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The case is derived from secondary sources, including publicly available reports and information about all companies directly or indirectly engaged in the industry. No primary sources were available.

This teaching case is designed for students to demonstrate their mastery of industry-level analysis in the emerging space tourism industry. It allows students to understand what constitutes the industry within the broader space sector and to apply analytical tools such as PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces, with the option to discuss strategic groups. Students gain insights into how the industry is evolving within its broader environment and how companies could respond or differentiate themselves. Information is also provided for students to consider the broader social impact of a relatively new industry from the perspective of sustainable development.

The case is written for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in strategic management courses. The case placement is ideally in conjunction with industry-level analytical frameworks such as Porter’s Five Forces, PESTEL analysis, strategic groups (optional) and industry life cycle. Most strategic management textbooks cover these concepts in the first few chapters. For example, “Strategic Management, 14th edition” by Hill, Schilling and Jones (2023) covers these topics in chapter 2. Given that space tourism is an embryonic industry dependent on technological innovation, instructors might also use this case in innovation or entrepreneurship-related courses. This case could also be used to address critical issues, such as sustainability, in tourism management courses.

Strategic Management.

The case is designed for a) MBA students b) Short-duration executive MBA courses.

The case refers to India’s leading steel company Tata Steel. Tata Tiscon, the steel rebar brand, is the organization’s leading retail brand. The case chronicles the period between the birth of the retail brand in the year 2000, its dramatic rise and dominance, to the end of 2013 when some of its initiatives had failed. Tata Tiscon was established as a pan Indian brand on the dint of a distribution network comprising 33 distributors and over 2000 retailers, many of them exclusive to the brand. The brand spawned a series of innovation in the category like “selling by piece”, fixed price concept and “free” home delivery. Together with its channel partners, the company achieved dramatic success which was reflected in its leading market share coupled with significant price premium in a category where price had traditionally being the only selling pitch. After 2010, the company saw an emerging challenge in the form of a new business model, where some companies were gearing to provide the complete portfolio of construction material including cement, steel, etc., and a turnkey construction solution for house builders. Tata Tiscon responded by attempting to enter the service space by launching a building design solution and later a construction supervision solution. Both of these initiatives failed. The protagonist of the case is Mr Keshav Viswanath (Chief of Marketing for retail business at Tata Steel), who is concerned with the failures of these key initiatives and is wondering how to ensure the “leader” status of Tata Tiscon in coming years.

The students are expected to understand how a core strategy like differentiation is implemented successfully in “practice”; understand the exploitation–exploration dichotomy in an organization; appreciate difference between radical innovation (based on new organizational routines, new business partners and new relationships) and incremental innovation based on fine tuning of existing organizational routines and relationships.

Rebar production: www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6n9sci8j-8; Tata TISCON AV: www.youtube.com/watch?v=89kOUsbnaYQ; TQM – The Toyota Way: www.youstube.com/watch?v=qf3gdrIMxRw; Disruptive vs. Incremental Innovation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOOL_GiaLTo; Approach to innovation is dead wrong: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pii8tTx1UYM

CSS 11: Strategy.

Capital structure theory.

The case is meant for teaching and class discussion, and uses only secondary data based on published sources. The interpretation and perspectives presented are based solely on the secondary data.

This paper aims to help current and future managers understand capital structure theory and the various equity and debt finance options available for raising capital. It also examines the financial analysis and strategic management of black swan events. After the class discussion, students will understand how to financially and strategically manage a company during black swan events and also have a deep dive into capital structure analysis of a large company.

MBA/postgraduate/undergraduate courses on corporate finance or advanced corporate finance. Executive/management development programs and short duration Massive Open Online Courses on investment decision-making and advanced corporate finance. MBA/postgraduate/undergraduate courses on corporate strategy and economic environment and planning.

The case describes the internal growth workshop initiative at Vedanta Group. Anil Agarwal in 1976 founded Vedanta as a scrap-metal dealership in Mumbai (then Bombay). Over the years, Anil pursued a very aggressive growth journey with a vision to create a leading global natural resource company. The principal objective of discussing this case is to understand how Vedanta introduced this initiative and how it fits within the strategic human resource management at the group.

BotGo was started in 2007 by Ravi Panchal, an engineer, after he lost motivation to continue at a managerial role at his job. A hands-on technical person, Panchal was inspired to create an underwater tank-cleaning robot. He started BotGo by bootstrapping it with his savings and roped in his friends for key positions in the company. He also started workshops for robotics education in colleges in order to sustain the company; he called this initiative BotLearn. In 2009, BotGo was incubated and Panchal started franchises for BotLearn as part of his growth plans. This led to a crisis within the company, escalating to a point where Panchal was forced to consider options.

This case highlights the importance of a product-to-market fit and examines the decision to franchise in view of the case facts. The case also points towards the mistakes in crisis management, with particular emphasis on channel management.

Towards the end of the case, Panchal is faced with a dilemma on whether to continue with the franchises or close them down. The dilemma is further accentuated since Panchal's decision would ultimately affect the growth of BotGo as well as directly challenge his intention to franchise.

Competing in Emerging Markets; Internationalization of Service Firms; Global Marketing.

Senior undergraduate or graduate students in business schools.

Uber first entered the South Korean taxi hailing service in Seoul in September 2013. In March 2015, the company shut down its operations after being charged for operating an illegal service. However, in January 2016, Uber decided to re-launch Uber’s premium service, UberBLACK after working with the city government. Given the country’s unique characteristics, was the decision to re-enter the market justifiable? Would Uber’s new strategies including partnering with a local company be sufficient? How could Uber gain more market share against its local powerful competitors?

Outcomes This case allows students to understand the challenges of internationalizing services of a global company in an emerging market that has strong national cultures and domestic preferences. The students will learn how to analyze the country and industry external environment as well as internal resources and capabilities to formulate the appropriate market entry strategies and to effectively implement them. The students will also learn the critical role of host country government and how to manage its relationship, the first- and second-mover advantages/disadvantages and the sustainability of innovative business models.

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 11: Strategy

The learning outcomes are as follows: to understand how technology can be used to create innovative entrepreneurial opportunities; to develop analytical and critical thinking skills to understand organisations, industries and their dynamics; to analyse strategic options for an entrepreneurial organisations and motivate a proposed strategic direction; and to assess the inter-functional requirements for an entrepreneurship to successfully implement a strategy.

UCOOK, a successful emerging economy SME, is confronted with the threat of retail giants (e.g. Checkers and Woolworths) entering the meal kit space. No longer the only “new kid on the block”, UCOOK has to consider a sustainable growth strategy to remain competitive. The case provides the reader with a snapshot of experiences of a meal kit entrepreneurial venture and what it entails for them to grow in the South African milieu. Principally, this case is designed to impart knowledge and stimulate a practical understanding of entrepreneurship and strategic decision-making in the meal kit industry. Additionally, the purpose is to serve as inspiration for business students to see the opportunities that lie within strategically astute emerging market ventures.

The primary target audience for this teaching case is postgraduate business students, especially students of entrepreneurship, strategy and e-commerce. This teaching case is intended to be used as case study in post graduate business programmes such as Master of Business Administration (MBA), a specialist Masters programme such as MM (Entrepreneurship), post-graduate diploma in management (PGDip), as well as selected executive education programmes.

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 3: Entrepreneurship.

Kevin McRider, the COO of a fledging research facility, needed to foster an environment where scientists explored the boundaries of the metals, chemicals, polymers and tools used to create innovating medical devices. The freshly-minted PhDs he hired were enthusiastic to design and conduct research projects that bridged their scientific disciplines, in a collaborative workplace, with time allocated to individual projects as well. Effectively managed, their research would help the parent corporation leapfrog over existing or near-future technology.

The problem for McRider was how to get Lintell to realize his vision of a collaborative organizational culture that promoted revolutionary scientific discoveries. His challenges included managerial behaviors that prohibited critical interaction and information sharing, as well as disruptive organizational dynamics he himself had set in motion including pressures to focus only on certain research goals and projects at the expense of creative exploration, and the violation of the psychological contracts McRider himself had created with the scientists during recruitment.

This case deals with several types of uncertainties faced by project team in an oil company north east in India. These challenges and uncertainties are in the areas drawing approval, supply chain, critical equipment availability, soll type, control room, soil type, employee availability, environmental clearances, safety and wildlife clearances. This project demonstrates the ownership issues, why it is difficult to complete a project on time in the Northeast of India or why public sector project gets delayed.

The case study uses a strategic foresight method, scenario-planning, to examine the strategic options for a financial services firm. As such, it covers the fields of strategy, environment of business, innovation, digital disruption and organizational change as they relate to the firm’s ability to adapt to changes in the environment of business in an emerging market context.

The case was developed with master's-level students in mind, particularly those seeking a master of business administration, masters in strategic foresight or related management degrees.

The case of NEDBANK, a longstanding and successful financial services firm based in South Africa is confronted with major challenges from competitors because of technological change in the industry as well as having to expand their market penetration across Africa. A rising regulatory burden, tough economic conditions and the need to access low income markets, provide a significant organizational development challenge as a decades-old bank, known for a relational approach to banking, has to navigate the new domains of “fintech”, micro-lending and public sector banking.

Students will gain comprehensive insight into the industry environment in emerging markets, understand the strategic management challenge before financial services firms in this environment and be able to consider the alternative strategic interventions that may be used to ensure corporate sustainability amid these challenges. Simultaneously, the case provides a comprehensive view into the use and application of scenario-planning for strategic management.

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: 11: Strategy