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1. To analyze the various business models and choose the best model to contribute maximum profit to the company.2. To understand the importance of customer management with the help of the Net Promoter Score in the food retail context.3. To develop customer loyalty strategies and implement them to improve customer management?

39 Bakers, a multi-outlet bakery chain in Jammu, India, is run by its founder Gagan. 39 Bakers, through its retail outlets across the Jammu region, offers a variety of products, ranging from bakery items that include blends of Indian and Italian cuisines, offering more than 1000 stock keeping units (SKUs). Through its high-quality offerings at an affordable price range, the brand has carved a niche in the hyper-competitive bakery market of the Jammu region. Gagan, has closely seen the Jammu market and customer preferences and strongly perceived that the customers in the Jammu region are very price sensitive. Thus, he has always been very reluctant to increase the prices of his product offerings at 39 Bakers. He has always believed that any drastic price rise may lead to immediate dissatisfaction and customer churn and therefore has not increased the prices at 39 Bakers for two years in a row. While this decision of Gagan paid off in terms of its popularity and recognition as one of the highly recommended bakery chains among customers, it drastically impacted the bottom line (i.e. profitability) at 39 Bakers, especially in the year 2020–21. Getting popularity at the cost of dipping profitability made Gagan rethink his decision to be protective of price increases at 39 bakers. How can he measure customer satisfaction and loyalty? Which loyalty strategies will work for the huge customer base of Jammu? Should he change his business model from B2C to B2B? How can loyalty be established? How can he manage his existing and loyal customers through price increases?

The case study is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Marketing Management and Retail Marketing. The case study’s focus can be on the importance of pricing, business model evaluation, customer management analysis, customer loyalty, Customer Loyalty analysis, and net promoters score. The case can also be useful to entrepreneurs and regulators.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship, Business Strategy.

The case is designed for business students at the undergraduate or MBA levels in courses that deal with social entrepreneurship. The case describes the future growth potential of the exotic vegetable/fruit market in emerging economy India and lends itself for use in Rural Management courses as well.

Nisarg Nirman Agro Products Private Limited (hereafter referred as NNPL), a social farming venture, was started by Anjali Churi in the year 1997 in India. Churi, an agriculturist at heart, was always interested in experimenting and conducting research on new crops. What started as a small research experiment soon prospered to become a commercial venture producing and selling exotic vegetables to the Indian business customers, such as the five-/four-star hotels, premier clubs, hypermarkets, etc. NNPL was one among the pioneers to start the cultivation of exotic vegetables in the country. Their indigenous produce was of high quality. Their business customers were benefitted by the freshness of their products as well as competitive pricing as compared to their earlier imports. In her journey to commercial prosperity, she adopted co-operative farming, thus providing employment and livelihood opportunities to Indian farmers. Over the period, NNPL was invited to provide agriculture consulting to some of the other countries, such as Maldives, Thailand and Israel. In 2014, the company boasted of an indigenous produce of 95 different varieties of exotic vegetables and fruits, with 34 clients across the country, revenues to the tune of INR40 million and touching lives of more than 600 farmers across the country. The Indian exotic vegetables market had a promising future. Churi desired to expand her venture but in a manner that could systematically impact and generate employment opportunities for the rural Indians. She was at crossroads to deciding what could be such a venture, agro-processing or agro-tourism? Any such expansions required substantial investments for agricultural research activities. The case is structured to achieve the following pedagogical objectives: a social entrepreneur's ability to identify and exploit the market opportunity for growing own venture as well as generating a larger social impact; understand the industry's change trajectory and its impact on the venture; understand the importance of such business models of cooperative farming in populous emerging economies such as India where 70 per cent of the population resides in rural India.

The case that maps the growth/challenges of a social farming venture and allows students to: understand that small social venture also has the ability to generate a larger social impact; evaluate the venture's strategic positioning and scope in a competitive environment; and evaluate the need and potential of business models as cooperative farming to generate employment at the base of the pyramid in populous emerging economy as India.

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Corporate diversification, product portfolio analysis, industry structure, international business expansion, beverage industry.

The case is suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate MBA strategic management, international business strategy, and marketing strategy courses.

Thai Beverage Public Company Limited (ThaiBev) was Thailand's largest beverage company and was among Asia's major alcoholic beverage companies. The case situation takes place during the latter part of August 2010, two years after the public announcement of ThaiBev's ambitious intentions to become a comprehensive and integrated beverage company and after having recently re-launched its acquired Wrangyer energy brand, a move signaling ThaiBev's strong commitment to its non-alcoholic beverages. The case describes the beverage industries at the global, regional, and country level and discusses ThaiBev's range of businesses. Marut Buranasetkul, Senior Vice President of Corporate Service and Deputy Managing Director of Thai Beverage Marketing, the sales and marketing arm of ThaiBev, must decide on the direction for ThaiBev to pursue to bring ThaiBev's non-alcoholic beverages to account for at least 10 percent of the company's total revenue. This case presents a number of important strategic topics, particularly in discussing industry structure and competition, as well as diversification issues encountered by a firm that was attempting to create a greater balance between the revenue contributions from its market leading dominant businesses and that of its younger and newer business lines.

Students will: understand the challenges faced by large conglomerates wanting to change their market position; learn to apply different frameworks such as Porter's Five Force Model, portfolio analysis, SWOT and to assess the competitive environment; learn to evaluate a company's current product portfolio and to recommend strategies to improve its allocation of resources; and learn to identify key success factors necessary to compete in a highly competitive industry.

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Entrepreneurship.

Postgraduate/graduate management programmes.

EHBH is a Delhi-based healthy food and snacks company offering an effective, efficient and reliable service in the beverage/catering segment. The company has opened outlets in corporate offices and educational institutions in Delhi/NCR. Driven by quality and hygiene standards, the company's aim is to keep customer satisfaction at the core of its operations. The case on EHBH describes the entrepreneurial journey of the founder and MD, Mr Furkan Khan. The case discusses the motivation to start a new venture. The thrust of the case lies in learning how to develop and operate unique business model. The case is written at the time when the company is in its establishment stage. The case elucidates the potential in the food industry especially fruit juices.

To demonstrate specific motivating factors to enter into a new venture, to understand various entrepreneurial models and their applicability in the present case, to highlight overview, trends and the various challenges associated with Indian juice food industry, to understand the conception and implementation of new business model.

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Strategic management.

Entry-level post-graduate management students at an MBA program; middle-level professionals in an executive management program.

Royal India Food Retail (RIFR) is an organized food retailer, head-quartered in Delhi, India. The firm has established 180 outlets across the three Indian states of Delhi, Chandigarh and Punjab, selling fruits and vegetables, full-range of staples, grocery items and essential non-food items and fast-moving consumer good products. Since its inception, RIFR has been making losses, owing to both unfavourable external conditions and poor strategic management. In 2014-2015, RIFR reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) loss of Rs 46m as against Rs 276m in 2013-2014 and Rs 346m in 2012-2013. This case examines the problems of RIFR, against the backdrop of an unfavourable industry structure and the need for astute decision making, and poses the question of what the next step for RIFR should be.

Developing a clear understanding of the business environment; understanding the challenges faced by businesses in emerging markets; highlighting the dynamics of a volume-driven vis-à-vis a margin-driven approach to business strategy; and the importance of resources as critical elements of strategy development.

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CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcomes are as follows: identify the challenges and opportunities in an ecommerce start-up B; understand the issues of operational sustainability of ecommerce start-up; evaluate the sustainability of hyperlocal models to ecommerce start up; and implement innovative solutions to address the issues of e-business models.

It was the cold winter evening of December 2016 when Puja, a cofounder of freshfruggies, an e-commerce start-up company, made up her mind after meeting her cofounders of reviving the Venture “freshfruggies” as a Hyperlocal Fruits and Vegetables Delivery Company in a non-metro town of Jalandhar in Punjab province of India. She contemplated the poor performance of the company in the past which prepared her for the better planning and execution of operational sustainability of freshfruggies. Puja took the critical decision of revival as she planned to develop the right business strategy for ensuring continuity. freshfruggies had been experiencing constant losses since its inception, and the issues of its sustainability needed attention. It was a dream project for all the co-founders who started with the vision to make freshfruggies a popular ecommerce model of hyperlocal fruits and vegetables delivery in the happening city of Jalandhar. However, lack of trained manpower, weak digital marketing strategy and lack of operating efficiency emerged as major issues of operational sustainability in freshfruggies. The co-founders outlined the possible options to revive freshfruggies after deliberating upon the challenges faced. The choices were limited and time was running out along with finances. The options included either changing the business model to a hybrid retail model or to continue as an ecommerce company after sorting out demand and supply issues. There was an urgent need to take a decision in this regard.

This case focuses on undergraduate and graduate courses in entrepreneurship and operations management courses.

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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 case study offers interesting learning possibilities and offers the following learning opportunities to the learner. assess and conduct a macro- and micro-environmental analysis, comprehend the nature of the competitive landscape and how it changes when one looks at a digital-only versus an omnichannel marketplace, examine the product mix and policy of the firm and evaluate how it delivers customer value and analyse the pros and cons of growth strategies available to a firm and arrive at a viable and actionable future business and product strategy.

The short case study presents the story of a young start-up called Country Delight. The firm began operations in 2011 and was the brainchild of Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal. The direct-to-consumer firm addressed urban consumers’ non-articulated, latent need to get “fresh and uncontaminated” milk to their doorstep. Country Delight delivered farmer-to-consumer fresh cow and buffalo milk and milk products based on a well-designed and efficient value chain where the supply chain was either wholly owned or quality monitored by the firm. The firm began operations in India’s National Capital Region and was spread across 15 metro cities. Slowly, over the years, Gade and Kaushal added more product categories.Country Delight had a subscriber base of around 500,000, and the ambitious duo wanted to double their subscriber base and reach one million subscribers by financial year 2025. The firm was looking at various paths to achieve this number. Should Country Delight expand into new geographies? Or look at adding to the existing product portfolio? Diversification into agritourism, like the Pune-based vineyard – Sula, also looked attractive to build consumer engagement. Would taking the consumer to the farmers from whom they sourced the milk and vegetables contribute additional revenue to Country Delight and their farmer-suppliers? As the firm got ready to raise another round of funding, it needed a well-articulated growth strategy that was exciting and profitable for all stakeholders.

This case study presents the dilemma entrepreneurs face as they look at the next phase of growth. Thus, this case study serves as a learning opportunity for a graduate-level course in management and as a sounding board for those who aspire to enter the start-up space. Though this case study has the potential to illustrate basic concepts such as value chain and macro- and micro-environment analysis, the protagonist’s dilemma and the problem statement make it apt for integrated discussions that are critical in advanced electives in marketing management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Marketing and brand management examples used in classes usually revolve around publicly traded corporations. Students are expected to learn how to deal with branding problems that can arise in new types of organizations as family businesses.

The case study discusses a brand identity and brand management problem facing the Founder of Habiba Community, Maged El Said. Habiba Community is an initiative focusing on sustainability and giving back to community. Many foundations were established under Habiba Community, such as its beach lodge, organic farm and learning center. The beach lodge and organic farm were more familiar to tourists and visitors than the other established foundations. The organic farm produced many organic products sold nationally and internationally. The founder was now faced with the challenge of whether to create one brand identity for Habiba Community as a whole or to go for separate brand identities for each of its foundations.

This case study is developed for students of the bachelor level in marketing and design studies. The case difficulty is regarded as intermediate as it includes new trends and ideas from the field of marketing and branding (as eco-branding and family business branding) and new trends in the tourism service industry (as voluntourism). Courses in which this case study can be used are integrated marketing communication, corporate identity, services marketing and brand management under marketing and graphic design studies. The case study is not designed for earlier courses in marketing and design, as students need to have basic knowledge in marketing and branding beforehand.

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CSS 8: Marketing

“Originally as a business providing community life services since its founding in 2017, Dingdong (Cayman) has transformed itself into a fresh e-commerce company. After making adjustments to its business model and operating strategy for three times, Dingdong (Cayman) has completed the strategic transition from grocery surrogate shopping to comprehensive self-operation, and built its own commercial fortress. In 2019, the total revenue of the company was five billion yuan. Upon the outbreak of COVID-19, its monthly revenue exceeded 1.2 billion yuan in February 2020, and the year's total revenue was expected to hit 15∼18 billion yuan. To date, Dingdong (Cayman) has formed a supply chain fully based on digital operation and built a commercial fortress in the fresh e-commerce industry. Despite this, its future prospect is not free from challenge. This case mainly deals with the following questions: How about the strategic positioning and core competitiveness of Dingdong (Cayman) in its early days? In the process of rapid expansion, what are the advantages and problems in its business model? How can the digitally operated supply chain support its continuous expansion in the future?”