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This case reviews the development of Dianping. After seeing Zagat's unique business model in the United States, founder Zhang Tao found that he could bring it to China and bring about local innovation. At the beginning of its establishment, the collection and promotion of comment content was the major challenge for Dianping. At the same time, Dianping faced legal issues. To solve these problems, the review mechanism of Dianping was designed to a certain extent to ensure the fairness of the review. With the advent of the mobile Internet era, Dianping began to develop a new business model. Relying on its high-quality “word-of-mouth” content and mass basis, Dianping launched group buying, online restaurant ordering, and other businesses. Dianping has always been open to strategic partners. Since 2015, Dianping has undergone historical changes, merging with Meituan. Since then, Dianping has continuously adjusted its business and organizational structure to maintain its competitiveness. Gradually, Dianping has changed from an independent business entity into a business unit of Meituan.

This case uses an array of carefully selected and excerpted revenue recognition related information contained in Salesforce.com's January 31, 2019, 10-K. Maria, the fictional protagonist, is seeking to understand those disclosures as part of her preparation for an upcoming job interview with the company. As such, she is relying on those disclosures to provide insights as to the company's main product/service lines, the events that signal when and how much revenue the company has earned (i.e., the essence of its business model), along with the related official generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) criteria pertinent to the valuing and timing of recorded revenues.

Aster Retail (AR) is the retail pharmacy division of the Aster Dr Moopen's Healthcare (ADMH) Group. The group delivers healthcare services across the Middle East, India and the Far East, with a portfolio of hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and retail pharmacies. AR, under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jobilal Vavachan, is well known for its people-centric approach, unique culture and innovative human resource (HR) practices. AR has won multiple awards for HR practices, service quality and business performance. In a recent corporate restructuring (2018), “Aster Primary Care” was carved out by combining the group's Clinics and Retail businesses. This case discusses the evolution of AR's HR journey and the challenges associated with integrating culturally diverse businesses without compromising the values of ADMH and its promise, “We'll Treat You Well.”

As an Internet fashion brand, HSTYLE has developed into an Internet enterprise with annual sales of 1.5 billion RMB within 10 years, establishing its position as the top industry performer in China. This case studies HSTYLES' innovation in business model and organizational management. HSTYLE's workgroups have achieved the balance of responsibilities and rights in a small team of three members at minimum, while mobilizing the enthusiasm and initiative of the line managers with the support of public service sector. At the same time, HSTYLE enriches its brand style, establishes a fashion cloud platform, and integrates individual and organizational consumers into its existing fashion design, manufacturing and sales system.

After completion of the case study, the students will learn about the blue ocean strategies that are adopted by entrepreneurs when they are entering into a new business territory and be able to perform an industry analysis and understand the competitive advantage that a firm possesses in a new market using Porter’s five forces framework.

This case study is about Sushant, an entrepreneur, who started his entrepreneurial venture in water sports tourism along the coastlines of India. His core business was into offering kayaking and camping activities. However, he planned to scale up his business by expanding its geographical reach. To fulfill this, he was also planning to manufacture his own kayaks, which would increase economies of scale in the long run. This case study investigates the dilemma of whether he should first increase his service offerings before expanding geographically or focus on geographical expansion and then increase service offerings.

This case is designed to be taught at the post-graduate level (Master of Business Administration) for an entrepreneurship course.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS3: Entrepreneurship.

This short case provides income statements and balance sheets for a recent year for 7 Indian firms from 7 industries in Exhibits 1 and 2. These firms belong to the following industries.1 Airline2. Banking 3. Information Technology Services 4. Liqour Producer 5. Oild Exploration and Development 6. Pharmaceutical 7. Retail. The task before the students is to evaluate the financial statements given in the exhibits and identify the appropriate industry for each firm.

“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?”

After completing the case study, the students will be able to explore, create and capture the dilemmas of a platform strategy; compare, contrast and configure strategies for successful platform adoption; develop fitting configurations for marketplace design; and use temple framework to evaluate the dilemma of the element of time (do it sooner, delay for later or dismiss forever) in launching a new marketplace.

Shoppre was a parcel-forwarding firm established in 2017. In a short period, Shoppre turned out to be one of the best parcel forwarding and cross-border commerce companies in India, thanks to the first-mover advantage it enjoyed. Shoppre had offerings of shopping and shipping of cross-border e-commerce. As a new firm looking forward to increasing its market power, Shoppre faced the dilemma of whether to launch the marketplace, and if yes, whether to do it soon or delay it for the future. There was also confusion in the marketplace’s design and implementation. Nikkitha Shankar’s (she/her) worry was that if Shoppre did not decide quickly on this, there would be possible crises in managing the partners and their financial performance. Shankar was brainstorming the issues with the founding partner and was gauging the dimensions. This case study presented new marketplaces’ dilemmas along with managing sellers, customers, markets, finance, logistics and digital transformation.

The case study is suitable for undergraduate- and graduate-level students pursuing courses in business programmes and senior management professionals participating in executive education programmes. The case study will also fit well for courses such as the “Platform strategy: building and thriving in a vibrant ecosystem” course [1], digital business models [2] and digital business strategy [3].

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to describe the crisis types and the various phases in mapping a crisis and outline appropriate actions during each phase; identify stakeholders in the context of change management initiatives and map them through their power, influence and interest needs; identify the needs and resistance present in change management initiatives through the systems-thinking perspective; recognize the leadership competencies for an effective crisis management approach; and identify the way to conduct challenging conversations with important stakeholders whose support and influence are required.

Stella Fernandez, the vice president of human resources management in a family-managed business organization, was disturbed by the media reports on rising number of cases of COVID-19 infection in India during the first week of March 2020. She thought that a continued rise in the number of infection cases could affect the business continuity as well as the safety of the employees. In her opinion, a faster introduction of a work-from-home policy could help to reduce the impact of the potential crisis. Fernandez understood that without the senior management team’s consent, she could not drive the information technology team to implement the work-from-home measure. However, she felt that there could be challenges in convincing the senior management team, who did not treat this outbreak to be of grave importance. Anticipating the unfavourable reaction, Fernandez planned her approach carefully by identifying and convincing influential members to support this change management initiative; nevertheless, to her dismay, her meticulous plan failed to convince the powerful members of the team, who continued to resist the change proposed by her. Disappointed and surprised by their reaction, Fernandez wondered what she could have done to make the senior management team to accept her proposal.

This case study is designed for use in undergraduate- or graduate-level programmes.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

The case was devised using both primary and secondary data sources. Primary sources of data consisted of in-depth interviews with individuals using the cycle hire project. The researcher also had first-hand experiences of using the cycles. The case study has been tested with undergraduate and graduate students taking management information systems courses.

This teaching case study charts the London cycle hire project, mostly from its first inception in July 2010, right through to the planned expansion of electric cycles from Summer 2022. The main aim of the case is to introduce students to project management challenges which are part of the London cycle hire project. While the project was filled with enthusiasm from its early beginnings, various challenges were encountered including issues associated with the project procurement/sourcing process, software and technical problems, as well as other project management issues. Problems became so severe in 2011 that the service provider was hit with a penalty and had to make critical project improvements. Would these accountability measures prompt the service provider to resolve these issues? How would the service provider go about undertaking a fact-finding exercise to verify the existence of the challenges and address them to ensure renewed project success?

The case was written for classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The focus of the case is particularly well suited for exploring topics and issues relating to types of information systems, project management and accountability, multiple global supplier procurement, as well as challenges associated with hardware integration and software design. While the case was targeted at MIS students, the case study would also be effective for an introductory level project management course or a general management course. The subject of the case, the bicycle rental program, is likely to appeal to students, and the basic underlying business issues, processes and objectives of the project are easily understood.