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This case gives students the opportunity to explore the concept of organizational status as a competitive asset. CEO Noura Abdullah of Saudi furniture retailer Aura founded her company as a middle-market furniture and home goods store offering affordable yet design-savvy products. By many accounts, both tangible and intangible, Aura had been a success. By late 2014, Aura had drawn considerable attention from several high-status Saudi wedding planners and media outlets, including Harper's Bazaar Interiors, Elle Decor, and Martha Stewart Weddings. This attention yielded unusually strong conversion rates (the percentage of visitors to the store who made a purchase). Foot traffic, on the other hand, remained unexpectedly low, leading Abdullah to wonder whether the high-status affiliations had unintentionally signaled to mid-market consumers that they would not be able to afford Aura's products, keeping such customers away. Students will decide, along with Abdullah, how to handle this unique “problem” as Aura enters a growth phase to other Saudi and Middle Eastern markets.

This case describes the experience of Kanpur Confectioneries Private Limited (KCPL), a family managed company, in being a contract manufacturer for A-One Confectioneries Private Limited. The alliance had worked to the advantage of KCPL. It had prospered as a profitable contract manufacturer. It had used the surplus to diversify into unrelated businesses. The family members, however had doubts regarding the employment opportunities provided by the move. They were not sure whether the progress was sustainable. Alok Kumar Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of KCPL, along with his brothers and son, is required to review the strategy and performance of his company and develop a course of action for the future.

The case ties together a number of marketing concepts and theories within the context of a startup which might be addressed in an entrepreneurship or marketing course. The case focuses on niche, digital, and social media marketing and utilizes fundamental marketing concepts such as target market, value proposition, brand positioning, the marketing communications mix and the adopter categories of the diffusion of innovation theory.

The case is based on interviews from 2014 to 2017 with the founder of Lammily, Nickolay Lamm, supplemented by internet research.

Lammily is a startup company in its second year of existence which produces toys that embody realism: a fashion doll with proportions based on an average 19-year-old American woman, a sticker set of common body markings such as booboos and cellulite to make dolls look realistically, and doll outfits. After the company’s initial success in 2014, fueled by positive publicity from online media eager to share information about the average doll project, sales were flat. Nickolay Lamm, the founder of Lammily, started to feel the heat to acquire new customers in ways that did not rely solely on digital word-of mouth. In response, Lammily commissioned a direct response TV commercial in the Summer of 2015, but it failed to lead to significant new customer growth. This case describes how Nickolay struggles to move beyond the launch phase of his entrepreneurial venture and turn his startup into a business with a sustainable customer base. Facing stagnating growth and established competitors with deep pockets, Nickolay needs to figure out why the TV commercial did not work for Lammily and what his new plan to acquire new customers will be.

This case would be well-positioned in an undergraduate or graduate-level entrepreneurship course that exposes students to the challenges of promoting a new brand and marketing a new line of products in a competitive market with established competitors. It is also good a good fit for a general marketing or entrepreneurial marketing course. The case focuses on how a startup can optimize its advertising strategy for a niche market to stimulate growth with a limited budget by using digital marketing techniques.

Four years into a five-year contract with General Motors to be the exclusive website vendor to its U.S. network of more than 4,000 dealers, CDK Digital faced a crucial contract renewal at the end of 2012. The case follows Melissa McCann, director of strategic marketing, and Chris Reed, CMO, as they prepared for a critical meeting in July 2011: a presentation to the customer relationship management (CRM) subcommittee of the Chevrolet dealer council. Although GM dealers, like all auto dealers in the United States, were independent franchisees, GM saw the renewal of CDK Digital's exclusive contract as a collaborative decision between dealers and GM. According to Ed Vogt, GM's executive in charge of the renewal, if the dealer councils said no, the contract would not be renewed.

This case challenges students to use CDK's big data and analytics capabilities to address the inherent conflict between dealers and manufacturers: when marketing to potential customers, manufacturers wanted consistency across dealer websites to maximize sales of their targeted brands, while dealers wanted flexibility to sell what they had in inventory.

After analyzing the case, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate how big data and analytics can be used to solve channel conflict

• Explain how franchisors and franchisees have different perspectives on the value of data on retail operations

• Recognize benefits of big data and analytics beyond the obvious potential improvements to marketing and operational effectiveness

• Articulate the value of data analytics for channel management

• Appraise the benefits of real-time website customization

Demonstrate how big data and analytics can be used to solve channel conflict

Explain how franchisors and franchisees have different perspectives on the value of data on retail operations

Recognize benefits of big data and analytics beyond the obvious potential improvements to marketing and operational effectiveness

Articulate the value of data analytics for channel management

Appraise the benefits of real-time website customization

Faced with declining market share and sales, Natura, Brazil’s second-largest brand in the cosmetics, fragrances, and toiletries market, expanded its customer reach by moving from a direct-sales company to a multichannel company. In 2014, Natura added online catalogs, physical stores, and drugstores to its well-established direct-selling model, but the results were disappointing. Between 2014 and 2016, three different Natura CEOs attempted to lead the company in the strategic transition to focus less on the direct sales consultants and more on reaching the end consumers directly with multiple channels and touchpoints. In October 2016, the company’s board appointed its former commercial vice president, João Paulo Ferreira, as the most recent CEO. Ferreira’s challenge was to find the right balance between the direct-selling and other channel formats to market Natura, thus enabling it to thrive in the face of intense competition in the beauty and personal care market in Brazil.

This case describes the challenges faced by Amul in organising dairy farmers into a co-operative and creating continuous opportunities for value addition. Participants in the case discussion are required to review the developments in the organisation and recommend a strategy for the future.

General Management, International Strategic Management, International Marketing and Brand Management.

MBA (General Management), MBA (Marketing), Management and executive development programme.

The Indian Hotels Corporation limited known as the Taj Group was set up by JRD Tata in 1903. The company has undertaken a long journey since then. It is one of the most recognized hotel brands in luxury market segment of the hotel industry. Off late some micro- and macro-level changes in the business environment have not been in favor of the group. The strategy of international expansion in acquiring and refurbishing of assets has mounted the debt and the growing losses. What has compounded the growing troubles is the entry of aggressive multinational brands in the luxury segment of the hospitality industry. The group prioritizes to get its financials in order. It thereafter needs to rework on its competitive strategy and take advantage of the booming domestic hotel industry for profitable future growth.

Expected learning outcomes are as follows: to understand the impact of expansions on the top line and the bottom line on the hospitality industry; to understand the impact of expansion on brand image for the legacy brand; to understand and develop strategies for a company which make it profitable in the hotel industry; and to formulate entry and exit strategies for companies dealing in the hospitality 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.

CSS: 11: Strategy.

The subject areas are social entrepreneurship and marketing in social enterprises.

This study is applicable to undergraduate or MBA-level courses; possibly executive programs as well.

Farm Shop was established in 2012 as a not-for-profit trust, with an aim of developing a distribution platform for poor, rural communities across sub-Saharan Africa so that smallholder farmers could get the farm inputs and services needed to increase their productivity and income. Attempting to reach scale, this social enterprise is in the process of building a micro-franchise network. Unlike franchises in industrialized countries where the franchisor starts with a vetted and replicable turnkey business, Farm Shop was created from scratch. After prototyping the shop concept and validating the business model in Kiambu County of Kenya, Farm Shop has 10 fully operational shops and is keen to start its growth phase, aiming to have 120 shops in its network within the next 12-18 months. It is only at that point that break-even will be achieved. Recognizing the key role of marketing in Farm Shop’s growth efforts, the founders are now focused on finalizing their go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Having initiated and measured the results of a number of marketing activities over the past six months, it is now time to decide which of these activities should be incorporated into their micro-franchise system. The management team knows that to provide advice, training and quality products to farmers, they first needed to develop awareness, interest and desire for what Farm Shop has to offer, not to mention the need to gain the farmers’ trust. Fundamentally, farmers needed to be convinced that Farm Shop can help them improve their productivity and income.

The study enables to gain an overall understanding of the range of challenges and opportunities associated with establishing a micro-franchise in an emerging market context; to gain a better understanding of social marketing, including the four types of behavioral influence it attempts to achieve and the similarities and differences between social and commercial marketing; to introduce the “theory of change” concept, providing a framework for understanding how and why change will occur; to introduce the concept of business models and explore the differences between “traditional” and “social entrepreneurship” business models; to understand how a competitive advantage is created; to introduce basic marketing concepts and the GTM concept and its role and application in a business model for a new social enterprise and to understand how marketing contributes to the social enterprise’s strategic goals and sustainability, thereby gaining an understanding of how “social marketing” is differentiated from commercial marketing.

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.

Susan, a dog lover and an entrepreneur, wanted to start a franchise of Dog Shop in Ahmedabad. She had the data regarding the demand and costs incurred by Dog Shop on various verticals in its first year of operations. Based on this data and using an appropriate investment appraisal technique, Susan had to evaluate the three franchisee options offered by the company. The case can be used in any program and course which includes investment appraisal as part of its syllabus.

Marketing, distribution channels and servicing, product portfolios.

This case is suitable for students of business schools specialising in marketing. It is appropriate for students of marketing management and marketing strategy, distribution management and other related subjects.

The case focuses on the debacle of Fiat in India after its recent joint venture pertaining to dealership and servicing ended. The future is unclear and is the topic for debate.

The case will help students to understand the reasons for the failure of Fiat in India and to be able to connect the case with the marketing concepts, especially those pertaining to distribution channels.

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