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Pricing, Marketing Management, Strategic Marketing, Strategic Management.

The case can be used for a Pricing Course and Strategic Marketing, Marketing Management and Strategic Management courses delivered to post-graduate management programme (Master’s level) students and/or for Management Development Programme’s.

Alliance Intercontinental Sourcing Company LLP (ALLISCO) manufactured Steel Blanks for clutch plates used in two- and three-wheeler automobiles. Steel Blank plates further underwent a processing phase which included coating with leather cover to form the finished clutch plate. The primary raw material used by ALLISCO for its manufacturing process was sheet metal. The processing of the principal raw material resulted in the production of three joint products. The first joint product was “Steel Blank”, the main product; the second joint product was “Inner Circle”, which may be classified as a by-product; the third joint product was the left-over waste material and could be categorized as sheet scrap. The approximate increase in procurement cost of 8 per cent had considerably impacted the firm’s profit margins. The dilemma that Rishabh Singla, Managing Partner, ALLISCO, now faced was how the increased differential could be distributed systematically among the three joint products. The challenge for ALLISCO was to preserve the percentage of gross profit margins by altering its existing pricing strategy.

Understand the concept of multiple joint products; learn about choosing appropriate pricing strategies to price multiple joint products; comprehend how value-based pricing can extract untapped profits; and understand the importance of retaining gross profit margins (%).

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Hydrochem, Inc. produces only one product — condutronic plates. The company uses an actual process costing system but is considering changing to a standard costing system. Manufacturing costs consist of raw material, direct labor and manufacturing overhead and the company uses full absorption costing. Students are provided with account balance information at the beginning of the month and with information regarding the company's events and transactions during the month. Students are asked to prepare two income statements for the month and balance sheets as of the end of the month. One set of financial statements is to be prepared using the company's actual costing system, and the other set of financial statements is to be prepared using the proposed standard costing system. Students are asked to explain the differences between these two sets of financial statements and to take a position as to which set of financial information they prefer.

The consumer-products division of a multinational company is facing a decision on the sourcing of product components: whether to stay in Taiwan or switch to Mexico. See also the supplement to this case, “Cost Analysis for Sourcing Alternatives for Emerson Electric Company ACP Division” (OM-0823).

The student will examine from a systemic perspective qualitative information from a company to propose improvements to its business model.

After working for more than 10 years with a global company, in January 2006 the Guadalajara-based jewelry SME, Divine Jewelry Co. (DJC), was facing liquidity problems, overstock and a debt from a bank loan, among others. The planned expansion of DJC, a family business founded in 1980, had resulted in just the opposite. Daniel, the owner and CEO of DJC, was determined to reverse the company's precarious situation as soon as possible. Some of the questions he asked himself centered on what actions he should take to pay off liabilities and try to survive in the industry his business had held a place in for 25 years. Daniel wondered whether, to pay off debts and have sufficient liquidity to have working capital and move forward, it would be enough to make efforts to recover those clients they had stopped serving, along with getting new ones. In addition, he thought it was necessary to formulate a plan to use the remaining proceeds from the sale of the property if they had to dispose of it. The case is about analyzing the strategic management of a company, specifically its business model, considering the context of its industry. The case also illustrates the problems that arise from focusing on serving a single client.

The case “Divine Jewelry Co: From Expansion to Survival” has been designed to be used by university students in initial management or strategic management courses on the following topics: Business modelsPorter's Five Forces ModelFormulation of strategies

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS11: Strategy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic micro-, small- and medium-sized businesses were hit hard. This was specially so in the restaurant business where physical lockdown and social distancing norms were challenging. Thus, small business performance was a concern (Akpan, Udoh, & Adebisi, 2020). This case study addressed this theoretical aspect. Zhang, Gerlowski, & Acs (2021) had highlighted the challenges of business continuance and enterprise sustenance, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This case study provided insights regarding how these aspects of business continuance and enterprise sustenance were addressed by “Café Tato”. Bhattacharyya and Thakre (2021) had deliberated regarding how firms through strategic initiatives and tactical responses were required to manage COVID-19 pandemic and economic lockdown. Café Tato case study was in line with these recommendations for firms. Barbieri et al. (2020) and Reardon et al. (2021) had outlined steps regarding maintaining business operations reliance given a business crisis situation like during the COVID-19 pandemic. Café Tato case study described this. Café Tato case study accommodated perspectives regarding business crisis situation, business continuance, enterprise sustenance, operations reliance, organizational strategic versus tactical initiatives and finally small business performance.

The teaching case study was written based upon primary data collected from the owners of Café Tato. Furthermore, secondary data was used for building the case.

Café Tato was the most popular and the oldest tea cafés in Goa, India. It had a presence in Panjim and Margaon in Goa. On 24 March 2020 India went into an economic and physical lockdown because of COVID-19 pandemic related crisis. One week down the line on 31 March 2020, Mr Pranav Dhuri (hereby referred as Pranav), one of the owners of Café Tato, was contemplating how to ensure business continuance once there was semi-normalcy restored. What would the initiatives that need to be undertaken was critical for success of Tato the legendary café in Goa was playing in the mind of Pranav.

This teaching case study could be used in the class for strategy planning and implementation in the course of strategic management. This case study could apply for teaching both bachelor’s and master’s students of business management. The case could also be taught to management students for helping them understand how small business firms, while confronting challenges of COVID-19, planned and implemented strategies in the course of strategic management. This study helped strategic management students understand the importance of organization culture in any business as it directly influenced the profitability and sustenance of business. The Dhuri family had all along laid stress on keeping the culture alive by taking various steps at critical times in improvising and maintaining the standards. The study also helped to understand the importance of good leadership and its direct impact on the employees in a crisis situation (COVID-19) work environment and ensure business sustenance.

The author employed a five-step approach: Data (e.g., qualitative primary and secondary data) collection (about a major project at the examined organisation), Critical thinking (in order to determine the dilemma), Setting learning objectives (e.g., with respect to the Bloom's taxonomy), Testing (in order to confirm the teaching plan) (e.g., with research assistants and doctoral candidates), and Ensuring clarity (e.g., especially for the case narrative).

The site manager at a UNESCO World Heritage Site by the name Ephesus in Türkiye (Turkey) was considering who would update the site management plan. UNESCO was regularly asking for updates. Would site management outsource the management plan from a firm? For example, the site management had had an outside firm develop the management plan and Ephesus had become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Otherwise, would the site management rely on their own experience this time? Was there another way?

The educators could use the case study to introduce graduate students to “the value conception” in “marketing management” courses and to “the social exchange school of thought” in “marketing theory” courses. The learning objectives develop over the tension between owning and outsourcing main responsibilities of a scientific field as well as the tension between claims and objective evaluations. “The value conception” in “the social exchange school of thought” could improve planning in favour of humanity in a way that the United Nations could recognise (e.g., “value-based planning”). Corresponding discussions motivate a main question about the future: What is marketing for?

The subject area is strategy and business.

The case can be used for MBA students. This is equally effective in short courses meant for low-to-mid-level working executives. The case is suited for classes in strategy, general marketing, media management and family business courses.

Dainik Jagran – a vernacular daily – is the most read newspaper in India. Under the banner of Jagran Prakashan Ltd.; which is one of the leading media houses in India, the success of Dainik Jagran has been an outcome of the strategic marketing decisions taken by its founder and his successors in the post-independence era. With extensive circulation, it created a large readership base and took bold decisions to launch multi editions to its daily through a series of acquisitions, mergers and consolidations from 1975 to 2010, enabling it to step into product diversification. Readership surveys, investments in technology, advertising, regular branding events and smart phone applications are a few tools that helped. While the group has diversified into other industries, there is an underlying anxiety about the future prospects of its newspaper business. With the onslaught of online news dailies, will Dainik Jagran be able to expand and maintain its readership base using its previous business and marketing strategies? Or is it time to change strategies for businesses in the newspaper and allied media industry in India?

The study has the following outcomes: application of value chain concept in businesses serving two-sided markets; application of environmental analysis, Porter’s five forces analysis and related strategy concepts; and learning to critically approach and develop a sustainable growth strategy framework for a successful family-run newspaper business in India.

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CSS 11: Strategy.

Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurialism, marketing strategy, strategic stakeholder engagement.

Entrepreneurship policy makers, post-graduate level, practitioners interested in MENA region.

Yogen Früz is a leading frozen-yogurt franchising network started in 1986 in Ontario, Canada, as a small business adventure. It then grew to be the largest frozen-yogurt company in the world after acquiring many of its smaller competitors locally and internationally. In 2002, new key players entered the market and set new benchmarks in the frozen-yogurt industry, which led to Yogen Früz losing its dominance and closing many shops. This case study is written to show how Yogen Früz, the world's largest frozen-yogurt chain, was outperformed by new, small-sized rivals in the industry. This case explains the successful strategic move made by Yogen Früz to adopt a rebranding strategy and reintroduce itself with a totally new brand image. Yogen Früz specializes in frozen yogurt and now has more than 100 flavors and 1,300 outlets around the world.

This case study will expose students to a strategically successful example of expansion and critical thinking beyond the daily operation of a business. The students will be able to apply business process models, SWOT analysis.

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

Entrepreneurship.

The case can be used to teach behavioural perspective of the entrepreneurship theory for the students of Master of Business Administration (MBA) level. The case may be equally important to teach the marketing and operational context to discuss the perspectives of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A young Indian professional had left his lucrative job in the pharma industry to start his own business of a small training centre that trained and placed young graduates with various pharmaceutical companies as medical sales representatives (MSRs). Without borrowing anything from the financial institutions, he plunged into the business in a rented room of a school in Kolkata, India. With every sincerity and path-breaking strategy, his vocational centre, named Carreograph Institute of Management Studies (CIMS) became number one in eastern India in training and placing MSRs and managers. With a number of hand-picked professionals from the industry, this young entrepreneur changed the concept of training by introducing short-term courses like Diploma in Pharmaceutical Management to technically prepare pharmacy undergraduates with professional skills and industry overview, Post Graduate Diploma in Pharmaceutical Management to cater to the contemporary management needs of the pharma industry. For the first time in India, Carreograph launched MBA in Pharmaceutical Management in the distance learning mode, and this strategy revolutionised the concept of management teaching in India. With a huge success in MBA, Carreograph was on the verge of launching another path-breaking course, i.e. Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in pharma in the distance learning mode.

To analyse Tamal Chatterjee's entrepreneurial characteristics, motivations and expertise in the field and how these parameters support his proposed new venture, to consider the effectiveness of his entrepreneurial methods for finding out more about the proposed business area in which he is interested and to evaluate his idea of newly developed MBA and BBA programmes in terms of its expected acceptance among the student communities and consider if and when he should go ahead with expanding his current venture.

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The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to strategically evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, threats and resulting opportunities that face an entrepreneurial startup. To apply the academic principle of competitiveness and evaluate the competitive advantage of the business and its competitors through the application of the Porter’s five forces model. To evaluate the contextual tensions that entrepreneurial ventures face, and how these affect the growth of a sustainable business. To develop the skills to create a target market analysis by using segmentation, targeting and positioning principles. To evaluate the best strategic actions to grow a business through the lens of sustainable entrepreneurship, by using principles such as the triple bottom line and people, opportunity, context and deal and framework.

The case look at business challenges faced by an entrepreneur, Renshia Manuel, the CEO of GrowBox, as she attempts to balance the profitability and social impact of her venture in Cape Town, South Africa. GrowBox sells customisable self-contained wooden boxes equipped with all materials to grow a variety of vegetables and herbs for consumers. Large volumes of boxes are often purchased by corporate clients who donated these to lower-income communities as part of their social responsibility projects. Additional landscaping and food-scaping services make up another revenue stream of the business. The case study documents the conception of GrowBox in 2016 and the growth of the business in the first four years of operation. The theft of equipment, and difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff due to the volatile social climate of where the business was situated, have put the business under great financial pressure and reduced the efficiency of business processes. The case highlights a number of the harsh realities of sustainable entrepreneurship where both profitability and social impact are vitally important to ensure business sustainability. The case dilemma involves the choices faced by Renshia at the beginning of 2020 regarding the future, sustainable growth of the business.

The target audience for this teaching case is primarily business students at a postgraduate level, particularly those studying in the fields of sustainable entrepreneurship and social development, as well as marketing in emerging markets. This teaching case is intended to be used as a case study in postgraduate business programmes such as postgraduate diplomas in management, specialist Masters programmes such as those focussed on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship or social development, as well as those studying a Master of Business Administration or related executive education programme.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.