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After completion of the case study, the participants would be able to understand the challenges in building a sustainable homestay tourism business; develop a positioning statement for La Pinekonez which builds a unique competitive advantage; and outline elements of the business strategy to profitably sustain and grow a sustainable tourism homestay in terms of service offering, pricing, marketing and operations.

La Pinekonez Homestay, located in the beautiful region of Himachal Pradesh, India, is the subject of this case study, which explores both its successes and its difficulties. In August 2022, Arvind, the dedicated sole proprietor of La Pinekonez, grappled with multifaceted challenges, the first being the foray of established hotel chains into the homestay business. As the protagonist, was is in dilemma of preserving La Pinekonez’s unique identity amidst corporate competitors, particularly with regards to differentiating from the expanding hotel chains. The clash between customer expectations for hotel-like amenities and the homestay’s commitment to sustainable tourism presented a crucial challenge. Negative reviews questioning the authenticity of La Pinekonez’s green initiatives heightened the complexity. Adding to Arvind’s predicament were the seasonal fluctuations in tourist inflow and his aspiration to embrace immersive tourism trends. This case study facilitates exploration of strategic positioning, sustainability management and marketing strategies in the dynamic and competitive hospitality industry. It also offers insights into the complexities of balancing differentiation, customer satisfaction and sustainability while navigating the evolving landscape of tourism trends.

This case study is suitable for students of tourism and hospitality management at postgraduate level. The case study can be discussed once the basic concepts of hospitality management and service dimensions are covered.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 12: Tourism and hospitality.

This case was based on secondary data that included various websites, news and academic articles, social media posts and press conferences before, during and after the World Cup. Multiple sources were examined to ensure the accuracy and credibility of the information presented in this case. The goal was to gather relevant information on the Moroccan soccer team, its performance in the FIFA World Cup and the leadership strategies used by Walid Regragui.

“We are the dreamers, we let it happen: Morocco’s soccer team leadership story” explores the transformative journey of Morocco’s soccer team in the 2022 World Cup, highlighting the exceptional leadership of coach Walid Regragui and the power of shared values deeply rooted in Moroccan culture. The instructional manual provides faculty with a compelling case study to inspire discussions on leadership, followership, team dynamics and cultural identity. The case emphasizes the importance of harnessing cultural roots, building trust and unity within a diverse team, strategic vision and tactical brilliance. It demonstrates that with authentic leadership, belief in shared dreams and the strength of cultural values, extraordinary achievements can be realized. The case aims to inspire and educate students, encouraging them to embrace their own cultural heritage, foster teamwork and pursue their dreams with unwavering determination.

The academic level of this case can vary depending on the specific course or program in which it is being used. It is suitable for graduate levels in various fields such as leadership studies, sports management, organizational behavior, cultural studies, or international business. The case provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership, team dynamics and cultural identity, including faith and spirituality, making it adaptable for different academic levels and disciplines. Instructors can adjust the depth of analysis and additional readings or activities to align with the specific educational level and learning objectives of their course.

After completion of the case study, students will learn to use Lean Canvas to identify business opportunity. They will also learn the balancing of exploitation of profit-producing activities and exploring new opportunities according to the environmental dynamism.

WONK, a tutor discovery and booking app was launched by MyEdge in 2016 to search and book verified tutors in locations served by the company. Based on their requirements, parents and students could sort and book verified tutors in their area. Through the app, users could search for academic and hobby classes in the form of individual tuitions. The ease of use and the service offering made it a popular app with students enrolling every 6 min. Within a span of six years, WONK had provided services to thousands of students in 20+ countries and had 200,000+ tutors registered on their app from 15,000+ pin codes. Despite a plethora of Edtech companies in India, a different business model and services offered gave them an edge over other Edtech companies. To keep up with the customer needs, they were constantly making the upgrades to their technology and expanding their services. Vidhu Goyal, the founder of the company, was enjoying the progress when another development in the technology hit the world. With the launch of applications based on artificial intelligence, will it disrupt the business or not?

The case study is recommended to be taught in a 90-min class to Master of Business Administration students. The case study may be used in courses related to strategy, information systems management and entrepreneurship.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The key learning objectives are as follows: analyze Mamaearth’s growth trajectory in the Indian market, illustrate the meaning of a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand, analyze the importance of social media in building a D2C brand, analyze the challenges and advantages associated with a D2C brand, analyze growth and expansion options available with Mamaearth and evaluate the strategies for Indian start-ups in the beauty and personal care space.

In 2016, what began as a quest to find safe baby care products for the first-time parents Varun and Ghazal, turned into an entrepreneurial opportunity. The couple started Honasa Consumer Private Limited at Gurugram, which owned the brand Mamaearth. Conceived as a D2C brand for mothers opposed to harsh baby care products, it debuted with just six baby care products with exclusive online availability. For the brand to grow, it recreated the marketing mix to be perceived as a brand for all ages. The step successfully garnered a customer base of over 1.5 million consumers in 500 cities and a valuation of INR 1bn within four years of operations. In February 2021, Mamaearth became a brand with INR 5bn annualized revenue run rate and aspired to double it to INR 10bn by 2023. Though Mamaearth debuted as a D2C brand, after tapping around 10,000 retail stores, the Alaghs realized that many consumers still preferred transacting in the offline space. Alaghs decided to expand by acquiring a robust offline space in 100 smart cities in India. Would it be wise for Mamaearth to take forward their offline expansion plans? Alternatively, would an aggressive product innovation coupled with a more substantial online presence be a more sustainable proposition?

The case study is appropriate for Post Graduate Diploma in Management/Master of Business Administration level courses of second year in strategic brand management, digital marketing, integrated marketing communication and marketing strategy. The case stuudy may also be useful for prospective entrepreneurs planning to embark upon a D2C venture. The case study elaborates on the emergence, marketing and branding of Mamaearth. The case study helps students understand the meaning of a D2C brand and the growth options available in the Indian market for a D2C brand from the perspective of Mamaearth.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

This case is based on primary and secondary data collection. ABCo’s Founder, Jocelyn Sheppard, sat down with the author for a 75-min recorded interview in July 2022, and she provided follow-up information via email. Interview data was supplemented with secondary data from publicly available sources to fill in portions on the founder, the company’s history and its location; and triangulate the collected interview data (Creswell and Poth, 2018). There are no conflicts of interest that the author needs to disclose related to the founder or company.

The case was piloted at one institution in the Fall 2022, Spring 2023 and Fall 2023 semesters, with 59 undergraduates in an in-person social entrepreneurship course and 165 undergraduates and 33 graduate students in an online asynchronous social entrepreneurship course. All students worked through the case in groups, and as a requirement of their corresponding assignment submission, they provided feedback that was de-identified. In total, 60 groups reported their feedback, which was considered during the subsequent drafts of the case and instructors’ manual IM.

According to the anonymized feedback, the protagonist, product line, desired social impact and experienced challenges of ABCo were all said to be interesting, approachable and relatable for students, and the case piqued the interest of students coming from different majors (e.g. business, environmental issues, human services and criminal justice). Students from rural areas, or those who have family in rural areas, felt the case was particularly interesting; a handful of the students in the asynchronous online class who were unfamiliar with such settings suggested providing students with some additional contextualization of rural environments, either through class discussion with other students who had experience in those environments or additional media or text-based supports. Further adjustments also included removing a reading and a corresponding question and revising elements within the Teaching Approaches section of the IM to support the additions they suggested within the feedback (i.e. spending time to define and walk through the provided model and highlight the differences of rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in the rural as a class before engaging in the related write-ups for that question).

Jocelyn Sheppard, Founder of Appalachian Botanical Company (“ABCo”), had built her company not just on a vision of revitalizing reclaimed coal mine land through planting and producing products with lavender, but also to have a social impact on the rural town of Ashford and its greater region of Boone County in West Virginia, USA. While she understood that hiring workers in need of a second chance would present its challenges, she was shocked by the depth of social need her new employees presented, which contributed to many employees’ disruptive behaviors and turnover. To approach the problem at hand, Sheppard needed to reflect on the resources around her, namely, other entities and organizations who might be able to support her efforts to improve how ABCo delivers on its social mission and, thus, helps to improve the local community and its economy. The case draws upon literature and models within rural entrepreneurship and community development to have students advise Sheppard on what she should do next to improve the social outcomes for ABCo and its employees.

This case is geared for both upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in entrepreneurship, including in social, environmental and rural entrepreneurship courses and course modules. The case introduces students to a social enterprise struggling to get its footing in a rural context. The case would be suitable for both introductory and advanced courses, especially when placemaking/place-based entrepreneurship or ecosystem building are discussed.

The case study is based on a social entrepreneurial journey where the authors have used an interview method to get the insights from the protagonists and the employees. Rigorous interviews were conducted online and in person for deep analysis of the protagonist’s strategies and decisive dilemma.

Secondary data was collected from company’s website for facts and figures.

This case study is a story of indigenous tribes of Odisha from the eyes of a woman who, with her co-founder, empathized with their vulnerable life and took on the challenge of creating sustainable livelihoods by establishing Millet Magic Foundation. The Millet Magic Foundation was established in 2021 by Shyama and her cofounder to uplift the indigenous tribe of Mayurbhanj by providing them livelihood through millet-based products. The foundation launched their millet-based snack products with the brand name WOWMOM. Millet Magic Foundation created social impact for the tribals by providing them with employment, fair wages, health care and social well-being. The specialty of the Millet Magic was reverse positioning and focusing on the bottom of the pyramid. The success of the Millet Magic Foundation relied on its mission to uplift the life of these indigenous tribal, especially the women, by overcoming the challenges with the strategies to establish Millet Magic as a social enterprise.

The case study is primarily suitable for postgraduate programme to teach the concept of social entrepreneurship in the entrepreneurship module. The case study can also be used for highlighting the role of social enterprise in sustainable economic development of emerging economies.

After working on the assignment questions, the learners can achieve the following learning outcomes: understand the buying behavior towards sustainable products in the context of mindful consumption and product characteristics, appraise the market segmentation and positioning strategy of a sustainable business, understand the application of 5C’s framework for a sustainable business and critically evaluate a new sustainable business’s challenges in the emerging business environment.

Dr Joe Fenn, founder and director of PFoods, with extensive experience in the pharma industry overseas, observed a decline in the consumption of traditional dairy foods. Alternative plant foods come as a savior to people who are lactose intolerant and offer a host of health benefits with low environmental impact. Riding on the waves of veganism and sustainable foods, he saw an opportunity in India. PFoods developed and launched two products, namely, Just Plants (plant-based milk alternative) and Plotein (plant-based protein alternative), in collaboration with scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, a premier scientific institution in India, and PMEDS (PreEmptive Meds), a US-based nutraceutical Company. PFoods launched and pilot-tested Just Plant, a dairy alternative substitute for milk in select reputed organizations in Bangalore. The upcoming challenges for Fenn would be to select the right segment, educate the market and position the product that would resonate well with the target customers.

The case study suits undergraduate and graduate courses such as marketing management, sustainable marketing and sustainable business. The case study can also be used in entrepreneurship management and entrepreneurial marketing courses to introduce the challenges of a sustainable startup. The case study highlights the marketing challenges faced by the disruptive and growing plant-based foods or alternative dairy industry in emerging markets.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

This case replaces UVA-M-0837. It can be used in a variety of marketing and strategy classes to understand how (1) at a macro level, a shift in consumer and environmental factors can impact firm strategy and (2) at a micro level, an e-mail-based marketing campaign designed to address these changes can impact firm-level performance.

The case puts the students in the position of CEO Robert Huth as he is preparing for a board meeting. He had taken David's Bridal from a loss in 1996 to sales of over $1 billion by 2011, but he was concerned about future growth. People were waiting longer and longer to get married and, once they decided to, were spending much less than in the past, so the industry had seen year-over-year declines since 2007. How would David's Bridal establish its brand in the minds of a new generation of brides who shopped, purchased, and decided differently than had brides in past generations?

The author employed a five-step approach: Data (e.g., qualitative primary and secondary data) collection (about a major project at the examined organisation), Critical thinking (in order to determine the dilemma), Setting learning objectives (e.g., with respect to the Bloom's taxonomy), Testing (in order to confirm the teaching plan) (e.g., with research assistants and doctoral candidates), and Ensuring clarity (e.g., especially for the case narrative).

The site manager at a UNESCO World Heritage Site by the name Ephesus in Türkiye (Turkey) was considering who would update the site management plan. UNESCO was regularly asking for updates. Would site management outsource the management plan from a firm? For example, the site management had had an outside firm develop the management plan and Ephesus had become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Otherwise, would the site management rely on their own experience this time? Was there another way?

The educators could use the case study to introduce graduate students to “the value conception” in “marketing management” courses and to “the social exchange school of thought” in “marketing theory” courses. The learning objectives develop over the tension between owning and outsourcing main responsibilities of a scientific field as well as the tension between claims and objective evaluations. “The value conception” in “the social exchange school of thought” could improve planning in favour of humanity in a way that the United Nations could recognise (e.g., “value-based planning”). Corresponding discussions motivate a main question about the future: What is marketing for?

Information was obtained in interviews with Richard Nagel in Winter/Spring 2022. This information was supplemented by material from secondary sources. The only information that was disguised were the real names for Bob Crater, Tim Landy, Jane Tolley and Mary Nagel.

The case was classroom tested in Summer 2022. The responses from students helped to shape the writing of the case.

Richard Nagel, the owner of the RE/MAX Elite real estate agency in Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, has just learned that one of his agents, Tim Landy, quit and left the industry. Tim was a young real estate agent and Richard had spent considerable time training him. Tim was motivated and he worked hard to prospect for business, but he showed that he was experiencing difficulty closing on his sales. Richard decided to recommend that Tim work with another agent, Bob Crater, as Bob was an experienced salesman but was not doing the up-front prospecting that Tim was doing. Richard suggested two different strategies to the two agents – a pairing up arrangement and peer-to-peer learning. The outcome that Richard envisioned was that both of the struggling salesmen would benefit from either of these strategies, but Bob refused to collaborate.

Tim’s quitting was characteristic of an ongoing problem with employee retention that Richard had been experiencing as a manager in recent years. This problem caused Richard to think about how he recruited his real estate agents, how he developed them through coaching and how he motivated them so that they would stay happy in their job and not leave. He recognized the importance of thoroughly examining his retention strategy within the next 12 months so that he could better manage the problem and strengthen the productivity of his real estate agency.

The case is intended for an undergraduate course in human resources management, as it deals directly with recruiting, coaching and retaining employees.