT enterprise.

Strategic management.

Business revenue models.

To impart/inculcate entrepreneurial insights in ICT and related areas.

To make learners aware of the business growth opportunities in ICT ventures.

The success factors for fruitful ICT ventures.

To enable learners to identify challenges facing entrepreneurs in ICT ventures and the ways to overcome them.

Teaching notes.

The case can be used to discuss leadership issues in young ventures. It also allows for a discussion of effective sales and marketing functions for a new product. The case also addresses the different challenges facing certain business models in the market, and finally the importance of having a supporting team.

The case traces the development of an Egyptian startup software venture and the challenges faced regarding the entrepreneurship ecosystem. The startup’s main dilemma is whether to continue in its existing market or to extend elsewhere. Launching the main services of the startup is another challenge, as the market needs to be educated to see its value. Despite the success story, as a young Egyptian entrepreneur, the founder is expected to face various challenges to excel in the Egyptian market, such as financing, marketing, teamwork and self-development of the entrepreneur himself.

The case can be used at all levels, from undergraduate and MBA classes to executive seminars, because the issues it addresses are of broad interest.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Innovation, reverse innovation, frugal innovation and disruptive innovation.

Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Executive Education.

This case describes the strategy adopted by Cisco India to develop the Advanced Services Router 901 (“ASR 901”), which is a next-generation 3G/LTE capable mobile backhaul and carrier Ethernet platform that is deployed at a cellular tower site or business premise to backhaul voice and data traffic into the core of the network. This was part of a larger strategy by Cisco headquarters to understand what could be built in the developing markets for the developing markets, as opposed to products conceived with only developed markets as the focus. Within a time frame of a few months, a team formed from scratch developed the ASR 901, the next-generation global networking technology product that was developed completely – from conception to launch – at the Bangalore site in India. The ASR 901 successfully took on the challenge of delivering all the functionalities and features required by sophisticated telecom clients, while meeting the specific requirements of its customers from the developing markets. ASR 901 was undoubtedly a milestone in Cisco India's indigenous innovation initiatives, and this case discusses the many challenges that had been faced during the process and the actions that had been taken to achieve success during this process.

Through this case, students will understand the concepts of innovation, particularly reverse innovation, frugal innovation and disruptive innovation. They will learn how large organisations have managed to successfully innovate by creating small and independent teams within the organisation. Students would also have the opportunity to analyse and discuss whether the lessons learnt by Cisco, while progressing through the several stages of developing the ASR 901 product, could be applied to similar new initiatives.

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

Social entrepreneurship/social innovation.

This real case targets license and master’s students as part of an ongoing course on social entrepreneurship, social innovation, in one word, on entrepreneurship.

Mlouma is a platform based on Web, SMS, USSD, mobile application and call center. This social enterprise keeps farmers in contact with food buyers by displaying real-time market prices and localizations. The service will improve the efficiency of the agriculture supply chain, helping farmers to get a better price for their product. By introducing information and communication technology, Mlouma provides innovative solutions to the market failure by creating more value for producers and consumers.

This case shows the importance of the entrepreneurial orientation of social enterprises to adapt to its context and discuss theory of social entrepreneurship.

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 provides an opportunity to develop criteria for the selection of a leader who would lead a well established conglomerate. It provides details about the initiatives of the predecessors, the changing environment of businesses, internal concerns and the challenges before the new leader. A list of the contenders for the top position in Tata Sons Ltd is given to facilitate evaluation. The participants are required to review the strategy and functioning of Tata Sons Ltd and develop their criteria for selection.

In 1992 Joe Jackson, former manager of DuPont Motorsports for twelve years, was angling to get the paint business at Rick Hendrick's sixty-five automotive dealerships across the United States. In order to win the Hendrick car dealership paint contract, Jackson and Hendrick met to discuss the possibility of sponsoring Hendrick's new team and rookie NASCAR driver—Jeff Gordon. As a result of that meeting, DuPont signed on to be the primary sponsor. By 2006 Gordon was a NASCAR superstar, and the DuPont logo—viewed by millions—was a household brand. While this level of exposure was exciting for the company, executives at DuPont could not help but wonder if they were fully leveraging this tremendous marketing opportunity. Gordon was on fire—but was DuPont maximizing the heat? The DuPont-NASCAR case tasks students and executives with designing a creative marketing campaign to activate the NASCAR sponsorship opportunity and maximize value beyond conventional sponsorship marketing. This open-ended challenge encourages students and executives to think outside of the traditional marketing tactics typically employed by business-to-consumer (B2C) NASCAR sponsors. Additionally, the nature of DuPont creates the need to develop a multi-dimensional plan that caters to a breadth of brands. Beyond designing a new marketing campaign, a key objective of the case is to focus students and executives on designing metrics for measurement of the return on investment (ROI) into a campaign plan. As a first step, it is important to clearly articulate the campaign, business strategy, and key business objectives mapped to the strategy.

Students and executives learn how to design a marketing campaign for measurement. Specifically, they are tasked with designing a new marketing campaign for DuPont to activate the DuPont/NASCAR relationship. Students and executives must define metrics for measurement and learn to use a balanced score card approach. Since the DuPont sponsorship of Hendrick Motorsports is a brand campaign built to reach the DuPont business-to-business (B2B) customer, both non-financial and financial metrics are used. The key to success is to have a clearly defined sponsorship marketing strategy and business objectives. The case teaches students and executives how to define key metrics and articulate a methodology for campaign measurement pre and post to quantify the return on investment (ROI).

Organizational behavior, human resources, culture, international business, international entrepreneurship and emerging market studies.

MBA and MSc students (and some advanced-level undergraduates) in an MBA module being taught face-to-face in an emerging market context. MBA courses such as managing cultural diversity, cross-cultural management, organizational behavior, human resource management, international business and business in emerging markets. The exercise is also relevant to teaching the subject of assignment- and dissertation-writing, given the element of data collection and analysis.

This exercise is designed to be an MBA class exercise in which students try to answer the question: what are the national cultural characteristics of the typical executive or manager in my country? Are these behaviors as the textbooks describe, or have they changed, especially with economic development?

The example of country chosen for the class exercise can be any emerging market country, especially one undergoing significant change. Much of the research on cross-cultural management conducted in emerging markets was carried out 20 or 30 years ago and the changes in emerging markets have been dramatic since then. It is highly likely, when reaching the results of this exercise, that the culture of the chosen country has indeed changed dramatically, becoming more like a typical developed or “emerged” country. Much of the original cross-cultural management research was also based on a similar group – employees of US-based high technology companies, arguably similar to the sample to be involved in our exercise here.

National cultural characteristics can be described and defined in ways which will allow for comparisons, to gain useful insights – and these behaviors are not good or bad, just real and different.

Cultures can change or stay the same, due to certain demographic, economic and social influences, which we can study and measure.

If we proactively interview colleagues and other contacts to test our understanding of these national culture constructs, we can gain more insights and awareness (rather than just listening to a lecture).

Teaching notes, student assignment.

AutoDx Case narrates an exciting story of how organizations in one industry (buyers, suppliers, and suppliers of suppliers), who fiercely compete with each other in the marketplace, collaborated to develop an online platform which would bring in significant efficiency in the system and benefit all the players. The case shows that first attempt to develop such a platform failed in the late 90s. However, similar attempt, later on, was inching towards success. That shows the impact of timing of technology and Shared Beliefs. While Case A narrates the problems faced by a few managers and needs for autoDx, Case B details how the project became successful and was under the process of adoption by various organizations.

The case can be used in strategic management, international business or ethics courses. In strategic management courses, students will be able to identify political relationships as sources of a firm’s competitive advantage. Students will also understand the role of ethics in the firm’s competitive advantage. In international business courses, the students will be able to analyze the role that corruption and bribery play in the analysis of a country’s institutions. Students will also understand how corruption in a host country influences a firms’ decision to internationalize. Finally, students will understand the challenges that firms face when serving customers in other countries. In ethics courses, students will understand the nature of state/business corruption, i.e. the abuse of public office for private gain and the concept of state capture, i.e. managers controlling the political system for their advantage. Students will be able to analyze the decision of whether to collaborate with unethical partners or customers.

Bell Pottinger Private (BPP) was a British public relations (PR) firm with a successful but questionable reputation of helping famous critical figures and despots improve their public image. In 2016, Lord Tim Bell and the other leaders of BPP were asked to create a PR campaign for the Gupta family. The Guptas were a group of businessmen headed by three brothers who migrated from India to South Africa in the early 1990s. By the 2010s, they had built a business empire allegedly thanks to a corrupt relationship with the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma and his family. The press and prosecutors were increasing their investigations on these relations. The case has two parts, which address two separate challenges and can be taught as standalone cases or in a sequence in two sessions.

MBA and Executive Education.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International business.

The case’s learning objectives to work on can vary according to the topic selected by the teacher. This case has been put forward with a particular interest in corporate strategy issues, specifically, on the joint management of businesses (in this case, academic programs). Therefore, students are expected to be able to understand the managerial dilemma on centralization and decentralization; recognize the peculiarities of a shared services center (SSC); and decide on which services to centralize in an SSC.

Centralizing or not centralizing is a frequent managerial dilemma. This is a challenge faced not only by business managers but also by corporate level areas responsible for jointly managing various businesses. Resources and capabilities allocation is an essential process for strategy execution, specifically in corporate strategy that must answer the question: How to jointly manage businesses? Sharing services is a collaborative strategy which aims to increase efficiency by centralizing some processes related to this joint business management. Mario, Dean of the Escuela de Administración in Medellín, Colombia, intends to optimize the school resource allocation processes so that there is more equitable support between the different academic programs. For this, he has thought of creating an SSC as it is a practice that he has seen in prominent companies in the city. His idea is to start operating the SSC in early 2018; however, the particular character of a management school leads him to ask himself: What to centralize and what not to centralize?

This case of decision (Ellet, 2007; Sánchez et al., 2013) can be used to promote student learning of strategy courses both at advanced undergraduate levels and in graduate programs. Likewise, it can be used in workshops with executives and administrative personnel of companies that face the centralize–decentralize dilemma. These types of topics are the subject of study by both corporate strategy theorists who address the question of how to jointly manage business (Menz et al., 2015; Michael Porter, 1987) and consultants (Deloitte, 2012). It is desirable, although not mandatory, that students have some knowledge or experience in strategic issues and challenges associated with the administration of companies made up of various businesses (multi-business firms).

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.