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The primary learning objectives of the case are described below:1) Understanding the start-up market segment for an innovative product.2) Analyse the market expansion and diversification strategies of a start-up.3) Evaluate the business expansion through introduction of new product variants or through envisaging new distribution channels.

Cronos Ltd. was Iyer's first business endeavour after completing his Master of Business Administration (MBA). Iyer had aspired to be an entrepreneur since he was a youngster. In 2015, a first-generation entrepreneur with full conviction, he entered a market that was tough for a novice to access. Despite several challenges and uncertainties, he persisted and ventured into the company on the edge of extinction with a concept for affordable sanitiser sachets. Strong willpower, but no background, guidance or finances have made him struggle at each stage of his journey. He made this possible as he had understood the need for a specific lower-income segment of customers who could afford to buy the sanitiser sachets for as low as INR1 ($0.013). Until 2021 he was selling through the GT channel in central and western regions of India. He had planned for product extension by introducing three new products in the FMCG sector with manageable finance needs. Meanwhile, he had gotten an offer to enter into the MT channel to compete with big brands in the Gujarat region. Iyer needed substantial funds to expand his business in the MT channel and had to offer equity partnership to the investor, who would invest in the business.

Graduate and post-graduate in the topics of segmentations and market expansion in the marketing management subject.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Threadneedle Investments, a leading UK Investment management company, was engaged in strategic discussions about future growth in its retail mutual funds business. The firm's Vice Chairman, Alan Ainsworth, was leading the discussion of strategic alternatives. The following options were being considered: expanding distribution of its funds in the UK by distributing directly; expanding its presence in the UK through the independent financial advisor (IFA)network; and/or building a larger presence in Germany, where Threadneedle was already established. The case takes place in June 2000 and draws much of its rationale and immediacy from the great bull market of the 1990's and the arrival of a new millennium. Investors were looking for new investment media to capture these returns. The case is based on field research including conversations with Mr. Ainsworth and his associates, internal company documents, interviews with experts in the field and library research.

Faced with declining market share and sales, Natura, Brazil’s second-largest brand in the cosmetics, fragrances, and toiletries market, expanded its customer reach by moving from a direct-sales company to a multichannel company. In 2014, Natura added online catalogs, physical stores, and drugstores to its well-established direct-selling model, but the results were disappointing. Between 2014 and 2016, three different Natura CEOs attempted to lead the company in the strategic transition to focus less on the direct sales consultants and more on reaching the end consumers directly with multiple channels and touchpoints. In October 2016, the company’s board appointed its former commercial vice president, João Paulo Ferreira, as the most recent CEO. Ferreira’s challenge was to find the right balance between the direct-selling and other channel formats to market Natura, thus enabling it to thrive in the face of intense competition in the beauty and personal care market in Brazil.

Social entrepreneurship

Bachelor/master students.

Women Empowerment through Local Livelihood (WELL) is a social venture that was founded in September 2005, by Danny Merguei. Danny was raised in Israel and had a long career in the corporate world as an auditor. After many years of work, Danny and his family moved to India. Shortly after the family arrived to the south of India, one of the biggest tsunamis in history hit the Southeast coast, on 26 December 2004. Many women who were dependent on their husbands as the family’s breadwinners lost them to the tsunami. Danny reacted to the situation by setting up a program to help these women. As the businesses expanded and the effects of the tsunami subsided, the focus of WELL shifted to women from rural areas who were interested in starting a shared business with a group of other women. Women who are selected for the training offered by WELL are guided for six months on how to create products made of recycled materials, such as household items and accessories. During the training, the women also take classes on how to run a business and on personal development. After the women complete the training, they receive a micro loan to start their own businesses. WELL monitors their development, offers business consultancy and quality controls assistance for the products. WELL also buys the products from the women and sells them to shops in India and around the world. The income generated by these sales is used by WELL to sustain and increase its operations. The women, however, are free to decide whether they want to distribute their products through WELL or find other ways to generate income. The mission of WELL is to provide empowerment tools and alternative livelihood to women. Behind it is WELL’s vision to see the status of women in the Indian society and their self-empowerment improve.

With the help of the case and literature students should understand/learn: Some of the differences and similarities between social and commercial entrepreneurship. The students should try to inspect where there is an overlap in social and commercial entrepreneurship (and how this is reflected in the thought-process and decision of the entrepreneur) and where the two separate. The importance of the social mission in social entrepreneurship. This is one of the crucial differences that exists between social and commercial entrepreneurship. The students think about the motivation that drives the entrepreneur. The students should think about the influence that the lead entrepreneur has on the social business, and how the two are linked. That a social problem can have different layers. The students should come to a realisation that sometimes the “real” or deeper problem is not so easy to see and can be obscured by other more exterior problems. About the complexity involved in building up and operating a social venture. The students should try to identify with the protagonist’s struggles while maintaining their own points of view. To have a critical perspective when making an important decision, and to be able to use and put together the relevant information. How to apply models, theories and concepts from the provided literature to answer the case questions.

Teaching Note 2 videos.

CSS:3 Entrepreneurship.

Human resource management.

It is appropriate for graduate students majoring in human resource or business management. Students who are interested in studying Asian economies in the world, as they are the most growing economies in the world and at the same time have a shocking number of people employed in the informal sector.

This case study talks about women workers who face a glass ceiling at the management level and deplorable working conditions at the informal level. This case involves women in the paper bag-making business, a part of the urban informal sector. The paper bag-making business provides employment and income generation for the urban poor. The focus in this study is on women production workers, rather than entrepreneurs or professional managers. Focus of the study will be on the change in the pattern of income distribution within the family-based household, the degree of bargaining power derived from productive work and income and impact of technology on the plight of unskilled women force and how technology and vocational training can lead to utilization of manpower being wasted because of lack of synergy between technology and the informal sector in India. Expected learning outcomes Four key points of selection, training, assessment and leadership all have been addressed in this case study, and the relevance of these points is important from the point of view of management students who have to understand the linkages and the hidden costs these informal sector occupations come with and then to device an appropriate strategy to bring and use these human resources to their full capacity by utilizing the existing resources instead of adding new ones, which in development economics is known as Solow residual.

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

For discussion of social entrepreneurship in middle-income economies, emerging markets generally and Africa, specifically, Quali Health presents interesting questions about entrepreneurial funding, scaling and the interplay between social entrepreneurial activities and the informal sector.

South Africa’s primary health outcomes do not correspond to the country’s spending on public health, with South Africa ranking among the worst globally in the incidence of tuberculosis, HIV prevalence, infant mortality and life expectancy. In part, this poor outcome can be explained by high inequality in access to healthcare, which reflects South Africa’s grossly skewed income and wealth distributions, with the bulk of the country’s population reliant upon an underfunded, inefficient and poorly managed public health system. This substandard service for the working poor in South Africa’s townships with high population densities offered a profitable entrepreneurial opportunity to provide affordable and effective primary care with vast gains in quality and outcomes improved dignity for patients. After receiving her MBA, physician and entrepreneur Dr Nthabiseng Legoete self-funded the launch of Quali Health in 2017. The business model set out to disrupt healthcare delivery for South Africa’s poorest citizens. Drawing patients from the working poor in Diepsloot, Quali Health’s inaugural site was cash flow positive within five months when the facility hit only 30% of installed service capacity. With quick success, Dr Legoete faced the strategic question of how fast to scale and finance the expansion. She also considered a new micro-insurance product for her clientele.

For discussion of social entrepreneurship in middle-income economies, emerging markets generally and Africa, specifically, Quali Health presents interesting questions about entrepreneurial funding, scaling and the interplay between social entrepreneurial activities and the informal sector.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 3 Entrepreneurship.

Marketing, innovation, strategy.

Undergraduate, post-graduate and executive education.

This case is set in January 2012, a few days before the launch of Mysore Sandal Millennium, a super-premium luxury soap offering from the Indian public sector enterprise, Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Ltd. (“KS&DL”). Three years of research had been put into this product, which contained some of the finest, high-quality ingredients. KS&DL had, over the past decade or so, observed a significant fall in brand image for its signature product, the Mysore Sandalwood soap. While this soap had for many years been considered the premium brand in India, it had lost its place when well-known foreign brands became available in India, and local manufacturers moved towards this segment, manufacturing a whole new range of competitive products such as liquid body washes and gels. It was with an aim to rebuild its image that the company decided to launch the Millennium soap. KS&DL was clear that the product would be initially aimed at the high-income Indians, and then move to expand into the overseas market. However, it remained to be seen if the company could be truly successful in marketing a product priced at a level which would make it unaffordable to most Indians, other than a very thin layer of the ultra-rich. The question remains as to how KS&DL could best go about executing and communicating its strategy to make this launch a success.

This case provides students the opportunity to learn about the challenges faced when a company launches a new brand, particularly a luxury brand in a developing country such as India. Through this case, students will learn about the concepts of brand extension, and, above all, vertical brand extension. It can also be used to discuss the spill-over effects of the launch (and its success) on other existing brands of the company, as well as the overall corporate brand.

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

This case looks at a new start-up company, d.light Design, as it was seeking to go to market in India with its solar-powered LED lamps in 2009. Sam Goldman, founder and chief customer officer of d.light, was in New Delhi, India; his business-school friend and co-founder Ned Tozun was in China, the site of the company's manufacturing plant.

One of the key decisions Goldman and Tozun needed to make was whether d.light should focus on just one distribution channel in India, or multiple channels. The startup had limited capital, so it needed to get the distribution question right to generate revenue quickly.

The case thus combines an entrepreneurial problem with an emerging-market, or bottom-of-the-pyramid, channel design challenge. This case does not focus on product design or manufacturing challenges but rather on questions of:

• The constraints d.light faced in creating an aligned distribution channel. These constraints can have legal, environmental, and/or managerial foundations

• Demand-side misalignments in the channel structure that will occur if d.light chooses one or another of the considered channels in the case, namely, (a) the RE (rural entrepreneur) channel, (b) the village retailer channel, or (c) the centralized shops channel

• • What mix of channels—or what single channel—d.light should focus on in the Indian market

• • The financial return possible based on d.light's current cost structure and overhead expenditures in India

The constraints d.light faced in creating an aligned distribution channel. These constraints can have legal, environmental, and/or managerial foundations

Demand-side misalignments in the channel structure that will occur if d.light chooses one or another of the considered channels in the case, namely, (a) the RE (rural entrepreneur) channel, (b) the village retailer channel, or (c) the centralized shops channel

• What mix of channels—or what single channel—d.light should focus on in the Indian market

• The financial return possible based on d.light's current cost structure and overhead expenditures in India

• Assess channel benefit demand intensities for chosen target market segments

• Assess channel alignment constraints that can limit the channel designer's ability to optimize the channel to meet identified end-user demands for channel benefits

• Use these ideas to defend a choice of one or more possible channel structures as appropriate parts of a company's overall channel system

• Analyze financial opportunity in this situation, given cost parameters and possible market penetration estimates

Assess channel benefit demand intensities for chosen target market segments

Assess channel alignment constraints that can limit the channel designer's ability to optimize the channel to meet identified end-user demands for channel benefits

Use these ideas to defend a choice of one or more possible channel structures as appropriate parts of a company's overall channel system

Analyze financial opportunity in this situation, given cost parameters and possible market penetration estimates

This case tackles the diaper industry in a developing country and can be applied to three different undergraduate or graduate level courses, including Marketing Management, Strategic Management, and Operations and Supply Chain Management. The case describes the industry, the manufacturing process, along with detailed information about Novatis Group's business and functions and the overall improving economic environment in Morocco.

The Novatis Group case has several objectives that can be applied to three different courses within undergraduate and graduate studies including Marketing Management, Strategic Management, and Operations and Supply Chain Management.

The case focuses on Novatis Group, a diaper manufacturing company located in Morocco which competes against multinational companies (MNCs) such as Procter and Gamble and Kimberly Clark in order to satisfy the rising diaper needs of the country. Morocco is a developing country that is strengthening its manufacturing industries. The rising economic conditions have given way to a growing middle class and an increased demand for disposable baby diapers. Novatis uses two distribution channels for the diapers: the multi-tiered distribution channel and the streamlined (straight to retailer) channel. Novatis Group is producing diapers at full capacity; still demand has exceeded supply.

Students will understand the business processes in a developing country and how a small, local company can compete against large MNCs.

Teaching notes are available, please consult your Librarian to access.