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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?

Diplomatic and consular policies; legal aspects of international relations and Asia regional scenario.

Undergraduate.

In April 2012, high-level officials from China and the USA were about to meet in Beijing in the framework of the bilateral Strategic and Economic Dialogue, organized on a yearly basis. The event was always delicate, due to the ambiguous relationship existing between the two countries, which were at the same time rivals and dependent on one another. That time, the tension previous to the meeting increased significantly: a Chinese human rights activist had just sought and obtained diplomatic protection in the US Embassy in Beijing, thus creating an embarrassing situation for both States' foreign departments […] How could they possibly solve this contentious issue without affecting their already sensitive relationship?

Analytical: to be aware of the political nature of the current Chinese Government; to realize the concrete and practical implications of an Embassy's special status; to balance two contradictory objectives, in a specific situation where none of them can be fully discarded; to contrast and try to combine long-term goals (in this case, to maintain a functioning relationship between two main world powers) with short-term objectives (in this case, how to deal with a Chinese activist that required protection against his own country's security forces); to find a modus vivendi (conciliation) between values and interests; to get convinced that certain kinds of negotiations cannot be conceived through a “win or lose” approach: in this case, the only way out must be respectful of the two parties' core interests; and to take into account that image preservation (“face-saving”) must be included within any country's objectives in any situation involving diplomatic means. Conceptual: the purpose is to familiarize the students with specific concepts, such as: best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA), which is to be mentioned as part of the discussion (it is not included in the case study itself); interdependence; (purported) Group of Two; asylum and refuge; Immunity; and sending state/receiving state.

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

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.

Strategic Management.

The case is designed for a) MBA students b) Short-duration executive MBA courses.

The case refers to India’s leading steel company Tata Steel. Tata Tiscon, the steel rebar brand, is the organization’s leading retail brand. The case chronicles the period between the birth of the retail brand in the year 2000, its dramatic rise and dominance, to the end of 2013 when some of its initiatives had failed. Tata Tiscon was established as a pan Indian brand on the dint of a distribution network comprising 33 distributors and over 2000 retailers, many of them exclusive to the brand. The brand spawned a series of innovation in the category like “selling by piece”, fixed price concept and “free” home delivery. Together with its channel partners, the company achieved dramatic success which was reflected in its leading market share coupled with significant price premium in a category where price had traditionally being the only selling pitch. After 2010, the company saw an emerging challenge in the form of a new business model, where some companies were gearing to provide the complete portfolio of construction material including cement, steel, etc., and a turnkey construction solution for house builders. Tata Tiscon responded by attempting to enter the service space by launching a building design solution and later a construction supervision solution. Both of these initiatives failed. The protagonist of the case is Mr Keshav Viswanath (Chief of Marketing for retail business at Tata Steel), who is concerned with the failures of these key initiatives and is wondering how to ensure the “leader” status of Tata Tiscon in coming years.

The students are expected to understand how a core strategy like differentiation is implemented successfully in “practice”; understand the exploitation–exploration dichotomy in an organization; appreciate difference between radical innovation (based on new organizational routines, new business partners and new relationships) and incremental innovation based on fine tuning of existing organizational routines and relationships.

Rebar production: www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6n9sci8j-8; Tata TISCON AV: www.youtube.com/watch?v=89kOUsbnaYQ; TQM – The Toyota Way: www.youstube.com/watch?v=qf3gdrIMxRw; Disruptive vs. Incremental Innovation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOOL_GiaLTo; Approach to innovation is dead wrong: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pii8tTx1UYM

CSS 11: Strategy.

This case presents turnaround alternatives for a UK-based company, Carpets International (CI), a manufacturer focused on woven carpets and suffering from the ageing equipment and resulting product quality issues during the late 1990s. The case profiles CI’s position in the UK marketplace as well as highlights the growing international competition from Europe and Mexico. Comparisons between customer’s preferences for carpeting in the USA vs the UK are included. Additionally, the case introduces first-mover advantages in the application of innovational ideas applied to a mature industry in another country.

This case study was written by the CEO of the company as the lead author. The case is not disguised.

This case is appropriate for undergraduate strategic management/business policy classes.