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After reading and discussing the case, the participants would be able to: apply 7S and VRIO framework for online furniture retail; evaluate the profitability of horizontal versus vertical marketplaces for selling furniture online; articulate the challenges faced by online furniture retailers; discuss the applicability of technology to enhance customer experience in online furniture retail; and discuss the omni-channel strategy which online furniture companies can adopt.

Although furniture has traditionally been an unorganized category, the online furniture platforms have been on an upward curve since past few years. Digitization of economy and usage of smartphones to access internet had given a thrust to online purchases. This case on Wakefit Innovations Private Limited is intended to provide the readers with the business and marketing insights of selling furniture using online platform. The readers will be able to understand how retailing furniture using e-commerce is full of challenges and how various marketing activities have helped Wakefit improve their customer base. The readers can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of horizontal versus vertical e-commerce marketplaces and various challenges associated with online furniture retailing. Whether Wakefit should continue setting up experience centres and the benefits that could accrue by usage of virtual reality, augmented reality and data analytics are additional dimensions which can be discussed by the readers. The case will benefit the professionals in understanding the challenges and marketing strategies used by online furniture retailers and the same can be replicated by other players in this sector.

This case is suitable for students enrolled for full credit course on e-commerce at post graduate level. The case can be discussed towards the middle of the course once the students have studied different formats of e-commerce marketplace.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The students will get a hands on research techniques like mental mapping, laddering and means end chain (MEC) model for value proposition and survey techniques.

Market Research has always acted as one of the major driving force behind the successful launch of any product in any market. There are several evidences of how market research and thorough understanding of the consumers in and out has lead companies reach new peaks and acquire market share. This case deals with a company called Eco-Remedies, based in Nashik, India, which is in the business of providing eco-solutions to different health ailments and also general purpose health supplements like health drinks. The major concentration is on the product called “AnjaNeya-The Graviola fruit drink” from Eco-Remedies, where in different research techniques were used to gather information so that appropriate strategies could be implemented in order to increase the market share of the product and create a strong position in the minds of the customers. The case deals with gathering consumer insights and then developing appropriate positioning strategies for Eco remedies based on consumer value proposition using the MEC theory, mental mapping, blind tests and general consumer survey.

The study is applicable to Masters level Marketing Management and Marketing Research Studies.

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

Marketing.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students should be able to develop an understanding of how to identify female leadership competencies; analyze social and psychological barriers to developing female leadership; and consider various solutions to build trust in rural settings by overcoming social and psychological barriers.

In 2022, Mrs Anjaria, the Managing Director, and Mr Anjaria, the Chairperson of the Rangoli Group of Institutions in Gandhinagar, Gujarat (India), were facing the challenge of how to empower thousands of females in the preschool venture in the rural area as they could see the impact of their female edupreneurs in the urban area. Both had worked up the ladder in the preschool venture after quitting their professional careers in the corporate world. They now wanted to create female edupreneurs to empower women and bring about social and educational change at the grassroots level. They needed to make an informed decision about how to scale the preschool offerings at rural sites to bring educational change and increase revenue simultaneously; however, they were unsure how to execute this vision into a tangible profit-making social edupreneurial reality. Government preschools (Anganwadis) and social structures in rural Indian contexts were a major consideration. It was important to increase their hiring efforts to empower women with their franchise model. However, issues such as leadership competencies, psycho-socio-cultural barriers, and creating trust in rural economies challenged their vision.

The case is suitable for MBA students or postgraduate-level courses on development communication, business communication, entrepreneurial communication and gender communication seeking to develop female competencies through communication models. This case illustrates how to create trust through communication among female eduprenuers by overcoming social and psychological barriers in rural settings.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 3: Entrepreneurship

After completion of the case study, students will be able to analyze the marketing mix strategy of a firm, discuss the importance of a generic strategy to gain a competitive advantage, analyze the basis of consumer segmentation in furniture and highlight the importance of positioning in influencing the overall marketing mix strategy of a firm.

It was April 18, 2022. Puneet Singh Seehra (Seehra), the owner and director of Shearling Skins Private Limited (Shearling), was visibly worried as he was looking at the recent sales report. Shearling was in the business of manufacturing premium-quality furniture for corporate clients. Seehra was happy about the growth of his company. However, he was lately concerned about the declining sales figures. Some important questions were troubling Seehra. Was competition eating into his business? How could he differentiate Shearling from competition? What was the right marketing strategy for a market dominated by unorganized competitors and a few major players? His head spinning, he leaned back on his chair as he looked out of his office window.

The case study can be taught in a graduate-level course in marketing or strategy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 8 Marketing

This case is designed to achieve the following learning objectives: recognize the impact of personality traits on leadership style; identify the key elements in a turnaround strategy; examine leadership best practices from a gender perspective; and assess the role of strategic decision-making on company growth.

The case study describes how Lisa Su (Su), the first woman CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, helped turn around the debt-laden semiconductor firm within a decade through her transformational leadership, vision and values. The case first touches upon Su’s early life and education and the influence of her parents in shaping her personality. It then focuses on the first half of Su’s career, during which she was working on semiconductor projects and was involved in research and product development, and how she made the gradual shift to a people management role in her stint of over a decade at IBM followed by a leadership opportunity at Freescale Semiconductor Inc. The case then describes Su’s move to AMD in 2012 as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s global business divisions at a time when AMD was nearly US$2.5bn in debt and revenues had increased only once in the previous five years. There were also rumors of bankruptcy and spin-offs after the company lost more than US$1bn in the year 2012. The cas

This case is meant for MBA students as part of their Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Strategic Management curriculum.

Teaching notes Student feedback details.

CCS 11: Strategy.

The saga of Market Basket took place over a period of months during which a significant upheaval occurred in the long-successful business. The turmoil drew in a broad range of stakeholders. In a rare chain of events, non-unionized workers and managers engineered a change in senior management of the company. Their willingness to sacrifice their livelihoods in support of one person exemplifies the impact that can be made by a single, authentic, leader. This case draws upon secondary sources which provide insight into broad panoply of business and organizational behavior issues. The primary focus of the case, however, is leadership.

This case was developed using secondary sources and court documents that reported on the events that precipitated the problems at Market Basket as well as the strike and aftermath.

Management principles, organizational behavior. All undergraduate class levels would be appropriate.

This case exemplifies these three major theories in a real-life situation: stakeholder theory, corporate culture theory, organizational commitment.

After completion of the case study, the students would be able to comprehend the crisis at hand for Milkbasket, why did it resist Reliance’s takeover in the first place, then to evaluate the pros-cons and future prospects for the organization post-acquisition; to evaluate from an ethical standpoint the process of mergers and acquisitions using ethical frameworks to understand how, when, to whom and through what processes do mergers and acquisitions qualify the test of being ethical; and to analyse different hostile takeovers, especially through tender offers, proxy contests and toehold bidding strategy in this case.

Founded in 2015, Milkbasket was a micro-delivery start-up based in Gurugram (near New Delhi), India. Milkbasket would let its subscribers order till midnight and deliver groceries, milk and other everyday essentials to its subscribers before 7 a.m. next day. It had burnt a lot of cash and was facing difficulty in getting investors; as such they were engaged in discussions with many companies. Two of them – Reliance Retail Venture Limited and BigBasket – were not accepting the proposed valuation, but Milkbasket got term sheets from other two companies.

This case study can be used for graduate courses on strategic management, business ethics and corporate governance. This case study can also be used in corporate finance course to highlight the importance of making ethical/responsible judgements to protect stakeholder interests.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

After reading and analysing the case study, the students would be able to distinguish the leadership styles based on leaders’ traits and behaviours, argue the importance of trust in leader–follower relationships thanks to the real-life examples presented and defend their side on the debate of whether leadership is born or made with the related theories and examples.

The teams coached by the successful Turkish basketball coach, Çetin Yılmaz, had reached the finals of the Turkish Basketball League six times and became champions three times. He assumed the coaching position of the Tuborg basketball team in December 2005. Although Tuborg’s Turkey branch made a serious financial investment in basketball, they were at the bottom of the league in the middle of the season. When Yılmaz took over the coaching position, the Tuborg basketball team’s main objective was not to be relegated from the top league in the 2005–2006 season. The team, working very hard, overcame the fear of relegation in two months but still had a very symbolic goal in front of it: winning the most prestigious game of the season by defeating the Karşıyaka team. However, in the last minutes of the game, with the influence of passionate Karşıkaya fans, the Tuborg team got scared and lost the game. At the end of the match, the club president entered the locker room and started shouting at the players, forcing the coach to face a severe dilemma. Either he would remain silent and risk damaging his leading position in the eyes of the players, or he would risk being fired by going against the president, even though he thought the president was right in what he said.

The target audience of this case study is undergraduate students. The field of study is sports management, leadership and coaching. This case study can be used in management, organizational behaviour and sports management courses while covering leadership and coaching topics.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

The media consultant for the Reagan-Bush '84 campaign identifies his goal as stopping and reversing a strong decline in support for President Reagan. The case describes the results of some of the motivational research used, and introduces a framework for evaluating advertising strategies. The case also introduces the MECCAS framework for evaluating advertising copy and discusses theory-driven communication strategies.

Strategic marketing/marketing management.

Undergraduate and post graduate courses in the principles of marketing, strategic marketing, strategic management, services marketing and hospitability management.

This case focuses on the critical success factors of “Scandic” hotel chain by highlighting its road to becoming the leading hotel chain in the Baltic region. This case covers a wide range of situations in which strategic marketing decisions were made, for example, the Scandic Sustainability Fund, supporting initiatives to promote sustainable social development. Special attention is devoted to how the case company's business philosophy is implemented to identify and differentiate its customers, in order to sustain a customer centric strategy and develop long lasting relationships.

Following analysis of the case students should be able to: first, understand how marketing strategies can be utilized to effectively differentiate organizations from their competitors by capitalising on distinctive strengths, leading to the delivery of better value to stakeholders; second, understand how marketing strategy deals with the interplay of “the strategic three Cs” (customer, competition and corporation) in better satisfying customer needs; third, appreciate how companies operate within a given environment and the benefits of developing an environmental strategy.

Teaching note including lecture plan.