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Global Connect, a major telecommunications service provider, partners with national cable providers to bundle media and telecom services offered through voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). Global Connect provides the VoIP physical infrastructure that enables cable providers to offer VoIP phone service to their end customers. VoIP cable services are growing at a faster rate than anticipated, leaving Global Connect incapable of meeting contractual agreements with the cable partners and preventing them from capturing substantial VoIP market opportunities. Students are asked to improve the configuration of work at this service organization by identifying the types of waste in the current process. Process improvements use lean tools and their impact is quantified using time and capacity analysis.

To view a service business as a process and to understand where to find the constraints regarding customer responsiveness (flow time) and sales (throughput). This requires a rather subtle capacity analysis.

The case introduces students to the nature of collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and the CDO origination process, with emphasis on the corporate structure of the special purpose vehicles, cash flows to various CDO tranches, and motivation behind CDO origination. Students will learn to quantitatively evaluate the risk-return profile of CDO tranches with emphasis on the equity tranche (also known as “toxic waste”). This is ideal for MBA and advanced undergraduate level courses on financial markets, financial institutions, and investments. In the case, an associate at the Debt Capital Markets desk of Lehman Brothers prepares a CDO issuance for Western Asset. Western Asset had been contacted by a group of commercial banks eager to sell senior secured bank loans and high-yield corporate bonds to lower their capital requirements and free up capital for additional lending.

Strategy.

The case is suitable for upper level undergraduate business and MBA students.

FOTILE, one of the fam ily businesses in Zhejiang, Ch ina, has now become the leading brand in the Ch ina kitchen appliance industry and has successfully entered into the global market. It has gone from a traditional family business in the 1980s to a modern enterprise because of the successful transformation from the first generation (Father: Lixiang Mao) to the second generation (Son: Zhongqun Mao) and the blending of a family business with the modern enterprise system. They both have strong beliefs that family businesses have their own advantages, but they have different ways and strategies of running the business. The case describes the process of how the father and his son worked together designing the strategies to successfully grow FOTILE.

The case is a vehicle for exploring strategies to operate a family business, to successfully develop a sustainability model, to manage a growing company through its entrepreneurial stage, and to merge western business culture with Chinese Confucian culture. It should help students to: explore strategies of managing/leading a family business and transferring successfully the business from one generation to the next; understand the importance of marketing, focusing on overall strategy and sustainability; know how to identify market opportunities, exhibit start-up intent, perform start-up planning, mission development, and feasibility analysis, and acquiring initial resources; and appreciate the close link between culture and strategy.

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

Paytm has become a popular method to make cashless payments in India. Be it for transferring funds through mobile numbers, online payment of utility bills, cabs, etc. or payment to offline merchants. This case elaborates on the position Paytm has attained in the market thus far and its ambitious future growth plans. It describes the strategies being adopted by Paytm’s competitors and the new developments in the payments business in India. The case finally narrates the challenges the Fintech firm faces at present and poses a pertinent question: is Paytm on a growth trajectory or committing suicide by leaping so fast?

The case collates secondary data pertaining to Paytm’s current position and recent developments in the Indian mobile wallet industry. It presents the facts and data published on websites, newspapers, and magazines in the form of a case study.

This case can be applied to strategic management at under graduate and introductory level in post-graduate marketing of digital products.

International business – sell-off and joint venture.

This case is suitable for graduation and post graduation (BBA, MBA) and other management programs. The courses include multinational business environment and strategic management

A significant increase in the Asian electronics business has created a global platform for international vendors and customers. Indeed, Chinese and Korean firms have become the foremost manufacturing and fabrication nucleus for electronic supplies in the world economy. In fact, it is an example of success from Asian emerging markets. This case presents the strategies of Asian rivals in the electronics business that shows both Bolipps and Canssonic redesigning and restructuring global tactics for long-term sustainable success in the given market. It also discusses the reasons behind their current mode of business and post-deal issues.

The case describes a way to impart managerial and leadership strategies from regular business operations happening in and around the world. Solely it focuses on designing inorganic choices such as sell-offs, joint ventures, shuffle and merging strategies through theory to application.

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

Steve Meyer, the chief marketing officer at Trilogy, was evaluating the best way to move forward with an innovative, customer value-based pricing approach for its enterprise software solutions. Trilogy had radically transformed its business from a product-centric organization to a customer-centric one, and value-based pricing was a pillar of this transformation. Meyer had to evaluate three pricing approaches: traditional license based, subscription based, and gain sharing. He had to assess which pricing approach Trilogy and Trilogy's clients would prefer and the conditions under which gain-sharing pricing would work. Meyer also had to address several adoption barriers that prevented customers from embracing the gain-sharing pricing approach.

Entrepreneurship.

MBA and masters in management.

Raizcorp Chief Executive Allon Raiz was faced each day with many applications to join his business incubation prosperator programme. He knew what to look for in an entrepreneur, but it was not always “cut and dried”. In September 2012, he and his panel were considering an applicant who had passed all the tests with flying colours, and they were unanimous in their belief that he had what it took to be successful. His business, however, left them in doubt. It was a struggling IT support company, which they felt had no differentiating factors in an already overtraded industry. Raizcorp believed in “backing the jockey but not the horse”, which often meant having to change the entrepreneur's mindset and helping them explore new ideas. Would they be successful in this case? And was it worth the investment of time and resources? It worried Raiz, because he knew if the individual was to embark on a new venture, it would take some time before Raizcorp would see any return on its investment.

The case has the following objectives: to demonstrate understanding of the key concepts of entrepreneurship, to discuss entrepreneurship as a process, to analyse human and social capital attributes relating to successful entrepreneurship, to identify entrepreneurial motivations/cognitions/behaviours, to appreciate the key factors of successful entrepreneurship practices, to assess the relevance of the practice of entrepreneurship to individuals and society, to illustrate key ideas of entrepreneurship with reference to empirical case studies on entrepreneurship, and to analyse rigorously the RAMP model in the case study.

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

Razorpay is a four-year-old Indian B2B fintech startup in digital payments which is venturing into digital lending. It aims to simplify digital payment flows involved in acceptance, processing, and disbursement of payments through superior technology and automation. This case details how Razorpay creates value for businesses by offering service convenience in B2B space. Razorpay started as a payment solutions provider, primarily known for their payment gateway. Over time the market for digital payment in India has matured, with multiple providers offering similar products making it difficult for Razorpay to sustain its growth by using technological leadership and service differentiation. To maintain its growth trajectory, Razorpay has launched multiple new products in the digital payment space as well as announced a foray into creating a marketplace for digital lending through launch of Razorpay Capital. The case provides details of the growth of Razorpay and its move from its core strength of payment gateway

The case illustrates the sequence of events that played out between the customer and his interaction with a Bank from which he availed a credit card and a loan. The failure of service deliverables and deficiencies in the processes of the bank resulted in default of the loan amount and inconvenienced the customer. In the case, the focus on the customer helps in understanding that organizations need to initiate responses for customer satisfaction at their interface points, as expected by its customers. The case is suitable for use in courses on ‘Services Marketing’ for Post Graduate courses and Management Development Programmes.

Change in culture brought about by effective leadership is at the core of this case. Therefore, two broad topics can be discussed using this case: organizational culture change and Change Leadership OR Role of leaders in organzational change.

The case was prepared using primary data collected through a series of interviews conducted with participants of the change process. The participants included R. Sivanesan, Senior Vice President (Quality, Sourcing and Supply Chain) of Ashok Leyland, many members of the quality team, production department, HR executives and members of the marketing team. Secondary data in the form of an interview of Mr Vinod Dasari published in a popular magazine Autocar Professionals and organizational documents/presentations used during the change process were also used to build the case.

In 2011, when Vinod Dasari took over as the Managing Director and CEO of Ashok Leyland (AL), he hired R. Sivanesan. The quality standards of the vehicles produced in the AL plants in 2011 was far from satisfactory. He decided to change this. Part A of the case discusses the challenges faced by Sivanesan and Vinod Dasari in bringing about a change in the quality management practices at AL. Part B discusses the steps they actually took and the change that resulted from it.

At the end of the case discussion, the participants will be able to develop an understanding of the various aspects of organizational culture and how it manifests itself; become aware of the underlying causes of resistance to change; critically evaluate and apply various theories of change management; create an action plan for changing the culture of any organization; and appreciate the role of leaders as change agents.

The central theme in this case is managing culture change within organizations through effective leadership. Instructors teaching courses in organizational theory, organization structure/culture and leadership will find this case relevant. It is primarily intended for use in MBA and Executive Education programs in Management.