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The strategic management literature states that firms who wish to have a competitive advantage through high customer service (rapid response) and product differentiation need to restructure their organization into empowered, self-managed work units so as to ensure that there is “value-added” at each stage of the value chain. (Porter, 1985; Hill and Jones, 2001) In this case, Vanguard altered part of its structure through the development of teams in order to maximize its operations; and given their results Vanguard successfully put theory into practice. When the major supporter of team management, Mike Wesley, leaves the firm, he is replaced by Wendy Kiefer, a strong supporter of team structures. Her replacement, Shari Lastarza, however is the “old” assembly manager and does not buy into the team concept. Could this be anything but a formula for disaster?

After completion of the case study, students will be able to evaluate the journey of launching a business in an emerging market context and judge how opportunities and challenges can be navigated to build sustainable enterprises; assess the relevance of individual attributes and process skills that are necessary for entrepreneurial agency to transform social structures through entrepreneurial action; formulate an argument highlighting the role of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in growing a competitive business in an emerging market context; make an informed decision and critique how accelerators and incubators affect the development of ideas and access to finance in South Africa; and propose various strategic options available for technology entrepreneurs, considering the challenges they face in emerging economies.

In April 2023, Queen Ndlovu, CEO and founder of QP Drone Tech, a provider of drone business solutions, was considering options to fulfil her original dream of manufacturing drones in South Africa. She had encountered obstacles to achieving the same in 2019, and had decided to focus on providing commercial drone consulting services. However, her dream had not extinguished, and in 2022, she decided to restart her efforts. She found practical support from The Innovation Hub, an incubator that was supporting her business, which enabled her to enhance the prototype of her drone. She then had to think about how she would manufacture drones locally by ensuring she had access to production infrastructure, funding, partners and customers. Would she be able to gain a competitive advantage that would differentiate her from competitors? Or should she reconsider whether she should be manufacturing in the first place, as there are risks and benefits for smaller businesses in this regard.

This case is intended for discussion in postgraduate diploma in business and Master of Business Administration courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Social entrepreneurship

Bachelor/master students.

Women Empowerment through Local Livelihood (WELL) is a social venture that was founded in September 2005, by Danny Merguei. Danny was raised in Israel and had a long career in the corporate world as an auditor. After many years of work, Danny and his family moved to India. Shortly after the family arrived to the south of India, one of the biggest tsunamis in history hit the Southeast coast, on 26 December 2004. Many women who were dependent on their husbands as the family’s breadwinners lost them to the tsunami. Danny reacted to the situation by setting up a program to help these women. As the businesses expanded and the effects of the tsunami subsided, the focus of WELL shifted to women from rural areas who were interested in starting a shared business with a group of other women. Women who are selected for the training offered by WELL are guided for six months on how to create products made of recycled materials, such as household items and accessories. During the training, the women also take classes on how to run a business and on personal development. After the women complete the training, they receive a micro loan to start their own businesses. WELL monitors their development, offers business consultancy and quality controls assistance for the products. WELL also buys the products from the women and sells them to shops in India and around the world. The income generated by these sales is used by WELL to sustain and increase its operations. The women, however, are free to decide whether they want to distribute their products through WELL or find other ways to generate income. The mission of WELL is to provide empowerment tools and alternative livelihood to women. Behind it is WELL’s vision to see the status of women in the Indian society and their self-empowerment improve.

With the help of the case and literature students should understand/learn: Some of the differences and similarities between social and commercial entrepreneurship. The students should try to inspect where there is an overlap in social and commercial entrepreneurship (and how this is reflected in the thought-process and decision of the entrepreneur) and where the two separate. The importance of the social mission in social entrepreneurship. This is one of the crucial differences that exists between social and commercial entrepreneurship. The students think about the motivation that drives the entrepreneur. The students should think about the influence that the lead entrepreneur has on the social business, and how the two are linked. That a social problem can have different layers. The students should come to a realisation that sometimes the “real” or deeper problem is not so easy to see and can be obscured by other more exterior problems. About the complexity involved in building up and operating a social venture. The students should try to identify with the protagonist’s struggles while maintaining their own points of view. To have a critical perspective when making an important decision, and to be able to use and put together the relevant information. How to apply models, theories and concepts from the provided literature to answer the case questions.

Teaching Note 2 videos.

CSS:3 Entrepreneurship.

Mr Qazi was sitting in his office in the Multan branch, reviewing his past month’s key performance indicators when he got a call from his Town Operations Supervisor, Mr Ahmed, based in Bahawalpur. Ahmed was recently promoted and transferred to Bahawalpur, from Multan branch. He informed Qazi about the huge inventory variances, which were not earlier reported by the previous Town Operations Supervisor, Mr Sagheer. Qazi was informed that differences were around 2.37% of total sales vs the allowable company limit of Zero inventory variance. Qazi was worried about whether to report these differences to higher management or not. He was very well aware that reporting might even cost him his job, and that of Sagheer too. He could not see any solution to the recovery of the inventory or cash against the same. Should Qazi take a risk and let go of Sagheer? Should he report the differences?

1. Demonstrate the fraud and integrity-related issues. Why and how happened? 2. Analyzed the role of organizational policies in the decision of blow the whistle. 3. Identify the behaviors that helped a whistle-blower. 4. Assess the ethical dilemmas in which professional duties may conflict with personal ethics. 5. Propose organizational policies to encourage whistle-blowing and to discourage the fraud or integrity-related issues.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and logistics.

BBA.

This case study applies the scanning of marketing environment (i.e. typology of marketing environments); strategic marketing planning process, involving SWOT analysis, growth strategies; and marketing mix (four ps).

This is modeled as a qualitative study. Primary data were collected through a phone interview with the key informants, and secondary data came from various publications such as government reports, news portals and company websites.

Ghacem was the first cement manufacturing company in Ghana and had enjoyed a monopoly for almost 33 years. The company offered a homogeneous product to an undifferentiated market from 1967 until competition began in 2000. New competitors promote the use of cement grade numbers on their product packaging to signal a better value, which intensified the competition. As the Head of Marketing of the company, Benny was asked to develop a marketing strategy for the company’s newly developed product for the company to remain competitive.

Undergraduate students taking Principles of Marketing.

International Strategy

Undergraduate or graduate capstone course in strategy or international management course.

Faced with increased competition at home, Sainsbury's decided to expand its international operations by entering Egypt. Sainsbury's initially created a joint venture with an Egyptian food retailer, but quickly increased its commitment by opening over 100 stores in Egypt. Sainsbury's dream of capturing the Egyptian food market faded as quickly as it was started. Due to declining profits, Sainsbury's eliminated its exposure in Egypt by selling its interests to its Egyptian partner. Sainsbury's first developing-country venture could be regarded as an object lesson in how not to operate. The company failed to properly investigate its market and its partners, and showed insensitivity to local conditions. Moreover, entering the Egyptian consumer business sector may have been ill-advised. Egypt, with a low gross domestic product (GDP) per head of about $1,300 and a population of 65 million, while having growth potential, is a daunting market. Why a poor and frequently disorganized country was perceived as having excellent growth potential was not addressed by Sainsbury's in its headlong rush to invest. The case should be interesting for students because it highlights a situation where a firm's international expansion efforts failed after the firm had success expanding internationally previously. Numerous reasons are presented in the case for Sainsbury's failure. The case highlights the multiplicity of issues which a company faces when it “goes global.” While Sainsbury's withdrew from Egypt, the case affords students the opportunity to evaluate whether they would have made the same decision by providing a discussion of the alternatives suggested by Sainsbury's Chairman.

The Sainsbury's case is capable of addressing several important teaching objectives: the case is an appropriate vehicle to demonstrate what can happen to a firm as it expands globally; students will gain more knowledge concerning why companies expand into foreign markets and the impact of cross-country differences in market conditions; the case presents the multifaceted complexities involved in globalization efforts and issues faced by companies concerned with global competition and global strategy; students should apply the concepts and tools of industry and competitive analysis; students should gain a better understand how to manage globally; students should gain an understanding of the challenges of globalization and global competition; students should gain a better understanding of the evolution of strategy as industry conditions change and new opportunities arise. As with any case study, students should learn to translate good analysis into appropriate recommendations for action.

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The dilemma down under is a two-party distributive negotiation with integrative potential. A large airline, Transpacific Airlines (TPA), created an internal tour operator brand named Transpacific Vacations as a separate profit center. After licensing its brand to Global Tour Services and establishing operations in the UK, negotiations to take over the internal tour operations of TPA-Australia are about to begin. The case involves the negotiation between Mr Edwards, representative of GTS, and Ms Bentley, representative of TPA-Australia.

The dilemma down under is based on a real negotiation with altered names and facts. All names of companies have been changed. All names of protagonists have been changed. The year of the case has also been altered. The case was created after an extensive interview with an individual engaged in the actual negotiation.

Students in courses related to negotiation and/or decision making. The case also works in international management/strategy courses where students are asked to apply market entry mode decisions along with the accompanying negotiations. The case is most appropriate for undergraduate courses, but can be used for graduate courses. The case can easily be used with common negotiation textbooks, such as Negotiation, 7th edition by Lewicki et al. (2014).

The exercise will be able to reinforce basic distributive negotiation concepts, including identifying issues, positions, interests, alternatives to a negotiated agreement, reservation (resistance) points, target (aspiration) points and opening bids, while at the same time challenge students to look for integrative potential among and across the issues. The case also provides an opportunity to explore the connection between negotiation and international market entry choice.

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.

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Upon completion of this case study, students will have learned to identify and analyze pending organizational failure, based upon company data. They will have formulated a business strategy (either cost leadership, differentiation or focus), as well as propose process improvements to cope with changing macroeconomic factors, costs, supplier conditions, and especially talent management and retention. Students will practice the logical organization of information, articulating the key facts and assumptions underlying their solutions. They will practice communicating with a possibly hostile executive team, to whom they defend their proposal based on its merits.

This case recounts the recent history of the XT Beauty, a fictionalized but real company headquartered in Moscow, selling professional cosmetics, electrical instruments and equipment for beauty salons in St. Petersburg, and other cities in Russia. XT Beauty enjoyed successful growth until the onset of the 2014 economic crisis when consumer purchasing power plummeted. Students consider both the obstacles and opportunities presented by an emerging Russian market, customer behavior in a recession, managing sales talent, the leadership style of women, as well as key operational, and financial issues as the company react to a deepening economic crisis in an uncoordinated manner. The case is an introduction to the Russian business culture and operational environment. It focuses not only on challenges but also the opportunities in the anti-cyclical market for beauty products.

Master’s students in international business, human resources, operations and MBA candidates.

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CSS 1: Accounting and Finance

Public sector management, policy-making, sustainable development, post-Communism.

The case is designed to be used with undergraduate-level and MBA/MPA students. With undergraduate levels, the case can be used on the subject strategic management. In MBA/MPA programs, this case can be used in subjects such as strategic planning for public administration. Here, it can be stressed as being about the problems faced by a country on the long road toward democracy. Issues to be discussed in class include: environmental scanning, competitiveness, public policies and strategic agenda.

At the most general level, the case allows for the analysis and evaluation of the strategy and performance of the Albania from 1928 to 2014 along economic, political and social dimensions, using the techniques of country analysis (see Country Analysis Framework, HBS No. 389-080). Depending on time limitations and the particular objectives of the individual instructor, the case can be used to explore all phases of the nation's development or, alternatively, to focus on a specific era, such as Albania, in the way toward a free market economy. The case provides a setting in which to explore the diamond model as a tool for analyzing competitiveness and setting the economic policy agenda. In the Albania case, we highlight diamond analysis in an emerging economy. Albania also highlights the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, and the importance of a cross-border regional integration in competitiveness.

The case is written to serve a number of purposes: Understanding the problems and challenges to sustainable development, especially in a post-communist emerging economy like Albania. The transition/changes that all policymakers have to go through in their efforts for sustainable development of the country. To discuss production factors and the importance of a growth model based on the production factors.

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