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After completion of the case study, students will be able to critically appraise the strategic growth opportunities of an “eating out” industry brand; evaluate the role of customer relationship and retention management in sustaining a brand; and analyse the importance of developing core competencies for long-term business viability.

Since its inception in 2017, Urban Chowk was one of the pioneer places that successfully managed to create a hospitality format called “food and lifestyle park” which combined multiple food brands with good ambience and entertainment, all under the same roof. Although Urban Chowk was one of the popular brands in the given format, its USP was not difficult to challenge or copy. The owner, Mr Kartikey Rajput, anticipated a deluge of similar establishments in the near future. Urban Chowk led the pack in terms of footfalls compared to similar establishments, with Rajput looking to expand his brand beyond Ahmedabad. The case took 2022 as the timeline and brought forth the challenge that Urban Chowk faced. The primary challenge was retaining the existing customer base along with adding newer ones. Second, with the industry being extremely dynamic, it was important to determine how marketing analytics could be used to collect customer data and convert them into repeat customers, thus building a loyal customer base.

This case is applicable for teaching at undergraduate and graduate levels for understanding the concepts of brand development and strategic growth as well as creating and maintaining customer relationships, also helping the students in assimilating these concepts as a part of brand building.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Entrepreneurship, strategic analysis.

Entrepreneurship, strategic management, business in Asia.

This case describes the experience of a start-up online TV company in Thailand. It supplies details about how the business idea was hatched, what challenges the company is currently facing, and how the future prospects for the online media market in Thailand are unfolding.

Participants are expected to be able to compare the similarities and differences between a textbook model of entrepreneurship and the real experience of the company described in the case. A better appreciation for basic strategic analysis such as examining internal strengths and weaknesses and understanding external opportunities and threats can also be developed.

Teaching notes.

Social Entrepreneurship.

This case study can be used on the module on introduction to social entrepreneurship for postgraduate students specializing in Social Entrepreneurship or Social Work.

This case explores the difference between social entrepreneurship and idealism. It captures the journey of Charlene Vaz and Kavita Gonsalves, two passionate young women, who formed “The Bake Collective” (TBC). Kavita and Charlene are both full-time employees, who spend their weekends and evenings running TBC and through bake sells raise funds for supporting social causes. The women have been able to get a teacher hired for differently abled children, provide water purifiers to victims of the Nepal earthquake, furnish a classroom in a school for less privileged children and provide teaching material for schools in over 400 villages in the State of Maharashtra in India. The case highlights the power of volunteering for a cause that can result in developing a social enterprise. It helps to unfold the steps undertaken to kick-start the cause as well as the risks involved in the start-up stage. It also discusses the measures that can be taken to mitigate the risks in the start-up phase and the ways by which social entrepreneurs can scale and grow their programme.

From this case, students will learn about the factors that lead to the germination of a social enterprise and identify characteristics of social entrepreneurs. They will be able to understand critical factors required to sustain start-up enterprises. The case will also enable students to explore systems and processes that need to be designed to sustain the start-up phase. Further, the case will help students to brainstorm on growth strategies for social enterprises.

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.

Micro Finance Institution (MFI) named Rojiroti had been doing good work for weaker sections of the society and had brought about significant transformation in the lives of poor people, especially the Scheduled Castes, in villages of Patna district, the capital city of Bihar, India. Rojiroti was run by Centre for Promoting Sustainable Livelihood (CPSL) and had tested successfully a unique innovative model in micro financing which focused on helping the weaker sections by addressing their imminent needs which usually required very small loan amounts. With the various types of benefits people got from buying government subsidized ration to health and education in family to construct home or buy small livelihood assets. The beneficiaries developed high level of respect and trust for the MFI, Rojiroti. Rojiroti had received international recognition from universities such as University of Nottingham, UK; the University was not only researching on the model and its contributions to society, but also had supported it with funding to cater to its audience. Rojiroti did not believe in just providing finance to people like other microfinance institutions (MFI) or corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding by private and public sector organizations; its model focused more on creating capacities in the beneficiaries to sustain their livelihoods. However, after a decades time, Sunil, the protagonist in the case found himself in a situation where he had to decide for the future journey of Rojiroti after having reached a decent stage of growth The case discusses the journey of Rojiroti where the protagonist Sunil had a significant role to play and dwells upon the Rojiroti business model, its beneficiaries and value offerings to them, the changing environment outside and leaves the discussion open on the question of the choice of best road suited for Rojiroti.

The case is intended for the course on Strategic Management with a focus on business models topic. The case introduces the working of social cooperative business model and the nuances around it which is very much pertinent in today’s times where social enterprises have gained space in business and where businesses work around inclusive business models. The case is designed to provide supplemental support or discussion piece while dealing with business model / cooperative enterprise business model. This case provides opportunity to discuss strategic framework for an organization from the promoter’s perspective. The teaching notes is written from the perspective of the entrepreneur (the protagonist in this case, Sunil) who initiated the enterprise, with a learning goal to empathize and develop skills to have strategic decision making for a social enterprise.

The case is designed to provide supplemental support or discussion piece while dealing with business model / cooperative enterprise business model. This case provides opportunity to discuss strategic framework for an organisation from the promoter’s perspective. The teaching notes is written from the perspective of the entrepreneur (the protagonist in this case, Sunil) who initiated the enterprise, with a learning goal to empathize and develop skills to have strategic decision making for a social enterprise.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 3 Entrepreneurship.

Corporate Strategy; Strategy.

Post-graduate; Executive education; Under-graduate.

The case is based on Titan Company Limited (Titan), one of India’s profitable diversified companies. Set in April 2020, the case presents the evolution of Titan’s growth strategy in the last three decades. The company had grown by continuously exploring adjacent categories in the personal lifestyle space. The case asks whether the strategy that has guided Titan for the past three decades would continue to provide growth. What changes, if any, should be made by C.K. Venkataraman—the new CEO who had taken charge a few months back in October 2019—and his team?

The case describes Titan’s evolution from 1987 to 2020. ‘Winning times’, the first section of the case, describes Titan’s early choices in the watches business that helped the company achieve market dominance and its successive choices to expand the scope of watches businesses by entering new adjacencies. The section also details the evolution of Titan’s design, manufacturing, marketing and retailing capabilities in early years. ‘Looking for another gem’ describes Titan’s venture into the jewellery business – the failure of its early attempts to export and its pivot to domestic market and the successful turnaround of the business. ‘On the fast track to growth’ deals with Titan’s accessories business. The section ‘Eyeing new businesses’ describes Titan’s foray into prescription eyewear and precision engineering businesses and the company’s performance in these businesses. ‘A new identity’ details Titan’s adoption of a distinct corporate identity in 2013. ‘New businesses’ provides information on Titan’s recent foray into fragrances and sarees business. The case ends with the section ‘Years ahead’ which asks what changes, if any, should be made by the leadership team.

Upon completion of the case study discussion, participants will be able to: understand the concept of the ‘core competence’ and the three tests of core competence; how core competencies evolve in an organization over time; diversification (growth) strategy based on core competencies and adjacencies; and key managerial choices and organizational processes required to ensure effectiveness of diversification strategy based on core competencies.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Describes how UPS created UPS Supply Chain Solutions, an entirely new business, with carefully selected target market segments for which unique and extensive value offerings were designed. To build this business UPS made numerous acquisitions and successfully resolved post-acquisition integration challenges in compensation, information systems, personnel policies, and organizational culture.

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.

Strategy.

MBA level. The case can be used primarily for the following courses: strategic management, competitive strategy. It can also be used for courses on: international business, international business environment, business marketing.

Intense competition and a turbulent economic environment posed problems for Infosys, a leading information technology (IT) company in India. Infosys lost market share and its second position in the IT industry to Cognizant. An adverse economic environment affected its clients' IT spending and introduced severe price-based competition in the market. Infosys' business model operated on charging price premium from clients, and the company never compromised on its margins. The company was forced to revaluate, as outsourcing, the main revenue earner for Infosys was experiencing commoditization, and other players were willing to compromise on margins. The Indian IT industry had moved up the value chain and competitors were offering consulting services, where there was huge scope for differentiation. Infosys did not have the requisite resources to compete in this domain. Decline in share prices, negative investor sentiments, downward revision of revenue guidance targets, loss of large clients, higher attrition rates, and visa problems in the US market (Infosys earned more than 60 percent revenues from this market) added worries for the company. In response to these challenges, Infosys initiated Strategy 3.0, wherein the company planned to move up the value chain and offer consulting services and other high-end solutions to clients. This was a shift from its predominantly outsourcing-based revenue model. The company acquired Lodestone to hasten implementation of Strategy 3.0. Initial analysis, however, suggested that Infosys was merely aping Cognizant's well-established strategy. Infosys also needed to tackle perceptual issues regarding its competencies.

The instructor can use this case to facilitate the understanding of: the impact of an intensely competitive environment on a company's strategy, how changes in the competitive landscape and business environment can erode sources of competitive advantage for an incumbent, the impact of a client's business environment on the vendor's business, the concept of value chain and analyze how companies in an industry move up in the value chain, the concept of business model, and how environmental changes can impact a hitherto robust business model of a company, evolution of business model over a period of time with changes in the business environment, the internal conflict between ideals and values versus revenues and market share for a company, key resources and capabilities that shape the differential advantage for an IT company, designing and implementing strategic solutions, the evolution of the Indian IT industry.

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

Business internationalization into emerging markets.

BA Level.

On March 23, 2014, Yves, Patrick and Pascal were on their flight back from Udaipur, India, to Zurich, Switzerland thinking about all the experiences they had during the last 12 months and especially in the last three weeks when they visited India to do the feasibility study for their water shop concept. They still had many questions that were unanswered before leaving India. Do they have the sufficient Indian contextual knowledge and expertise to run a business? Are they considering all relevant aspects to successfully establish a water shop in rural India? Have they developed the conducive mindset? Are they ready to leave their comfort zone, friends and family behind to embark on an once-in-a-lifetime adventure? Do they have enough social capital to assist them in the process of setting up the water shop? Shortly before landing at Zurich airport, Yves knew that they now either had to become serious and really spend at least a year in India to turn their concept of a water shop into reality or stay back in Europe starting with their masters studies. The case offers a true story about three BSc students that decided to evaluate whether they could implement a business opportunity that they had identified during a “Doing Business in India” course at their university and subsequently developed into a serious business case. Based on this situation, the case study offers the opportunity for students to better understand what it takes to create the right mindset (i.e. “Triple I” mindset) before actually implementing a market entry or expansion project in India.

The case focuses on teaching the “Triple I” mindset to discuss the prerequisites of a successful market entry or expansion in India: investment mindset, intercultural mindset and infrastructure mindset The case study also highlights the importance of networks and networking locally (i.e. building social capital) as a prerequisite for a successful market entry or expansion. This approach including the “Triple I” mindset, the role of social capital as well as the actual market entry or expansion project is summarized in a metaphor that we call the “Archimedes’ Screw of Internationalization”. The case study proposes to work on the following five assignment questions to drive the intended learning objectives by discussing the different prerequisites of a successful market entry or expansion in India.

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.

Development of business models, base of the pyramid (BoP) markets.

This study can be used at Bachelor as well as on Master's level courses to reflect activities and practices within corporate sustainability, base of the pyramid and international expansion of MNEs.

This is a case study of Grundfos LIFELINK's development process, relating to the successful development of a business model for serving base of the pyramid (BoP) markets for potable water. Grundfos LIFELINK is a turnkey water solution that encompasses a solar-driven pump facility, a GPS-based monitoring system, and charges based on digital payments of water credits. Together, they represent the business model of Grundfos LIFELINK. At the same time the modules represent a business architecture that can be mixed and matched to match the skills and ensure the adaptive involvement of local partners in BoP markets. Since its cautious start in 2009, Grundfos has successfully expanded its operations to 30 villages in Kenya and LIFELINK systems will operate in 70 villages in Kenya within the next two years.

In an international business/international management context, especially the first and the last part of the case could be used as a showcase of the current transformation efforts multinational companies (MNCs) in the developed world are pursuing. Pressured by the cost advantages of Dragon multinationals from Asia, India and Brazil, MNCs search for new ways to provide value and at the same time utilize their existing knowledge. The Grundfos LIFELINK case shows some of the important consequences and challenges that multinational organizations are facing, once such business models needs to be integrated in the current MNC activities.

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