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Kwench Library Solutions (Kwench), a Mumbai-based start-up that offered library services to corporate clients, looked anxiously for angel funding to establish itself and expand to other parts of the country. The time – the first few months of the 2008–09 global recession – was particularly bad. The angel investors who came forward valued the start-up at one third of what the promoters had confidently expected. Their valuation was unacceptable, but spurning their offer was fraught with additional risks. The promoters, who had given up high-paying corporate jobs and invested heavily in the start-up, had to find a way out.

This teaching case is specially designed for students who are in their advanced stage of their undergraduate business degree program. It can also be used in a Master of Business program.

This teaching case documents that roller coaster ride of failures and success of OneLogix (a niche logistic service providers) from its birth in 2000 till present day. It seeks to present a rich contextual information about how difficult it is for businesses to survive and become profitable in South Africa.

On completion of the case, students will be able to analyze the external environment of an organization, determine what factors will impact the organization’s profitability and survivability, analyze the evolution of an industry, apply and discuss how the evolution of an industry can affect an organization’s profitability and survivability, explain the difference between entrepreneurial versus efficiency management approach, discuss how each approach will conflict the other and identify ways that can harmonize the two approaches, explain strategies for organization to develop capabilities to be responsive to changes in its business environment and compose and apply strategies according to the contextual information provided within the teaching case.

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CSS 11: Strategy

Accounting and Finance (Performance Management and Management Control System).

Postgraduate Students in Business and Management.

This is a case of SmartBay System Integrator (SSI), an IT infrastructure system integrator based in Malaysia, a company that was facing declining profit margins. SSI was reputed to be a well-established locally owned system integrators in the northern region of the country, and the services it provided included building IT systems with high-end servers, networking solutions and software applications. Apart from the urgent need to improve sales, SSI intended to reduce the number of one-off customers and resolve the issue of increasing customer complaints. The complaints given to the company by customers revolved around the sluggish response to customers' requests, including delays in quotations and proposals, constant rescheduling of meeting with customers as well as unfavorable perceptions regarding the competency of SSI engineers. This case requires the analysis of the structure and control systems adopted by SSI to determine whether they are appropriate for the nature of the business and have suitable systems in place to resolve the issue of customer complaints.

This case can be used to teach the use of control systems in managing human resource issues in the context of highly specialised technical professionals in small service firms. In addition, the case also illustrates the need to match an appropriate control system to a specific type of organisational structure. In addition, the case can be relied upon to teach the differences between the various types of organisational structures and the different forms of control systems.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Describes Nintendo's rise to dominance in the home video game industry in the late 1980s. Then presents the challenges Nintendo faced in 1990 as 16-bit processors entered the market against the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System.

To familiarize the students with a process of international expansion within an emerging market scenario encompassing countries such as India, Sri Lanka and a developing country like Kazakhstan. Mostly cases in international marketing are central to developed nations, as that is where the MNCs emerge and grow. In this case study, though Polaris originally is an US-based MNC, the focus lies on Polaris India going international. Hence, it looked at empowering an emerging market for regional development. To provide a situation for choice of entry mode strategies involving strategic alliances and various kinds of non-equity based partnerships. Here there is scope for tremendous learning with reference to institutional voids and market failures prompting a certain mode of entry strategy versus another in international marketing. Though this topic has been researched widely, this case is the first ever tribute to a real-life situation in an emerging market. The case is focussed on experiential marketing as the new tool for sales and communication. This is unique to Polaris, and worth replicating in its internationalization. The crucial question emerged: adaptation of experiential marketing techniques as per local market.

synopsis This case investigated the process of internationalization for Polaris India, a US-based MNC, making for an interesting study in how emerging markets can become hubs for effective regional market expansion. The case simultaneously explored the concept of experiential marketing in a new light referring to the issue of communication adaptation in international marketing. The company had successfully used Polaris Experience zones as their promotion and distribution tools. The PEZ had weaved its magic on Indian customers to bring about significant positive change to the perception of a brand now extending the brand promise to other emerging markets. Polaris India started as a wholly owned subsidiary of Polaris Industries USA Inc in 2011 with Mr Pankaj Dubey, as the Country Head. Polaris specialized in building world class off-road vehicles and was a global leader in the same. The case study provided an opportunity to discuss behind the scenes role played by channel partners in targeted foreign markets – Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan. In international marketing, strategic alliances are of tremendous significance as a method of entry strategy and the knowledge, depth, expertise can make all the difference to achievement of success in the local market. Polaris despite having to market a product with no readymade market and combating the perceived notion of a super-premium product in emerging markets, managed to weave its own success story. The case is about, how Polaris India went International with its choice of strategic partners and communication tools.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Marketing.

This case gives readers the opportunity to think about strategies employed in the postal sector amid sector, technological, national and global challenges. It highlights the importance of thinking about real options, and real solutions to counter the failures of the past and the uncertainties of the future.

The case will be particularly useful for master's degrees, Master of Business Administration, doctorate students or undergraduate specialized courses of strategy, public sector management and privatization.

This case study aims to analyze the manner in which LibanPost transformed itself from a government bureaucracy to a commercial company and how, through diversification, it was transformed from a traditional postal operator to a high-end service provider. In addition, it attempts to examine the stages that have led to LibanPost's success, shedding the light on the major barriers and enablers for its reform.

The students will be able to examine how a privately owned postal company succeeded in transforming a courier company from a bureaucratic public administration incurring substantial losses to a profitable commercial company, through privatization, and grasp the major success barriers and enablers for LibanPost, while exploring the reasons behind the failure of the foreign–national partnership.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Strategic Management.

Master of Business Administration/Executive Program in Management Level.

Rajat Malik started eFin Recruiters in January 2015 an RPO firm solely catering to the finance domain. Positioning eFin Recruiters in a niche domain created serious challenges to be tackled. Rajat was contemplating leveraging the Indian Government’s Startup India campaign launched on January 16, 2016 to his advantage to scale up eFin Recruiters’ operations by 400 per cent and compete with large established players in the RPO industry. Complacency and anticipated retaliatory action by competitors against eFin Recruiters’ positioning in the niche domain were a huge impediment in eFin Recruiters’ path to exponential growth.

This case will enable students to understand the concepts of industry analysis, strategic positioning from the view of an entrepreneurial firm and business level strategy. This case acts as a medium to integrate entrepreneurship and strategy which is of utmost relevance.

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.

Firms that are selling a relatively new market offering have to create the need for that offering. House Wonders entered a market that was not that well-informed about their market offering, and thus, have experimented with several communication channels that had different cost, and naturally different results. The purpose of this case is to encourage the students to compare and contrast the different communication methods, discuss their usage by House Wonders and come up with the best communication strategy.

This case simulates the challenges faced by a department store that is specialized in home improvement and hardware that recently started operations in Egypt. The store heavily emphasizes the role of “do it yourself” products, which is relatively new to the Egyptian customers. The case study presents the current economic conditions in Egypt, the company profile of the store and its parent company. The following sections involve explaining the concept of “do it yourself,” and other competitive advantages the store, House Wonders, has and how the management team managed to make the best out of it. The case study is concluded by explaining that in spite of all their efforts, the team is still faced with a number of challenges that are yet to be resolved, the most important of which is how to better reach the targeted segment.

Undergraduate/ MBA.

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CSS 8: Marketing.

The subject areas are business communication, human resource management and health care.

The case was designed for use in a first-year MBA-level course in business communication but would serve well in a course for executives or for advanced undergraduates. It might also be assigned in general management courses to evoke discussion on communication skills required in sensitive and critical situations; human resource courses; and course on health care.

Palliative care is a specialized medical care focussing on improving the quality of life of patients suffering from life-threatening illnesses. It addresses symptom management and psychosocial and spiritual concerns of the patient and its caregivers. With the intent to alleviate the sufferings of terminally ill patients, Rajbala Foundation, a non-government organization (NGO), works at the psychosocial and spiritual levels. While training their volunteers in effective palliative care communication, it often encounters challenges such as socio-cultural variations, organizational challenges, appropriate verbal and nonverbal communication, etc. This teaching case focuses on the communication challenges faced by the volunteers of Rajbala Foundation. It would lead to a broader discussion on communicating empathically during critical situations. The case has a focus on NGOs, and non-profit organizations, public sector management, health-care management and human resources management. There is significant literature on communication skills for medical practitioners in palliative care. As an increasing number of NGOs step in to provide the second level of care to critically ill patients in non-physical domains, there is a need to understand the role of effective communication for such care providers. This case deals with non-medical care providers in palliative care; the issues of communication they face as they interact with patients; and the skills they require to address the emotional and spiritual needs of patients and their families.

The aim of this case is to raise awareness of the complexities involved in the communication process during an emotional and sensitive interaction. It aims to encourage volunteers involved in palliative care to reflect on good communication practices when communicating with patients and family members. After reading this case, the students should be able to discuss the complexities involved in the communication process when communicating in situations with high emotional involvement; understand the core elements of emotional interactions for effective practice; and emphasize the need for the development of communication skills within palliative care.

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CSS 6: Human Resource Management

This case has four major learning outcomes using hands-on spreadsheet tool. First is to introduce and apply the Clarke and Wright’s Savings algorithm. Second is to conduct a cost-benefit analysis in transportation set up. Third is to find out the optimal route to be taken to fulfill given demand while satisfying time and capacity constraints. Finally, one has to optimize the number of vehicles required for daily operations.

Dhruvam, the protagonist of the case, working at ZeNXL, a third-party logistics service provider, was assigned the task of reducing the operational cost of the company as part of the new service offering called “Route optimization.” This new offering would help optimize vehicle delivery routes to meet daily customer demand. The launch of the new service offering was due in the next 10 days with client LG Electronics to be the first beneficiary.

MBA-1 (Logistics Management), MBA-2 (Route Optimization). This case provides an opportunity for instructors to introduce vehicle routing and scheduling as part of logistics management. Students are expected to use the data given in the case and exhibits to develop the optimal routes (using Clarke and Wright’s Savings algorithm) and conduct cost-benefit analysis. This case also provides insights on the challenges associated with start-up operations.

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 9: Operations and Logistics