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Doing business in Africa, strategy, leadership.

The case is intended for use in MBA and Executive Education courses in Strategy, Business in Africa and Leadership.

This case study examines the growth of the Dangote Group in Nigeria and its ambitious expansion across Africa. Driven by the visionary leadership and energy of founder, President and CEO Aliko Dangote himself, the rise of the Dangote Group also represents the changing geopolitics of the African region. A true conglomerate, the company dominates every niche in which it operates. Best known for its cement, Dangote is also active in sectors as diverse as pasta, real estate and steel. It has expanded into the oil industry and is building a refinery in Nigeria, an oil-producing state that imports most of its fuel requirements because of inadequate refining capacity. The Dangote Group serves as an example of true African capitalism, representing the new and somewhat nuanced style of doing business in Africa, which involves undertaking capital intensive projects; using unique methods, management approaches, technologies and innovations; leveraging state connections for business advantage; and understanding the growing need for local partners or local content in new markets across the continent.

Students should gain insights into various business strategies in Africa, contextual leadership intelligence and the role of institutions when doing business in Africa.

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

CSS 11: Strategy.

ONGC vs. Sumitomo – Supreme Court of India, 28 July, 2010 – is an example of a dispute in an international contract, with an arbitration clause, which could have been avoided. Ironically, it took almost two decades to be finally decided. The purpose of this case is to make the readers think about dispute avoidance vis-à-vis dispute resolution. The case presents the most relevant aspects of the judgment in simple language, devoid of legal jargon. A number of questions have been suggested towards the end.

The paper covers strategic planning and strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis.

This paper is applicable to undergraduate and graduate management students.

In November 2009, Mr Vaidya Raghwan, one of the founders of AquaChemie LLC was contemplating the company's expansion into Qatar. The recent financial crisis had affected the company's growth plans. He wondered if this was the right time to move forward. This case examines the decisions taken by AquaChemie LLC and strategic analysis undertaken in preparation of entering a new market.

This case is suitable for the introductory section of the strategic planning course. The case is intended to expose students to the process of developing a business plan. Students are expected to carry out an analysis of the SWOT of the business and identify possible options of expansion. Students are also expected to identity the additional information they require to evaluate the expansion options identified.

A teaching note is available on request.

This case deals with several types of uncertainties faced by project team in an oil company north east in India. These challenges and uncertainties are in the areas drawing approval, supply chain, critical equipment availability, soll type, control room, soil type, employee availability, environmental clearances, safety and wildlife clearances. This project demonstrates the ownership issues, why it is difficult to complete a project on time in the Northeast of India or why public sector project gets delayed.

This case study focuses on the problems that a company have in segmenting a local market of a gas distribution company and some strategies that they can use for developing a viable market segmentation to target the right segment that will provide a good economics, revenue base customers who also have the mindset to change to a new product. At the end of this exercise, students should have a clear understanding of the following: the essentials concepts of market segmentation, targeting and positioning and how they can be leveraged so that businesses increase their returns; the main elements/steps that drive market segmentation and business positioning; the appropriate methods for market segmentation when targeting local markets for a city gas project; and the challenges companies might face when changing a product.

In 2018, commercial customers began asking Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) Distribution to provide a sustainable solution to ensure a continuous supply of safe gas and avoid the interruptions and hazards associated with the supply of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to their premises. The request was discussed with the ADNOC marketing, supply and trading (MST) Division to investigate the possibility of growing the natural gas business in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, thus contributing to the Emirate’s security, economy, environment and community, and ultimately to ADNOC Strategy 2030. Khaled Salmeen, Director of the ADNOC MST Division, believed that industrial customers accounted for higher business volume and profitability. Nevertheless, he advised Shuhab Al Shehhi, the City Gas Project Manager, to study the potential benefits in targeting both residential and commercial customers as part of ADNOC’s responsibility towards community engagement and investments. Al Shehhi had to address several questions: How could the City Gas Project be strategized and positioned so as to target all market segments? What were the potential outcomes? Would targeting all market segments strengthen ADNOC’s brand position?

This case study was written for Marketing and Strategic Management courses in Bachelor of Business Administration programs.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 8 Marketing

Pricing of natural gas in India suffers from asymmetry because of the presence of limited suppliers having byzantine contracts. The oligopolistic market combined with price regulation results in welfare losses, and market failure. We argue that for the sake of long-term development of natural gas sector in fast developing economies like India, the long-run marginal cost (LRMC) seems to be the most suitable pricing policy. In the case analysis, we present a theoretical framework of calculating LRMC while acknowledging that the conditions necessary for a ‘first-best world’ rarely exist. We conclude that it is very much possible to gradually move from the existing ad-hoc pricing mechanism to a more robust LRMC regime that takes into account not just the production cost but also a scarcity premium as well as any externalities resulting from the natural-gas fuel cycle. The outcome based on our model compares very well with the one from the Rangarajan Committee's formula that got the government's nod recently for fixing of price of indigenously produced natural gas, to be effective from 01st April 2014.

Marketing - value proposition and value delivery, switching cost, customer acquisition and retention, positioning, pricing, distribution and retailing, role of trust and transparency to build sustainable relationship in B2B context, and efficient service delivery.

Undergraduate and graduate students in marketing, business administration, strategy, retailing, B2B marketing, services marketing and general management courses. Also, it can be used for executive management/training programmes.

The case focuses on an existing scenario of a natural gas business in Gujarat, India, in order to provide understanding of marketing challenges, especially in the B2B context, faced by organisations in this evolving business environment. The case examines the strategies and policies implemented by the company and their impact on the customer. The case presents reactions and responses from the concerned customers. The case illustrates the criticalness of understanding customer expectations and designing and delivering customer centric strategies to sustain market leadership in an evolving and competitive market.

The case study enables the students to understand and analyse: the current business environment; the important factors impacting natural gas business; economic analysis of energy; opportunity and challenges for doing cleaner and greener business; role of cleaner fuel to reduce carbon footprint; and carbon credit impacting top line and bottom line of a customer. The case provides students the opportunity to understand and analyse the importance of switching costs to acquire a new customer; and devising and implementing marketing strategies to expand customer base and enter into new territories.

Teaching notes.

Colfax Corporation was a young, privately held collection of pump-manufacturing companies from the United States and Europe. Intending to go public, it was eager to find a story for investors of how it could grow at rates faster than its subsidiaries had historically grown in their home regions and core-customer industrial markets. This case describes a singular new-growth opportunity: selling Colfax solutions into state-owned petroleum enterprises in the Middle East at a time when these producers were straining to add capacity. Designing the optimal marketing system required Colfax to weigh a complex of issues, including global resource allocation and deployment, a process for customer-relationship building, and estimates for revenue streams versus investment outlays. The design process was, in short, far more than “sticking sales rep pins in the map.” Case readers are asked to think along with the Colfax global management team in deciding, “How much can we afford to risk our current income model in order to build new capacity in a new region in a new way?”

Understanding issues related to global B2B marketing channel strategy development, as well as complexities of entering unfamiliar new international markets such as Middle East oil and gas.

Incorporated on February 18, 1959, Oil India Ltd. (OIL) was a leading public sector oil and gas company involved in the exploration, development, production and transportation of crude oil and natural gas in India. Since its inception, OIL had committed itself to being a socially responsible organisation in and around operational areas, particularly the north-eastern state of Assam where 90% of company operations were concentrated. Despite many successes, the “People's Company” continued to be a target for disgruntled local and student communities who frequently created operational hazards for the firm—from sit-ins and blockades to pilfering and disrupting production facilities. No less than 400 organisations, of which 50-60 had been consistently active, were currently in the forefront of demanding something from OIL. Many of these demands were beyond the purview of OIL's CSR policy and focus areas. Additionally, being a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU), OIL also faced multiple demands from the government. On February 16, 2019, news arrived that there was yet another blockade in Duliajan, Assam. What should OIL do to address and possibly mitigate operational interruptions?

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.