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In August 2007 the Mainsail II SIV-Lite was frozen by its trustee as a result of the ongoing credit crisis. The state of Maine held $20 million of Mainsail commercial paper in its Cash Pool portfolio, a short-term portfolio that puts temporary, excess state revenues to work. When word of the potential loss became public, the Treasurer came under attack. The case introduces the functions of a state Treasury department, with particular emphasis on the investment objectives and guidelines for the cash pool as well as its composition. The case reviews the events leading up to and including August 2007, the month when the credit markets first began to seize and when the financial crisis effectively began. It examines securitization, structured finance, and the Mainsail SIV-Lite structure in some detail.

This case describes the growth of ReNew Power during its first decade of operation. Sumant Sinha, a first-generation entrepreneur and former banker, founded the company, which grew from a modest generator-cum-developer of wind energy-based electricity to one of India's largest companies in the renewable energy sector. With the entry of large, well-funded players such as Tata Power and Adani Green into the Indian renewable sector by the end of 2020, Sinha had to make a strategic decision: should ReNew continue to organically scale up its presence in an increasingly competitive yet expanding Indian renewable energy sector, should it diversify geographically, or should it pursue emerging opportunities for vertical or horizontal integration within the sector? The case provides an opportunity to discuss how alternative business models and competitive scenarios may facilitate or inhibit the growth of a player in the renewable energy sector.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to identify and discuss competition using Porter’s five forces, analyse and understand the enablers and challenges that impacted Rocky Brands’ growth and recommend a solution in relation to Rocky Brands’ growth strategy.

This case study investigates Rocky Brands, a South African manufacturer and distributor of cleaning products in the retail market. The case was set in November 2022 and highlights the important events ranging from the company’s founding in 2011 up until 2022. This case aims to study strategy in the South African fast moving consumer goods industry. At the time of writing the case study, Rocky Brands was operating across South Africa, with their main manufacturing warehouse in Johannesburg and a subsidiary manufacturing warehouse in Durban. They were changing the Durban warehouse to a distribution warehouse, as they planned to manufacture primarily from a bigger warehouse in Johannesburg. Rishav Juglall, the main protagonist, is the founder and managing director of Rocky Brands. Rocky Brands imports and redistributes several of the brands that the company sells, including Weiman’s, Wright’s and Goo Gone. They also manufacture their own line of products in South Africa under the Oakmont brand. Juglall acknowledges that their sales and revenue have grown yearly, but they have recently saturated the market and reached a plateau. Juglall needs to determine whether he should diversify into Africa, expand his product range or enter the market for private label cleaning products.

The case study’s primary focus is on strategy in an emerging market. This case study is suited to undergraduate students studying Porter’s five competitive forces, SWOT analysis (see teaching note exhibit) or the Ansoff matrix in the fields of strategy, marketing or macroeconomics. This case study can be taught in courses such as decision-making, environment of business, leadership or strategic implementation. The case study will teach students how to apply the frameworks to a business and assist students in determining which option is best for the business.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The case study offers interesting learning possibilities and offers the following learning opportunities to the learner. assess and conduct a macro- and micro-environmental analysis, comprehend the nature of the competitive landscape and how it changes when one looks at a digital-only versus an omnichannel marketplace, examine the product mix and policy of the firm and evaluate how it delivers customer value and analyse the pros and cons of growth strategies available to a firm and arrive at a viable and actionable future business and product strategy.

The short case study presents the story of a young start-up called Country Delight. The firm began operations in 2011 and was the brainchild of Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal. The direct-to-consumer firm addressed urban consumers’ non-articulated, latent need to get “fresh and uncontaminated” milk to their doorstep. Country Delight delivered farmer-to-consumer fresh cow and buffalo milk and milk products based on a well-designed and efficient value chain where the supply chain was either wholly owned or quality monitored by the firm. The firm began operations in India’s National Capital Region and was spread across 15 metro cities. Slowly, over the years, Gade and Kaushal added more product categories.Country Delight had a subscriber base of around 500,000, and the ambitious duo wanted to double their subscriber base and reach one million subscribers by financial year 2025. The firm was looking at various paths to achieve this number. Should Country Delight expand into new geographies? Or look at adding to the existing product portfolio? Diversification into agritourism, like the Pune-based vineyard – Sula, also looked attractive to build consumer engagement. Would taking the consumer to the farmers from whom they sourced the milk and vegetables contribute additional revenue to Country Delight and their farmer-suppliers? As the firm got ready to raise another round of funding, it needed a well-articulated growth strategy that was exciting and profitable for all stakeholders.

This case study presents the dilemma entrepreneurs face as they look at the next phase of growth. Thus, this case study serves as a learning opportunity for a graduate-level course in management and as a sounding board for those who aspire to enter the start-up space. Though this case study has the potential to illustrate basic concepts such as value chain and macro- and micro-environment analysis, the protagonist’s dilemma and the problem statement make it apt for integrated discussions that are critical in advanced electives in marketing management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

An estimate of the fair rate of return on capital is a critical input into tariff regulation. A too high estimate will lead to high tariffs for consumers; a too low estimate will not provide adequate incentives for investment. The Airport Economic Regulatory Authority of India has issued a consultation paper for finalizing the norms and procedure for estimating the fair rate of return. It now needs to reconcile the differing view and approaches of different stakeholders.

One of the major issues present in this case is whether there is significant industry pressure to internationalize. Yip’s (1989) global strategy drivers are a helpful approach for examining this issue. This case also applies two important marketing concepts – the product life cycle and diffusion of innovation theory – and how differences across international markets impact these concepts. Finally, there are significant cultural issues at play in this case as well. Theoretical models of national culture, such as Hofstede, Hall and others, can be used to examine cultural influences on an industry that is not often associated with culture.

The case is based upon a combination of secondary research and primary research. The lead researcher and a team of graduate students conducted interviews with Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (LP) executives in the USA and Chile in 2017.

This three-part case examines the internationalization of LP into South America. Case A begins in 1999 as LP attempts to decide whether to take its oriented strand board product international. The reader is asked to consider where LP should go in South America. Case B examines the factors LP used to decide to enter Chile and then outlines the key decisions that led to its impressive growth between 2000 and 2015. Case C begins in 2015 as LP now considers whether to expand its markets into Argentina or Colombia.

Given the complexity of issues raised in the case and the need to narrow these issues down to an implementable decision, this case is most appropriate later in the schedule of a graduate or executive-level business course in international business or international marketing.

This paper aims to enable students craft a winning corporate strategy applicable for organizations in various contexts. The practical approach consists of conducting scenario planning based on internal and external environment analysis, identifying the winning factor, proposing an implementation strategy of entry and exit strategies, and future customers, and evaluating matching of business ethics and legality.

Wesley Chen, the executive director and group chief executive officer, has the ultimate challenge of leading his management team to operate from a sole proprietorship management style to a listed large company in the Malaysian Stock Exchange. He identified the gap in the need to craft a winning corporate strategy for business sustainability. The corporate strategy should address expansion of their service offerings and needs to be carefully crafted to suit TopSteel’s risk appetite and overall business strategy. The strategy must also consider the internal and external factors that TopSteel faced with, identify the core competency of TopSteel, build in strategic agility in the implementation plans to address the dynamic business landscape, and most importantly ensure the corporate strategy must be in compliance to ethical and legal standards. The case study documents the one year of transition of TopSteel’s operations with a strong focus on the strategic management process direction for a winning OEM+ model through the use of SWIM concept.

This case is suitable for undergraduate or postgraduate programs or even executive courses in strategic management.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy

The three cases (Case A: JSW Steel's Ispat Acquisition: The Opportunity; Case B: JSW Steel's Ispat Acqusition: The Setback & Case C: JSW Steel's Ispat Acquisition: The Turnaround Strategy) describe the business situation leading to acquisition of Ispat by JSW, the acquirer company's failure to realize synergies post-acquisition, and the subsequent turnaround initiatives to salvage the situation. The Case A details the potential synergies that were identified during due diligence process while the Case B details the setbacks which did not allow JSW to realize the anticipated synergies. Nevertheless, not deterred by the setback, JSW salvaged the situation by undertaking a massive turnaround program aimed at plugging strategic, operational and organizational gaps. Concurrently, several initiatives were also taken to integrate the processes and workforce of the two organizations. Eventually the JSW team succeeded in turning around Ispat and merged it with the parent group. Case C provides a rich description of the turnaround and integration initiatives by JSW.

The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to analyse the drivers, mediators and threats of commoditisation. To critically evaluate the merits of different marketing options that may be employed to avoid commoditisation. To critically assess the branding-focussed or customer-focussed strategies that could be used. To develop appropriate strategies for Biotronik SA to counter commoditisation in the future.

The case begins with the protagonist and managing director of Biotronik SA, Robbie Nel, brewing over a new industry development. One of the leading private hospital groups has sent an open invitation to medical device suppliers to tender, where the lowest-priced products will win shelf space in their cathlabs. Robbie has to decide whether to sacrifice Biotronik SA’s profit margins to win the tender or risk not being stocked in their cathlabs. Or, he must find an alternative non-price-based strategy to pursue. The medical device industry is facing increasing price pressures from various stakeholders in the device-purchasing process. The decision to purchase is no longer the responsibility of specialist physicians alone. International and local market trends indicate that the medical device industry is threatened by commoditisation. Robbie has to make a decision on changing the Biotronik SA business model and strategy in response to these macro trends.

This teaching case is aimed at postgraduate students, particularly those pursuing MBA, EMBA and Postgraduate Diploma programmes, as well as specialist masters and executive education. The students should have some work experience to comprehend and assess the case from a practical perspective.

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 8: Marketing.

This case is based on the IPO of the first Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) in India that was based on a portfolio of operating toll roads. InvIT enabled the construction company, which was also the sole equity investor, to release part of its equity to future toll road investments. The case describes the structure and functioning of the InvIT. It requires participants to assess its future potential for providing long term financing to not only toll roads but also other infrastructure projects.