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Uber had pioneered the growth and delivery of modern ridesharing services by leveraging the explosive growth of technology, GPS navigation, and smartphones. Ridesharing services had expanded across the world, growing rapidly in the United States, China, India, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Even as these services expanded and gained popularity, however, the pickup experience for drivers and riders did not always meet the expectations of either party. Pickups were complicated by traffic congestion, faulty GPS signals, and crowded pickup venues. Flawed pickups resulted in rider dissatisfaction and in lost revenues for drivers. Uber had identified the pickup experience as a top strategic priority, and a team at Uber, led by group product manager Birju Shah, was tasked with designing an automated solution to improve the pickup experience. This involved three steps. First, the team needed to analyze the pickup experience for various rider personas to identify problems at different stages in the pickup process. Next, it needed to create a model for predicting the best rider location for a pickup. The team also needed to develop a quantitative metric that would determine the quality of the pickup experience. These models and metrics would be used as inputs for a machine learning.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to understand the different options available for funding; to illustrate the growth of the food services industry in India; and to understand a business model canvas.

Baromeeter (BOM), was a Delhi-based startup founded in the year 2016 by Rishabh Vyas, a 26-year-old MBA graduate. Currently, BOM has operations in Delhi-NCR with 50,000 monthly website visitors and 200-plus partner restaurants and cafes in Delhi-NCR with brands such as Imperfecto, Junkyard Café, Garam Dharam, Out of the Box, Boombox, Jungle Jamboree and many more. BOM also receives over 1,000 deal bookings and 200 plus party bookings monthly. Going forward, Rishabh has plans to expand to other cities such as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore. However, there are certain challenges. So far, the startup has raised funds from friends and families. He was confident that he had a compelling product. However, he knew he had to look for fresh investments to scale up. The existing funds may sustain the operations of the company for another six months. Rishabh was considering a number of options. However, whom to approach? Would banks be interested in lending money? How about participating in angel investor’s meet?

The case is suitable for a course in graduate and an undergraduate course in entrepreneurship. The case can be used to understand the business model canvas and to understand the funding options available for startups.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The case was written using information and data from secondary sources. It describes real people and the situations experienced by them. It does not use any fictitious names, scenarios or organizations.

The case study “Melanie Perkins: Poised to Redesign Canva from Tech Unicorn to Tech Giant?” describes the entrepreneurship journey of Melanie Perkins (she) (Perkins), the CEO of Australia-based tech unicorn and graphic design company, Canva Pty Ltd. (Canva). The case starts with a brief look into Perkins’ background and documents her entrepreneurial spirit, which, at the age of 19, led her to identify a hitherto unserved market (yearbooks) in the graphic design industry and offer an online design system through her venture, Fusion Books (Fusion). Fusion was completely bootstrapped and became a runaway success within five years. That encouraged her to envision setting up a one-stop-shop design site that would make design accessible to everyone.

However, when she tried to raise funds, Perkins encountered multiple rejections from venture capitalists. She persevered and continually refined her strategy. Eventually, she managed to raise venture capital funding and establish her design startup, Canva, in 2013. Canva then went on to disrupt the graphic design industry. The case describes in detail the reasons for Canva’s success, which went on to be one of the few profitable unicorn start-ups. The case also throws light on how Perkins used Canva as a tool to change society with her two-step plan. Despite its market success, Canva faced heavy competition in the design and publishing space from well-established players. Can Perkins challenge the competition and ultimately make Canva a software giant in the future?

The case is intended for use in teaching the subjects “Entrepreneurship Development,” “Business Strategy,” “Leadership Skills and Change Management” and “Positive Psychology for Managers” in both graduate and post-graduate programs.

Business strategy.

The case has been written with the objective of enabling the students to understand the dynamics of a rapidly changing emerging market. It is structured for use at a Master-level course and an MBA audience in the subject of Business Strategy.

The case details the growth story of American fast food chain McDonalds in West and South India markets. Westlife Development Limited (WDL) operates McDonald’s chain of quick service restaurants (QSR) in these markets; they entered the markets in the year 1996 and since then have adopted various market strategies such as investments in multiple format QSRs, aggressive rollouts of new QSRs, increase in product variants etc. for a sustained growth trajectory. However, the increased competition from both the national and international QSR brands and the new segment of competition from “techie” food aggregators challenges their prospects to maintain a number one position in these markets. As Amit Jatia – the Vice President of WDL − prepares his presentation for the scheduled Executive Leadership Team meeting, he seeks answers to two prime questions a) How could WDL once again regain the number one status in these markets? b) What best strategies the team needs to adopt to remain relevant to the Indian consumers?

The case study should enable the student: 1. To comprehend the complexities of the Indian QSR market and its competitive dynamics 2. To analyze the factors contributing to the growth of the India QSR sector. 3. To identify the market factors that led WDL to adapt their strategy to the market 4. To understand the significance of business strategy localization as adopted by WDL in the markets of West and South India. 5. To evaluate sources of competitive advantage for McDonald’s in the West and South India markets.

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.

This case features Stripe, a startup that enables merchants to accept payments from customers on the web, on mobile devices, and at the point of sale (POS). Stripe was launched in 2011 by the Collison brothers and quickly gained traction with e-commerce startups, particularly software and platform developers who needed help building their payment processing infrastructures. Stripe incurred high fixed costs in developing its platform and had low margins per transaction, so the company needed to reach high processing volumes (i.e., scale) to survive. This was challenging, as Stripe competed with large payment processors and traditional banks that had high processing volumes and were able to offer merchants significantly lower rates than Stripe. Still, merchants valued Stripe#x0027;s solution because it was simple and versatile. Students assume the role of the Collisons to think about possible strategies Stripe could pursue to process higher volumes of transactions. Students are challenged to think about the potential response of the incumbents to Stripe's different growth alternatives. The teaching note presents the Value Net framework and discusses the importance of considering complementors and their effect on a firm's strategy. Finally, a discussion about Stripe's potential entry into the Indian market allows students to apply the concepts they learned in the discussion of a new market.

The case deals with the financial and accounting aspects of the one of the important aspects of Power Sector Reforms in the developing countries. It captures the experiment of involving the private parties in improving the overall performance of the company.

The case can be used at postgraduate-level studies in Management, Accounting or Commerce.

The organization in focus is a unique case where the regulator of the sector has become its manager. The shareholder with the majority stake has withdrawn from the business, but the ownership has not been transferred and the organization is now under the custody of the regulators. The organization has a very weak balance sheet, so finding a new owner is not easy, if not impossible. Purposeful inefficiency and a rent-seeking attitude at the field level forced the new chairperson of the State Regulatory Commission to take the bold step of involving the private parties to strengthen the operations of the organization with the sole purpose of improving the financials of the organization. The organization entered into a contract with more than three private companies using variations of a franchisee model. Will such shift improve the overall performance of the organization? The case will try to capture the shift and its ramifications.

The objective of the case is to introduce students to certain strategic decisions that organizations must take to make them financially strong and vibrant. The case requires students to critically examine the legal, financial and accounting implications of the decisions taken by the management. It provides an opportunity to undertake a detailed analysis of the financial position of the company. The case provides lessons about several complications of evaluating corporate and divisional performance. The case contains issues relating to finance, law and accounting which can all be discussed at the postgraduate level. Knowledge about the regulatory issues affecting the power sector will add further value to the analysis. In case students are not exposed to the regulatory accounting and finance, it is necessary for them to go through the suggested readings as a prelude to the case analysis. The following may be the guiding objectives for the class discussion: to critically examine the changes in the organizational ownership and management of regulated entity; to undertake analysis of the financial performance of a regulated entity; to evaluate the financial implication of micro-privatization of certain activities of a regulated entity.

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

The case presents a financing dilemma at a fast growing, Brazilian construction company. The growing demand for residential and commercial real estate in Brazil, coupled with the capital intensive nature of the industry generates the need for a considerable external financing. The students are invited to take the perspective of the financial manager and evaluate three financing alternatives – an issue of debentures, a seasoned equity offering, and a capital-raising ADR offering. In their evaluation and final recommendation students need to consider the implications of each of the financing alternatives on firm value, equity risk, cost of capital, financial leverage, issuance costs, and ownership structure. The case also presents a valuable opportunity to discuss the interdependence between the institutional development of an economy and the development of its capital markets.

The Joyoung brand was launched in 1994 when a group of recent college graduates invented the world's first automatic hot soymilk-maker home appliance. After some ups and downs, the Joyoung manufacturer founded the Shandong Joyoung Electric Appliances Co., Ltd. in 2002. It was further reorganized to the current Joyoung Company Limited in September 2007. Joyoung's sales grew rapidly from RMB 6 million in 1994 to 120 million in 1999, and this trend has continued into the new century. By the first quarter in 2006, the signature product of Joyoung—the soymilk makers—alone have already surpassed the sales by Philips Home Appliances in the Chinese market. Contrary to its current success, however, Joyoung Soymilk Maker's launch did not go smoothly. When the first model of the automatic soymilk maker was introducted in 1994, people had no idea what this new creature was supposed to do. The first 2,000 units of Joyoung products remaintroducedined stacked in storage for months. Joyoung then decided to conduct some marketing research. Joyoung's repositioning strategies and new product developments based on their marketing research have been evidently successful, and they have defined a new product category in China and in the world.

Upon completion of the case study, the students will be able to conceptualize the importance of brand differentiation; suggest the implications of brand differentiation in the context of the traditional Chikan art form; examine the aspect of a brand’s product portfolio management; and critically analyse the competitive advantages of the brand using the VRIO framework.

The Chikankari art form gained worldwide recognition. In fact, it also received a geographical indication (GI) tag which is important for international branding. The case is centred around an entrepreneur, Mr. Vinod Punjabi, who redefined the essence of the existing Chikan art form by value addition in terms of intricate designs, patterns and exclusivity. He founded the brand Ada in 2015 aimed at preserving the traditional art form while curating elegance and exclusivity in its product portfolio. The case outlined Punjabi’s journey. The protagonist carefully analysed the open and unorganized Chikankari market and adopted the strategy of brand differentiation to stand apart from the competitors. Punjabi’s daughter, the chief operations officer of Ada, described the aspects. The journey was arduous, but over the years, Ada emerged as a successful name in the Chikankari market. The brand’s intent of becoming synonymous with Chikankari was successful owing to its authentic and exclusive hand-crafted products in the competitive environment of machine-made replicas. Furthermore, the brand also consistently worked on the aesthetic appearance of its store to attract a wide range of customers. Punjabi ensured that the brand was an amalgamation of all the essential elements for its survival in the long run.

The case is aimed for students pursuing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration/diploma in management, marketing and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, it will assist the management trainees in gaining valuable insights.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:▪ to analyze service attributes that influence customers’ decisions to purchase services;▪ to identify the factors that influence customers’ perceptions of service quality;▪ to identify the “moments of truth” that the service provider (IndiGo) would need to monitor and manage through the service encounter; and▪ to use the Servuction model to analyze the various elements of the service process.

In May 2022, the chief executive officer of IndiGo Airlines - India’s largest passenger airline by market share, Ronojoy Dutta, faced flak over the airline staff's handling of a specially abled child travelling with his parents on IndiGo Airlines. The staff member, reacting to the tantrums of the disturbed child, had refused to allow the boy and his parents to board the flight. He had cited the “risk to other passengers” from the boy as the reason for such a refusal (Biswas, 2022). In spite of the boy’s parents being supported by their fellow passengers, the IndiGo staff member refused to relent, and the flight took off without the trio (Firstpost, 2022). The incident goes viral when a fellow flyer shares a Facebook post describing it first-hand and provokes widespread condemnation of the nation's “preferred airline” (IndiGo, 2023) by citizens and politicians on various social media platforms besides Facebook (Gupta, 2022). Dutta initially supports his employee even as he issues a statement expressing his regret at the “unfortunate incident” (Business Standard, 2022a). The regulatory body for aviation in India, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, imposes a fine of INR 5 lakh on IndiGo for denying boarding to a specially abled child (Indian Express, 2022). How could an incident like this impact the perception of IndiGo’s service quality? How could Dutta better ensure that IndiGo managed the various touch points with the customer over the entire service encounter – the “moments of truth”? How could he prevent such a fiasco in the future, ensuring that IndiGo remains India’s “preferred airline”?

This case is intended to be taught in an undergraduate or MBA marketing course in a module on service marketing. The case can also form a 90-min module in a service marketing course within an advanced management or executive education program.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CCS 8: Marketing.