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The subject areas are strategy, general management, health-care management, change management and inclusive growth model and application of technology to manage health care.

The case can be used to teach challenges in managing change in a health-care facility.

Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) is dedicated to provide best health-care services in the field of cancer cure. TMC established its credentials for service, education and research, which contributed to it being rated among the ten best hospitals year on year. Starting from humble moorings, TMC has grown to an institution of high repute from an 80-bed hospital to a 700-bed hospital. TMC held a number of pioneering efforts, which included bone marrow transplantation, external beam radiotherapy (linear accelerator), tumor tissue bank and bio-imaging to name a few. The management team of TMC had ensured that the growth had been orderly and appropriate to the changing needs of the community. Managing a hospital with disparate skill sets in the face of ever-increasing demand for services had always been a challenge in itself. As a government-run facility and well funded by the trust, TMC offered excellent services and post-operative care to the patients. So, it became imperative for the hospital to adopt technology to improve its hospital services and maintain transparency. Patients came to the hospital from different states in India and across the globe. TMC registered international and national patients online. Online medical reports were checked before the patients visited the hospital. TMC has developed an e-system that will allow patients around the world to send their tissue samples that are suspected to be cancerous for medical advice to the hospital. This case study is developed to provide insights into the transformation of TMC into an e-health-care service and explains the process of change management.

They are to provide insights into the challenges in health-care management, to illustrate the challenges faced by organization in implementing information and communication technology- managing change and to bring about best practices in the case organization and find solutions to the following questions: What are challenges faced by health-care officials in providing health care using new technological innovations? How can hospitals equip themselves with new technology? With the advent of improved and modern communication methods, medical practices and cases are more easily shared. Cases are discussed, recorded and, in many cases, put up for general public viewing through the electronic media. How can hospitals manage change? How can hospital administrators manage speed of delivery, quality healthcare, innovation and brand image?

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.

Mary Kay is one of the best-known direct sellers of women's cosmetics in the world. Its channel strategy is to use independent beauty consultants, who are independent distributors, to sell directly to consumers. Its compensation plan is multilevel, providing commissions to distributors on their own sales as well as the sales of the distributors they recruit. At the time of the case, the company is grappling with a well-established change in consumer behavior—the decline of the stay-at-home mom as she returns to the workforce—combined with the opportunities offered by Internet selling. Focuses on the company's efforts to move with consumer demand and behavior, while remaining true to its core goal of “Improving Women's Lives.” Discusses ways Internet technology can be used throughout the company's channel and supply chain structure, not just as a route to market.

Students act as outside analysts attempting to determine how Alfin will finance its expected growth based on sales of antiwrinkle cream.

This case is designed to enable students to understand the role of women in artificial intelligence (AI); understand the importance of ethics and diversity in the AI field; discuss the ethical issues of AI; study the implications of unethical AI; examine the dark side of corporate-backed AI research and the difficult relationship between corporate interests and AI ethics research; understand the role played by Gebru in promoting diversity and ethics in AI; and explore how Gebru can attract more women researchers in AI and lead the movement toward inclusive and equitable technology.

The case discusses how Timnit Gebru (She), a prominent AI researcher and former co-lead of the Ethical AI research team at Google, is leading the way in promoting diversity, inclusion and ethics in AI. Gebru, one of the most high-profile black women researchers, is an influential voice in the emerging field of ethical AI, which identifies issues based on bias, fairness, and responsibility. Gebru was fired from Google in December 2020 after the company asked her to retract a research paper she had co-authored about the pitfalls of large language models and embedded racial and gender bias in AI. While Google maintained that Gebru had resigned, she said she had been fired from her job after she had raised issues of discrimination in the workplace and drawn attention to bias in AI. In early December 2021, a year after being ousted from Google, Gebru launched an independent community-driven AI research organization called Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research (DAIR) to develop ethical AI, counter the influence of Big Tech in research and development of AI and increase the presence and inclusion of black researchers in the field of AI. The case discusses Gebru’s journey in creating DAIR, the goals of the organization and some of the challenges she could face along the way. As Gebru seeks to increase diversity in the field of AI and reduce the negative impacts of bias in the training data used in AI models, the challenges before her would be to develop a sustainable revenue model for DAIR, influence AI policies and practices inside Big Tech companies from the outside, inspire and encourage more women to enter the AI field and build a decentralized base of AI expertise.

This case is meant for MBA students.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CCS 11: Strategy

The subject areas are e-commerce, brand management, marketing strategy, digital marketing and supply chain management strategy.

Medium, can be used for undergraduate marketing electives and graduate core courses.

Jumei, founded in 2010, had already become China’s biggest online retailer of beauty products. Its 31-year-old Founder and Chief executive Officer (CEO) Leo Chen had become the youngest CEO of any NYSE listed company in 2014. However, Jumei was currently facing a major milestone. Could it become a mega-commerce hub like Alibaba? Or should it stick to its core product line – cosmetics – which was already being challenged by luxury retailers and other horizontal e-commerce competitors?

The case will provide the students the opportunity to conduct a situational analysis Identify and prioritize generic business and marketing strategies, review concepts of brand/line extension and conceive new product ideas, assess Jumei potential as a business-to-customer platform and assess brand equity and potential by comparison to another diversified brand.

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 8: Marketing.

This case is about “Red”, a cross-border e-commerce platform developed from a community which was built to share overseas shopping experience. With sharp insights into the consumption behavior of urban white-collar women and riding on its community e-commerce advantage, “Red”, a cross-border e-commerce startup, pulled in three rounds of financing within just 16 months regardless of increasingly competitive market. On the other hand, well-established platforms such as T-mall International and Joybuy also stepped in, and their involvement will also speed up the industry integration and usher in a reshuffling period. Confronted with the “price war” started by those e-commerce giants, in what ways can “Red” adjust its shopping experience and after-sales services to enhance the brand value and sharpen its edge?

New entrepreneurial businesses are one of the key drivers of innovation and economic development. However, one of their greatest obstacles is accessing capital, especially since they are often initially unprofitable and lack tangible assets in the first few years of operation. Since debt financing from banks can be difficult for them to obtain, their capacity for growth can be limited. This case introduces students to Kabbage, a company that reduced the barriers associated with start-up and microbusiness lending by using a fully automated, data-driven platform. Kabbage made instant decisions on whether these businesses should qualify for a line of credit by reviewing its clients’ electronic data, analyzed quickly and accurately using specific algorithms.

Given the applied nature of the case, the data were gleaned from a wide range of secondary sources, specifically popular business press which was verified for authenticity.

This case can be used in a variety of undergraduate courses. Some course examples include small business management, introduction to entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial finance.

MBA students Tim Joyce and Brandon Cornuke had what they believed was a great product concept: a body powder that could be delivered in an aerosol spray. Current market-leading powders such as Gold Bond and Johnson's Baby Powder involved messy application, as they were only available in “dump-on” form. Worse, because powders deposited on top of the skin didn't adhere to it, they tended not to last long. Joyce and Cornuke believed an aerosol powder spray would solve these problems. They called their product concept Dry Goods. However, taking Dry Goods from idea to reality presented some serious challenges. How would two students without access to a lab be able to research and develop a complex chemical/physical process like aerosol delivery, let alone manufacture it once they had a proven prototype? To address these problems, the two entrepreneurs sought out a contract manufacturing partner. After identifying a number of options, Joyce and Cornuke had to decide which partner offered them the best chances of success, given their goals and financial constraints.

Students will learn about the process of hiring a contract manufacturing partner to produce a new packaged good for a startup.

This case study is designed to enable students to understand the reasons behind the launch of a beauty brand grounded on traditions and culture, understand the strategies adopted by Florasis to establish its presence in the C-beauty space and emerge successful, analyze the positioning of a C-beauty brand in a highly competitive beauty market, identify the issues and challenges faced by a C-beauty brand in its efforts to disrupt the C-beauty space and suggest strategies that Florasis can adopt to emerge as a market leader in the global beauty industry.

Set in 2021, the case study discusses about the emerging C-beauty brand Florasis innovative strategies to promote the brand. Florasis was founded in 2017 with a vision to become a century old national makeup brand of China. Florasis was successful in getting on board a story-telling experience that featured traditional Chinese culture, aesthetics and heritage. It sold cosmetic products with retro packaging, concepts derived from traditional Chinese style, promoting a sense of national pride and nostalgia. The case study highlights the innovative strategies Florasis adopted like influencer marketing through key opinion leaders and key opinion customers, celebrity endorsements, user co-creation programs, social content and network marketing, brand crossovers and collaborations, etc. In April 2021, Florasis became the No. 1 cosmetic company in China with a gross merchandise value of 218m yuan and further the total sales for second quarter of 2021 reached 830m yuan, endorsing its supremacy over other global and local beauty brands in China. However, with success came along a set of challenges. Some analysts pointed that the brand was slow in innovating its product line-up, it focused more on promotions and advertisements and the brand positioning with a single sales channel, the cost performance and quality of the products and excessive marketing campaigns targeting a niche segment. Going forward, what should Florasis do to conquer the global beauty space? Can Florasis aspire to become a digitally empowered global beauty brand? Has it got the momentum? Will its direct-to-consumer model and unprecedented marketing and promotion gimmicks, help it achieve the lead in the global beauty space?

This case study is suitable for students of the graduate and undergraduate programs in management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

This case discusses the best-selling security system for preventing shoplifting and the dilemma its startup manufacturer faced when it learned there was a very remote possibility that the system might interfere with heart pacemakers. The theme of the case is that when health is involved, a company must carefully consider any level of preventable risk a product poses, even if that level of risk is extremely low.