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Industry analysis and market attractiveness: Understand how to analyse an industry, using the dairy sector in Uganda as an example and what makes a market attractive for incumbents or future entrants. Value disciplines: Understand and apply the different value disciplines companies can choose from to achieve market-leading positions. Business integration: Understand some of the key benefits of vertical integration and when it may or may not make sense to integrate. Doing business in Africa: Understand the specific generic challenges of doing business in Africa, particularly in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. Generalisability of frameworks: Realise that the same frameworks that are used to analyse large firms and mature markets can be applied to smaller firms in less developed markets.

The case is set in the early months of 2020, as Bernd Schanzenbächer, founder and managing partner of EBG Capital (a Swiss investment firm that manages a multimillion global portfolio of agricultural investments), and his team are deciding whether to invest in a dairy farm in Uganda. The opportunity looks quite interesting and the EBG Capital team believes there is a good fit between the farm owners’ needs, its management team’s objectives and EBG Capital’s strengths and interests. However, the dairy market in Uganda faces many challenges and, while the market-demand fundamentals appear promising, the team wonders if it is the right time to invest. The issue for EBG Capital is to understand what makes the Ugandan dairy industry so challenging and to determine how to fix or mitigate some of the industry’s most pressing problems – given that it will be the firm’s first investment in the country – as well as for deciding where it makes sense to play in the broad value chain (i.e. only in milk production or also in milk processing).

Masters in Business Administration and Executive Education courses.

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CSS 11: Strategy.

One Acre Fund (OAF) was founded by Andrew Youn in 2005 for the purpose of helping to solve the chronic hunger problem in Africa. The idea is to provide the resources (seed, fertilizer, and education) necessary for African farm families to feed themselves when their land holdings are one acre or less. The business model of OAF is that of a cooperative: OAF buys resources like seeds and fertilizer in bulk at reduced prices and distributes them to small farmers who otherwise could not afford them. This case concerns the negotiation that OAF's manager of external relations and research, Moises Postigo, conducted to buy fertilizer in the last quarter of 2007. The case provides an opportunity for students to analyze a real-world deal-making negotiation in a developing economy. A number of aspects of the context of the negotiation and the negotiation process itself make for good class discussion. Postigo did a good job preparing for the negotiation, making the case one that emphasizes proper use of negotiation planning and sensitive understanding of the negotiation environment. Some of the elements that make for good discussion include the following: OAF was a new organization, unknown to the five major providers of fertilizer in Kenya. The negotiations were entirely conducted by cell phone. Negotiations went through stages of request for a bid, discussion with multiple bidders, selection of a provider, and negotiation. There were multiple issues, including price delivery and form of payment. Postigo was negotiating in the shadow of the possibility that the Kenyan government would start selling subsidized fertilizer to small farmers.

Analyze the fundamentals of a real-world negotiation; Consider cultural implications for negotiation strategy; Consider negotiation strategy decisions particular to the context: commodity purchase, developing country, etc. Understand how the economic and political context affects negotiations; Understand the importance of relationships in negotiations.

Strategic Management and Corporate Finance.

Higher undergraduate and graduate levels.

The case demonstrates how a company can be able to manage corporate restructuring successfully and recover from receivership. Uchumi is a company incorporated in Kenya and listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). The case examines how Uchumi successfully recovered from receivership in 2006 owing to previous mismanagement and regained profitability after years of continued losses. A review of the company's management style and the role of the management in turning around the company are presented.

The case demonstrates how financially and operationally troubled corporations can be managed effectively, illustrates how corporate managers can manage corporate restructuring and receivership successfully, shows the applicability of Kotter's eight stages of leading changes successfully and other leadership approaches/theories and demonstrates the differences between the performance of a corporation before and after the restructuring process.

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The learning objectives of this case include:

▪ Outline the brand repositioning approaches that Equity Bank used in its various stages of growth.

▪ Identify the impact of Equity’s brand repositioning in supporting its growth.

▪ Develop a brand repositioning framework for Equity bank as a fintech.

▪ Identify the theoretical frameworks that informed Equity’s brand repositioning during the various growth stages.

▪ Suggest a theoretical framework that would help Equity to reposition the new brand in the market.

In March 2020, the Government of Kenya declared a lockdown to slow down the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. The lockdown of entire economic sectors put pressure on the adoption of technology to deliver services such as education, training and financial services. Banks had to innovate ways of supporting customers transactions with minimal physical and cash contact. Equity Bank had been implementing a digital banking strategy which had demonstrated successful adoption. Covid-19 accelerated the adoption and usage of Equity Bank’s digital banking by consumers. The bank found itself in a new territory competing fiercely with new and more agile fintechs. Consequently, Dr James Mwangi, the Group Managing Director and CEO of Equity Group, was contemplating the possibility of bringing forward the bank's strategic intention of repositioning as a fintech. He was convinced that such a move would bring massive success to the bank’s digital banking strategy, achieve enhanced efficiency, improve customer experience and attract a new segment of digital-savvy customers. But he needed to carry the Board, his management team and customers along in this repositioning strategy without sacrificing the gains made in the consumers' minds about Equity's brand as a bank.

This case can be taught to graduate-level students of marketing courses. It can also be taught to participants of executive education undertaking short courses in in business management and entrepreneurship.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Corporate entrepreneurship; Intrapreneurship; Human Resources.

MBA students in Human Resource, entrepreneurship and/or PhD students in the areas of Human Resource, Corporate Entrepreneurship and/or on Intrapreneurship studies.

This case reveals that progressive change originated from individual’s positive deviance approaches, opportunistic sensitivity, ability to learn, evaluate and the ability to develop ideas on how to exploit or pursue identified opportunities (intrapreneurial behaviour).

The student will learn to deal with the complex nature of organisations and the tendencies of institutional processes to be uncertain, unpredictable, and uncontrollable; appreciate the internal workings of an organisation, the external environment; and understand the role of generative leadership, positive deviance, novelty ecosystems and intrapreneurial behaviour and the fact that connections and interactions in a social network are non-linear or non-proportional. This means that complex system predictions can be much more than simple regression predictions. They will be able to apply both bottom-up and top-down influences from proactive leadership or generative leadership events and benefit from positive results and the emergence of innovation.

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CSS: 3 Entrepreneurship.

This case uniquely challenges students by introducing the history of how LIXIL transformed its corporate social responsibility (CSR) program to create shared value within the global sanitation sector by launching the SATO business unit as a social enterprise. SATO is a “self-sustaining social business that establishes a local Make, Sell, Use cycle in the community – creating jobs and allowing local manufacturers and stakeholders to continue the business independently” (LIXIL, 2019). From 2012 to 2021, NGOs helped the company design and market the SATO toilet pan and other products that form the SATO business unit. The SATO business unit must balance its social mission of improved sanitation with the need to gain a profit and become a sustainable business – the ongoing challenge of social entrepreneurship.

After completing this case study, students will be able to meet the following objectives: understand the difference in corporate strategy between CSR and ventures that create shared value; understand the sometimes-competing goals of social enterprises and analyze how they can balance both economic and social objectives; understand that developing and emerging markets are different from each other; explain how corporations can decide which markets to pursue, and how they can meet the needs of the diverse BOP markets; understand how the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals can create economic opportunities for corporations; and (optional: suggested for post-graduates) identify activities and challenges of MNC market entry in developing country contexts. Analyze institutional voids in developing country contexts and explore how partnerships can help to address these voids.

This case is most appropriate for the study of international business, corporate social responsibility, and social entrepreneurship students at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. The case may be used for undergraduate students to illustrate corporate social entrepreneurship, creating shared value, NGO partnerships, and marketing to the base of the pyramid (BOP) consumers. An optional section on BOP market entry is presented for early- and late-stage post-graduate students, illustrating the concepts of the liability of foreignness and institutional voids.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship.

The case can be pitched to undergraduate and postgraduate students and is applicable especially in cases when lecturers want to teach an introduction to entrepreneurship.

This case study is about Xoliswa Tini and how she started Xoliswa Tini Properties, an emerging and growing player in the South African property industry. This case seeks to be used not only by commerce students but also by those outside this subject discipline. The motivation here being that entrepreneurship is not restricted to a specific subject discipline. The case profiles how an ordinary person from humble beginnings becomes an important player in an industry that she may have been excluded from based on her gender and race. This case can be used specifically to motivate and inspire students on the importance and processes that accompany the entrepreneur. The case can be used within an academic setting to teach undergraduate and postgraduate students. Outside the academy, individuals training in the area of entrepreneurship can use the case in their facilitation.

To facilitate the case study participant in: understanding the lived experience of an entrepreneur from how they started to key high and low highlights on the entrepreneurship journey; providing an analysis of the role of the micro- and macro-environment in influencing the entrepreneur’s journey and their decisions; appreciating the difficulties the entrepreneur faces in establishing their journey and the strategies used to deal with such difficulties.

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Management.

Undergraduate and Post Graduate.

Communication is a critical function of management, as it allows all stakeholders in an organization effectively and appropriately express their views in turn enabling the organization accurately execute its mandate and meet its objectives and those of its stakeholders.

The student should be able to describe communication as a function of management, evaluate the process of communication, differentiate forms of communication, identify the networks of communication, examine the barriers of communication and role of managers in using communication to achieve organizational change.

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CSS 6: Human resource management.

The case and discussion questions posed will allow the instructors the opportunity to introduce critical strategic concepts from strategic, nonprofit management and social enterprise literature. Specifically, (1) strategic transformation: countering drift and anticipating future trends and crises; (2) types of leadership: transactional versus transformational; (3) hybridity and mission drift; and (4) nonprofit funding models, the starvation cycle and the overhead myth.

Both primary and secondary sources have been used to prepare the case. The first two authors had the opportunity to interview Thomas Tighe, Direct Relief’s (DR) President and CEO in July of 2019. The interview lasted one hour and was transcribed by one of the authors and reviewed by the other two authors for accuracy. In addition, the authors conducted nonparticipant observations in DR’s headquarters in Santa Barbara (California). Given the longevity and media exposure of the organization, extensive internal and external archival data was also available for the analysis.

This real and undisguised case is based on DR, a +70-year-old humanitarian $1.2bn nonprofit organization headquartered in California (USA). From its headquarters in Santa Barbara, DR responds to emergencies and delivers medical support for vulnerable people affected by poverty, natural disasters and civil unrest in all 50 US states, six US territories including Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands, and in more than 90 countries.

The case presents Thomas Tighe, DR’s President and CEO, reflecting in late 2018 on the transformation and growth that the organization had experienced since he started his tenure in 2000. Specifically, he is considering the most effective way to allocate an unrestricted recent cash donation. Should DR spend that money on traditional fundraising, reducing its efficiency rate, or should DR take a long-term approach and use the funds to build long-term capabilities? In addition, the case outlines the history and evolution of DR over its more than 70 years of existence, the CEO’s background and motivations, as well as a detailed description of the organization’s revenue portfolio. Students will have an opportunity to learn about a unique nonprofit named among “the world’s most non-for-profit organizations” by Fast Company; DR was also included in the Charity Navigator’s list of the “10 Best Charities Everyone’s Heard of.” In addition, in January 2009, DR was designated as a Verified-Accredited Distributor by The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which placed it as the first nonprofit to receive this designation to deliver prescription medicines to all 50 US states. Throughout Tighe’s tenure, DR had been lauded for its fundraising efficiency. The unique distinction to DR’s efficiency is its tradition of adopting new technologies and modern business practices for humanitarian purposes.

Students will learn how DR, under the leadership of Thomas Tighe, reinvented and reinforced the organization’s traditions to retain high levels of efficiency in the face of an ever-larger organizational scale, public scrutiny and demand for humanitarian support across the world. Students will witness many strategic and operational tenets that they may be more familiar with from the for-profit world. The case also will help students to understand the concept of hybrid organizations and different nonprofit funding models.

The case has been written to be used in graduate Nonprofit Leadership Management and Social Entrepreneurship courses. Given the scope and implications, the case could also be used on an upper-level strategy course. To maximize students’ learning, the case should be introduced halfway into the course after students have a solid understanding of what nonprofits are and how they operate. If students are not familiar with some of the concepts introduced in the analysis, the proposed readings will prepare them for a more fruitful discussion.