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The SAVE framework introduced by Richard Ettenson, Eduardo Conrado and Jonathan Knowles can be used to address the problem of content saturation and to plan content strategies for the brand Nabhi Sutra. The framework focuses on the solution, access, value and education instead of the traditional four Ps of marketing.

The research methodology involved conducting structured interviews with the protagonist. The responses were recorded and analysed for the case development. The supplementary information was taken from the brand’s website “nabhisutra.com” and its Facebook and Instagram pages.

The case is classified in the category of a short case addressing the identification of the problem of content saturation and guidelines to avoid it. The case narrates the story of Nabhi Sutra, a health-care start-up that offers “Ayurveda” remedies in the form of oil to be applied to the navel to cure health issues. Ms Vakharia, the owner of Nabhi Sutra, mentioned that her social media posts and campaigns are not reaching the desired target audience.

The case can be used for teaching undergraduate, postgraduate as well as certificate and executive development programs to teach courses on digital marketing, content marketing and social media marketing to cover the concept of content saturation. The case can be of value addition to the entrepreneurship and digital marketing practitioners.

This study adopted interview methods and field visits to collect the data. An audio recording was done for the whole interview and presented as facts in this case. Field visits were done to see the packs and understand the consumers and their purchase habits of pickles.

Pandian Pickles is a pickle manufacturer located in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, a state in the southern part of India. Mr Kandasamy, one of the partner of the Pandian pickle, had been thinking of ways to grow the business. Pandian Pickles dominated the low-price unit (LPU) market with a unique packing of pickles done in “arecanut” leaf. This added a unique flavour to their pickles. Mr Kandasamy envisioned to grow the business by introducing higher stock-keeping units in the form of jars and tap the middle class and the upper-middle-class segments in the market. In this category, there were much more prominent and branded players. Being a small regional player, Govindan wondered how Pandian Pickles would take these more prominent players in the industry head-on.

The case is ideally suited for discussing the concept of product line stretching, particularly in the product mix strategies of a small and medium enterprise (SME). The case can best fit into the courses such as Entrepreneurship Development, Product and Brand Management, Marketing Management for the Undergraduate levels and in the courses such as Strategic Marketing, Bottom of the Pyramid Markets and Strategies Management of SMEs in the postgraduate levels.

Real estate economics, strategic management.

BA, undergraduate year 3, 4

The case aims to raise an issue of the effects of the economic crisis on Europa shopping centre in Vilnius, Lithuania, and its owner, Baltic Property Trust (BPT) Secura. For the first time since its opening in Vilnius, the company faced rapidly decreasing flows and turnover. Falling revenues meant that most stores within the shopping mall had been struggling to maintain their cash flow and profitability. The major idea of the case is to show that shopping centre management is a complex process covering interrelated relationship among owners, tenants, customers and society in general.

Learners will be able: to apply knowledge of retail segment functioning specifics; to apply knowledge of retail property management (in various economic and market cycles); and to apply strategic management principles in property management.

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

Topics covered by the case include: strategic management processes; and strategies, especially of a platform business.

The case is suitable for use in final-year undergraduate business/management degree programs and MBA or MSc in Management programs. The case can be utilized in courses such as strategic management and management of innovation. For MBA and MSc in management programs, the case can also be utilized in organization theory and design and organizational management, or any courses that cover topics of strategic management and management of innovation.

By December 2010, the e-Pay terminal system was one of the most successful payment platforms in Malaysia. This business, which was launched in 1999, was an electronic prepaid mobile phone reload value distribution system known as e-Pay; it contributed about 80 per cent of the company's annual revenue. Over the past 10 years, e-Pay's terminal system had evolved into a comprehensive payment platform serving many providers on one side and end customers on the other side. However, since the past two years, the company has been facing pressures from their biggest customers on the provider side of its platform, the three giant telecommunication companies (telcos), which had moved to directly deliver reload values to their prepaid subscribers, bypassing e-Pay as the payment intermediary. On the customer side, the number of prepaid subscribers switching to postpaid services was increasing, and this threatened e-Pay's main source of revenue in the prepaid market. In response to this, the company added new service providers to its platform and launched multi-functional cashier machines with reload credits facility. By December 2010, as the market sunk into subscription saturation, the two founders of the company became deeply concerned about the company's future. They wondered if the problems would hinder their company from becoming a dominant payment player in Asia. This case presents an opportunity to discuss strategic posturing of a payment platform company operating in a mobile phone market which was mainly controlled by the telecommunication companies.

Understanding of strategic management process and related analysis enable case analysts to apply these concepts in many business situations involving strategy formulation and implementation.

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

International business.

The case is suitable for Bachelor and Master level students of business studies.

In the actual global economy context, firms are trying to be more competitive by accelerating their efforts to integrate foreign markets. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from emerging markets are increasingly internationalizing to capitalize on opportunities in foreign markets. To get into internationalization SMEs can use different successful expansion strategies. One of these strategies is the establishment of a win-win partnership with partners that distribute the company products on the foreign markets. The case deals with a successful experience of a win-win partnership from an emerging country SME, the Tunisian food industry firm GIAS, which began its internationalization in 1996. The case presents first the reasons of internationalization of GIAS. Then an explanation of the strategic choices of internationalization of the firm is provided. The selection of the most appropriate foreign markets is described later. The win-win partnership approach is then detailed and the case finishes with the future internationalization plans for GIAS.

The expected learning outcomes include: the selection of a foreign market; the determinants of the foreign mode of entry; the process of integrating an internationalization strategy; how to choose the most appropriate partner; the follow up and the management of the relationships with foreign partners; and the monitoring of international markets. The case provides a space to think about practice and help learners, therefore, to connect theory and practice.

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

Founded in 2004, OPPO has experienced the boom of the Chinese mobile phone market, the trend of mobile Internet and the prosperity of the smartphone market. While adjusting its business structure based on changes in the market environment, it has transitioned itself from an audio device manufacturer to a smart-phone manufacturer that offers hardware, software, and service.

This case study focuses on OPPO's evolution and strategy, and provides an insight into its history, competition, and strategic choices based on whether or not OPPO should release a feature phone with a foldable display at the MWC 2019, and discusses the core competitiveness that helped OPPO succeed against the market downturn. This case study helps students understand the development of corporate strategies and the process of building core competitiveness in the microcompetition in the red ocean market. We also wish to help students understand how to come up with the most appropriate decision-making framework and conduct a critical analysis on the issues based on the internal and external factors of their businesses while they make strategic decisions. When it comes to different dimensions and indicators coming to contradictory conclusions in particular, what should the manager of a business do to make the correct strategic decision?

Change Management.

Postgraduate business courses, including MBA courses in change management and human resource management.

This case study emphasises how important it is for organisations operating in today's turbulent and rapidly changing business environment to have an emergent approach to change. It focuses on the dilemmas faced by Hemmanth Singh, the newly appointed Managing Executive responsible for Mobile Commerce at Vodacom South Africa. Singh is responsible for the execution of the new strategy into financial services, the relaunch of M-Pesa into the South African market being the immediate task. The case sets the context for the relaunch of M-Pesa, and the reader is introduced to some of the limitations and challenges experienced by the company when trying to replicate a successful business model from one market to another, especially after an unsuccessful initial launch.

After reading and analysing the information contained in the case study and appendices, students should be able to evaluate the critical role that leadership needs to play when introducing and implementing a change initiative at an organisation that is stimulated by evolving external market conditions; understand the importance of adopting an emergent approach to change in current operating conditions; identify the factors that contribute to or hinder the creation and sustainability of an adaptive culture within an organisation; and appreciate the challenges of attempting to replicate a successful business model from one market into another.

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.

This case can be used in an international marketing course or module, at executive or MBA level, and is particularly suitable as a case on global branding.

MTN was launched in 1994 as a leading provider of communication services, offering cellular network access and business solutions. After building up a successful operation in South Africa, achieving a market share of some 38 per cent (second only to Vodacom, the dominant mobile telecommunications provider), the group began its expansion into the rest of Africa in 1998. It was the first South African cell phone network operator to do so. The objective of this expansion was, despite the uncertain political and regulatory environment, to take advantage of the market opportunities in Africa, given its underdeveloped telecommunications infrastructure and the transferability of MTN's skills into other African countries. At the time of the case (June 2005), MTN had established itself in eight different African countries, with a subscriber base of 14.3 million in South Africa and 2.9 million in the rest of Africa, with plans for further growth in the territory and elsewhere. As a result of this international expansion, a major challenge was to ensure consistent branding in the different countries.

The expected learning outcomes are: to explore the challenges of international expansion into new markets; to understand global brand building strategies, how to create a consistent identity and how to build a services brand; to understand the challenges of implementing a marketing change strategy across different countries with different cultures and with employees with different agendas and to highlight the importance of people in providing a service and in delivering the brand promise.

Teaching note.

Students will be able to analyse competitive situations of the focal firm in the platform market, factors that make the focal firm become dominant in the sharing economy through the technology platform and the focal firm’s motives and growth strategies through mergers and acquisitions and overseas expansion, as well as give recommendations on the focal firm’s strategies to move forward to achieve and maintain its competitive position in the platform market.

On 4^th April, 2018, Meituan-Dianping (Meituan), a Chinese group-buying website for consumer products and retail services acquired Mobike, a Chinese dockless bike-sharing platform for US$2.7bn. Mobike had raised several rounds of funding for its large investments and operations in this highly competitive and cash-intensive industry. However, it was still struggling to survive and make a profit in the Chinese and overseas markets. It was believed that the merger between the companies was the only viable alternative. Had Meituan’s Chief Executive Officer made the right decision in acquiring Mobike? After Mobike became an integral part of Meituan, what should be done to turn this technology platform to be profitable in the Chinese and overseas market?

The case is intended for senior undergraduate or graduate-level courses in business schools.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Describes Nintendo's rise to dominance in the home video game industry in the late 1980s. Then presents the challenges Nintendo faced in 1990 as 16-bit processors entered the market against the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System.