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This case was developed from secondary sources. The secondary sources included company websites, social media and news reports. This case has been classroom tested in multiple executive master of business administration (MBA) courses on business model innovation and entrepreneurship.

The case traces the entrepreneurial journey of Dozee, a remote patient monitoring system in India. Dozee was manufactured by Turtle Shell Technologies Private Limited, cofounded by Mudit and Gaurav. The primary customers of Dozee’s offering were households with elderly citizens and health-conscious individuals who sought preventive health care. The cofounders identified the unmet need for a convenient and user-friendly contactless health tracker. Dozee team built a thin sensor-embedded sheet and module that can be placed beneath the mattress to track sleep patterns and health vitals. They also provided data analysis and data interpretation services. After four years of conceptualization, Dozee launched its product and service in 2019. Although the initial response was lukewarm, the onset of the COVID-19 crisis led to significant changes in the health-care industry. Demand for virtual assistance and contactless monitoring devices became increasingly important elements of COVID-19 treatment. Unlike other sensor-based fitness trackers, the sheet could be easily placed under the patient’s bed to capture health vitals. Choosing to pivot from a home-based individual customer segment to a medical-grade device provider for hospitals could significantly increase the scale and scope of the offering for Dozee, but it would also place Dozee in direct competition with other health monitoring devices from different business categories.

This case is appropriate for MBA and executive-level courses related to entrepreneurship and business model innovation. The case explores issues such as digital disruption and how start-ups can design a go-to-market strategy. The case works well in the classroom, even if people are unfamiliar with the health-care industry. Participants can certainly relate to the concept of adopting artificial intelligence–enabled devices for monitoring their health. The instructor should be able to quickly engage participants in a lively discussion about Dozee’s vision and the opportunities and challenges in adopting digital solutions in health care.

Marketing, Innovation, Strategy, Digital Marketing and E-Business.

Master's level and Executive Program.

MocDoc is a young Indian online health-care company that has achieved success in early years of establishment, and is looking forward to expand the customer base. The founder, Senthil Peelikkampatti, along with his friends decided to design a service that can bridge the gap between doctor and patients. However, initially, Senthil lost the trust in his idea due to the unacceptance of the idea by health-care experts. It took a little long for the team to gain visibility after launch of the service. Senthil and the team brainstormed to gain recognition online through different techniques of search engine optimization (SEO) and social media networking through Facebook Web site. MocDoc case is designed to stimulate discussion of a broad array of entrepreneurial issues related to online start-ups. In particular, it deals with strategy and marketing of service in the online arena. At the same time, it gives detailed overview of marketing techniques online as fuel to the business. The company is moving under strong leadership skills of CEO but fails to gain momentum in terms of gaining online customers. This case deals with decision-making capabilities to bring more number of registered customers in the online space.

The expected learning outcomes are as follows: to animate online business environment and challenges faced by virtual enterprises in the cyber space; to illustrate opportunity for students to speculate the start-up business environment; to illustrate opportunity to introduce cloud computing as a viable business option for the health-care industry; to develop understanding among students for designing effective marketing strategy for online business; to identify business opportunities and gaining competitive edge by offering bouquet of services; and to stimulate business environment for understanding innovation and strategy building.

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

To ensure that students are well prepared to successfully analyze this case, they should be familiar with the following concepts, theories and principles:

▪ Stakeholder theory

▪ Concept of duty to consult and accommodate

▪ Concept of social license to operate (SLO)

▪ Concept of indigenous economic self-determination

▪ Indigenous world view

▪ Seventh generation principle

▪ Cree principles

▪ Dene principles

The information provided in this case was gathered by the authors through face-to-face interviews, phone interviews, e-mail exchanges and secondary research. Meadow Lake Tribal Council (MLTC) separates business operations from council operations through use of corporate entities (as shown in Exhibit 1 of the case). Meadow Lake Tribal Council II (MLTCII) is the corporate entity that oversees two companies referenced in the case: Mistik Management and NorSask Forest Products LP. Interviews were conducted with the General Manager at Mistik Management, Certification Coordinator at Mistik Management, Chief of Buffalo River Dene Nation, Chief of Waterhen Lake First Nation, MLTC Vice-Chief, Board Member and Advisor to MLTCII, President and CEO of MLTCII, MLTCII Business Development Consultant and a former consultant with MLTC, NorSask Forest Products and Mistik Management.

Mistik Management Ltd., a forestry management company co-owned by the nine First Nations of MLTC, was a leader in economic reconciliation in 2022. However, the company had dealt with significant challenges not long after it was established in 1989. Richard Gladue, former Chief of the one of MLTCs Member First Nations and a leader in economic development at MLTC, had been actively involved in establishing the organization. Gladue loved the life and vitality of the boreal forest in the Meadow Lake region and felt a sense of responsibility to take care of the forest and the land for generations to come. This responsibility was balanced with the acknowledgement that the forest also provided vast economic development, employment and wealth generation opportunities for MLTC and its Member First Nations.

In the early 1990s, MLTC and Mistik Management dealt with a year-long blockade by a group of protesters that included members of Canoe Lake Cree First Nation, one of the Member First Nations of MLTC. They had not been consulted on Mistik’s processes and policies, and the company’s clear-cut logging had affected their ability to continue their traditional way of life and practices on the land. After the incident, Mistik Management moved more quickly to invest in a co-management process that they were still refining and using in 2022 when consulting with Indigenous groups and communities.

A natural resource economy brings together Indigenous peoples, industry and government. In this case, students will learn about the important role that relationships play and how decisions are made when balancing complex legal, environmental and economic interests. Students will learn about the history of duty to consult and accommodate in Canada; conduct a stakeholder analysis and reflect on how decisions affect stakeholder interests; and make recommendations for meaningful Indigenous engagement strategies using the concept of social license and indigenous principles.

This case is suitable for use in undergraduate courses on indigenous business, ethical decision-making, public policy and/or natural resource development. There may also be applications in other fields of study, including anthropology, economics and political science.

If the case is used in an indigenous business course, it would be best positioned in the last third of the class, after topics such as duty to consult and accommodate, social license and meaningful engagement with indigenous communities have been covered. If used in an ethical decision-making course, it would be best used when discussing stakeholder theory and engaging in stakeholder analysis. If used in a public policy course, the case could be used to start a discussion around the duty to consult and accommodate indigenous communities in Canada. If used in a natural resource development course, the case would be best used as an example of indigenous economic development.

An estimate of the fair rate of return on capital is a critical input into tariff regulation. A too high estimate will lead to high tariffs for consumers; a too low estimate will not provide adequate incentives for investment. The Airport Economic Regulatory Authority of India has issued a consultation paper for finalizing the norms and procedure for estimating the fair rate of return. It now needs to reconcile the differing view and approaches of different stakeholders.

The broad teaching objective is underpinned by the themes of purpose and partnerships. This is taught through application of business model innovation for sustainability where the value proposition is broadened to social and environmental, and multi-stakeholder partnerships in a time of crisis. Students will be expected to analyse the above concepts through a meso (sustainable value), micro (business models) and macro (ecosystems) lens. Upon completion of the case study discussion, successful students will be able to better understand the three features that support sustainable value, explore how a global pandemic can create new business models and partnerships to create social value and analyse how business ecosystems operate against the 6 C framework.

Discovery Holdings Limited is a leading financial service organisation in South Africa, and its Digital Health division is responsible for the platform which delivers telemedicine offerings to doctors and patients. The case highlights the development of the telemedicine offering and the period that is covered spans from the launch of the Discovery DrConnect platform in 2017 to April 2020. Adrian Moss is the protagonist in the case. He is a manager in the Special Projects, Digital Health team of Discovery Health, responsible for the DrConnect project. His challenge is how to raise more awareness of the DrConnect offering and how to enhance uptake from doctors and patients. COVID-19 and the lockdown in South Africa in March and April of 2020 presented an opportunity for both doctors and patients to use telemedicine as a new way of engagement and treatment.

This case is appropriate for masters, MBA and executive education students focusing on the fields of study of environment of business, strategy, business model innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 11 Strategy.

This case study is designed to enable students to analyze the competitive landscape of a business impacted by technological disruption; evaluate the viability of an organic growth strategy using stakeholder analysis; evaluate the revenue and cost structure of Apollo 24/7 and decide on the future investment strategy; and analyze funding strategies of traditional hospitals versus pure digital players.

To extend its reach, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (Apollo Hospitals), a leading private sector brick-and-mortar hospital chain in India known for using state-of-the-art technology, launched a unified virtual mobile platform Apollo 24/7 in February 2020, 45 days into the COVID-19 pandemic. The management believed that the digital platform had a unique ecosystem that could not be replicated. The analysts were optimistic about the impact of the decision on the future performance of Apollo Hospitals, as it was expected to lead to higher penetration and increased revenue. They also anticipated the unlocking of value, as and when the venture capitalist (VC) would invest in Apollo Hospitals. However, with increasing operating expenses on account of burgeoning technological and marketing expenses, things did not seem to go going as planned. Three years later, in February 2022 after the Q3 of financial year 2023 results. Suneeta Reddy, the company’s managing director found herself pondering whether the digital platform could boost Apollo Hospitals’ profitability in addition to expanding its reach and increasing affordability when the company missed the analyst estimates. In India, which was then the second most populous country, “incremental access” and “affordability” were what mattered to the patients, However, for the investors and analysts, it was quarter-on-quarter performance. The change in the macroeconomic environment stalled the company’s plan of raising money from VCs.

Furthermore, the financing dilemma also plagued Reddy. She knew there was a difference between financing for conventional businesses that for digital businesses. She also had to take decide between short-term profitability with which investors were obsessed versus long-term sustainability, which involved taking care of stakeholders’ interests.

This case study is basically aimed at postgraduate courses and executive management courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS11: Strategy.

Airtel, the leading mobile operator in India was going to launch the “Airtel Zero” platform that would charge service providers and OTT providers on the internet for mobile data traffic but would allow end consumers free access to the web sites that were signed up for the platform. The case revolves around the questions of pricing these data services to the service providers in a market where the price to one set of customers (the end consumer) was not independent of the price to another set of customers (the OTT service providers) - typical of two sided markets. Issues of net neutrality and competition have been considered alongside.

After studying and analyzing this case, students will be able to: understand and evaluate the integrated marketing communications (IMC) strategy for online businesses; understand and create the various components of an IMC plan; determine the challenges of scaling up a business and how social media marketing can help in that; learn how to assemble the positioning statement of a startup; determine and differentiate the different business models (revenue models); and understand and create the social media marketing strategy.

It was late April 2021, and Mr Srinivas Rao, the co-founder and director of Mentorrd EduTech, India, was contemplating the journey of more than five years. Much had changed since the startup Mentorrd Education Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Mentorrd EduTech) was launched in 2015. From being an online artificial intelligence (AI)-based tool for analyzing and building resumes, Mentorrd expanded to specialized premium services for career development catering to MBA aspirants from India to international markets. However, during the same time, many problems had also started showing up. The competition had increased, and conversions became difficult. Mentorrd generated 95% of its leads through Google Ads pay per click (PPC) advertising. However, now, the increased competition made PPC costlier, where Mentorrd started at INR 10 per click but was now paying INR 50 per click. The customers also were only limited to searching for keywords; hence, actual lead conversion was minimal. Mentorrd was present on different social media platforms and had developed an audience: LinkedIn (close to 10,000 followers), Facebook (1,600+ followers) and Twitter (numbers), but conversions from there were only contributing to 5% of the total revenue.Mr Rao wondered that with a change in demand from general review services to specialist resume and interview preparation services such as MBA, he would have to develop a sound social media strategy integrated with the current Google Ads usage to reach the audience and generate conversions. He had a limited marketing budget which he wanted to use most effectively but was not sure how to spend across platforms.

This case can be used as an IMC strategy case for MBA courses in marketing. In a marketing course, the focus should be on components of IMC strategy, customer perception, company positioning and marketing channels. The case can also be applied as a strategy case for courses in entrepreneurship or digital marketing strategy. In an entrepreneurship course, the focus should be on the business model, growth and scaling decisions a startup needs to make to grow the business. In a digital marketing strategy course, the focus should be on social media marketing and search engine marketing decisions and the implications for revenues and profits. The case can also be used in executive-level courses to illustrate IMC, growth and digital marketing strategies for a startup.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Innovation, information technology, e-marketing and sales, strategy and entrepreneurship.

The case is intended for use in advanced graduate and executive education level management and technical programs of study. The case is high inter-disciplinary appropriate for all courses dealing in use of innovation, information technology, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales and strategy.

Practo Technologies Pvt Ltd is a company established in 2008 by entrepreneurs Shashank, N.D. along with Abhinav Lal. At Practo Technologies engineers practice to create technology that supports healthcare industry. In India, there is not enough assistance given to the patients in terms of searching for appropriate doctors and fixing an appointment with them easily. The patient's data lie scattered in reports and the patient's medical history goes unrecorded. Practo provides a robust platform for doctors and patients to collaborate together under one umbrella. It provides patients with open basket of doctor profiles and special search based on doctor's specialty. The case showcases the journey of transformation healthcare sector in India has gone through. The change was resisted, it never came that easy! The case explores issues in implementing information technology for clinics and hospitals in India. This case illustrates interesting facts Indian healthcare and the preparation they need to equip with to manage global technology tide.

The case can be used for teaching service innovation. Managing innovative practices and low-cost online business models is illustrated. In particular, it deals with how the early start up employs innovation to set up new working ideas. The case is designed to stimulate discussions of broad array of issues regarding deployment of IT services specifically in the hospitals and clinics across India. Evaluate the advantages and liabilities of expanding globally at a very early start up stage. The case focuses on Practo early development with only concept in hand and transforming it into a profit generating business. Evaluate the advantages and challenges of innovation, technology development, deployment and training of manpower to use it. The case offers students opportunity to understand and take view of strategically building early start up and management of concerns with no prior experience. To identify business opportunities and explore various possibilities of expansion into IT healthcare business. The students are given base to explore sales and marketing strategies for online model. The students get overview of cutting edge business offerings and surviving the dynamic competition in the era of globalization.

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

This paper aims to first, identify the external and internal factors that a company needs to analyze when formulating its digital platform strategy. Based on the framework of PESTNPG (political economic social and culture technological population and globalization) and internal analysis a company should analyze both internal and external factors to formulate its digital platform strategy. For companies from emerging markets the institutional-based market created by national or local governments is important for digital platform strategy. Second dynamic capability theory and its linkages to digital platform strategy. The dynamic capabilities view is considered as a primary theoretical lens in the strategy literature to analyze a company’s strategies to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. To carry out a successful digital platform strategy companies need to build strong dynamic capabilities to capture or create opportunities and reconfigure their resources simultaneously. Third the advantages and disadvantages of different digital platform strategies (i.e. an independent digital platform and online–offline integration platform) and the possible consequences and risks of different strategies. It is important to evaluate different types of digital platform strategies that require different capabilities in terms of business structure product structure revenue structure organizational structure and technology architecture. A company needs to link these capabilities to a digital platform strategy to enable the integration (or separation) of online business with offline business. It also increases the accuracy and efficiency of online business. Fourth key points of digital platform strategy implementation. Companies need to identify key profit models for their digital platform to promote business growth and financial returns. It is equally important to increase customer value by leveraging its digital exhibition platform and to learn to use digital technology to foster organizational dematerialization.

Zhejiang Meorient Commerce & Exhibition Inc. (hereinafter referred to as “Meorient”) was a leading company in the exhibition industry in China. The unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 plunged Meorient into a state of emergency that forced it to fight for survival. Further, China had launched a national strategy of Digital China, which created new market opportunities for Meorient. As a result, Meorient gradually developed and launched its digital exhibition services in 2015. Meorient suffered significant losses in 2020 due to COVID-19 and had to formulate a new strategy based on a digital exhibition platform in 2021. Chairman Pan Jianjun had two options. One was a purely digital platform strategy without the original offline exhibition business. The other one was an online and offline integration strategy. Which option was the best way forward for Meorient? Pan had to make a choice. Some of the top management team members believed Meorient should completely transform into a digital platform company and provide comprehensive online digital exhibition services. Over the previous 20 years, Meorient had accumulated a large amount of data from domestic and foreign exhibitors and professional buyers and had gradually developed a digital exhibition platform. It was one of the companies that pioneered digital transformation within China’s exhibition industry. More conservative thinking held that Meorient's strategy should focus more narrowly on the integration of online and offline exhibition businesses. Toward the post-pandemic era, China’s national strategy of “Digital China” accelerated the development of digital infrastructures. During such critical transitional period, Meorient had to choose wisely if it was to sustain its profits or even survive.

The case is aimed at students in undergraduate, MBA, short course executive, EMBA or other executive education programs, especially where digital transformation is featured subject matter.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy