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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.

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CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

The learning outcome of this paper is to identify and interpret the risks linked to cyber-security and their impact on the organization. Analyze business management regarding cyber-security and information technology (IT) risk management. Evaluate and propose decision-making strategies for IT projects.

Silver Bank is a financial entity with broad national coverage. Its growth was directly related to its investments in customer service. The entire organization is focused on satisfying its clients’ needs, improving their experience and making them loyal to the company. However, it did not pay enough attention to a threat that, with time, had become more pronounced: cyber-attacks. Its efforts to fight against this threat were only temporary solutions, as gaps in its IT system made it an easy target for criminals until the arrival of Iván Ramírez, who proposes a holistic solution to decrease the probability and severity of these attacks. However, past experiences, ignorance and budget constraints make it a difficult task to convince the bank’s board of directors to implement the proposed solution.

The case can be used as teaching material in upper-level undergraduate and graduate management courses: –undergraduate courses: information technology management, IT project analysis and management – MBA or graduate courses: information technology management, strategic management and security governance.

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CSS 11: Strategy.

Learning outcomes are as follows: students will discover the importance of process orientation in management; students will determine the root cause of the problem by applying root cause analysis technique; students will identify the failure modes, analyze their effect, score them on a scale and prioritize the corrective action to prevent the failures; students will analyze the processes and propose error-proof system/s; and students will analyze organizational culture and ethical issues.

Purpose: This case study is intended as a class-exercise, for students to discover the importance of process-orientation in management, analyze the ethical dilemma in health care and to apply quality management techniques, such as five-why, root cause analysis, failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) and error-proofing, in the management of the health-care and service industry. Design/methodology/approach: A voluntary reporting of a case of “radiation overdose” in a hospital’s radio therapy treatment unit, which led to an ethical dilemma. Consequently, a study was conducted to establish the causes of the incident and to develop a fail-proof system, to avoid recurrence. Findings: After careful analysis of the process-flow and the root causes, 25 potential failure modes were detected and the team had assigned a risk priority number (RPN) for each potential incident, selected the top ten RPNs and developed an error-proofing system to prevent recurrence. Subsequently, the improvement process was carried out for all the 25 potential incidents and a new control mechanism was implemented. The question of ethical dilemma remained unresolved. Research limitations/implications: Ishikawa diagram, FMEA and Poka-Yoke techniques require a multi-disciplinary team with process knowledge in identifying the possible root causes for errors, potential risks and also the possible error-proofing method/s. Besides, these techniques need frank discussions and agreement among team members on the efforts for the development of action plan, implementation and control of the new processes. Practical implications: Students can take the case data to identify root cause analysis and the RPN (RPN = possibility of detection × probability of occurrence × severity), to redesign the protocols, through systematic identification of the deficiencies of the existing protocols. Further, they can recommend quality improvement projects. Faculty can navigate the case session orientation, emphasizing quality management or ethical practices, depending on the course for which the case is selected.

MBA or PG Diploma in Management – health-care management, hospital administration, operations management, services operations, total quality management (TQM) and ethics.

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CSS 9: Operations and Logistics.

This case presents the history and recent governance challenges of Carvajal, S.A., a Colombia-based, family-owned, billion-dollar-plus holding company that had offered printing-related (e.g., Yellow Pages, notebooks) and other products and services across and beyond South America for more than a century. Specifically, the case details the company’s state of affairs in early 2011, a time by which Carvajal’s flagship businesses had matured rapidly with the emergence of digital technology and diminished demand for paper/print-based products. Though profits and growth remained positive, Carvajal’s leaders knew that upholding the business’s legacy of returns, dividends for all family members, and extensive philanthropy would take significant strategy and execution.

Compounding the strategy issues, Carvajal faced these market challenges with new leadership: the first non-family CEO since the company’s inception. Well-established Colombian executive Ricardo Obregon had been hired in 2008 over two family candidates to lead the business. Obregon was to oversee a complex governance network that included a holding company with seven operating companies, their management and respective boards, a family council, and 280 members (including spouses) of a shareholding family in its sixth generation. Carvajal’s business and family leaders had to face market issues and decisions that included the possibility of taking public the operating companies and/or the holding company while maintaining the business’s long traditions of unity, respect, strong ethics, and philanthropy. That meant optimizing several crucial relationships: between the family and the new CEO; between the family and the board; between the operating companies and the holding company; and between members of the large Carvajal family, many of whom now resided outside of Colombia and Latin America.

Understand general and specific challenges associated with carrying on a longstanding family business facing multiple market challenges; explore the process of engaging a complex family-business governance network to handle business challenges while maintaining family values; consider the effects of culture on a multi-generation family business.

The “Anti-Racism in my Pocket” case illustrates how collaborative entrepreneurial leadership can build on personal experiences, expertise and a desire to change the status quo to support racial equity. The case will support students’ critical thinking skills and further heighten their understanding of the contributions of women in leadership, anti-racism and the role of technology. Moreover, the case is motivating for students with aspirations of using business skills and knowledge to contribute to social equity.

After completing this case, students should be able to identify the role of marketing in the development, implementation and evaluation of a behavior change initiative, the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets anti-racism training program; analyze qualitative and quantitative data to assess the impact of the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets Pilot using a logic model; identify marketing opportunities, challenges and strategies to scale the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets series for a broader impact; and discuss the relationship of gender in strategic positioning and marketing leadership to the development of the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets (Optional).

This case charts the development of an anti-racism training series by two friends, Allison Plyer (she/her) and Valerie (Val) Uccellani (she/her), called Anti-Racism Action Nuggets. The two protagonists aimed to change individual behaviors to reduce structural racism through lessons that were delivered in text messages to participants. Once the course is completed, they conduct a test pilot with members of NOW, LOVE, a women’s organization in New Orleans, Louisiana. At the end of the case, students are provided with the qualitative and quantitative pilot data for their analysis to recommend next steps and important marketing considerations for the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets series.

Undergraduate, graduate and executive education

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CCS 8: Marketing

This case study has been developed based on the primary data obtained through a series of interviews held with the senior management of Cargills, and the secondary data obtained from the company’s corporate website www.cargillsceylon.com/,annual reports and publicly available sources of information such as newspaper articles.

This case study focuses on the strategic responses employed by Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – a leading business conglomerate in Sri Lanka – in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The duration of this case study is from January 2020 to September 2021. The case study particularly examines the key business sectors of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – retail, food manufacturing and quick service restaurants – which elaborate on the change management practices and strategies deployed by the company in each of these sectors during this challenging period. This study is based on the primary data gathered from the interviews held with the Cargills (Ceylon) PLC team, and the secondary data obtained from the corporate website of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC. This case study is most suitable to be taught in academic courses related to strategic change management.

The case is most suited to be discussed with undergraduates (3rd year and 4th year) following business and management studies related disciplines. While the pivotal area around which the case has been developed is strategic change management, covering environmental analysis, strategic analysis and process of change management, the case could also be used in strategic management classes, to discuss environmental analysis, strategic planning approaches and business and corporate level strategies.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This comprehensive case has been written for an undergraduate-level course on general management and a post-graduate-level course on organizational behavior and strategic management. After working through the case and conducting an in-depth discussion of the assignment questions, students will be able to do the following: 1. perform a comprehensive assessment of the institute’s internal context to measure its resources and preparedness to deal with COVID-19; 2. apply organizational change frameworks (to understand the trigger of the change, type of change and change process); 3. qualitatively analyze the dynamic capabilities and resources available to reopen the institute; and 4. suggest ways to institutionalize agility in the organization to improve the preparations and future responses to student management on campus based on a thorough analysis.

Founded in 1996, the Indian Managerial Studies Institute, Indore, has emerged as a leader in management education by appropriately weaving the pertinent roles of industry, government and PSUs into a common thread. With the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020, IMSI Indore began to respond to educational and administrative challenges by building on resilient strategies. Two decision-making situations cropped up as the situation improved and again converged to the more lethal second wave in March 2021. Dr Hemant Vishwas, Dean of IMSI Indore, needed to determine whether the institute should continue with the reduced employee and hybrid classroom model or reopen with full-fledged operations for the following academic year.

This comprehensive case has been written considering the teaching pedagogy for an undergraduate-level course on organizational behavior (organizational development and change module) and a post-graduate-level course on organizational behavior and strategic management. This case is suitable for courses on organizational development, change and strategy implementation. Organizational behavior and organizational development and change can be used to understand the core concepts of the change content and process, i.e. the scope and scale of the change. The case also touches on inducing a dynamic change in response to the pandemic in an educational setting, teaching the concepts of dynamic capabilities. It is also expected to be useful for teaching courses related to operations strategies in educational services for executive degree programs and faculty development workshops.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Rendering digital services have taken centerstage in the current ICT for development discourse. E-Government services are mostly under this discourse with the aim to provide citizen centric services in the public domain. Business and development organizations alike are also investing in developing their own digital infrastructure for rendering services to its stakeholders. This case describes scenario in which a cooperative organization wishes to use digital infrastructure and provide digital services to its farmer members. The cooperative continued investing in ICT since the last couple of decades and constantly upgraded it to ease the transaction and bring efficiency and reduce information asymmetry. This had greatly benefitted the members. However, the cooperative is aware that its communication network built on the wireless medium has its own limitations in introducing new services and integrating its databases and applications. The cooperative took note of “Digital India (DI)” initiatives to provide digital services to rural areas and build an ecosystem to empower the citizens in its governance set up. This DI policy has implicit provisions of better networking protocols with improved bandwidth. The organization has a dilemma to continue with investing its own resources or explore possibility of piggybacking on the DI initiative. The cooperative wished to examine the total cost of ownership in either case and assess the feasibility of converging with the infrastructure created by the government.

The Government Information Technology Policies are increasingly favouring citizens and in favour of shared infrastructure and services. It is worth the examination to evaluate strategies to deploy IT infrastructure and services with optimized cost and better returns in an enterprise. This is far more important for a social enterprise like AMALSAD cooperative (user-owned firm) that has deployed its own IT infrastructure and ITeS. AMALSAD cooperative deployed its IT assets long back and in the meanwhile, the Government policy is in favour of providing services over the internet.

The case serves to help students to understand the theoretical concept of Enterprise information systems infrastructure and services. It brings to the students understanding: the drivers of IT infrastructure to provide digital services; challenges that would make the social enterprise (in this case user-owned firm) to understand the opportunities and challenges of deploying the right digital infrastructure and get services on demand. The case presents the scenarios for the students to deliberate and find answers to the right approach for estimating the total cost of ownership (TCO).

The case situation presents a scenario for digital government services. Most of the customer-facing enterprises including social enterprises are also providing digital services. It is important that such services converge at an optimized TCO.

Masters in Business Administration with a concentration in Information Systems.

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CSS 7: Management Science.

In the 1960s thalidomide, a popular new drug considered to be safe and effective, was revealed to cause severe nerve damage and birth defects in newborn infants, prompting health officials to ban the use of the drug and tighten overall restrictions on new drugs and drug use. Twenty years later, after recognizing the positive effects of thalidomide when treating patients with leprosy and its potential role in the treatment of certain types of cancer and cases of HIV/AIDS, the Celgene corporation would be forced to contend with stringent FDA regulations, liability concerns, public skepticism, and poor mass media portrayal in order to secure the drug's approval.

To illustrate how regulators are subject to political pressure, which companies much recognize and consider when making business decisions.

One Acre Fund (1AF) is a nonprofit organization in rural western Kenya that helps farmers lift themselves out of poverty by providing a bundle of products and services that support farmers with quality inputs, training on farming techniques, access to credit, and assistance in achieving optimal prices. Since the organization's founding nearly a decade ago, it has grown to serve over 180,000 farm families annually as of July 2014. This high level of penetration into rural Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania makes 1AF a potential distribution channel for rolling out new products and technologies that could benefit farmers and their families. The organization prides itself on its innovative culture, and always strives to offer new products and methods to its farmers. In 2011 1AF realized that it needed to formalize its innovation process to ensure it was confident in new products before rolling them out across its entire farmer network. It therefore created a robust, multistep evaluation framework to assess new innovations on four criteria: impact, adoptability, simplicity, and operability.

After reading and analyzing the case, students will be able to:

• Articulate the importance of understanding the user's needs and perspective throughout the innovation process

• Identify key factors for a successful product launch into an existing channel

• Employ an assessment framework to analyze the viability of a potential innovation

• Design a test pilot for evaluating the launch of new innovations within an organization

Articulate the importance of understanding the user's needs and perspective throughout the innovation process

Identify key factors for a successful product launch into an existing channel

Employ an assessment framework to analyze the viability of a potential innovation

Design a test pilot for evaluating the launch of new innovations within an organization