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PT. Bank Central Asia, Tbk. (BCA), the largest national private bank in Indonesia, won an award for the Best Bank at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence (Asia) 2014. During the same event, in several categories, haloBCA^TM and BCA employees also won several awards. Previously, a number of awards were received by BCA such as: Best Indonesia Local Private Bank in 2010, Contact Center World Champion in 2012 and 2013, and Best Mega Contact Center in Asia Pacific Region in 2014. BCA is currently facing a problem of an aging population. Since the economy crisis facing the country in 1998, BCA has recruited fewer employees. The company resumed recruiting in 2010. BCA’s human resource (HR) profile in 2013 showed that nearly half of BCA’s permanent employees were aged 45 years or older, 40 per cent of whom have been working for more than 20 years. At the time of their retirement, the Bank faces the potential of losing a significant number of employees from three different generations. BCA has raised its efforts to recruit new talent. However, recruitment is not easy, as BCA wants its new employees to continue maintaining BCA’s heritage, building the Bank to become an Indonesian company that they can be proud of. How have these values, which have been a common belief, a foundation to work passionately and the glue that bonds the Bank’s employees, executives and owners, been communicated outside of the BCA and have been used to attract the future successors of BCA in Indonesia?

Master Degree in Human Resources Management or MBA Program.

PT Bank Central Asia Tbk (BCA), which was established on February 1957, is Indonesia’s largest lender by market value and the second largest bank by assets. The bank has experienced a remarkable recovery from the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s when the Indonesian banking system became almost bankrupt. It provides both commercial and personal banking services through its 1,000-plus branches across the country. As the largest national private bank, BCA is a well-known bank in Indonesia. BCA is managing more than 12 million customer accounts, processing hundreds of millions of financial transactions and fulfilling the needs of individual and corporate customers through various products and services. BCA Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) are located virtually and BCA’s Electronic Data Capture (EDC) machines are available at many merchants both in big cities or small towns across Indonesia’s archipelago. However, for a nation with a population of more than 240 million spread out over 34 provinces, the presence of BCA is still deemed unevenly distributed. In the next 10 years, BCA has no plan yet of expanding outside of Indonesia. BCA put its attention on developing its market in Eastern Indonesia. Funding sources, which usually becomes an issue for expanding companies, are not a source of concern for BCA. BCA is currently facing a problem of an aging population. Since the economy crisis facing the country in 1998, BCA has recruited fewer new employees. The company had recently resumed recruiting in 2010. BCA’s HR profile in 2013 showed that nearly half of BCA’s permanent employees were 45 years of age or older, 40 percent of whom have been working for more than 20 years. At the time of their retirement, the Bank faces the potential of losing a significant number of employees from three different generations. Currently, BCA has raised its efforts to recruit new talent and its future leaders through various programs, such as: BCA Development Program (BDP), one of the most acknowledged management trainee programs in the Indonesian banking industry, provides intensive and rigorous training to selected new recruits to ensure development of BCA key talents and future leaders. HR business partners that actively visit campuses in the eastern region of Indonesia. Socialization programs in state and private universities. Job fairs, Web recruitment, internships and employee referrals, job opportunity advertisements posted at BCA branch offices located near universities and in the leading mass media. Utilization of recruitment consultant services, especially to find candidates with specific qualifications. Utilization of communication media printed (poster, flyer, booklet, banners) and electronically. Provision of scholarships to high school graduates with excellent academic records but facing financial difficulties. However, recruitment is not easy for BCA because – like other well-known companies in Indonesia – the Bank only recruits the best people based on the prospective employees’ hard and soft competencies. BCA’s aim to project a positive perception toward its employees as “a fun workplace with family-oriented atmosphere, and commitment about employees’ development” has yet to strongly resonate in Indonesia’s labor market. BCA wants its new employees to continue maintaining BCA’s heritage, building the Bank to become an Indonesian company that they can be proud of. How have these values, which have been a common belief, a foundation to work passionately and the glue that bonds the Bank’s employees, executives and owners, been communicated outside of BCA and have been used to attract the future successors of BCA in Indonesia? How should BCA obtain a large number of qualified talent pools through an effective Employer Branding strategy?

By the end of discussing the case, the learner will be: conceptually: able to explain what is meant by employer branding, internal and external approach and able to explain the relationship of employer branding with business strategy, talent management strategies and HR management functions as a whole; practically: able to identify and analyze BCA Recent Condition – able to explain the BCA brand image in the eyes of public/external/job seekers in Indonesia and internal/current employees of BCA – able to identify strategies that BCA does to recruit potential job seekers – and able to explain the influence of innovative products and services that BCA has currently on BCA employer branding; able to identify BCA goals/needs; able to identify the characteristics, needs and preferences of BCA target group of workers, concerning to the latest issues arise such as: Gen Y and AEC (ASEAN Economic Community); able to evaluate the effectiveness of BCA employer branding strategy and communications and to identify the problems faced by BCA related to employer branding; able to generate ideas related to the improvement of BCA employer branding strategy and programs – what message to be branded (company unique employee value propositions – tangibles and intangibles) – what program to be implemented (internal and external) – and how is the integrated marketing communication strategy (segmenting-targeting-positioning, channels).

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

CSS:6: Human Resource Management.

John Williams, senior director of marketing for Microsoft's .NET, was trying to build the .NET brand, a comprehensive family of next-generation connectivity software products. Highlights the challenges of branding and positioning a complex technology offering. The first challenge facing Microsoft was to develop a common definition of .NET, which had been in flux over the prior two years. The second challenge was to choose between an umbrella branding strategy, a sub-branding strategy, and an ingredient branding strategy. The third challenge was to create a value proposition that would appeal to three very different target audiences: business decision makers, IT professionals, and developers.

To analyze the branding and positioning of a complex new technology offering: by defining a new product offering for public understanding and comprehension; evaluating brand strategies for optimal effect, considering possible hurdles to implementation of each strategy; and developing a value proposition attractive to differing audiences.

This case extends existing social enterprise theory about how an organization balances its mixed goals: financial, social and conservation. Both growing demand and management transition bought about the challenging issue of sustainability.

The authors have applied the case for undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

The central protagonist is Mr Samson, a local authority who has to make a decision on whether he should approve or reject the budget with aims to take over the Surabaya Zoo. This is about debate whether conservation social-enterprise should involve human intervention or follow the natural path.

This case introduces some concepts and implementations about social enterprise and public policy. For the undergraduate program, the case is designed to introduce the concept of social enterprise and public policy. For the postgraduate program, the students are encouraged to enhance their analysis through conducting feasibility studies including financial sustainability and ethical analysis.

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In May 2016, Sarita Digumarti, Chief Operating Officer of Jigsaw Academy in Bengaluru, India, faced a challenging situation. Jigsaw Academy provided online courses in data analytics and Big Data at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels for students as well as working professionals. It was perceived that plenty of students from premier institutions in India had a high level of theoretical knowledge about the process involved in number crunching and data analysis; however, the hands-on experience on actual business problems or actual data sets was a major limitation with these students. Given the rapid growth of the analytics sector and the limited number of academic institutions offering analytics courses, there was a lack of availability of the right skills in the analytics market. Jigsaw Academy seized this opportunity and started offering relevant courses. All efforts were made to enhance the number of students enrolling for the courses, which in turn resulted in improving its customer base. Realizing the demand of industries for employees skilled in the analytics sector, Jigsaw Academy wanted to grow its brand equity and to achieve this through business to business (B2B) collaborations and/or alliances. However, expansion through B2B has its own challenges. Given the competitive landscape of analytics market, Jigsaw Academy was wondering whether they should opt for B2B channel, and if yes, the question was related to the process of choosing potential B2B partners.

The authors have collected the data from primary sources as well as secondary sources. Primary sources include field visits and audio-recorded interviews conducted with key departmental heads in the organization. Secondary sources include data retrieved from the company website and the relevant information available about the industry with the assistance of the internet. Except the founder’s name, all other names are disguised to protect the individual’s privacy as per instructions from the founders of Jigsaw Academy.

This case can be used at the graduate or MBA level in courses such as entrepreneurship, sales and distribution management, strategic alliances and mergers.

BotGo was started in 2007 by Ravi Panchal, an engineer, after he lost motivation to continue at a managerial role at his job. A hands-on technical person, Panchal was inspired to create an underwater tank-cleaning robot. He started BotGo by bootstrapping it with his savings and roped in his friends for key positions in the company. He also started workshops for robotics education in colleges in order to sustain the company; he called this initiative BotLearn. In 2009, BotGo was incubated and Panchal started franchises for BotLearn as part of his growth plans. This led to a crisis within the company, escalating to a point where Panchal was forced to consider options.

This case highlights the importance of a product-to-market fit and examines the decision to franchise in view of the case facts. The case also points towards the mistakes in crisis management, with particular emphasis on channel management.

Towards the end of the case, Panchal is faced with a dilemma on whether to continue with the franchises or close them down. The dilemma is further accentuated since Panchal's decision would ultimately affect the growth of BotGo as well as directly challenge his intention to franchise.

Management of Innovation and Technology/Management Information Systems.

Information Systems.

SER (Sugar, Energy & Rum) was a company belonging to the Grupo Pellas Corporation. The company operated in four countries, had six subsidiaries, employed more than 25,000 people, had more than 43,500 manzanas of sugarcane crops in Nicaragua alone and had global annual sales of more than US$400m. In 2008, due to the negative effects of the crisis on the company’s business model (increasing costs due to higher prices for fuel and decreasing income because of low international sugar prices), the company decided to implement a business intelligence (BI) system to optimize its processes to reduce costs and increase productivity. At that time, the company had more than 100 years of data, information systems that fed into their main business processes and a culture that appreciated data as the basis for decision-making. However, there were inconsistencies among data systems, users received highly complex reports in Excel or green screens and process monitoring happened long after the tasks had been completed. As a response, SER used extract–transform–load to collect and clean data that would be used in the BI system (the case leaves the questions regarding the systems selection unsolved for discussion). Based on their business model, they selected the most critical processes and defined key performance indicators to measure the impact of changes in those processes. They considered graphic design as a tool to make the system more accepted by users and worked together with users so that reports only offered the most important information. The result was improved costs and productivity. They decreased manual time spent by 14 per cent, automated time spent by 10 per cent, and eliminated 1,556 hours of dead time for equipment in the field, which allowed them to increase productivity by US$1m just in sugar. They saved 20,000 trips from the fields to the factories, which represented more than US$1m in savings by monitoring the weight of wagons loaded with sugarcane in real time. They improved client perceptions about the company both locally and internationally by implementing a sugar traceability system.

The case “Business Intelligence at the Grupo Pellas SER Company” has as its objective to respond to the question: How does a company make its BI system implementation successful? As such, the case: Discusses what a BI system is and what it provides to a business analyses challenges, benefits and context when implementing a BI system; analyses success factors and recommendations in the BI system implementation process; analyses the process of implementing a BI and highlights the importance of the system priority questions and technological alternatives.

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

CSS 11: Strategy

The learning outcomes of this study include: recognizing the strategic inflexion points and related business and strategic perspectives in the life of an organization; understanding sources of sustained competitive advantage and connect it with resource-based view for internal analysis; applying dynamic capability theory to identify capabilities that help an IT company stay relevant in an IT sector characterized by VUCA (an acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) environment; analyzing the multi-dimensional and multi-contextual challenge an organization faces, or is likely to face, in the foreseeable future and the possible ways it addresses or should address them; evaluating strategies adopted at various points of an organization’s journey for their effectiveness; and helping a company co-create value for its customers.

This case of Nitor Infotech Private Limited (Nitor), a mid-sized software product outsourcing company, outlines its decade-long journey, highlighting its achievements. While the company has consistently grown by leveraging its expertise in software product engineering and its domain knowledge in the healthcare segment, it entered into a stage of its life cycle where it had to develop a long-term strategy to effectively compete in the product engineering market. Nitor’s strategy was built around product engineering and outsourced product development. The two major choices for a software company were either to develop its own product and thereby own the intellectual property (IP) or to develop modules which would be part of a product that would be owned by a client. In the latter case, the IP would be held by the client. So far Nitor chose to follow the second option by developing components for its client’s products. Although this strategy allowed it to develop expertise in a particular domain, and serve different customers in a particular market, the chances of a competitor attacking its position was high. On the other hand, if it developed its own product, it can create its own brand name and can sell packaged software to several different customers. However, the challenge with the latter is that the cost of marketing could be very high. The choice for the company in the future is to decide on selecting a specific strategy to expand its international business.

This case is appropriate for an undergraduate and postgraduate management course in the area of strategic management. The level of difficulty can be from medium to high depending on the learning level. Knowledge of management fundamentals is not a prerequisite but is desirable for case analysis.

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

CSS 11: Strategy

Strategic market entry; international business; marketing.

MBA/MA in management; international business; postgraduate.

This case is based on a real-life situation of an existing transnational firm contemplating to enter a new market in a developing country. It involves a gamut of issues ranging from firm-strategic market entry, competitive positioning, international marketing strategies (including international market segmentation) and international product lifecycle. These issues revolve on numerous theories namely theories on internationalization (motive, scope, process, scale and timing of entry) and globalization of markets (standardization versus adaptation). In the past, the market was heavily regulated and protected which makes market entry simply impossible. However, a change in government policy is opening up new opportunities for foreign providers to participate in the host country. Although the market potential is enormous, there are various factors that concern the firm in determining its market entry and marketing mix decision.

After carrying out this exercise, students are expected to be able to: evaluate a firm's internal and external position in market expansion decision; assess a country's attractiveness in terms of its potential, competitive intensity and entry barriers; identify and discuss the factors that influence firm's marketing mix decision (standardize/adapt); and determine the firm market entry and the tactical decisions.

Teaching notes.

Director, Fisheries Department, Mizoram Government, wanted to develop the fisheries sector by utilizing natural land water & fish resources, not only for augmenting food production of state to reach a stage of self dependency for fish requirement, but also to generate employment, developing leadership, team building & entrepreneurial skill among the people. He was particularly examining the scope of training, innovation & initiatives that could be implemented to provide a market oriented focus for the Department.

Niche products and environmental ethics.

The case is suitable for undergraduate students who have some understanding of competitive advantage in emerging economies, of niche products, the resource-based perspective and environmental ethics.

The case concerns the Indonesian coffee industry, specifically the production of Kopi Luwak, a coffee that involves a type of local wild animal as an essential part of the process. The case outlines a typical problem for a new leader who has to start his tenure with a creditable performance. The company is a resource-based one that has to manage a potential risk of violating environmental ethics.

The case reveals the value of the international value chain for a cup of coffee. Through investigating the intersection between business feasibility and conservation issues, students should be able to understand what are appropriate business opportunities with environmental ethics considerations.

Teaching notes are available; consult the librarian for access.