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Introduction: Banking institutions are instrumental for lending support and steering the economy in the planned direction to achieve long-term goals. Sustainable development has become the focal point of new policies so that the economies attain inclusive growth. This needs substantial funding to accelerate industrial activity; hence, banks have to play a dominant role in helping such plans succeed. Banks need to look beyond their current framework and play a proactive role in promoting sectors focussed on sustainable development. Banks can prioritise lending to green initiatives to reduce carbon footprint, which will provide impetus to the goals laid out in the COP 26 United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference. The chapter aims to identify the gap in investment for sustainable development and the funding support required from banks to help India achieve the desired sustainable goals. The chapter recommends that banks increase their green financing to provide the impetus for creating sustainable infrastructure.

Purpose: The present study aims to understand the banking sector’s importance in developing sustainable economic growth through lending practices. The study recommends certain practices for increasing focussed lending towards sustainable projects.

Methodology: In this study, the authors developed prepositions based on a literature review. Significant issues were raised based on the lending policies per the guidelines of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and a solution was proposed by preparing a conceptual model.

Findings: The study offers a lending technique that can assist the financial sector in supporting sustainable economic growth.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to examine the service failures faced by Nykaa; propose a resolution to the service failures faced by Nykaa through service recovery strategies; analyse the service quality gaps faced by Nykaa and propose strategies to bridge the gaps; learn and comprehend more about business models in e-commerce; and evaluate the e-commerce business models for deciding the best fit for Nykaa.

“Nykaa” was the brainchild of Falguni Nayar, who was an IIM alumna and had worked with the Kotak Mahindra Group for nearly 20 years as a venture investor and merchant banker. After representing the group’s global operation in the UK and the USA, she became the head of the institutional equities division. In 2005, she was the Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank’s project. Nayar had reached the pinnacle of her career, but something was troubling her. In 2012 when Nayar noticed anomalies in India’s beauty and personal care market, her goals were realised. Unlike in other nations such as Japan or France, the availability of beauty products in India was limited, despite significant demand, owing to product unavailability in many areas. Nayar founded “Nykaa”, an online portal for multi-beauty, personal care and well-being items that also later branched out into fashion. However, after 10 years of its establishment, Nykaa was facing challenges regarding services outages, casting doubts over Nykaa’s business model practiced by it for the past 10 years.

This case is intended for discussion in the undergraduate, postgraduate management courses and executive MBA courses with marketing specialisation, services marketing and strategic marketing.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy

Small businesses and start-ups have started to reopen post coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdowns but are facing numerous challenges mainly due to changed customer preferences and the need to fine-tune the business models. This research aims to identify the important aspects that start-ups need to focus on, as they weather the COVID-19 pandemic storm.

Research uses constructivist grounded theory methodology to analyse data collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and senior employees at start-ups. A conceptual model based on nine categories impacting a start-up’s performance is investigated. Interview memos are thematically analysed to identify repeated ideas, concepts or elements that become apparent.

Study reveals that employees’ and customers’ safety, prudent cost management and online presence/doorstep services are key for start-ups to succeed today's changed business landscape due to COVID-19.

Findings act as a practical guide for start-ups in setting mechanisms, optimizing operations and fine-tuning strategy to address COVID-19 challenges. Start-ups are advised to evaluate the implications of the three findings on their respective businesses to successfully tackle the challenges posed by COVID-19.

This research, being cognizant of a start-up’s unique characteristics and nuances, takes a fresh approach to identify key aspects that start-ups need to focus on and fine-tune in the wake of COVID-19. The paper enriches scientific research of understanding impact of COVID-19 on organizations by specifically surfacing how start-ups can learn and adapt by knowing how other start-ups are surviving today.

The sharing economy is changing the way people use products and services, and the success of sharing-based apps like bicycle and automobile sharing has drawn a lot of interest across the world. The purpose of this research is to investigate the factors affecting the consumer's adoption of ride-sharing services.

With this aim, the current study integrates the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Expectancy Confirmation Model (ECM) with a further extension of consumer trust and social norms. Using a survey-based research design, data were collected from 558 respondents using multi-stage convenience sampling on 5 point Likert scale. Confirmatory factor analysis is conducted followed by structural equation modelling using IBM AMOS-22.

The findings of the study report crucial determinants for the consumer's continuance intention and actual use of these services. Perceived usefulness, consumer satisfaction, trust and subjective norms were found positively associated with the continuous intention to use ride-sharing services, whereas perceived ease of use was found to be insignificant. This study also highlights antecedents for the consumer's trust towards these services and found reputation, propensity to trust as a significant contributor whereas structural assurance was found insignificant to establish the trust among the users.

The research on consumer adoption towards ride-sharing services are meagre and this study adds the value to the field by integrating TAM and ECM model with further extension of consumer trust and social norms and empirically test the proposed model.

The supply chain (SC) of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector in India witnessed a significant change soon after introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST). With the initiation of this tax, companies started moving from individual state-wise warehouses to consolidation warehouses model to save costs. This paper proposes a model that frames a mathematical formulation to optimize the distribution network in the downstream SC by considering the complexities of multi-product lines, multi-transport modes and consolidated warehouses.

The model is designed as mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), and an algorithm is developed that works on the feedback loop mechanism. It optimizes the transportation and warehouses rental costs simultaneously with impact analysis.

Total cost is primarily influenced by the critical factor transportation price rather than the warehouse rent. The choice of warehouses at prime locations was a trade-off between a lower distribution cost and higher rent tariffs.

The study enables FMCG firms to plan their downstream SC efficiently and to be in line with the recent trend of consolidation of warehouses. The study will help SC managers solve complexities such as multi-product categories, truck selection and consolidation warehouse selection problems and find the optimum value for each.

The issues addressed in the proposed work are transporting products with different sizes and weights, selecting consolidated warehouses, selecting suitable vehicles for transportation and optimizing distance in the distribution network by considering consolidated warehouses.

This paper aims to explore the role of source credibility while purchasing environment-friendly products using Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior as underpinning model.

The proposed theoretical model was empirically tested with the data collected from 334 respondents using structural equation modeling.

The results gave empirical support to the addition of source credibility to the original theory of planned. Moreover, consumer attitude was found mediating the effect of corporations’ credibility on purchase intention. Also, attitude and perceived behavioral control were found as the most important predictors of consumer’s intention to purchase environment-friendly products.

This study provides valuable insights for the marketers engaged in sustainable business practices. Amid, ever-increasing carbon emission, promoting the use of environment-friendly products has become the need of the time. Credibility plays a crucial role while promoting and communicating an organization’s sustainable practices among its stakeholders including consumers. Therefore, the marketer should formulate appropriate marketing communication strategy to communicate the consumer about the green practices and environment-friendly products they produce. The results suggest that corporation’s credibility shapes consumer attitude and influences intention to purchase environment-friendly products. Earning trust of the consumer is pivotal to achieve success in the market. Therefore, results may help the marketers to better understand consumer’s response toward their marketing strategies and further convince and persuade them to buy their products.

The findings of this study may be useful for marketers, strategists, policymakers and government while formulating promotional strategies to make consumer aware, educate and persuade them to purchase products which do not cause harm to the environment.

The study is novel in terms of exploring role of source credibility and extending theory of planned behavior in the context of sustainable consumption.

Despite its great practical and theoretical significance, research on how and to what extent sustainable manufacturing capabilities (SMCs) provide competitive advantage to firms remains scarce. Towards bridging the gap, this paper conducts an enquiry into the competitive value of SMCs.

A theoretical framework on the competitive value of four SMCs, namely, pollution control (PC), pollution prevention (PP), product stewardship (PS) and clean technology (CT) is developed through synthesis of literature. More specifically, competitive value is characterised in terms of enabling key resources and market positioning opportunities. A case study, using a deductive qualitative approach is conducted to test the framework by analysing reported sustainable manufacturing practices (SMPs) of three multinational firms. Observed compliances and deviations to the framework are analysed and accordingly few propositions are framed.

The empirical findings largely support the conceptualisation of competitive value for PC, PP, PS and CT provided in the theoretical framework. However, a few deviations were observed for PC, PP and PS. For instance, some PC-based actions, such as co-processing and implementation of zero liquid discharge technology show characteristics of resource conservation and lead to cost benefits. Similarly, there were instances when PP demonstrated the use of non-tacit (imitable) resources and PS was employed to seek compliance to environmental regulations.

The results based on limited number of case firms may not be generalisable to other sectors and contexts.

The study provides guidance to the manufacturing managers about the competitive value of SMPs.

This is a novel study that empirically investigates the competitive value of SMCs by understanding the associated sustainability impetus, enabling key resources and market positioning opportunities.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of celebrity endorsers on consumer advocacy, customization and entertainment intentions based on the notion of the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework. In addition, this study aims to examine the mediating and moderating role of customization and entertainment intentions on the proposed relationships. The authors also intend to highlight the comparative effects between male and female young social media consumers on those proposed associations.

In the pursuit of comprehensive and rigorous data collection, this study adopted a quantitative methodology using a meticulously crafted questionnaire. The questionnaire survey was conducted in major cities of Malaysia using the convenience and snowball sampling techniques. A total of 576 responses were collected, even though 549 retorts were used for data analysis. In this investigation, the authors strategically used covariance-based structural equation modeling through the use of AMOS v. 24 as the primary data analysis tool. Augmenting the analytical depth, the authors also conducted a supplementary bootstrap analysis. The additional layers of examination were crucial for appraising the mediating and moderating effects inherent within the model, in which the PROCESS MACRO v.4.20 was used.

The results of this study revealed the significant direct positive effects of celebrity endorsers on consumer customization, entertainment and advocacy intentions. Consumer customization and entertainment intentions also found significant direct affirmative effects on consumer advocacy intention, along with the significant direct positive effects of consumer entertainment intention on consumer customization intention. The results further revealed that consumer customization and entertainment intentions cannot mediate the relationship between celebrity endorsers and advocacy intention. The entertainment intention also declined the mediating effects between celebrity endorsers and consumer customization intention. On the contrary, consumer customization intention significantly and positively, and entertainment intention also significantly but negatively, moderate the association between celebrity endorsers and consumer advocacy intention. This study also illustrates that the effects of those examined relationships differ between male and female young social media consumers.

This study investigates the impact of celebrity endorsers on consumer behavior, focusing on their customization, entertainment and advocacy intentions. It extends current SOR framework, enhances source credibility theory, fills gaps in the literature on social media brand engagement and underscores the significance of customization and entertainment intentions. The findings provide insights for managers aiming to harness consumer brand advocacy through celebrity endorsers effectively.