Search results

As a “unicorn” devoted to the rural market, Huitongda has gone through a major evolution since its establish-ment in 2010 from a rural home appliance distributor, a supply chain platform, an O2O service platform to an industry Internet platform of the rural e-commerce ecosystem, based on its deep understanding of the pain points in the rural market and operational experiences. After 2017, as the platform scaled with more vendors, Huitongda was no longer satisfied with selling a single product from urban to rural areas, but was committed to promoting the two-way flow of diverse commodities between urban and rural areas. It also set out to promote employment by entering the rural human resource market, expanding the single-industry O2O service platform to a complete multi-industry ecosystem. In 2018, with a service network covering over 17,000 townships across 20 Chinese provinces, Huitongda's sales reached RMB 35 billion yuan, enabling over 500,000 rural dwellers to start their own businesses or to find employment.

However, the depth, breadth and complexity of the rural industry Internet gradually multiplied, as more member stores joined the business ecosystem with more valuable commodities and services. As a rural industry Internet network owner, how could Huitongda better tap into digitalization in order to support its industry Internet business model and the huge network? How can it further widen the network boundaries to drive more business innovations and maximize network value?

After completing the case study, the students will be able to explore, create and capture the dilemmas of a platform strategy; compare, contrast and configure strategies for successful platform adoption; develop fitting configurations for marketplace design; and use temple framework to evaluate the dilemma of the element of time (do it sooner, delay for later or dismiss forever) in launching a new marketplace.

Shoppre was a parcel-forwarding firm established in 2017. In a short period, Shoppre turned out to be one of the best parcel forwarding and cross-border commerce companies in India, thanks to the first-mover advantage it enjoyed. Shoppre had offerings of shopping and shipping of cross-border e-commerce. As a new firm looking forward to increasing its market power, Shoppre faced the dilemma of whether to launch the marketplace, and if yes, whether to do it soon or delay it for the future. There was also confusion in the marketplace’s design and implementation. Nikkitha Shankar’s (she/her) worry was that if Shoppre did not decide quickly on this, there would be possible crises in managing the partners and their financial performance. Shankar was brainstorming the issues with the founding partner and was gauging the dimensions. This case study presented new marketplaces’ dilemmas along with managing sellers, customers, markets, finance, logistics and digital transformation.

The case study is suitable for undergraduate- and graduate-level students pursuing courses in business programmes and senior management professionals participating in executive education programmes. The case study will also fit well for courses such as the “Platform strategy: building and thriving in a vibrant ecosystem” course [1], digital business models [2] and digital business strategy [3].

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

“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?”

This case study seeks to develop the analytical and critical thinking skills of the students so that they can not only understand and carry out a comprehensive diagnosis of the case in its facets of entrepreneurship but also see reflected the inherent difficulties of the process and how these can be overcome, based on available resources and capabilities. In the same way, it seeks to develop students’ capacity for critical analysis when making a decision in which, on the one hand, there is a very large market potential that they can try to exploit, taking into account the political transformation that modifies the rules of the game with which the business began, in addition, of course, to the case of a security breach specified in the case and, on the other hand, the possibility of resigning, avoiding greater losses.

This case study exposes the situation of the company Max Drone Venezuela, which had been dedicated to the service, repair and training of drones. This family-owned company had gone through a series of stages that clearly exemplified how environmental factors served to identify opportunities in the early stages of the business, promote strategic actions to maintain itself, guide the course to sustain itself and seek development in hostile environments.

Given the characteristics of this case study, it can be used for the teaching and learning of business or business administration, marketing, economics or related students, at higher or postgraduate levels (graduate school).

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS3: Entrepreneurship.

In China, supply chain finance (SCF) has gradually emerged as a new service for the retail industry. This case systematically discusses how JD conducts product design and risk control of supply chain finance and related financial services, and analyze the impact of supply chain finance on JD's retail operations. The case also analyzes the relationship between JD supply chain finance and traditional financial institutions, and explore the future development of retail supply chain finance.

This case explores how driver training school create experience value for their trainees. It describes the development of driver training industry, the foundation and new training mode of Rongan Driving School, changes and challenges of environment for Rongan facing and so on, which will guide readers to discuss six influence factors of customer experience, six dimensions of customer-experience value, the relationship between them, and the influence of social environment. Rongan's innovative training mode of “pay after learning, time-based billing, one car for one person”, provides a good training experience for driving trainees. It has become the benchmark of the national driving training industry within six years.

This case requires students to evaluate alternative dual-share-class corporate structures that allow companies and entrepreneurs to pursue profit with purpose. The case explores Impact Makers, an IT consulting company based in Richmond, Virginia. While original founders of the firm hold all voting rights, the cash flow rights belong to two nonprofits setting the stage for a Newman's Own model of management consulting. The case discusses whether and how the alternative corporate structure aids the firm's overall strategy to attract top-quality employees, pay them competitive salaries, and provide superior service to its clients while donating 100% of its lifetime value to charitable causes, largely through partnerships with various nonprofit organizations. More importantly, the case asks students to evaluate how such a dual-share-class and dual-purpose company can raise capital to fund continued growth.

The case opens with CEO Michael Pirron reminding himself of all the questions he had run through to execute a strategy to further grow Impact Makers' consulting business both through expanding a menu of services and through conquering new geographical markets. To do either, or both, the company needed a cash infusion. Internal cash was limited, as up to 40% of it flowed to charitable partners, demonstrating Impact Makers' commitment to its mission. Raising debt for a company without fixed assets was challenging and time consuming. Complicating it all was that being structured as a nonstock corporation rendered equity raising difficult. Could Impact Makers raise money to grow and stay true to community values at the same time?

The case on Moodcafe captures the journey of the start-up and its entrepreneurs from the beginning till the fund-raising stage. The case brings forth critical decisions that each entrepreneur or the team of co-founders have to address during their start-up journey. This short case gives opportunity to delve into two aspects mainly a) As a founder, which investor should one choose for seeking funds and what should be the terms and conditions of investment? and b) How can one review and assess the business model of a start-up?

This case study has been developed based on the primary data obtained through a series of interviews held with the senior management of Cargills, and the secondary data obtained from the company’s corporate website www.cargillsceylon.com/,annual reports and publicly available sources of information such as newspaper articles.

This case study focuses on the strategic responses employed by Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – a leading business conglomerate in Sri Lanka – in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The duration of this case study is from January 2020 to September 2021. The case study particularly examines the key business sectors of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – retail, food manufacturing and quick service restaurants – which elaborate on the change management practices and strategies deployed by the company in each of these sectors during this challenging period. This study is based on the primary data gathered from the interviews held with the Cargills (Ceylon) PLC team, and the secondary data obtained from the corporate website of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC. This case study is most suitable to be taught in academic courses related to strategic change management.

The case is most suited to be discussed with undergraduates (3rd year and 4th year) following business and management studies related disciplines. While the pivotal area around which the case has been developed is strategic change management, covering environmental analysis, strategic analysis and process of change management, the case could also be used in strategic management classes, to discuss environmental analysis, strategic planning approaches and business and corporate level strategies.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Indian Railways (IR) has been slow in innovation. The competition from other modes of transport has posed new challenges to IR. Railways worldwide have taken help from startups to develop innovative solutions to improve railway operations. Such collaborations have helped in leveraging the technical expertise of startups in domains which are non-conventional for railways to develop in-house. These collaborations have been made possible by funding startups through various investment channels.