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This case study is focused on strategic management of Huawei in sustaining the competitive position in the smartphone market. The discussions in the case study begins with the big picture of “Made in China 2025” policy and China’s 14th Five-Year Plan 2021–2025 attempting to change the country’s image from imitation to innovation. The case study then focuses on Huawei, the major provider of network equipment and smartphones, with the alignment of the national policy. The case demonstrates the difficulties faced by Huawei as a result of US ban. The students are challenged to perform in-depth discussions on various issues guided by the instructor using this Teaching Note. The teaching objectives are as follows: students should be able to analyse Huawei business environment and its strategic capabilities in the smartphone market; students should be able to evaluate the extent to which the effects of US sanction would have on Huawei smartphone operation; and students should be able to evaluate the strategies for Huawei to regain a leading position and achieve competitive advantage in the global smartphone market.

Huawei is the leading company in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. Ren Zhengfei, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Huawei, has set the vision of building a global company that could rival the best in the world. Huawei’s heavy investments in research and development (R&D) have brought the company to be a leading brand in the international market. Huawei was charged as a security threat by the Donald Trump administration in 2019. The USA and its allies banned Huawei products, causing the smartphone shipments plummeted dramatically. The case presents a protagonist, Ren Zhengfei, CEO of Huawei, who built the business from a small company to a leading global ICT company. The growth of Huawei was struck by the US sanction with the supply chain being disrupted by a shortage of advanced chip technology to run the smartphone business. The dilemma addressed in this case study is concerned with how Ren Zhengfei could steer the company out of the crisis.

This case study was written for use in the courses of Innovation Management and Technology Strategy. The case is designed to support learning at various levels including the graduate, postgraduate and executive classes. Apart from the guided questions (assignment questions provided in the next section), the instructors should consider which specific areas of Huawei should be further explored to support the class discussions to benefit the students at different levels.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 11: Strategy.

The digital medium has created new ways of contracting through web pages and smartphone apps. The websites and apps put numerous terms of contract. In some cases, the user is required to click on them, and other times, the user may or may not even notice the terms. Are the terms put by the sites and apps binding? The case explores the theme with the Uber Case, a judgement of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, on the application of the terms in the Uber app.

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?

This case study outlined the strategic and organizational issues faced by an entrepreneurial firm operating in an emerging economy. While the traditional view is “more for more” and “less for less” with respect to quality and price, the medical devices sector demands “more for less” in an emerging economy such as India, i.e. the market demands quality products at affordable prices. This case was written to equip students with the knowledge of how entrepreneurs can overcome certain barriers and use technology to recognize and exploit an opportunity, using the Indian health-care industry as an example. The key learning outcomes for the case include the following:

• Entrepreneurs define their own market, come up with innovations and create a completely new market with suitable customer value proposition.

• Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition comes from being prepared, having prior knowledge of customers and the market and having a strong network.

• An entrepreneurial preference for error of omission or commission is the determining factor when deciding whether to exploit a recognized opportunity or not.

• Entrepreneurs exploit an opportunity by giving special emphasis on their entry and risk reduction strategy.

• A technology-based product with a combination of services that will create its own product ecosystem with data is the primary goal.

The Indian health-care sector is one of the largest sectors in India and incorporates the medical devices sector, and the heart monitor segment especially represents a huge untapped opportunity. India has the highest number of deaths because of heart disease in the world, yet there is no mechanism for affordable heart monitoring, which results in large number of deaths. As existing products are either B2B or unaffordable, there is an opportunity to leverage technology to come up with cgiq products similar to blood pressure and sugar monitors. However, there are certain challenges unique to the market and product. The case described how two young entrepreneurs founded a company called Agatsa and overcame certain challenges to create a credit card-sized ECG device and the importance of building an ecosystem in a new market. Some specific issues that the case posed included the following: will it be possible for Agatsa to come up with an ecosystem to monitor heart functioning and will that be accepted by the stakeholders in an emerging market such as India? Should Agatsa have a product-driven strategy or a data-driven strategy? Will Agatsa be able to find the right business model to create and capture value?

MBA in courses such as entrepreneurship development, new venture creation and entrepreneurship in emerging markets.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

After a massive storm hit the northern Illinois service area of electric utility Commonwealth Edison on July 11, 2011, more than 900,000 customers were left without power during a hot, humid summer. ComEd crews and reinforcements from more than a dozen other states worked for days afterward to restore service. Meanwhile, the company's months-old social media strategy faced its first major test. The eChannels social media team, part of ComEd's customer operations division, worked around the clock to respond to posts from customers on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. At a time when the company faced public debate and criticism over its plan to raise electricity rates, in part to invest in smart-grid upgrades, engaging directly through social media was a way to strengthen relationships with customers and the general public, consistent with an important corporate goal: “Keep the lights on and information flowing.”

After discussing the case, students will:

• Develop an appreciation for the role social media can play in shaping a company's reputation

• Understand how companies can use social media to engage customers directly in order to protect their reputations

• Understand the role these interactions with customers can play during a crisis situation

• Recognize the added reputational risk when a company's core business is directly impacted by a natural disaster

Develop an appreciation for the role social media can play in shaping a company's reputation

Understand how companies can use social media to engage customers directly in order to protect their reputations

Understand the role these interactions with customers can play during a crisis situation

Recognize the added reputational risk when a company's core business is directly impacted by a natural disaster

The key learning objectives are mentioned as follows:▪ analyse the attractiveness of the bike rental market using Michael Porter’s five forces model;▪ apply the TWOS framework to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of Tazzo;▪ evaluate various competitive strategies of Tazzo; and▪ identify the unique value proposition for such a service in an emerging market such as India.

Tazzo was an Indian technology bike rental start-up based in Hyderabad. It was a pioneer in providing on-demand bike rental services. Tazzo was founded in 2016 by Priyam Saraswat and Shivangi Srivastava, both from IIT Guwahati, Priyank Suthar from IIT Roorkee and Vikrant Gosain from IMT Hyderabad. Within two years since its inception, Tazzo had scaled up from 5 bikes to a fleet size of 600 bikes with more than 1,000 daily rides. They were making around 24,000 rides monthly with an average ticket size of INR 250. The revenues crossed INR 10 crores with more than 20,000 active users. In 2016, the market was nascent and the concept was new. There was huge demand for such an on-demand bike rental services for self-commute in the metros. However, increasing awareness of a huge untapped market in the bike rental market had led to entry of a flurry of competitors. Notable among them were Vogo, Bounce and ONN Bikes. Facing such intense competition Priyam, co-founder and CEO of Tazzo, had the challenge to be able to sustain his company’s early momentum. How would he be able to retain Tazzo’s market leadership position? Would it be possible for Tazzo to keep up the pace of growth amid increased competition? Would the company be able to ward off the challenges from its competitors? Priyam was facing all these challenging questions and had to quickly address them to continue to lead in this competitive race.

This case can be used in Marketing Management course’s “Competition Analysis” module for both MBA and executive-level programs dealing with marketing. This case study helps students in dealing with issues pertaining to a given market sector where a firm is operating, the strategies that could be used by the competitors and application of competitive strategies which the firm can apply.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

In early 2016, after the success of its first two smartphones, the OnePlus One and OnePlus 2, China-based startup smartphone maker OnePlus was deciding how to build on its early success and grow into a global contender in the highly competitive smartphone market. Technology enthusiasts and geeks had flocked to purchase the first two generations of its smartphones and expectations were high for the company's next product. The company's founders, Pete Lau and Carl Pei, faced the challenge of broadening the appeal of OnePlus to address the mainstream market without alienating its core customer base.

“Crossing the chasm” from the early adopters to the mainstream market involved addressing three interrelated questions: First, what segments should OnePlus target as it sought to grow beyond its loyal fan base? Second, what value proposition and positioning strategy should it adopt to appeal to these target customers? Finally, what distribution and marketing communications strategy should it employ to make best use of its limited financial resources? A key consideration in formulating its strategy was to stay true to the company's culture and mission of “Never Settle” by charting its own course and not emulating the strategies of much larger competitors like Apple, Samsung, LG, and HTC.

Faeyee Electronics was an electronics company that manufactured and sold smartphones including XS and XT types. The management of Faeyee wanted to pursue the maximum contribution margin as much as possible, especially since they were faced with limited resources. It was necessary to apply analytical tools and cost accounting concepts to study this case including cost-volume-profit analysis, learning curve analysis, regression analysis, definitions of competitive products, constrained non-linear optimization, and contribution margin.

The case uses business analytics tools and cost accounting concepts, including regression models and constrained optimization approaches, to study how to maximize business outcomes, such as contribution margin and profits when limited business resources are available. The company and individuals are disguised.

This case can be used in any junior-, senior-, masters- or MBA-level managerial accounting course. Students need to have at least one course of introduction to statistics or instructors review required statistics concepts or techniques before assigning this case. Students are exposed to the challenges of deriving learning curve models, using regression analysis to study collected data and allocating limited resources to maximize contribution margin.

Founded in 2004, OPPO has experienced the boom of the Chinese mobile phone market, the trend of mobile Internet and the prosperity of the smartphone market. While adjusting its business structure based on changes in the market environment, it has transitioned itself from an audio device manufacturer to a smart-phone manufacturer that offers hardware, software, and service.

This case study focuses on OPPO's evolution and strategy, and provides an insight into its history, competition, and strategic choices based on whether or not OPPO should release a feature phone with a foldable display at the MWC 2019, and discusses the core competitiveness that helped OPPO succeed against the market downturn. This case study helps students understand the development of corporate strategies and the process of building core competitiveness in the microcompetition in the red ocean market. We also wish to help students understand how to come up with the most appropriate decision-making framework and conduct a critical analysis on the issues based on the internal and external factors of their businesses while they make strategic decisions. When it comes to different dimensions and indicators coming to contradictory conclusions in particular, what should the manager of a business do to make the correct strategic decision?

The learning outcomes are as follows: educate the students about the challenges in the development sector in general and in work of organizations working for women empowerment in particular; understand the overall concept of women empowerment vis-à-vis social entrepreneurship; explain the importance of technology in entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and development sector especially in marginalized communities in developing countries; and learn operational-level resource management in a resource-constrained setting of a non-profit sector.

Kaarvan Crafts Foundation (referred to as Kaarvan henceforth) worked for women empowerment in Pakistan with a focus on creating economic opportunities for rural women entrepreneurs. The case shares different initiatives by Kaarvan for creating opportunities for economic empowerment of rural women entrepreneurs. The main focus of the case is a program “Digitize to Equalize” in which Kaarvan offered digital literacy training to rural women entrepreneurs. The program involved developing an ecommerce platform where rural women entrepreneurs could sell their handicrafts and other products. A comprehensive training activity was designed as part of the program to facilitate trainees to sell their products on a purpose-built website. The training covered different activities ranging from using smartphones, basic product photography to order handling. Even in the initial phase, the challenges were somewhat unexpected for the team as they grappled with diversity of learning among the trainees. Few trainee women were able to learn the skills quickly and requested their trainers from Kaarvan to train them on widely popular skills of social media marketing. At the same time, other trainees were struggling with basic skills and needed more time to get basics right. Because the program had limited resources, Kaarvan’s management found themselves in a fix. The mission-oriented organization wanted to ensure the best possible opportunities for the trainees but the resources did not permit to create separate cohorts for different training areas.

In terms of complexity, this case study is suited for business students enrolled in senior undergraduate, graduate programs and executive MBA programs.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.