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Strategic Management.

MBA, Executive MBA.

This case deals with Harsh Mariwalla’s struggle to develop an innovative company from scratch. The journey of innovation is not an easy one. Marico was forced to compete with multinationals in many markets where it operated. Constant pressure from rivals has made the company develop a new innovative business model, which is expected to generate profitability and sustainable competitive advantage.

Students will be able to appreciate the business models, understand the competitive moves by rivals, understand strategy formulation and implementation, understand product innovation and competitive advantage and understand the ability to tackle competition with innovation.

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CSS 11: Strategy.

• The students will be able to compare various perspectives and concepts of strategic alliance as a tool of corporate expansion.

• The students will be able to identify the trade-offs between financial and non-financial gains and losses for corporate expansion.

• The students will be able to identify strategic partnership as a better alternative in comparison to acquisition and vice versa according to the different situations being faced by the companies.

• The students will be able to identify different approaches for brand building.

Shah and Valani, owners of Zed Lifestyle Pvt Ltd which owned Beardo, had to decide whether they should accept the offer of a strategic partnership with Marico Industries, a fast-moving consumer goods company (FMCG) in the global beauty and wellness space. Marico nurtured leading brands across categories of hair care, skin care, edible oils, healthy foods, hygiene, male grooming and fabric care. The decision was not easy as Marico was a leader in the FMCG segment in India and had a strong brand presence in both online and offline distribution channels. Beardo, on the other hand, had its presence marked mostly on the online channel with a hundred offline salon outlets. Partnering with Marico would ensure access to the massive distribution channel owned by Marico but, on the other hand, would lead to possible loss of independence and an early exit from their business. They were not prepared to let go of their ownership as there was no clarity on what would happen if the projected growth figures were not met. There were many other questions too that crossed their minds which had to be answered before they decided on a yes or a no.

The case highlighted the decision dilemma faced by the brand owners, the market scenario, competitive landscape and the situational facts so as to help the students critically analyse the decision situation and develop decision-making competencies by evaluating the possible course of actions and their possible outcomes.

Corporate-level strategies.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

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.

Social enterprise.

This case study can be used on modules on social enterprise (SE) and international business for undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

Arusha Women Entrepreneur (AWE) is a SE established in 2008 in Tanzania that employs low-income women from peri-urban Arusha and provides technical and management skills training to smallholder farmers. AWE has created a value supply chain from the production and marketing of aflatoxin-free, natural peanut butter, having a strong vision of delivering social and development benefits for smallholder peanut farmers and unemployed women.

This case is the basis for class discussion rather than for illustrating either effective or ineffective handling of a business. From this case, students will learn about the emergence and development of SEs and the challenges they encounter to grow.

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CSS: 3: Entrepreneurship.

Marketing in an emerging market.

The case is aimed at MBA students in a marketing strategy class on marketing at the bottom of the pyramid or on branding.

A young brand manager faced the challenge to increase drastically a brand market share to 8 per cent in 2015 in a context of a new emerging market with large number of consumers living with no more than US$1.25 a day.

Expected learning outcomes are as follows: to familiarize students with emerging markets characteristics; to illustrate the challenges of marketing a brand to local consumers with limited financial resources to craft a marketing strategy for Pepsodent with a clear positioning, allowing the Pepsodent brand to differentiate itself and to leverage its brand equity; and to develop a marketing-mix aligned with the brand positioning.

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CSS 8: Marketing.

Entrepreneurship, Strategic Marketing, Innovation, New product development (NPD).

This case is suitable to be used in advanced undergraduate, and MBA/MSc.

This case illustrates the challenges related to commercializing an innovative product, the coconut dehusking machine in the Malaysian market. It revolves around the issues pertaining to the pre and post-lunch activities and bottleneck of the coconut dehusking and defibering (CDD) machine which was developed by Md Akhir in July 2003. Md Akhir, the senior research officer at Mechanization and Automation Research Centre, Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), believed that it was the first coconut dehusker in Malaysia. During 2000, farmers used to dehusk coconut manually, as there was no readily available machine to help them. Thus, Md Akhir felt the necessity to innovate such a machine that could help the farmers to dehusk efficiently in comparatively less effort and time. From 2003 to 2005, he presented his innovation in several national and international exhibitions and received accolades for such innovative product. In 2005, MARDI signed the memorandum of agreement of five years to license the CDD with Phytofolia Sendirian Berhad without having Md Akhir’s consent. Phytofolia was a comparatively new company owned by two entrepreneurs – Azmin Samin and Abd Hamid. During 2007, Phytofolia changed the specification of the CDD without informing to Md Akhir. Furthermore, two machines were sold to a company in Papua New Guinea, but no feedback was sought about the performance of the modified CDD. The price of CDD was set very high and thus the local farmers refused to buy it. In 2009, Hamid left Phytofolia due to disagreement with his business partner. He collaborated with Mr Sigiarno a venture capitalist from Indonesia and offer MARDI RM200,000 up-front to buy the IP of the CDD. At the end of the contract, Phytofolia failed to pay the royalty to MARDI and the contract ended in 2010. By seeing the fall of memorandum of agreement, MARDI asked Md Akhir to decide the next step whether to sign new agreement with Phytofolia, to sign agreement with Hamid’s newly formed company Kelapa Gading, to giving up commercialization and provide this machine to the farmers free of cost or to create a start-up company, fabricate and market the CDD. Md Akhir was really confused about which way to go!

Using this case, students can learn how a small and/or medium scale company can strategize its new product launch. Based on the given industry scenario, students can realize the potential challenges that are related to launching a new product. Furthermore, this case demonstrates that producing a high-quality product is not enough to succeed in the market; right strategy also plays an important role in making it successful. Finally, it can be also learned that proper marketing strategy, good coordination and communication with support companies as well as internal harmony are three important factors that contributes in any business success. Overall, entrepreneurship students will learn how to use the opportunity and manage the innovation. On the other hand, strategic marketing students will learn the importance of adopting proper strategy, while the students who are undertaking the new product development course will be benefited by seeing the practical situation of a new product launch, its rise and its fall.

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

Route 11 Chips, a regional potato chip company, is struggling with whether to reduce the number of flavors it markets. Additional flavors add operational cost, but management believes that some of the flavors are important to Route 11's brand image and that trimming the line might damage the brand. Route 11 has also taken a price increase recently and management is interested in finding out if there is additional room to raise prices. To analyze these issues in the case, students have access to five years of data on sales by flavor and package size as well as actual price and margin information (in a supplemental Excel spreadsheet).

The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to strategically evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, threats and resulting opportunities that face an entrepreneurial startup. To apply the academic principle of competitiveness and evaluate the competitive advantage of the business and its competitors through the application of the Porter’s five forces model. To evaluate the contextual tensions that entrepreneurial ventures face, and how these affect the growth of a sustainable business. To develop the skills to create a target market analysis by using segmentation, targeting and positioning principles. To evaluate the best strategic actions to grow a business through the lens of sustainable entrepreneurship, by using principles such as the triple bottom line and people, opportunity, context and deal and framework.

The case look at business challenges faced by an entrepreneur, Renshia Manuel, the CEO of GrowBox, as she attempts to balance the profitability and social impact of her venture in Cape Town, South Africa. GrowBox sells customisable self-contained wooden boxes equipped with all materials to grow a variety of vegetables and herbs for consumers. Large volumes of boxes are often purchased by corporate clients who donated these to lower-income communities as part of their social responsibility projects. Additional landscaping and food-scaping services make up another revenue stream of the business. The case study documents the conception of GrowBox in 2016 and the growth of the business in the first four years of operation. The theft of equipment, and difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff due to the volatile social climate of where the business was situated, have put the business under great financial pressure and reduced the efficiency of business processes. The case highlights a number of the harsh realities of sustainable entrepreneurship where both profitability and social impact are vitally important to ensure business sustainability. The case dilemma involves the choices faced by Renshia at the beginning of 2020 regarding the future, sustainable growth of the business.

The target audience for this teaching case is primarily business students at a postgraduate level, particularly those studying in the fields of sustainable entrepreneurship and social development, as well as marketing in emerging markets. This teaching case is intended to be used as a case study in postgraduate business programmes such as postgraduate diplomas in management, specialist Masters programmes such as those focussed on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship or social development, as well as those studying a Master of Business Administration or related executive education programme.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The case will familiarize students to TEARS model and No TEARS approach for brand endorser selection. It will enable the students to understand the extent of influencer impact on the brand. It will make students to realistically assess the pros and cons of ambassador marketing using celebrities. It will also enable the student to devise brand strategies to mitigate the risk associated with ambassador-based marketing.

The case explains the strategic challenge the brand faces in ambassador marketing due to the uncontrollable personal crisis of the celebrity. Brand ambassador is an integral element of the brand persona and is appointed to boost the brand’s unique proposition and sales. The selection of the brand ambassador is a strategic decision with direct implication on the brand equity. A strong celebrity–brand congruence is ideal to establish credibility, but it can backfire if anything negative occurs on either side. This case evaluates the crisis faced by Fortune oil which has been positioned as “the heart healthy oil” when its celebrity ambassador suffers heart attack. In the backdrop of the case, the students can analyse brand strategies with respect to ambassador marketing, TEARS model with No TEARS approach for endorser selection and endorser-related credibility risk management.

MBA BBA PG/Graduation in Marketing/Advertising.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The case is about the selecting the agency to take up the brand building challenge of SRF Limited, a well established, large business in India having diverse lines of “industrial products”. The business decision problem of SRF stemmed from the fact that the corporate leadership team, which had to take a decision on the topic had considerable reservation about the appropriateness of each of short–listed agencies for the job at hand. There were also differences of opinion on what would be the criteria for selecting the brand consultant. The Managing Director had to ensure that the team arrived at a consensus, rather than being foisted with a decision from top.

This case can be taken up in executive education programs as well as the basic marketing management program at the postgraduate level or in a specialist advertising courses. The case can be taught in the core marketing course at the postgraduate level while discussing the selection on advertising agency.

The decision–making focus of the case is about selecting an advertising agency among a set of three, which was most suited to help SRF achieve the repositioning, branding and the awareness creation challenge. The agencies, however, were mostly experienced in building brands for consumer product which was distinct from industrial intermediaries company like SRF. As an organization, SRF had no experience of dealing with an advertising agency, thus the selection was quite a challenge. It brings to focus the decision–making dilemma faced by a large number of companies in emerging markets which are making the transition to brand building.

The following insights could be elucidated by the case:

Help the students understand the corporate branding concept as distinct from product branding. Decision–making dilemmas associated with corporate brand building for a company with long legacy of product branding. Criteria for evaluating the proposals by advertising agency from the perspective of a client organization.

Teaching notes.