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Decision Analysis, Management Information Systems, Strategic Management, Organizational Development, Financial Management, Risk Management.

MBA-1 (Decision Analysis), MBA-2 (MIS).

On a beautiful October morning in 2011, the CEO of a mid-size oil marketing company located in Nairobi, Kenya has to make a tough decision whether to upgrade their current B1 system to a bigger version of SAP. Abbas, the new Information Communications Technology (ICT) Director of Zaidi Group, was worried that Zaidi was building a bigger and bigger company on top of a more and more small enterprise resource planning system. Abbas's fears also include RedLock's past inefficiencies. Kariuki, the Finance Director, on the other hand was into the fear of overspending in a huge information technology (IT)system where current functionalities required can be addressed by a smaller system through add-ons, customization and development.

Demonstrate some tools in decision analysis for problems with multiple objectives including some issues indecision framing and cognitive inertia; Raise the issue for fundamentally changing a firm's infrastructure; Demonstrate the alignment of IT strategy to Business Strategy.

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

The specific learning objectives of the case are as follows: To contribute to the knowledge of environmental challenges faced by various financial companies while trying to foray into the rural markets, especially in case of insurance products’ expansion strategy; to understand the distribution strategy adopted by insurance companies in rural as well as urban markets; to apply the concepts such as mental accounting, designing and pricing of insurance products to develop an effective strategy for insurance products targeting the rural market; to be able to analyse the data available on products and the rural market structure that enables the students to derive from an implementable managerial framework and design an effective rural market strategy for insurance products; and to enable the students to evaluate the key rural market drivers, which will subsequently help them to develop a new structure of rural distribution channel.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited (IPRU) was trying to reach the last mile customers of rural India to tap the opportunity and meet the Indian Government's statutory requirement of financial inclusion. Even though the leadership of IPRU was optimistic about the untapped potential of rural India, and launched a separate business vertical - Rural Business Channel (RBC) in the year 2002 to cater to this target segment, yet it faced many strategic issues while foraying into the rural domain. The company struggled with both the designing of products as per the rural customers' needs, as well as the distribution of these products in rural areas. The present case study is an attempt to bring out the strategic challenges that were faced by the IPRU management, with a major focus on designing, pricing and distribution of rural insurance products. The case study will help the readers in understanding what might go wrong while entering new rural markets and how to deal with these challenges.

The case study can be used to teach both undergraduate and postgraduate management students.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The theoretical linkages are with dynamic nature of PESTEL analysis, Porter’s five forces, resource-based view of the firm and characteristics of an entrepreneur.

The names of the institutions and individuals involved have been disguised. However, the material facts of the case are authentic.

This case discusses strategy in the context of a crisis situation in a small business. JTH Inc. was a computer subcontract manufacturing (SCM) firm serving the New England region of the USA. The influx of international competition (mainly from China) due to recession led to significant challenges for JTH and the SCM industry. JTH was struggling and the situation was further complicated by the founder’s (Robert Maxwell) personal and emotional situation. Robert had to decide whether to keep the business running, close it down, merge with/be acquired by a competitor, innovate the business model or do something else.

This case is designed to target undergraduate students of Strategic Management; it may also include Entrepreneurship students. It should most probably be taught in the first half of the course after concepts such as PESTEL, Porter and resource-based view of the firm have been taught.

This case uses concepts from Korten’s strategies of development-oriented four generations of non-government organizations (NGOs) and social psychology such as stereotypes, prejudices and actions to explain the social phenomenon. In furtherance, the case presents Aristotle’s approach to creating a message for masses that include use of ethos, pathos and logos. Stood’s (2017) narrative, engagement and technology (NET) model of social leadership was used to analyse the characteristics of social leaders.

Prima facie the case was developed from primary sources i.e. interviewing with Ashish Thakur. Literature from secondary sources was obtained to make teaching notes. List of references is presented towards the end that depicts the use of textbooks, research papers, websites and blogs. This case was tested in the classroom with MBA students learning business communication.

The case dealt with the challenges of an NGO that included conducting respectful last rites of unclaimed dead bodies. As the NGO grew, Ashish Thakur, the initiator of Moksh started facing resource management challenges, namely, volunteer induction, fundraising and managing non-human resources. These issues are deeply embedded in several social stereotypes about dead bodies. Learning covers strategies of four generations of NGO development, a NET model of social leadership, breaking social stereotypes related to dead bodies and last rites (necrophobia), designing social communication and opportunity to assess faulty rationalizations and do critical thinking around the socio-religious practices.

This case is intended to be used for the students of the social leadership or social entrepreneurship, social psychology, business communication or communication skills, organizational behaviour, advertising and social media.

Strategic and organisational change, adaptation responses under competitive pressure and uncertainty and transformational process.

For Executive MBAs or MBA programs.

Founded in 1948 by Adrian Urquía, Aceitera General Deheza (AGD) transformed itself from a small oil-processing factory into the biggest indigenous firm in the industry. Nowadays AGD is a leading edible oil export company and also one of the frontrunners on the retail market for bottled oil with several successful brands. It ranked 40th among the 1,000 top companies in terms of turnover in Argentina in 1999 (Revista Mercado, 1999), and it is considered the fifth most important exporter in the country (Revista Mercado, 1999).After the changes the country went through in the 1990s, the company was able to adapt and thrive in an industry in which most indigenous businesses did not manage to survive. Nevertheless, the roots of AGD's success do not date from the 1990s but long before, in their thinking ahead about ways of improving technology, scale and cost-effective measures – a trio of decisions that would prove to be the right combination for survival and success.

An understanding of the process of business transformation: type and pace of change. The study of the transformation process of a firm will be complemented conceptually with the understanding of the adaptation process under the Argentinean context characterised by uncertainty. Students will also examine organisational flexibility. Defining organisational flexibility, the determinants of whether a firm is flexible or not and why we can consider AGD as a flexible firm.

Teaching note.

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.

At the end of the case discussion, students should be able to:▪ analyse and discuss networks as a form of social capital;▪ identify and discuss alternative growth strategies for an small, medium, micro enterprise (SMME) in the context of prevailing challenges;▪ use the six domains of the entrepreneurship ecosystem to identify and discuss factors that enhance and challenge a business with particular reference to an SMME; and▪ analyse and understand the key dimensions of entrepreneurial behaviour using the case protagonist as an example.

Nhlanhla Dlamini, the managing director of Maneli Pets based in Johannesburg, South Africa had opened an office in Cincinnati in the USA in July 2019 to take over the distribution and marketing of the company’s high-quality protein pet treats. Just over eight months later, the COVID-19 pandemic exploded across the world resulting in unprecedented disruption to people’s lives, world trade and the global economy.Now, in June 2022, Dlamini contemplated the successes and challenges he had experienced since starting Maneli Pets in 2016, not least of which was parting company with US-based Novel Dog LLC, which had previously marketed and distributed the pet treats. He had built an internationally accredited factory from scratch, produced pet products and a brand that was appealing to the competitive international market, and exported to 12 countries around the world. However, Dlamini had also faced the retrenchment of a large number of staff, the breakdown of the relationship with Novel Dog, the difficulties of setting up a distribution business in the USA along with overseeing the South African factory, and in September 2019, his co-founder, Sipha Ndawonde, had left Maneli Pets.Maneli Pets had served Dlamini’s philanthropic purpose of creating jobs and contributing to the growth of the South African economy. Despite the setback of parting ways with Novel Dog, he hoped to continue to create jobs and return to and exceed the staff numbers he had achieved by 2018, regardless of the hard work involved.In his dual position of managing director of Maneli Pets, based in Johannesburg, and sales director of the distribution and marketing arm, Nandi Pets Inc. in Cincinnati, Dlamini had a global view of the companies’ financials that he realised had been missing initially. Would the new structure of Maneli Pets he had created in 2019 in a pre-pandemic world see the company profitable by the end of 2022? What else could he do to take the company to the next level?

MBA, Masters in Management, Postgraduate Diploma in Business, Executive Education short courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Intergenerational transmission is a paramount managerial and patrimonial issue. Although planning and governance tools are being developed and spread in business, the handling of emotions often remains the key to a successful process. It is within the framework of the paternalistic Moroccan society that we are led to question the psychology and emotions of the stakeholders in the transmission of this small services business.

Masters students in Family Business, Management Science, Entrepreneurship, Small Business Management.

After 19 years of existence, Moroccan Shipping is confronted at the beginning of 2010 to the issue of the sustainability of the family business. The founder directs his affair with an iron fist, and his sons, who were educated abroad, are determined not to get fooled. The father claims he wishes to be relieved from daily operations and handover part of his responsibilities to his second son. At the same time, the youngest doesn't feel like he fits in the present firm's configuration and is ready to quit.

This case study will lead users to work on several managerial dimensions of small family businesses in emerging economies. At first, the entrepreneur's traits might be highlighted, as they deeply affect the way the succession process may be handled. However, as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) specificity, the Moroccan family system will be taken into consideration to better analyse both the incumbent and the successor behaviours. Management tools may then be discussed to help with the transfer of both power and ownership in family businesses.

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

The learning outcomes are as follows: learning about the concept of informal innovation in comparison with the formal innovations; understanding the drivers and barriers of informal innovation in an organisation; identifying the enablers of informal innovation in an organisation; and analysing the outcomes of informal innovation in non-monetary/non-financial/non-pecuniary terms.

The case study emphasises the importance of informal innovations in the manufacturing industry. The case is an attempt by the authors to bring about a clear distinction between the formal and informal open innovations.

The teaching case can be used for undergraduate- and post-graduate-level courses such as BBA, MBA and executive MBA.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This case was developed from the author’s personal experience as a participant in one of the health taskforce subcommittees. The author also sought the inputs of the Vice President of Health and Medical Education, the Dean of the Health Sciences College, the Student Affairs Assistant Dean of the Pharmacy College and the previous Vice President of Health and Medical Education. Moreover, secondary data were obtained from the office of the Vice President of Health and Medical Education at Qatar University (QU).

The government of Qatar has consistently provided generous funding for QU over the years. However, recent economic challenges, such as drops in oil prices, have had a negative impact on the country’s GDP and export revenue. In response, QU began to implement a new organizational structure. Specifically, the university proposed merging the three health-related colleges (health sciences, medicine and pharmacy) into a single cluster called the health education cluster. This decision was supported by a broad benchmark of approximately 40 universities worldwide, as well as input from various stakeholders within the university. Forming a cluster was expected to benefit the organization as a whole. However, the decision faced resistance and challenges that required investigation by top management. Would the new organizational structure be accepted by all? Was it feasible to have a single cluster that encompassed three distinct departments within the organization? These are examples of the questions that this case study addresses.

This compact case is suitable for a case study in basic undergraduate, postgraduate and advanced courses in Strategic Management at a business school. The case highlights the need to restructure an organization and the use of strategy formulation and implementation in the framework of management.