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In mid-2013 Deepak Kumar, Chairman and Group CEO of MakeMyTrip (MMT), was headed to the Hindustan conference room of the company's head office in Gurgaon, India, for deciding the new homepage design. A day earlier, Ajay, Product Head, had shared the consolidated results of the trials of different options (see Exhibit 1 for the results of testing the options) with the homepage website redesign team, responsible for the entire project. The team consisted of the head of business (CBO), the Analytics Head, the user experience (UX)head, the Product Head and the Tech Head (CTO).

Looking at the results, Deepak Kumar reflected that there were a lot of surprises in how the different options had performed. While the tracking tools in online businesses had a huge advantage over traditional businesses in that almost every customer interaction could be measured, there was still a lot of reading between the numbers that had to be done. Deepak was looking forward to a fruitful discussion to evaluate the options and finalise the new homepage design to be rolled out. As he opened the door to the conference room, he heard an excited chatter.

Marketing, retail.

The case study is specific to the marketing demographics of Indian shoppers with respect to organized retail stores, and therefore, the inter-relationships between various design elements and the relative importance of certain parameters discussed in the text may not follow the same pattern elsewhere in the world.

The case emulates the real-life situation of an organized retail store, Super Mart, to understand the inculcation of voice of the customer in the design of organized retail stores in India. It gives insights about factors which influence the shopping intent of customers while giving information about the inter-relationships among various design characteristics. It also gives an idea about inter-dependence between design characteristics and customer requirements. This is followed by certain questions, the responses to which can be interpreted from the text and the data provided therein.

The case aims to educate its audience about the following aspects of organized retail business: factors influencing offline shopping intent of customers; relative order of importance of customer requirements with respect to organized retail stores; inter-relationships between various design elements; and future trends in the organized retail space. Such a knowledge would help hone the skills of the next generation of business leaders in the retail space.

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Urban Affordable Housing (UAH) Inc. was a real estate asset management syndication firm that sponsored affordable housing to low-income families and seniors across the USA. The case examines the firm’s management of an internal information technology (IT) change initiative. The case follows the firm’s recently hired IT manager, Anthony Bryant, as he works to change a culture while acquiring resources and acceptance for the project he was hired to oversee. Bryant deals with numerous changing priorities, inadequate sponsorship, resistance from various levels, and a dearth of resources as he struggles to get the organization to complete an overdue database conversion.

This case is based upon the firsthand experiences of the lead author over a seven-year period while working at UAH. Measures have been taken to disguise the firm’s identity, including using a pseudonym, fictitious names for firm employees, a fictitious location, and the alteration of key dates. Key elements of the case have been constructed around semi-structured interviews and the review of archival documentation. Most quotes are verbatim in an attempt to preserve their authenticity, and were drawn from the semi-structured interviews and from historical accounts of actual occurrences and conversations.

The UAH case is multi-faceted, as it can be used in a number of environments amid a business school curriculum. A primary use is likely in a course revolving around organizational change and development. It might also be featured as part of the organizational change component in a course on organizational behavior, used to illustrate and analyze organizational culture and change leadership. Furthermore, the case could be used for change-related topics in management information systems or project management courses. The authors suggest the case be assigned at the graduate level, though it could also be suitable for an advanced undergraduate class.

Critical knowledge for successfully analyzing this case includes the following concepts: the change process (Lewin, 1951); leading change (Kotter, 1996); resistance to change (Kegan and Lahey, 2001); and communicating change (Armenakis and Harris, 2002).