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This study focusses on the underlying needs of Muslims to adhere to the tenets of their religion and to guide their behaviours accordingly. These requirements, for the purpose of travelling, constitute halal tourism. As Muslim-minority nations, such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, began to market their own brands of halal tourism, there are concerns of whether their current practices are able to meet the requirements of Muslim travellers. Thus, this study aims to understand the main needs and concerns of Muslim travellers when they visit Muslim-minority countries.

Interviews were conducted on selected Muslim travellers who recently visited one of the following destinations, Japan, South Korea or Taiwan. Applying the process theory of travel, service marketing perspective and Muslim religious needs, the study’s conceptual framework served as the basis for crafting interview questions, selecting the participants and explaining the findings.

Muslim travellers are mostly concerned with the need to perform daily prayers and to find halal food at the point of need, and willing to conduct extensive research on the destination prior to their visit. Muslim travellers’ experiences in these Muslim-minority countries are generally met with their expectations, although further socialisation with the locals is needed to induce greater overall satisfaction with the destinations.

Understanding the current practices of halal tourism is critical so that improvements can be implemented in the industry.

Key preparations, expectations, actual experiences in the destinations and reflections of Muslim travellers provide in-depth insights into their needs and concerns when travelling in Muslim-minority countries. The emergent religion-based dimensions in service experience, such as availability of social agents and halal food at the point of need, extend the conceptualisation of perishability and heterogeneity in service marketing literature.

The area of focus is on internationalization strategies, specifically on developing suitable strategies to support an internationalization initiative of a new medical device company.

This case is designed for final year undergraduate and MBA students. It is suitable for courses of organizational management, organization theory and design, strategic management, and international business as well as international marketing.

GranuLab, a medical device company that produced the synthetic bone graft substitute GranuMaS, aspired to be a high-growth company. To achieve this aspiration the company had made plans for internationalization, which include penetrating the ASEAN, Middle East, Latin American, and African markets within the next five years. By December 2010, GranuLab had completed the construction of its new manufacturing facility in Shah Alam, about 30km from Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur. This manufacturing facility had the capability to produce high volumes to support the company's high growth plan. However, the company's internationalization processes had taken longer than expected and this has led to a low business volume. By mid-2012, the company was forced to make a quick decision as it had suffered a year and a half of operations losses. GranuLab had to formulate a strategy as to how to position GranuMaS and penetrate the targeted markets. Failure to internationalize would incur even greater losses and might hinder the achievement of its high growth aspiration by 2015.

This case is designed to stimulate case analysts' thinking into providing recommendations for the appropriate internationalization strategies to be adopted by the management team to ensure that the company could succeed in achieving its goals. The case will expose students to the concepts and theories of strategic management, international business, international entrepreneurship; and facilitate the development of students' abilities to apply those concepts in managerial situations.

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.

Developing and communicating a positioning strategy covering issues on market positioning, product lifecycle, product differentiation strategies and developing the marketing mix strategies in order to compete with competitors.

Advanced undergraduate and MBA student, taking courses of marketing management, strategic marketing, and brand management.

GranuLab is a private limited company based in Shah Alam, about 30 km from Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur; it was a producer of synthetic bone graft substitute GranuMaS. GranuMaS was launched in the Malaysian market in late 2010. At that time, the company aimed to capture 50-70 percent of the Malaysian bone graft substitute market by the end of 2015. However, by the end of 2012, GranuLab was experiencing low sales and the company had suffered a two-year loss due to manufacturing at low capacity. GranuLab also faced stiff competition from multinational competitors that had penetrated the Malaysian market earlier with competitive product offerings. The pressure to increase the sale ofGranuMaS was mounting for Mr Romli Ishak, the Managing Director of GranuLab, Mr Fadil Dalal, the new General Manager of Marketing, and GranuLab's management team. This is especially so since the company's contract to supply GranuMaS to government hospitals under the Ministry of Health (MOH) program would end soon. These situations forced the company to make a quick decision. In December 2012, Mr Romli and his team pondered upon the best strategy that the company should pursue to achieve its objective of being a dominant player in the Malaysian bone graft substitute industry. This teaching case is designed to stimulate case analysts' thinking on positioning a medical device product in a market which was already conquered by established multinational companies.

Understanding of the concept of product positioning, product lifecycle, marketing mix strategies, and social exchange theory, enables case analysts to extend the concepts to analyzing many other products and services in organizational settings.

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