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Amongst other things, at the end of this case discussion, the student should be able to: diagnose situational factors that contribute to a brand’s positioning; explore important issues in implementing brand positioning strategies; use relevant models for understanding a firm’s internal and external environments to inform strategic decisions about customers and competition; demonstrate an understanding of target audience; identify the unique attributes of the competition to inform a firm’s positioning and competitive strategy.

Kaya FM derives its name from the isiZulu word “ikhaya”, which means “home”. The name reflects the mission of the radio station to provide a home for black South Africans who were denied many opportunities during the apartheid era in South Africa. Kaya FM has been broadcasting since 1997, following the deregulation of the media landscape in South Africa. However, by 2018, the radio landscape has become very challenging. Mainstream advertisers still do not consider Kaya FM as a preferred channel to reach their target audience. Overall, radio listenership is dwindling and advertising sales growth is not encouraging. Greg Maloka, Kaya FM’s station manager is considering how to preserve the station’s unique positioning as it competes with both more dominant stations and new entrants so that Kaya FM can truly be a home for Afropolitans for many years to come.

Honour’s and master’s level, as well as executive education delegates.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Emerging markets – marketing and business strategy; social entrepreneurship; opportunity identification; frugal innovation.

MBA; marketing management; specialis ed courses such as entrepreneurship and international marketing. Data rich case, but analytical difficulty is only moderate.

Reboot Systems was conceived as a reverse engineering/refurbishing company for used computers when Rahul Chowdhury and Subbarao came in contact with Anand Tater who had started a small business in the used computer market. The team recognised the potential of the refurbished computer market in India, which was largely unorganised with penetration of personal computers pegged at less than 5 per cent. They identified the opportunity to address the digital divide, caused by lack of affordability and accessibility, by providing inexpensive “as good as new” used computers to those who aspired to own a computer. Additionally, in extending the life of used computers on a large-scale through “frugal innovation”, they hoped to reduce the extent of e-waste generated in the economy. This case provides a rich description of an emerging market characterised by market heterogeneity, social-political governance with poor policy measures, unorganised markets, chronic shortage of resources and inadequate infrastructure. Entrepreneurs hoping to address social issues must tackle these problems at the grass-root level and come up with improvised solutions that address the unique needs of the heterogeneous and resource constrained market. Some of Reboot Systems pressing challenges were in building a viable strategic approach to the market and ensuring scalability in a sustainable way.

An understanding of the characteristics of an emerging market from a macro (environmental) as well as micro (industry specific) perspective, an appreciation of opportunity identification and improvisation in emerging markets as well as differentiating “frugal” innovation from the idea of “Jugaad”, an understanding of the role of strategic vision and mission in accomplishing social and business objectives, an understanding of how to develop sustainability and competitive advantage from a social as well as business perspective.

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

Upon completion of this case study, students should be able to apply lessons learned in core readings, analysis and discussion to a specific case study dealing with a current, real-world situation, specifically: critically assess Livestock Wealth’s case facts and present and justify their point of view – based on attentive reading, critical analysis and engagement – about the company; use a range of strategic tools such as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis, PESTLE analysis and the Ansoff matrix to thoroughly evaluate Livestock Wealth’s internal and external business environment for developing strategic options for business growth and improvements to marketing strategy; use strategic thinking to develop a range of creative solutions to guide the company’s business growth and improvements to marketing strategy; and assess their own growth and development in terms of personal preparation and organisation, collaboration, critical thinking, decision-making skills, participation and problem-solving.

By February 2022, Ntuthuko Shezi, the founder and chief executive officer of Livestock Wealth, had turned his idea of “crowd farming”, which enables anyone to invest in living farm assets and earn a profit at harvest, into a full-fledged business that was creating wealth for both investors and farmers. Underpinning this case study is Shezi’s vision of an African continent where there is “no ground that is not planted with something of value”, local economies are created in those areas, communities are wealthy, there is abundance, there is money for children to attend school and ultimately where “cows (and agricultural produce in general) are seen as money”. Shezi had grown up in a rural area with grandparents who owned a couple of cows, realizing that the cows were the bedrock of the family’s finances. Describing his business, he says, “Cattle are like a walking bank, and we see ourselves as the bank of the future, where every person who owns a cow can access financial services through Livestock Wealth, just like it has always been in Africa.” This case study describes the two key decisions that Shezi needed to make – what direction to take in terms of business growth and how to improve his marketing strategy (with a limited budget) to attract sufficient investment into Livestock Wealth to make his dreams a reality.

This case study is suitable for use for a post-graduate diploma in business, master of business administration or master’s in management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Strategic Management.

The case is designed for a) MBA students b) Short-duration executive MBA courses.

The case refers to India’s leading steel company Tata Steel. Tata Tiscon, the steel rebar brand, is the organization’s leading retail brand. The case chronicles the period between the birth of the retail brand in the year 2000, its dramatic rise and dominance, to the end of 2013 when some of its initiatives had failed. Tata Tiscon was established as a pan Indian brand on the dint of a distribution network comprising 33 distributors and over 2000 retailers, many of them exclusive to the brand. The brand spawned a series of innovation in the category like “selling by piece”, fixed price concept and “free” home delivery. Together with its channel partners, the company achieved dramatic success which was reflected in its leading market share coupled with significant price premium in a category where price had traditionally being the only selling pitch. After 2010, the company saw an emerging challenge in the form of a new business model, where some companies were gearing to provide the complete portfolio of construction material including cement, steel, etc., and a turnkey construction solution for house builders. Tata Tiscon responded by attempting to enter the service space by launching a building design solution and later a construction supervision solution. Both of these initiatives failed. The protagonist of the case is Mr Keshav Viswanath (Chief of Marketing for retail business at Tata Steel), who is concerned with the failures of these key initiatives and is wondering how to ensure the “leader” status of Tata Tiscon in coming years.

The students are expected to understand how a core strategy like differentiation is implemented successfully in “practice”; understand the exploitation–exploration dichotomy in an organization; appreciate difference between radical innovation (based on new organizational routines, new business partners and new relationships) and incremental innovation based on fine tuning of existing organizational routines and relationships.

Rebar production: www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6n9sci8j-8; Tata TISCON AV: www.youtube.com/watch?v=89kOUsbnaYQ; TQM – The Toyota Way: www.youstube.com/watch?v=qf3gdrIMxRw; Disruptive vs. Incremental Innovation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOOL_GiaLTo; Approach to innovation is dead wrong: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pii8tTx1UYM

CSS 11: Strategy.

Strategic marketing/marketing management.

Undergraduate and post graduate courses in the principles of marketing, strategic marketing, strategic management, services marketing and hospitability management.

This case focuses on the critical success factors of “Scandic” hotel chain by highlighting its road to becoming the leading hotel chain in the Baltic region. This case covers a wide range of situations in which strategic marketing decisions were made, for example, the Scandic Sustainability Fund, supporting initiatives to promote sustainable social development. Special attention is devoted to how the case company's business philosophy is implemented to identify and differentiate its customers, in order to sustain a customer centric strategy and develop long lasting relationships.

Following analysis of the case students should be able to: first, understand how marketing strategies can be utilized to effectively differentiate organizations from their competitors by capitalising on distinctive strengths, leading to the delivery of better value to stakeholders; second, understand how marketing strategy deals with the interplay of “the strategic three Cs” (customer, competition and corporation) in better satisfying customer needs; third, appreciate how companies operate within a given environment and the benefits of developing an environmental strategy.

Teaching note including lecture plan.

Marketing Management, Product & Brand Management, Entrepreneurship.

This case can be taught effectively to MBA/BBA students as part of Marketing Management, Product & Brand Management, Entrepreneurship.

The case talks about the marketing mix strategy of India’s fastest growing fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs) brand Patanjali, with a tremendous revenue growth rate of 100 per cent for the past five years, leaving major FMCG companies insomniac. Patanjali Ayurved Limited riding on Baba Ramdev’s brand equity positioned itself as an authentic Ayurved brand with ancient Indian roots. Patanjali’s product line ranges from healthcare, personal care, home care, to food and more. Patanjali’s products were priced 10-40 per cent lower than that of its competitors. Run by franchisees, Patanjali had a three-tier distribution system. These included Patanjali Chikitsalayas which were franchise dispensaries and clinics along with doctors, Patanjali Arogya Kendra which were health and wellness centres and Swadeshi Kendra, non-medicine outlets. The company has 15,000 exclusive outlets across India and plans to grow to 1,00,000 exclusive outlets by 2020. Patanjali amazed the world by achieving phenomenal success without spending much on advertising in its nascent stage. Recently Patanjali adopted the multinational corporation (MNC) style of advertising by hiring two top advertising agencies McCann and DDB Mudra to prepare the company for the next phase of growth. Patanjali diversified into various segments of the market, ranging from FMCG products, Ayurvedic medicines, Ayurvedic hospitals and a medical college. Patanjali plans to enter various categories of products including the beauty products segment to compete with major MNCs, the baby care segment to compete with Johnson & Johnson, and the sports segment to compete with Nike and Adidas. Patanjali as a brand has a strong positioning in the minds of consumers as a natural and Ayurvedic brand. Will Patanjali’s foray into so many diversified segments lead to a brand extension trap and confused positioning? Because Patanjali as a brand, solely rides on Baba Ramdev’s image, if Baba Ramdev ever finds himself at the centre of a controversy, will Patanjali’s brand equity take a hit? Will it affect the brand Patanjali? Even if Baba Ramdev does not get into any controversy, what will happen to the brand Patanjali when Baba Ramdev is no more? Who should be the next face of Patanjali? Can the brand survive without a face?

The case is designed to enable students to understand the following key learning points: The concept of marketing mix. Product mix, Promotion mix branding (especially “Person as a Brand”), customer-based brand equity (CBBE) model or brand resonance pyramid.

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CSS 8: Marketing.

Aramex PJSC: carving a competitive advantage in the global logistics and express transportation service industry.

Entrepreneurship, International Business, Strategy.

Post-graduates, Practitioners.

This case chronicles the Aramex PJSC story of entrepreneur Fadi Gandhour. The case looks at the new start-up, its growth and financing plans for expansion and how it got a competitive advantage in an industry dominated by big players. Aramex, as of 2012, was the only Arab company to have successfully listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange. After 30 years at the helm of the company, Fadi Ghandour, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), was stepping down and was being succeeded by regional head, Hussein Hachem, the CEO of Middle East and Africa. Aramex had a competitive edge in emerging markets, and Fadi and Hussein knew that the route to sustainable growth was to capitalize on this opportunity using organic growth, acquisitions and strategic alliances.

Strategy included looking at gaining a competitive advantage in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and other emerging markets. Lessons are provided on capitalization of opportunity, funding and creating an organization culture that is sustainable and reflects the Founder's ideal.

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