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Operations and human resourcing.

This case study is intended for use in graduate, executive level management and doctoral programs. The case study illustrates a combined IT and HR driven participative management control system in a flexible organization structure. It is intended for a class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation.

The case describes the situation of managing unskilled workforces (≥14,000 workers) during the construction phase of the 4 × 250MW power plants both for purposes of turnout as well as due compensation, in the event of an accident. The approved labour forces appointed for 45 × 8 h. Man-days after a rigorous fitness test and approvals of the safety officer are allocated housing and other necessary amenities and a commensurate compensation system.

These include: illustrating typical organizational responsibility structure at a construction site of a large power plant; illustrating the planning and administrative control mechanism in implementing strategy at a construction site of a large power plant; offering students the opportunity to understand and view a typical operational (project) structure; allowing students to speculate adaptations in the wake of an ever-changing business and company environment; and providing an opportunity to introduce a power scenario in India, Indian labour laws and radio frequency identification technology and to relate this to the case in context.

Teaching notes are available; please consult your librarian for access.

Ahmedabad Container Depot (ACD) was a fast growing inland container depot (ICD) in Ahmedabad. The area of the depot was 15 acres and it had a monthly turnover capacity of approximately 25,000 containers. The primary processes at the facility were imports, exports, and transshipments. ACD had been facing various challenges due to inefficient manual container tracking system at the facility. Due to good business, the company was able to reach 90–95% of its capacity which was also the main problem ACD had to deal with. The management wanted to increase efficiency by reducing the number of moves required to locate a container by implementing a technology solution. The Head IT of ACD, Bhavik, was examining proposals from vendors and had identified a few alternatives. He was also considering the options that other large container yards had used successfully. His dilemma was to determine the feasibility of the alternatives, particularly those which had not been tested by any other firms in the country. Also, implementing technology could cause a change in roles and responsibilities; dealing with that situation was another area of concern.

Pharmaceutical marketing, brand protection.

It could be used with the pharmaceutical marketing students and MBA students for analysing counterfeit medicines' menace in developing countries and positioning of a disruptive technology. The case could be used for marketing consultants, Brand managers and executive development programmes to explore issues such as protecting brands through technology, pharmaceutical packaging marketing, competitiveness of counterfeit drugs, global harmonisation.

Against the backdrop of rising menace of counterfeit drugs in developing countries, the case talks in particular about an innovative pharmaceutical packaging company. The company has developed a unique security technology called non-ClonableID™ which can enable products to be authenticated throughout the supply chain, thus protecting brands and preventing misuse. Despite a promising technology, it poses challenges regarding its adoption and commercial success.

Counterfeiting as an inevitable result of Globalization has become a global nuisance and has to be dealt at global level. Brand protection could be one of the lowest cost tools for pharmaceutical companies to restore public confidence in their products and themselves. While all methods for anti-counterfeiting are known to have short lives the menace still must be dealt with. For this, companies need to deploy anti-counterfeiting strategies that set up various layers of security.

Teaching note.

Founded in San Francisco in 2009, Square finished 2012 as the darling of Silicon Valley; flush with more than $340 million in funding, the firm had grown to several hundred employees in just three short years. It processed more than $10 billion annually in credit and debit card payments from small business owners that used Square’s smartphone-enabled card swipe device wherever cellular or wireless Internet service was available.

However, Square’s success had attracted new entrants into the mobile payments processing space, both in the United States and abroad, threatening to derail the company’s remarkable trajectory. With its latest financing round valuing the company in excess of $3.4 billion, management and investors were considering which strategies would continue—even accelerate—the company’s growth

Square presents an opportunity for classes in strategy and technology management to contemplate the following:

• How can a startup disrupt an established set of incumbents without provoking a harsh competitive response?

• How can a growth company in a rapidly changing industry expand beyond the core competency that fueled its initial growth?

• Which growth platforms make the most sense for a company in a complicated ecosystem with many players offering divergent solutions?

How can a startup disrupt an established set of incumbents without provoking a harsh competitive response?

How can a growth company in a rapidly changing industry expand beyond the core competency that fueled its initial growth?

Which growth platforms make the most sense for a company in a complicated ecosystem with many players offering divergent solutions?

T Education is a leading educational science and technology enterprise in China with technology-driven, talent intimacy and quality leadership as the core development objectives. Since its inception, it has been committed to creating better learning experience for children. As the predecessor of T-education, X-education was founded in Beijing in 2003. At first, it mainly provided after-school math counseling for school-age children. Over the past 10 years, its business has been expanding, covering almost every aspect of school-age education. This case studies accounting issues and business ethics challenges that firms may face when they transform from a single (traditional education) line of business to a multiple channel business.

The case was devised using both primary and secondary data sources. Primary sources of data consisted of in-depth interviews with individuals using the cycle hire project. The researcher also had first-hand experiences of using the cycles. The case study has been tested with undergraduate and graduate students taking management information systems courses.

This teaching case study charts the London cycle hire project, mostly from its first inception in July 2010, right through to the planned expansion of electric cycles from Summer 2022. The main aim of the case is to introduce students to project management challenges which are part of the London cycle hire project. While the project was filled with enthusiasm from its early beginnings, various challenges were encountered including issues associated with the project procurement/sourcing process, software and technical problems, as well as other project management issues. Problems became so severe in 2011 that the service provider was hit with a penalty and had to make critical project improvements. Would these accountability measures prompt the service provider to resolve these issues? How would the service provider go about undertaking a fact-finding exercise to verify the existence of the challenges and address them to ensure renewed project success?

The case was written for classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The focus of the case is particularly well suited for exploring topics and issues relating to types of information systems, project management and accountability, multiple global supplier procurement, as well as challenges associated with hardware integration and software design. While the case was targeted at MIS students, the case study would also be effective for an introductory level project management course or a general management course. The subject of the case, the bicycle rental program, is likely to appeal to students, and the basic underlying business issues, processes and objectives of the project are easily understood.

Decision Analysis, Management Information Systems, Strategic Management, Organizational Development, Financial Management, Risk Management.

MBA-1 (Decision Analysis), MBA-2 (MIS).

On a beautiful October morning in 2011, the CEO of a mid-size oil marketing company located in Nairobi, Kenya has to make a tough decision whether to upgrade their current B1 system to a bigger version of SAP. Abbas, the new Information Communications Technology (ICT) Director of Zaidi Group, was worried that Zaidi was building a bigger and bigger company on top of a more and more small enterprise resource planning system. Abbas's fears also include RedLock's past inefficiencies. Kariuki, the Finance Director, on the other hand was into the fear of overspending in a huge information technology (IT)system where current functionalities required can be addressed by a smaller system through add-ons, customization and development.

Demonstrate some tools in decision analysis for problems with multiple objectives including some issues indecision framing and cognitive inertia; Raise the issue for fundamentally changing a firm's infrastructure; Demonstrate the alignment of IT strategy to Business Strategy.

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

Management and leadership.

Undergraduate and graduate.

Mr Lionel Thibaud, the General Manager, was highlighting the achievements and challenges faced at Impression et Enregistrement des Résultats (IER) within the Middle East region over the past four years in relation to the various cross-cultures and multi-nationalities. IER is a world-leading supplier of printing terminals and IT solutions for the air transportation industry. The problem facing the decision-maker is how to do business with the Middle Eastern countries and handling and striking a balance with all the varying cultures and customs. In addition, to meet the needs of the customers, a long-term mission is to establish long-term relationships and collaborations.

On completion of utilizing the case study as an exercise, students should be able to: case-specific skills – critically examine the importance of the cross-cultural management, decision-making, managing in multinational companies and leadership and management in the Middle East and demonstrate this by analysing real regional/world examples using complex theoretical frameworks; identify examples of best practice (including ethical “best practice”) and explain the dynamics towards cross-cultural management, decision-making, managing in multinational companies and leadership and management with reference to a range of theoretical models and apply these in a meaningful way to the MENA region; discipline-specific skills – synthesize and critically evaluate a corpus of academic literature and government reports on cross-cultural management, decision-making, managing in multinational companies and leadership and management; link cross-cultural management, decision-making, managing in multinational companies and leadership and management concepts and theories to real regional/world examples; personal and key skills – reflect on the process of learning and undertake independent/self-directed learning (including time management) to achieve consistent, proficient and sustained attainment; work as a participant or leader of a group and contribute effectively to the achievement of objectives in the field of cross-cultural management, decision-making, managing in multinational companies and leadership and management.

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

Paytm has become a popular method to make cashless payments in India. Be it for transferring funds through mobile numbers, online payment of utility bills, cabs, etc. or payment to offline merchants. This case elaborates on the position Paytm has attained in the market thus far and its ambitious future growth plans. It describes the strategies being adopted by Paytm’s competitors and the new developments in the payments business in India. The case finally narrates the challenges the Fintech firm faces at present and poses a pertinent question: is Paytm on a growth trajectory or committing suicide by leaping so fast?

The case collates secondary data pertaining to Paytm’s current position and recent developments in the Indian mobile wallet industry. It presents the facts and data published on websites, newspapers, and magazines in the form of a case study.

This case can be applied to strategic management at under graduate and introductory level in post-graduate marketing of digital products.

Teaching Note includes case synopsis, assignment/discussion questions, suggested readings, teaching plan, methodology, case analysis, what happened, references and data in exhibits.

Appreciating the role of process innovation in enabling growth; Understanding why replication is time consuming and not straight-forward; distinguishing formal and informal dimensions of coordination-mechanisms; Analyzing the differences in replication using template and principles.

Entrepreneurs desire to grow their businesses. They look for opportunities, in this case, when an opportunity came in year 2006, the entrepreneur successfully en-cashed. This lead to formation of a strategic business unit (SBU) that grew faster and also became role model. However the main SBU, for which the firm is known, continued past legacy. It is only when they found it difficult to grow, they decided to emulate. However, transition was not easy, it took much higher efforts. In the transformation, the older-SBU found that it is only inspiration, direction and fundamental principles that they can take from the newer-SBU. They have to fight their own battle and evolve solutions themselves. The older-SBU finally did succeed in the replication. The case experiences decision-making on template versus principle route to replication giving the participants enough exposure and thinking on the subject.

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 MBAs and working professional’s training.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship