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This case serves as a useful backdrop for discussing a few important conceptual frameworks in the field of finance. The dilemmas are still evolving for Sharīʿah-compliant asset management company (AMC); i.e. Al Meezan, and may seem complex to the students – particularly in the Pakistan’s financial structure – but framing the discussion from a market perspective ought to help the students of finance.

This case study focuses on Al Meezan Investment Management Limited (Al Meezan) journey since inception. Al Meezan is a full-fledged Sharīʿah-compliant AMC and one of the major players in the mutual funds industry of Pakistan. Al Meezan offers a comprehensive range of Sharīʿah-compliant investment solutions especially designed to meet the financial goals of their existing and potential clients. The case study covers all the key events before the inception of Al Meezan, from late 1990s till March 2020. The case is based on interview with chief executive officer (CEO) (the protagonist) of Al Meezan. The case also covers various challenges faced by Mohammad Shoaib, CEO and his senior team, to make Al Meezan a vibrant institution offering Islamic financial services.

This case is aimed at undergraduate students in their final year (i.e. taking electives in the field of Finance/Islamic Finance) or graduate students majoring in Finance/Islamic Finance.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS1: Accounting and Finance.

This case presents the dilemma of a multinational oil and gas company, ExxonMobil, as it factors in the ethical issues related to the environment and cultural differences in deciding whether to proceed with building a pipeline in Chad and Cameroon, two of the poorest and most corrupt developing countries in West Africa. The many players in this project included the World Bank--which cofinanced the project and put restrictions into place that would hopefully prevent pipeline-related government corruption in both Chad and Cameroon--and many environmental and human rights groups that warned of potential disaster. The case also covers the environmental and social analysis of the areas that would be affected by the pipeline.

This case study can be used for courses under marketing management, international marketing or public relations.

This case study may be suitable for courses which discuss decision-making and/or executive actions and execution, at both undergraduate and graduate levels. It could also be used in graduate classes as some open-ended questions are also included to illicit critical thoughts and fresh ideas.

Companies can be boycotted for many reasons; for example, a company may be associated with or engage in egregious acts which trigger a consumer boycott. However, it is unusual for racial and political elements to form the basis of a consumer boycott. This paper describes how a current leader in the packaged bread market, Gardenia Bakeries Sdn Bhd (GBKL), responded to one such online campaign. This case study highlights the importance of effective communications and marketing strategies for responding to sensitive issues involving racism and politics.

Students are introduced to the concept of consumer boycotts and how this may affect a business. Students are exposed to the development of appropriate public relation strategies and explore creative methods to combat bad publicity and/or a smear campaign. Students can learn to appreciate the sensitivity of allegations of racism in a multi-ethnic country and understand how multi-ethnic consumers respond to these types of issues. Students are exposed to the effects of political and socio-demographic influences on purchase behavior in a particular market or country. Students may explore the effects of consumer activism on a company's brand image.

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Subject area – Leadership and organizational change. Study level/applicability – Undergraduate and Master's degrees in Business and Management. Managers and executives undergoing training in leadership-related issues will also benefit from the case study through development of analytical and decision-making skills. Case overview – The case study highlights a successful retail business leader who has been directly involved in the transformation of his family business from a mere merchandiser to hypermarket owner. For more than five decades of developing and cultivating his leadership skills, business competencies and continuous learning, he successfully competes with foreign giant retailers. To comprehend the transformation process undergone by his business, the case study captures the development phases of the organizational changes and the leader's leadership and decision-making styles from the early establishment of the company until becoming a local giant retailer, that is chosen as a ”value for money” merchandiser by the customers. Expected learning outcomes – The target users of the case study are expected to:

Identify the critical success factors of successful leader.

Examine the leadership and decision-making styles employed by the leader.

Develop the competencies or capabilities of a retail business leader.

Determine programmes or initiatives and strategies used by the leader in transforming the business organization.

Apply the lesson learnt of a successful leader to their organization.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to use advanced frameworks and tools to convey complex ideas related to strategy and sustainable business practices; apply relevant concepts and theories of corporate social responsibility and governance to a practical situation while making decisions; demonstrate understanding of the importance of stakeholders when developing socially responsible thinking; and analyze the different strengths and weaknesses of the organization when making a decision that would affect the company strategy.

Claire Humphry was the General Manager at the renowned The Nacre Hotel in Penang, Malaysia. Claire had a very busy job as she had many people who reported to her, and the hotel was always full of guests. One of the things Claire also managed was the restaurant OceanSound that was owned and operated by her hotel. OceanSound was a very thematic restaurant that specialized in making sculptures of food for special events. On the New Year’s Day in 2023, Claire came to work ready to tackle what was sure to be a long and busy day. However, Claire had not anticipated exactly how taxing the day would end up being. During Claire’s talks with her colleagues throughout the day, her conversation with her friend, the head chef of OceanSound, Poh, would nag at her head for the rest of the day based on the events that followed. The New Year’s special sculpture at OceanSound was to be a large rabbit made of cake to commemorate 2023 being the year of the rabbit according to Chinese zodiac. This is usually kept secret until the sculpture is revealed; but somehow this information had been leaked. This led to The Nacre Hotel and OceanSound being in the spotlight for bad reasons as this sparked a debate online regarding food wastage. This escalated quickly and even led to a famous food influencer commenting on this using specifically The Nacre’s name. Activists also quickly emerged in front of the hotel to protest the creation of sculptures and the food wastage in Malaysian hospitality industry, seeking to make an example out of The Nacre Hotel. The online criticism died down and was eventually replaced by praise for the sculpture. The activists were also eventually asked by the hotel security to leave, which led to the rest of the day to go as expected for a New Year’s Day at The Nacre. However, Claire’s nagging suspicion that they were not out of the woods led her to start looking into food wastage in the hospitality industry in Malaysia to educate herself and bring it up in a future meeting. Two days after this incident, on January 3, 2023, Claire found The Nacre Hotel posted on the newspaper headlines, dissecting the food wastage associated with the hotel now. After getting an urgent phone call from the Regional Manager, who was pressured by the board and shareholders, Claire decided the time to address this issue could not be delayed any longer. She wrote an email to her strategy team to come up with some ideas for possible solutions to the issue and to present them in a group meeting within a week’s time. At the conclusion of the meeting, Claire was contemplating about the decision that she had to make if she wanted The Nacre Hotel to continue operating successfully in Malaysia’s hospitality industry.

The main theoretical concepts illustrated in the case include corporate governance approaches, types of corporate social responsibility, stakeholders’ prioritization, organizational culture, organizational structure, industry analysis and strategic choices. Therefore, this case study can be used in a upper-level undergraduate business courses in the field of Strategic Management and Corporate Social Responsibility. The case study can be successfully used in a capstone course on Business Policy and Strategy, when tackling the concepts of corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability strategy and corporate governance. Under this scenario, the usage of conceptual frameworks from Chapters 2 and 3 of the textbook titled “Concepts in Strategic Management and Business Policy: Toward Global Sustainability” by Wheelen and Hunger would be required. This case study can also be successfully applied to MBA level courses on Strategic Management in a Globalized World. In this case, the latest edition of the textbook titled “Exploring Strategy” by Whittington et al., could be used (particularly, the material from Chapters 2–9, 11, 14 and 15). Additionally, the case could also be used in courses related to Tourism and Hospitality, especially in schools which have specialized programs in this field.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 12: Tourism and Hospitality.

The Global Health Initiative (GHI) is a tripartite collaboration among Northwestern University, non-profit donors, and commercial diagnostics companies. GHI attempts to bridge the gap between the market for sophisticated medical diagnostics equipment in wealthy nations and the need for point-of-care diagnostics in resource limited settings. In 2006 GHI narrowed its focus to HIV diagnostics for underserved nations. The case examines the accuracy-access tradeoff related to the roll-out of infant HIV diagnostics in Tanzania. Tanzania has a prevalent HIV/AIDS problem, particularly in children. As of 2007, Tanzania had an estimated 140,000 children infected with HIV. Existing lab-based diagnostic equipment was either inaccurate for use in infants or required highly skilled health workers. Tanzania's limited infrastructure also forced healthcare providers to choose between providing advanced care to a minority of the population and offering minimal care to the majority with poor access. A Kellogg MBA student research team performed more than thirty in-country interviews to collect data on stakeholder perceptions of three infant test concepts: the strip test, the squeeze test, and the filter paper test. Across the three tests, access decreased as accuracy increased---rural labs could not find or afford health workers skilled enough to conduct the test. In general, interviewees closely affiliated with the government preferred accuracy over access. In contrast, private health facilities had to follow fewer regulations and preferred access over accuracy. The case focuses on the decisions facing Kara Palamountain, the executive director of GHI, in her roll-out recommendations for infant HIV tests in Tanzania. It examines key factors of working in a developing country, including the need to operate in the absence of sufficient market research, balance the competing agendas of different stakeholders, and mitigate external risks such as major international funding.

This case was written to be used as a teaching case for students unfamiliar with how to approach and analyze a typical business school case. Unlike many cases used in specific classroom settings, this case is intended to be broad enough that any single student will not have a significant advantage because of his or her background. Moreover, the case is designed to guide students' thinking in a certain direction, using open-ended and more focused discussion questions provided at the case's end.

Marketing Strategy, International Marketing.

MBA Course Core course of Marketing Management. Specialization courses in Services marketing, Marketing Management, Retail Management. Executive training workshops on strategy formulations. Faculty development workshops on teaching pedagogy through cases. Capstone courses.

The case talks about the declining share of Nokia globally, which affected Midcom's business. Despite this downfall, Midcom had maintained a majority share in the market. For now, the Middle East and Africa region was least effected by the global market share drop of Nokia, but Nokia's dropping market share was one of the threats Midcom might face in Africa. The segment where Android and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) had hit Nokia was a minority stake holder in Nokia's share in Africa. The market itself was growing, but there was stiff competition from brands such as Samsung, Tecno, HTC, Apple and other Chinese brands. The case revolves around the strategies adopted by Midcom to maintain its leadership in the market to avoid the threats from its competitors.

The case seeks an intensive reading, research and a stimulating in-class discussion on implementing marketing strategy mixed with creating experience in the service industry with special focus on the telecom industry. The case is also open to other angles as per the other intents and context of the course and course instructor. Some of the learning outcomes from the case will be in the area of: customer satisfaction, distribution management, market leadership, retailing, competitive strategies in marketing and international marketing.

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CSS 8: Marketing

The manager of a meatpacking factory allows his 100-plus Muslim workers to take breaks believing that it is an appropriate response to the religious needs of this large part of his employee base. But the breaks have begun to interfere with the overall operation of the plant, resulting in a loss of productivity. Other employees have become irritated resenting what they see as preferential treatment. Because of the productivity issues, other employees' complaints, and concerns about the credibility of his management, the manager considers reneging on his agreement.

Marketing: New Service Launch; Relationship Marketing; Direct Marketing.

This case could be taught in marketing management, services marketing or strategy courses, in the product development or service launch modules at the graduate level; alternatively it could also be used in the promotion module for the illustration of direct marketing (DM) tool application; and it could also be used as a capstone case for the introductory Principles of Marketing course at the undergraduate level.

The case examines the launch of a new air ambulance service in Karachi, Pakistan; a venture of Akbar Group Jet services; Princely Jets (Pvt) Ltd. The case describes the first mover advantage of the service and the marketing strategy recommended by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Ghouse Akbar. The major concern is whether the strategy is forceful and compelling enough to secure approval from the board. The major issues include the role of DM processes and relationship marketing tools to encourage a value-added premium service which had no precedence of demand and practice. Concepts to thrash out in class also include customer profiling and segmentation along with how best to create awareness and generate a sustainable basket of customers for the high-price value-added low-use service.

Discuss and illustrate the importance and benefit of market research information for making a decision; how to create awareness and customer recognition and cultivate demand for a new and unsolicited service; identify appropriate and effective promotion tools to achieve required customer demand, brand recognition and customer value; how to launch a premium priced unsolicited service in a niche market?; and exhibit the synthesis of the four P's in a new product launch marketing strategy.

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Corporate governance; General management; Strategy

Post Graduate/MBA

Tata Group is a conglomerate having 29 listed companies with consolidated revenues of $103bn in FY2016. On October 24, 2016, Cyrus Mistry, chairman of the group has been replaced in an unceremonious way from this job, in a boardroom coup, without being given any opportunity to explain his case. This news arrived in the media between October 2016 and December 2016 and wide and public debates took place on the corporate governance practices of Tata Group. Mistry’s ouster was attributed to non-performance, unethical practices and non-compliance to Tata culture. This case presents the Tata Group performance before Mistry, at the ouster of Mistry, the major trouble points and the corporate governance activities that took place in this saga at Tata Group. The real losers in this battle were the investors who lost $12bn between October 2016 and December 2016. Many of Tata Group companies’ stocks plunged.

The students will learn corporate governance, know how a non-listed company control and govern listed entities, know the way performance of a chairman of a company has been evaluated and learn how ethical and cultural issues impact the performance of chairman of a listed company.

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CSS: 11: Strategy