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Trade Finance, International Trade, International Business, Emerging Markets, Textile Industry.

This case has been designed for the students studying courses on International Business during their graduation/post-graduation. Students are expected to have basic knowledge of International Trade and are also expected to study the different ways of financing the foreign trade to appreciate the case.

The case describes the various ways of financing of foreign trade. The case has been designed in the context of an Indian Textile Exporter who has grown steadily over the past years. As business has increased, simultaneously the requirement of funds for the exporter has also increased. Through the medium of conversations, the different ways of financing the foreign trade have been explained in detail. Equipped with this knowledge, students are required to discuss the pros and cons of the different ways of financing the foreign trade. The case also discusses the dilemma of foreign currency hedging. This is a common dilemma faced by importers and exporters as they grow over a period of time.

This case has been designed to: understand the various ways of financing the foreign trade and understand their merits and demerits; understand the difference between factoring and forfeiting understand how the Exim Bank of India plays an important role in supporting exporters and importers in India; and understand the various ways of hedging the foreign currency risk.

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

The case study will help improve systemic gender-related challenges for women in STEM, male-dominated nontraditional workplaces, such as mining, and contribute to CASE FOR WOMEN database of women-centered business teaching cases.

The learning objectives are as follows: discuss gender issues in nontraditional science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM)–related male-dominated industries; conduct a strategic competitive strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and threats analysis and political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental analysis; evaluate relevant information and decision criteria to assess the options; provide recommendations for strengthening vision mission and strategy; and analyze the business model using the Business Model Canvas.

Alicia Woods (she/her), founder of Covergalls Inc., was facing an unexpected challenge during the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic restrictions and lockdowns which had created an unprecedented disruption to her business. Should Covergalls continue on its current path, or was it time to branch out?

This case is suitable for diversity, equality and inclusion, strategic management, entrepreneurship, marketing or leadership courses at the undergraduate BBA and graduate MBA level on campus or online.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Jan Jaśkiewicz was a successful small grocer in Białystok, Poland, a city of about 300,000. When Poland became a capitalistic nation again in the late 1980s, Jaśkiewicz was among the early entrepreneurs. In the late 1990s, multi-national grocery chains from across Europe began building new, large stores on the outskirts of most Polish cities, including Białystok. In early summer 2000, a few days before the case begins, local independent grocers had been called together by Lewiatan, a Polish wholesale grocer. Lewiatan could offer the smaller grocers the advantages of the chains: bulk buying, Lewiatan-branded goods, slotting fees, and cooperative advertising. The local grocers liked many of the benefits Lewiatan would bring, but were suspicious and wanted someone they knew to be the area representative before they would agree to join Lewiatan. They had called a second meeting to try and find someone to fill the role. Jaśkiewicz was a natural choice: he had been in both the retail and wholesale grocery business, had been in business longer than almost everyone else, and was well-respected. Jan was tempted. Not only did he want to grow his own business, he wanted other Poles to be successful business owners and felt that if he could help Lewiatan, Lewiatan could help others compete with the new, large, foreign-owned and professionally-managed stores.

The subject areas are strategic management, transportation management and business management.

This case is useful for undergraduate and postgraduate level students majoring in strategic management, transportation management and business management.

Etihad Rail Company is planning to implement a mega infrastructure project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They have included freight rail system as part of the 2030 Abu Dhabi economic vision and the UAE national Charter 2021. The plan is to link the UAE’s main cities via the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) border. This ambitious project presents a formidable task for the Etihad Rail Company and the region, as there is no previous railway history of this kind. The project requires coordination of rail standards from East of Ghwefatet and the Northern Emirates cities and will ultimately be combined with the Western Saudi Arabia borders. The transportation system in the region will be improved greatly with the introduction of a cargo and passenger railway system in addition to the current road system and other means of transportation. The Etihad railway network is the first infrastructure project in the UAE, and it will bring economic, strategic, social and environmental changes to the country. This case aims to present an overview of the strategic management dimensions of the Etihad Rail and the processes involved. This case will analyze whether Etihad’s top management team should make a decision to focus only on freight rail or to include passenger transportation as well. Many questions will be addressed in this paper such as the following: What steps should Etihad take to start passenger rail? Will economical, strategic and environmental aspects affect it? And if so, how? The case will focus on the analysis of the different aspects of Etihad Rail by using strategic management tools as guidance for implementation and determining its success factors.

In this case, the students can learn and understand the purpose of commencing cargo rail projects in the region; discuss the mechanisms which help in promoting sustainability and the business growth of Etihad Rail; and identify the challenges and issues freight rail may face in terms of legal, economic and environmental aspects and identify and alternative solutions.

Teaching notes are available upon request.

CSS 11: Strategy.

International business.

The case is suitable for Bachelor and Master level students of business studies.

In the actual global economy context, firms are trying to be more competitive by accelerating their efforts to integrate foreign markets. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from emerging markets are increasingly internationalizing to capitalize on opportunities in foreign markets. To get into internationalization SMEs can use different successful expansion strategies. One of these strategies is the establishment of a win-win partnership with partners that distribute the company products on the foreign markets. The case deals with a successful experience of a win-win partnership from an emerging country SME, the Tunisian food industry firm GIAS, which began its internationalization in 1996. The case presents first the reasons of internationalization of GIAS. Then an explanation of the strategic choices of internationalization of the firm is provided. The selection of the most appropriate foreign markets is described later. The win-win partnership approach is then detailed and the case finishes with the future internationalization plans for GIAS.

The expected learning outcomes include: the selection of a foreign market; the determinants of the foreign mode of entry; the process of integrating an internationalization strategy; how to choose the most appropriate partner; the follow up and the management of the relationships with foreign partners; and the monitoring of international markets. The case provides a space to think about practice and help learners, therefore, to connect theory and practice.

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

Entrepreneurial management.

The case is intended to be used by graduate students of Management and Entrepreneurship in the courses of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurial Management.

One of the first private wineries in Republic of Macedonia, a developing country which entered market economy in the end of 1990s, has successfully been using the advantages of good soil and weather conditions to provide opportunity for excellent wine making. After almost 20 years of blazing a successful entrepreneurial trail built on innovation, strict quality control, brand building and close family hands-on management, the market soon became too small; thus, internationalization was the next logical step. This case provides local and global data on the wine industry, the Mac Wine facts and figures and financial data to help answer the questions about its future management and marketing strategies and the ownership transition.

This case has been documented to help students to understand the concept and applicability of the growth strategy of a new venture in the developing country. The students will understand how this growth was realized by answering the following questions: What are the factors that contributed to the growth of this venture? Evaluate the Mac Wine decision to build a brand based on production of high-quality wines. Is Mac Wine’s marketing strategy adequate? Is the family-owned business more of a strength or a weakness at the time being? And in the future?

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.

International marketing, national competitiveness, strategic decision-making, wine.

Undergraduate and MBA.

The nationally important Georgian wine industry by 2008 was in a deep recession due largely to the continuing 2006 Russian wine embargo, prior to which Russia had been the largest export market for Georgian wines. Second World War-era Georgian wineries such as Shavteli (disguised), in the historic Racha-Lechkumi wine-producing region, were disadvantaged due to aging facilities, lack of tourist infrastructure, and inadequate capital to make needed changes to compete in the global markets for emerging economy wines. All nearby wineries faced continuing operating deficits, high inventory levels, and could lose much of their aging wine inventory to oxidation if they could not quickly sell more wine or convert the wine to brandy. To avert becoming another defunct producer, Shavteli needed a strategy. Industry observers were divided about whether Shavteli and its sister Georgian wineries should continue operating independently, seek government support, or form a marketing association to create new export demand. Students need to prepare a strategic plan for Shavteli and the Georgian wine industry.

Students should develop well-supported recommendations for competitive strategies in an emerging economy. Students should use strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and country competitiveness analyses to ascertain vision and mission, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and alliance strategies for international markets.

Teaching notes.

At the end of the case discussion, students should be able to:▪ analyse and discuss networks as a form of social capital;▪ identify and discuss alternative growth strategies for an small, medium, micro enterprise (SMME) in the context of prevailing challenges;▪ use the six domains of the entrepreneurship ecosystem to identify and discuss factors that enhance and challenge a business with particular reference to an SMME; and▪ analyse and understand the key dimensions of entrepreneurial behaviour using the case protagonist as an example.

Nhlanhla Dlamini, the managing director of Maneli Pets based in Johannesburg, South Africa had opened an office in Cincinnati in the USA in July 2019 to take over the distribution and marketing of the company’s high-quality protein pet treats. Just over eight months later, the COVID-19 pandemic exploded across the world resulting in unprecedented disruption to people’s lives, world trade and the global economy.Now, in June 2022, Dlamini contemplated the successes and challenges he had experienced since starting Maneli Pets in 2016, not least of which was parting company with US-based Novel Dog LLC, which had previously marketed and distributed the pet treats. He had built an internationally accredited factory from scratch, produced pet products and a brand that was appealing to the competitive international market, and exported to 12 countries around the world. However, Dlamini had also faced the retrenchment of a large number of staff, the breakdown of the relationship with Novel Dog, the difficulties of setting up a distribution business in the USA along with overseeing the South African factory, and in September 2019, his co-founder, Sipha Ndawonde, had left Maneli Pets.Maneli Pets had served Dlamini’s philanthropic purpose of creating jobs and contributing to the growth of the South African economy. Despite the setback of parting ways with Novel Dog, he hoped to continue to create jobs and return to and exceed the staff numbers he had achieved by 2018, regardless of the hard work involved.In his dual position of managing director of Maneli Pets, based in Johannesburg, and sales director of the distribution and marketing arm, Nandi Pets Inc. in Cincinnati, Dlamini had a global view of the companies’ financials that he realised had been missing initially. Would the new structure of Maneli Pets he had created in 2019 in a pre-pandemic world see the company profitable by the end of 2022? What else could he do to take the company to the next level?

MBA, Masters in Management, Postgraduate Diploma in Business, Executive Education short courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

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.

The pandemic induced lockdown lead to supply and manufacturing disruptions that were swiftly dealt with by the Indian Pharma Industry through successful industry-government collaboration. By May 2020 production was back to normal and exports were higher than the same period in May 2019. The case deals with the processes that enabled this to happen, the policy responses and the changes that happened in the period from March 2020 to August 2020.