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The case is based on interviews in 2022 with the founder of Shape, Monoshita Ayruani, supplemented by classroom testing and secondary sources such as textbooks, journals, newspapers and other pertinent sources such as reports produced by marketing and consulting firms.

Shape is a private limited company operating in Bangladesh, a country in South Asia. Bangladesh is a fast-developing country where the people (the vast majority of whom are young) are practical and forward thinking, conservative, yet also generally tolerant. Its CEO is Monoshita Ayruani, who has had several years of experience in a PR and Marketing agency before starting Shape. It produces and sells “innerwear” or undergarments, which are their staple products, as well as clothing, bath products, sleepwear and various other products targeted at women. Starting off as an online business in 2019, it was about to find its footing in the market when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The problem faced by Shape at the beginning was that digital marketing was not resulting in word of mouth for the product, as undergarments were considered too “taboo” to talk or share about with most people. The second problem faced was the sudden protests about Westernised clothing and culture in 2022, which may potentially threaten the company.

This case would be well suited for an undergraduate or graduate-level Marketing or Strategic Management course that exposes students to the challenges of promoting a new brand and marketing taboo products imported from abroad, in a largely conservative and culturally sensitive market, and preventing a potential crisis when protests break out. The case also touches on international supply chain problems, so may also be taught in an International Business course. The level of difficulty is intermediate as the problems are nuanced.

The expected learning outcomes are to understand the complexities involved in the integration of two carriers with different business strategies and approaches, the merger of two brands with distinct personas and identities and the confluence of two different cultures; figure out the strategic options in front of the Tata Group and how it can deal with various macro- and micro-level business challenges, defy the financial hiccups and manoeuvre the operational complexities to accomplish mission Vihaan.AI; and develop a pragmatic approach to macro and micro business environmental scanning for making strategic business decisions.

In November 2022, Tata Group, the salt to software conglomerate, announced the merger of Air India (AI) and Vistara. This would lead to the formation of the full-service airline under the brand name “Air India”. The obvious reason behind this was the higher recognition, salience and recall of the brand AI as compared with Vistara in the global market. The Tata Group envisaged the brand AI to be a significant international aviation player with the heritage, persona and ethos of the brand Vistara in the renewed manifestation of AI. To realise these goals, Tata Group laid down an ambitious plan called “Vihaan.AI”, which was aimed at capturing a domestic market share of 30% by 2027.

This case study can be taught as part of undergraduate- and postgraduate-level management programmes.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:▪ to analyze service attributes that influence customers’ decisions to purchase services;▪ to identify the factors that influence customers’ perceptions of service quality;▪ to identify the “moments of truth” that the service provider (IndiGo) would need to monitor and manage through the service encounter; and▪ to use the Servuction model to analyze the various elements of the service process.

In May 2022, the chief executive officer of IndiGo Airlines - India’s largest passenger airline by market share, Ronojoy Dutta, faced flak over the airline staff's handling of a specially abled child travelling with his parents on IndiGo Airlines. The staff member, reacting to the tantrums of the disturbed child, had refused to allow the boy and his parents to board the flight. He had cited the “risk to other passengers” from the boy as the reason for such a refusal (Biswas, 2022). In spite of the boy’s parents being supported by their fellow passengers, the IndiGo staff member refused to relent, and the flight took off without the trio (Firstpost, 2022). The incident goes viral when a fellow flyer shares a Facebook post describing it first-hand and provokes widespread condemnation of the nation's “preferred airline” (IndiGo, 2023) by citizens and politicians on various social media platforms besides Facebook (Gupta, 2022). Dutta initially supports his employee even as he issues a statement expressing his regret at the “unfortunate incident” (Business Standard, 2022a). The regulatory body for aviation in India, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, imposes a fine of INR 5 lakh on IndiGo for denying boarding to a specially abled child (Indian Express, 2022). How could an incident like this impact the perception of IndiGo’s service quality? How could Dutta better ensure that IndiGo managed the various touch points with the customer over the entire service encounter – the “moments of truth”? How could he prevent such a fiasco in the future, ensuring that IndiGo remains India’s “preferred airline”?

This case is intended to be taught in an undergraduate or MBA marketing course in a module on service marketing. The case can also form a 90-min module in a service marketing course within an advanced management or executive education program.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CCS 8: Marketing.

Teaching objectives are as follows: students need to understand the critical choices involved in introducing a product into a new market, including but not limited to the macroeconomic context, the target consumer segment, the positioning of the product, distribution channels, pricing and promotion strategy. Students must learn to appreciate the importance of anticipating the reaction of incumbents, and how such reactions may determine the success or failure of a new product entry into the market. Students develop skills to analyze complementarities between different distribution channels and understand how investments in developing one channel can result in positive or negative consequences in other channels.

How can health products such as multivitamins and other nutritional supplements make headway into emerging markets that are moving up the ranks of middle-income economies? This case study investigates the case of Thailand, a country that in the early 1990s registered a per capita income comparable to Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia today. It illustrates, through the real experience of Pat – an executive of a local subsidiary of an American multinational pharmaceutical company – how a new entrant exploited the rapidly changing economic and retailing environment to become a successful player in an important and growing segment of consumer products.

This case is suitable for master’s degree students or short-course executives.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Marketing, Pricing, Strategic marketing.

The case is developed for an MBA-level program.

In May 2017, the telecom industry in India witnessed an intense price war over 4G (fourth generation) data prices. Gopal Vittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel was exploring various options on how best to respond to the situation. He had to take a final call regarding Bharti Airtel’s marketing team’s counter move to tackle this price war by Jio – should Bharti Airtel ignore it, accommodate it or retaliate with even lower prices? Bharti Airtel strongly believed that Jio pricing structure had violated “fair pricing” norms, and its pricing was anti-competitive. It had filed a case with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to restrain Jio from further giving “free” promotional offers and penalize it for it. Could the legal recourse by Bharti Airtel dampen Jio’s consistent subscriber growth rate?

The case provides the students with an insight into how the competition focused on pricing happens in the telecom industry. The pricing war affects the profit margin of all competing companies. It changes the customer reference point for evaluating the competing products and services. The students would also learn practical applications of positive-sum pricing, pricing war, fair pricing and legal aspects of pricing. This case provides the students with an opportunity to understand the pricing war and how to respond to it in a particular situation; understand positive-sum pricing and negative-sum pricing in telecom industry context; understand legal aspects of pricing; and how to leverage data for gaining newer customer insights.

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 8: Marketing.