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“Originally as a business providing community life services since its founding in 2017, Dingdong (Cayman) has transformed itself into a fresh e-commerce company. After making adjustments to its business model and operating strategy for three times, Dingdong (Cayman) has completed the strategic transition from grocery surrogate shopping to comprehensive self-operation, and built its own commercial fortress. In 2019, the total revenue of the company was five billion yuan. Upon the outbreak of COVID-19, its monthly revenue exceeded 1.2 billion yuan in February 2020, and the year's total revenue was expected to hit 15∼18 billion yuan. To date, Dingdong (Cayman) has formed a supply chain fully based on digital operation and built a commercial fortress in the fresh e-commerce industry. Despite this, its future prospect is not free from challenge. This case mainly deals with the following questions: How about the strategic positioning and core competitiveness of Dingdong (Cayman) in its early days? In the process of rapid expansion, what are the advantages and problems in its business model? How can the digitally operated supply chain support its continuous expansion in the future?”

In the increasingly competitive leisure food market, Lyfen has become a well-known leisure food brand in Shanghai after long-term independent operation. Insisting on chain retail specializing in various kinds of leisure food, Lyfen captures the consumption habits of consumers, timely launches new products in line with consumers' preferences, and leads the consumption trend. Its main competitors include other leading enterprises in China's leisure food chain industry, such as Three Squirrels, BESTORE and Baiweilin. The company's products are mainly divided into nine categories, totaling more than 900 special products. Some products under Lyfen's name have established good reputation in East China. Regarding business model, Lyfen has devoted its full energy to the construction of brand and channel, and created a unique asset-light model, which mainly involves sourcing and sales two chains.

Trouble was brewing for Nestle in India with a lab test finding MSG in Maggi noodles, a product brand which had been adjudged ‘most powerful’ and ‘most trusted’ in India;it was being banned in different parts of the country. Paul Bulcke, CEO of Nestle SA, arrived in New Delhi to face the heat and take necessary damage control measures. The case challenges the participants to review the events leading to a total ban on all the nine variants of Maggi noodles imposed by FSSAI, the Indian Regulator, by Nestle India. It also challenges them to suggest ways of taking care of the business in future in India as well as its effects in other countries.

The Neenan Company is a construction firm based in Fort Collins, Colorado, known for their efforts in pioneering the advancement of the design/build approach to construction. With a history of industry leadership, innovative contracting methods, and ethical business practices, the company now faces management, customer relations, and financial challenges. Serious structural problems were discovered in a number of public schools and other buildings built by the company. Thrown into a whirlwind of shock, Randy Myers, President of the company, must consider how to respond to the crisis, and how to prevent these issues in the future. Written from his perspective, this case provides a platform for considering the challenges that can result from industry innovation, ethical decision-making, and crisis management.

For the development of this case, the authors interviewed the top management at the Neenan Company: Founder David Neenan, President Randy Myers, and Donna Smith, Vice President of Business Development. The authors also interviewed current employees, previous employees of Neenan, representatives of school buildings built by Neenan, stakeholders, other experts in the construction field and existing customers of the company. The company made internal documents available to the authors, including financial statements and quality control and assessment tools, which were provided by Ryan Dellos, Chief Financial Officer. The authors surveyed financial documents and business documents to analyze pertinent information and data relevant to the case. All the interviews were recorded, coded, and analyzed to include multiple perspectives. Extensive online research was conducted on the construction industry and The Neenan Company which included several news articles and interviews on David and Randy. Additionally, the authors carefully studied the news reports by The Denver Post and other related press materials. Experts from the construction field and financial field provided assistance with data analysis and interpretation. The authors used a variety of academic resources to draw connections between the issues faced by Neenan and concepts discussed in business courses.

This case has applications in entrepreneurship, small business management, business ethics, leadership, organizational structure/design, and new venture management courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. It also contains critical areas of decision-making relevant to an advanced strategic management course. The case can be introduced at any stage of the term, and is specifically relevant to discussions focussing on innovation and growth, corporate social responsibility, ethical decision-making, stakeholder theory, entrepreneurial crisis management, and long-term venture success.

The purpose of this study is to make students understand the logic behind and implications of the “Socio-Technical Imbrication Framework” that can help them understand the importance of aligning workforce motivation and capabilities with the modern technology deployed in the organization. Moreover, students will understand the essentiality and criticality of customer satisfaction for the organization.

The technical services operations team at Cotton Web Limited formerly relied on JS Node, e-coordination system, to address customer complaints. There were many bugs in that system as it did not carry along the complaint tracking protocol, was slow in response, fundamentally structured upon manual complaint record keeping that resulted in piling up un-resolved complaints for a longer period of time. The team under the leadership of Mr. Hasan Ali, a competent expert working as GM Research and Data Analytics, undertook detailed analysis of recurring glitches in this system and replaced it with a novel Web-based automated complaint management system at Cotton Web Limited. This entire diagnosis and intervention process took almost three months till completion. The case is written for use in courses in the curriculum of BBA, BBIS, BSIT and BSCS programs at undergraduate level. It is most suitable for the courses in leadership, change management, business process reengineering, soft engineering, team building and business communication.

The case is suitable for teaching at Undergraduate level to the students of BBIS, BBA, BSCS and BSIT students in the last year of their degree programs. Teaching faculty can use case-based methodology for student learning by putting them into a real-life situation faced by an organization and letting them think critically and identify following points for further discussion and clarity: individual or in groups; problem identification through discussion; the stakeholders involved in the company’s situation through presentation or one-pager presentation; case analysis with reaching best solution to prevailing issue at hand through group discussion; reaching a decision or solution with reasonable logic and justification through group discussions; and create further dilemma on the basis of questions unanswered within this case story.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

A growing folding carton company is contemplating the replacement of an old machine with a new one. The case challenge is to develop a cash flow forecast and determine the proper discount rate for the machine replacement. In addition to increased capacity and reduced waste, the new machine offers strategic advantages to the firm in its chosen market niche. Issues related to operations are central to appreciating the importance and implications of this capital investment: Operating excellence is a key competitive advantage for this firm. A teaching note and student and instructor Excel spreadsheets are available to accompany the case for instructors.

The learning objectives aim to provide an understanding of the changing nature of consumer payments and the impact upon both businesses and consumers. This can be achieved by examining the case through the lens of stakeholder theory, which posits that businesses are “responsible … to ‘those groups and individuals who can affect or be affected by their actions.’” Collectively, those groups and individuals are known as stakeholders and they commonly include “customers, employees, suppliers, communities and financiers.” In addition to creating value for the owners, businesses should also consider how they can create value for each of their other stakeholders (Freeman et al., 2010, p. 9). In addition, consistent with the theory of management control systems (Chenhall, 2003), the automatic processing of cashless transactions enables businesses to more efficiently record their earnings, commission payments (if applicable) and monitor cash collections. As all data are captured in an electronic format, they can easily understand their sales and profitability through user-friendly and visually appealing dashboards. This, in turn, enables them to obtain a more accurate and timely view of their business and they can appropriately adjust their operations and strategy as a result of this information. Finally, cashless payments enable more accurate and efficient reporting of information to taxing authorities, which decreases the possibility that the affected parties would underreport income and underpay taxes. This is similarly consistent with the theory of management control systems (Chenhall, 2003) because the improved systems of financial reporting assure compliance with tax laws and regulations.

This case was developed using both primary and secondary data sources. The authors interviewed the participants in London and the secondary data collection used relevant sources from appropriate literature and the popular press.

In London, consumer transactions were as plentiful as the eight million people who lived there. While cash was considered “king” in retail, cash payments dropped by 15% across the UK in 2017, and debit and credit cards became the predominant payment method (Kollewe, 2018). Cash represented only 40% of customer payments and was expected to drop to 21% by 2026 (Lyons et al., 2018). This was likely driven by contactless payments whereby consumers preferred the speed and ease of being able to “tap and go.” As businesses were charged fees to accept credit card payments, many expected that small businesses would insist on cash for small transactions. Instead, some banished cash completely. Insights from two London businesses helped explain why some were dropping cash and completely embracing cards.

This case can be used in a variety of undergraduate level courses to discuss trends in customer payment methods and the decisions of some businesses to completely abandon cash. Some example courses and suggested supporting materials include the following: • Consumer behavior • Entrepreneurial finance • Survey of accounting • Introduction to financial accounting.

The case introduces students to aspects of operations management (OM) and management theory and provides examples of the real-world challenges facing a practitioner. It requires students to think about the operational manager’s responsibilities and how organisational context influences choices and possibly even fit within an organisation.

In this case, a factory lead protagonist presents her OM challenges and choices within a for-purpose, rather than for-profit, a social enterprise in South Africa. The context presented unusual constraints that required thoughtful adaptation and judicious choices. The case introduces students to aspects of OM and management theory and provides examples of the real-world challenges facing a practitioner. It requires students to think about the operational manager’s responsibilities and how organisational context influences choices and possibly even fit within an organisation.

The case is aimed at postgraduate business students studying OM.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and logistics.

The case demonstrates the use of strategic management tools such as pros and cons analysis, SWOT analysis, strategy canvas, the four-action framework and the eliminate–reduce–raise–create grid to create a Blue Ocean.Through a discussion of the case, students will be able to:▪ conduct pros and cons analysis to objectively understand a situation;▪ conduct SWOT analysis to understand the internal and external ecosystem;▪ understand non-customers and paths to reach them;▪ demonstrate the role of strategy canvas and the four-action framework in designing a new offering; and▪ explain how to create a Blue Ocean market space, by implementing the concept of value innovation.

This case describes a situation in which Dr Vishal Sardeshpande (Sardeshpande), a first-generation entrepreneur in the agro and food processing industry, started Sarvaay Solutions to provide technological solutions for the sector, especially for the small/medium-sized farmer. Such farmers did not have access to technology and the markets to create value addition on their farm produce, and hence were at the mercy of the middlemen or the large farmers. After years of experimentation from 2006 till 2018, Sardeshpande made a resource-efficient jaggery manufacturing process (REJMP) in Pune to enable and empower the farmer to produce quality jaggery using their own sugarcane, which otherwise was sold to the middlemen. Sardeshpande knew the industry and was aware of the challenges faced by the farmers, traditional jaggery producers and cooperative farming bodies. In June 2022, while sitting in his house, Sardeshpande was struck with an idea that the key to success of REJMP is to empower farmers or traditional jaggery producers or cooperative farming bodies to create value from agriculture produce and wondered the way forward. The purpose of this case is to provide an opportunity for the participants to use management tools such as strategy canvas, four-action framework, Pros and Cons analysis and SWOT analysis to understand noncustomers and paths to reach them and understand new industry creation. Participants need to take into consideration the data given in the case and make realistic assumptions to understand how new industries are created.

The case engages the participants in deciding a suitable course of action for Sardeshpande to decide the Blue Ocean strategy. It helps them to delineate the challenges faced by an entrepreneur to select a route for the new market space.The case is ideal for undergraduate, postgraduate or executive education students and can be used in the following courses of a business management, agri business management or entrepreneurship programs:▪ creating new industries;▪ Blue Ocean strategy; and▪ strategic management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Services marketing and marketing strategy.

The case is basically aimed at post-graduate management students; it can be used in strategic management courses. Students can understand McKinsey's 7S model with the help of this case as well as the seven Ps of service industry. Students can also gain an insight into the hub and spoke model. The case can also be used in courses of entrepreneurship.

The case is primarily the entrepreneurial journey of Mr Samar Qureshi in a quick service restaurant business. The entrepreneur Mr Samar Qureshi at a very young age dreamt of opening up an Indian fast food chain. He worked hard to make his dream a reality. In a brief period of five years Qureshi's Fast Trax has reached the level of world-renowned fast food chains like McDonald's and KFC in terms of quality and ambience. Overcoming the hurdles and the challenges Fast Trax has 22 outlets in Delhi NCR. Samar has also introduced the fast food culture in a small town, Aligarh, and wishes to expand it further to other B class towns of India where people desire to go to fast food chains and to enjoy the high standards of food and service as are enjoyed by people living in metros. He has also been instrumental in changing the concept of canteen to restaurant in schools and colleges. The case discusses the challenges facing Fast Trax in the cut-throat environment of the fast food industry.

These include: highlighting the 7Ps of services in the context of a retail chain and establishing interlinkages between the seven Ss identified by McKinsey.

Teaching notes are available. Please consult your librarian for access.