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Marketing, strategy.

This case is suitable for post graduate and executive development students.

The case provides perspectives of customer centric practices of Yes Bank which has the objective of becoming the best quality bank of the world in India. The case study outlines how Yes Bank has become the fastest growing bank by its strong focus on customers through its committed and innovative employees. The customer centricity develops strong existing relationships and focuses on providing exceptional customer service, leading to better financial performance.

These include: highlighting the characteristics of customer centric organizations; discussing how Yes Bank practised customer centricity despite the limitation of being a new bank with no experience; describing the key differentiators and comparing with those of other banks; and establishing the relationship between customer centric practices with financial performance.

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

After studying the case, the students will be able to: 1. understand the business and existing HR practices at Precision Engineering; 2. evaluate the factors affecting business that may require the company to formalise its HR practices; 3. create recruitment and selection-related solutions for HR 2.0 using appropriate models and theory to aid the company meet its business goals; 4. create training needs identification and evaluation practices for HR 2.0 using appropriate models and theory to aid the company meet its business goals; and 5. create performance planning and review-related solutions for HR 2.0 using appropriate models and theory to aid the company meet its business goals. The case helps students objectively assess HR practices related to three core verticals – recruitment and selection; training; and performance management systems. It also enables them to reassess these practices with the help of specific metrics and models.

Precision Engineering was a manufacturer of machined metal components in the Indian automotive components industry. It had been a family-run business since its inception in 1995. Precision was awarded the prestigious Automotive Component Manufacturers of India award in 2020 for excellence in HR. Ms Sakshi Kapoor, General Manager of Innovation, was ecstatic at the receipt of this award. She, however, was thoughtful about the informal human resource (HR) practices at the company. The top management had announced an aggressive growth plan and advised Ms Kapoor to leverage HR practices to facilitate these plans. Recruitment and selection, employee training and performance management systems needed to be formalised on a priority basis to strategically aid the future business agenda at Precision. Ms Kapoor faced the challenge of preparing the roadmap of HR 2.0 while preserving the employee-centric beliefs at Precision. The case initiates a discussion to achieve this goal by adopting suitable HR metrics and models.

It should be taught in the core course on Human Resource Management for first-year Masters in Business Administration (MBA) students. Alternatively, it could be used in elective courses such as Strategic Human Resource Management, Training and Development and Performance Management Systems for second-year MBA students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Knowledge management strategy.

Small and medium organizations providing technology solutions.

This case presents the developments in BATOI, as it intends to proliferate its services and offerings. BATOI offers an enterprise-class cloud computing platform along with a set of software applications, a business social network and different online information and service portals catering to large audience at the global level. The organization focuses on customer satisfaction as an integral part of the value chain. The case presents the knowledge management (KM) initiatives that were introduced in BATOI as a part of the organization's strategy for growth and acquiring new customers. Based on the business goals of BATOI, the KM-related goals were identified as part of designing the KM strategy. Designing of the KM strategy further assisted BATOI to retain competent employees, and along the way, addressed the major concern of attrition that plagues many established organizations. To conclude, some of the future concerns of BATOI are indicated at the end of the case. The analysis of the case takes into account the KM challenges faced by BATOI and the necessary steps in successfully implementing a KM strategy in an organization.

The objective of this teaching case is as follows: to understand how KM is central to an organization's growth strategy; to appreciate the importance of KM in technology-intensive organizations; to understand the process of deriving the KM goals from the over arching business goals of an organization; and to comprehend the challenges associated with implementing KM strategy for the first time in an organization.

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

Strategic management and management of innovation and technology.

The course can be used for undergraduate and postgraduate students. The case would be relevant in the strategic management course to understand the concept of technology strategy and the various evaluation parameters guiding firms in their technology decisions. A refresher of the concept of value chain analysis can also be done through the case. It can also be used to teach innovation and technology management to understand the innovation process and the importance of various organizational factors for taking technology decisions.

The case tries to bring together different aspects of technological innovation and technology strategy at North Delhi Power Ltd, Delhi which has taken various initiatives to turnaround the dilapidated power distribution industry in India. It details the various technological initiatives taken by the company to revamp the power distribution situation of the country. Discussion in the case also revolves around the technology decisions (technology strategy) taken by the company to drive the technological initiatives. The organizational culture supporting technology decisions and the technological initiatives are also woven into the case.

After a discussion on the case students will be in a better position to appreciate various decisions which firms take with respect to technology. They will get an understanding of what is technological innovation and about the technological innovation process. The importance of organizational factors to supplement technology decisions and innovation will be brought out in the case.

Teaching note.

Students after reading the case will learn about the issues and challenges of expansion in emerging markets. Global expansion versus multinational expansion. Stardardization versus localization. Socio-cultural aspects in international marketing. Leadership succession in multinational companies.

The case is about Starbucks’ journey of global expansion. It focuses on challenges in emerging markets. It also talks about the challenges to new CEO Kevin Johnson post stepping down of iconic leader Howard Schultz.

MBA Executive MBA Specialisation in Strategy, International Marketing.

Teaching Note 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.

In 2007, Best Buy was the leading electronics retailer in the United States with more than 941 stores, revenue totaling $31 billion, and a market cap of $21 billion. In 2005, Best Buy had adopted a new business model, culture, and customer-segmentation template called Customer Centricity. This move created volatility in the price of Best Buy stock because of the higher-than-expected employee costs that went with this new way of doing business and the difficulty of executing the old and the new business models simultaneously while the new model was rolled out. Best Buy responded to Wall Street's short-term focus in a myriad of ways. It first asked for investor patience, and stressed the strong operating results achieved in Best Buy stores operating under the new model. But in June 2007, after the stock dropped again, the CEO knew he had to decide whether to open more Best Buy stores, increase the company's dividend, or increase the stock-repurchase program.

The case describes the dilemma faced by Meera Nair, chief manager at PhoenixWay – a consultancy firm that has successfully grown over the years. There is a silent conflict in the personalities, work styles and attitude of Meera Nair and Mohit Dubey, her contemporary looking after client relationships. Nair finds inconsistencies in the words and actions of Dubey that have started to impact the work and motivation of her team. Her unsuccessful attempts to draw the attention of their boss Shekhar Sinha to these variances have left her unsure and demotivated. Sinha overlooks Dubey's fallacies and shows no signs of paying attention to the discrepancies and contradictions.

Marketing management – services marketing specialization.

MBA/PGDM senior students studying services marketing as a specialization course.

US Technology Private Ltd (UST) is a major software services company in India. It was started in 1999 with a few employees at an offshore development centre in Trivandrum. Now in 2010, renamed UST Global, the company has over 7,000 employees worldwide. Phenomenal success of such a software company, in the left-oriented party dominated state of Kerala, has invited the attention of many people in the industry. The company earned valuable foreign exchange through software exports for the country and the state over the last ten years. The company has created innovative service differentiators, to impress on its clients, on the advantage of doing business with the company. The cementing customer satisfaction and derived customer delight that the company has created in their clients, has secured stable customer relationship management and customer loyalty. This reinforces the trust they have shown in the services management philosophy adopted by the company. The company's unique hybrid delivery model has worked well with its clients. Its unique selling proposition of “few clients and more focus” has resulted in delight of its customers, as they see it as a value addition for their money's worth. The leadership team attributes the success of the company to its fundamental core values and twin strategy of customer centricity and employee focus.

These are: customer perception of service; purpose of customer relationship management; service differentiators; and employees' role in delivering successful software service solutions to the customer, etc.

Teaching notes.

The Employee Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), established by the Government of India is one of the World's Largest Social Security Organizations. The purpose of EPFO is to ensure social security for Industrial workers and their dependents. EPFO maintains more than 15 crore accounts of its members. Traditionally EPFO had been functioning as a legacy organization, administered and managed by Indian bureaucracy. Operational processes were riddled with over emphasis on rules and regulations, but were weak on transparency, accountability, effectiveness and efficiency. The 120 EPFO offices established all over the country operated in silos. Consequently, the very purpose of social security and welfare of the industrial employees suffered, while all other stake holders enjoyed significant controlling power. Recent interventions at EPFO were focused on process reengineering and ICT enablement to make EPFO more customer-centric. The case documents the transformation of EPFO from a bureaucratic, opaque organization to a customer centric, stakeholder friendly, transparent and accountable organization through IT enabled operations.

After reading and discussing the case, the participant would be able to: comprehend the ethics in marketing strategies that were displayed by an entrepreneur in the challenging times of the Covid-19 pandemic; appreciate how the marketing was executed in a socially responsible manner through digital means when there was a conflict between the business and the social interest; and understand how the innovative services or products can be developed that turn the trouble into an opportunity. The case shall also enlighten the students on how to create suitable marketing messages in digital times. The purpose of this paper is to let the students appreciate how they can carry out marketing efforts for a business while keeping customer needs and aspirations at the core, how the marketing campaigns can be designed and executed in a socially responsible manner and how the product portfolio can be suitably altered to make it more valued to the customer. After reading and discussing this case, the students will also be able to appreciate that it is important to identify and address the customer’s pain which may be stated or unstated by the customer. The case intends to teach students how to identify and reap the opportunities that get created from time to time and to make them appreciate that businesses can contribute significantly towards societal gains by committing minimal resources.

The mainstream marketing discipline focuses on excessive consumerism as opposed to the concept of “socially responsible marketing” which advocates that business initiatives should be supported by ethical considerations. The coworking industry was one of the worst affected industries by the pandemic since their customers started working from their homes during and post the lockdowns, leading to a loss in revenues. The protagonist in the case had a strong belief that the business interests would be secondary to the overall interest of society, and therefore, he advised the customers on how they could work productively, safely and stress-free from their homes. As the lockdown was un-eased, the marketing campaigns were launched and executed in a very ethical manner, while designing innovative service offerings were designed.

The case is relevant for the students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies in the field of business and management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.