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Innovation Strategy/Entrepreneurship.

The case can be used in an MBA/postgraduate management program for a course on Innovations Strategy with a focus on disruptive innovation, specifically in relation to disruption in the value chain with the adoption of new technologies or for a course on Entrepreneurship focusing on the opportunities created by the Internet-based technologies for start-up businesses. Alternatively, it can be used in a course on e-commerce strategies, particularly to demonstrate the efficiency of online distribution vis-à-vis physical channels.

The case illustrates how Medknow Publications created a profitable e-commerce model out of a struggling conventional business, namely, the learned society journal publishing. It also provides a useful ground to discuss the challenges faced by the conventional scholarly journal publishing models, the current crisis in scholarly journal publishing and how Medknow, a disruptive business model innovation, would address these issues. Besides, the case illustrates how Medknow created a sustainable “for-profit” alternative to the prevailing not-for-profit models of open access publishing.

After the analysis and discussion of this case, students will be able to: appreciate how technological innovation can disrupt existing business models; understand how digitization helps improve the efficiency of value chain in the content industry, particularly the scholarly journal publishing industry; and appreciate that the flexibility of digitized content and the global reach of the Internet have the potential to transform the scholarly journal publishing industry for good.

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Entrepreneurship.

The portable solar cooker case is appropriate for upper division undergraduate and graduate students in entrepreneurship, international, strategy or sustainability courses.

xCRUZA, a small industrial design studio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has experienced limited success and expansion since the company was founded in 2005. Focusing on eco design principles, xCRUZA has maintained an eclectic design mix pertaining to product development in children's toys, medicine, and cleaning products. Challenged by a struggling Argentine economy, a population not focused on environmental concerns, and a general lack of capital availability, the founders of xCRUZA chose to design, develop, market and sell a portable solar cooker. The cooker was originally designed by two of the founders while studying engineering at university. While innovative and award winning in design, xCRUZA's solar cooker has proven to be a challenge to the founders' success both in getting their product to market and fulfilling the mission of the studio.

The learning objectives for the case include: to explore the challenges of an entrepreneurial start-up dedicated to eco design and sustainability principles, to examine market opportunities and consider approaches to selling in dissimilar markets, generate a discussion on strategies that xCRUZA has and can employ, to analyze the mission and direction of xCRUZA. Are they on the right track?

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The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to showcase how a futuristic mission and planned branding initiatives can help start-up social enterprise to create a successful brand; to explain how a comprehensive understanding of the target group and innovative products/services and channel strategies help GoBhaarati position itself as an upcoming not for profit social enterprise; to argue how proper brand mission and branding can help even a small startup to create a brand identity in a fiercely competitive fragmented market dominated by big players; the constraints GoBhaarati faced in constituting and aligning distribution channel. These impulsions can have legal, environmental and or managerial foundations.

GoBhaarati Agro Industries and Private Limited (GoBhaarati) operated as a nonprofit social enterprise in the Health and Wellness Industry, providing natural indigenous traditional Indian products such as millets, honey, turmeric, jaggery, rock salt and serving millet-based snacks to consumers. At the epicenter of Gobhaarati's branding strategy was its health and wellness positioning. The company's mission was to increase the positive perception of millets and to convince consumers that there was intrinsic value in a product's origin and production processes. Iriventi aimed to achieve a turnover of at least ten crores by 2025, but the company's sales and financial resources were limited. With this clouding in mind, Iriventi could not decide whether to let GoBhaarati stay niche in business or to expand it organically.

Graduate and executive management education students can use the case. The case may also be used to focus on entrepreneurship and distribution management for start-up social enterprises.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Business administration, brand management, marketing management, international marketing, strategic marketing.

This case is suitable for MBA students with exposure to marketing strategy and basic marketing. It may also be useful for junior and middle level marketing professionals during their training programs. This case-study may find its application while teaching strategic marketing, marketing management, international marketing and pharmaceutical management.

Unicare Formulations was a reputable pharmaceutical company in India. It started small and with the growth of the industry it could capture significant market share in it chosen segments. It introduced brands in small and niche areas with low innovation and where bigger companies showed little interest. It also infused new blood through outside talent. It brought newer brands to its brand portfolio. A relatively new but promising brand – Tbgo – was struggling. Its marketing head was confused whether to continue with the brand. He needs advice based on management principles.

After covering this case study, a student should be able to: use SWOT and environmental analyses to solve complex business problems; explain segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) and shall be able to use those for preparing marketing strategy; use 4Ps in different combinations in planning brand strategies; use Ansoff's model (product-market grid); use Porter's generic strategy to analyze brand performance and to take appropriate action for brand revival; and internalize the intricacies of brand-building and their impacts on the business performance of a firm.

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 case presents the dilemma of a multinational oil and gas company, ExxonMobil, as it factors in the ethical issues related to the environment and cultural differences in deciding whether to proceed with building a pipeline in Chad and Cameroon, two of the poorest and most corrupt developing countries in West Africa. The many players in this project included the World Bank--which cofinanced the project and put restrictions into place that would hopefully prevent pipeline-related government corruption in both Chad and Cameroon--and many environmental and human rights groups that warned of potential disaster. The case also covers the environmental and social analysis of the areas that would be affected by the pipeline.

This case was based on both primary and secondary data. In-depth semidirected interviews were conducted in 2021–2022 after receiving the institutional research board approval. The interviews took an approximate time ranging from 90 to 120 min. They were recorded and transcribed. A thematic analysis was undertaken to identify the most relevant themes for the case. The secondary sources used included various websites, scholarly and trade journals, as well as specific databases, such as Statista.

The case exposes students in multiple disciplines to the challenges created by the COVID-19 crisis at Yale School of Medicine (YSM). It describes its remarkable effects on organizational and community members as they struggled to reimagine more inclusive and supportive spaces. As one of the most severe crises humanity has ever witnessed, COVID-19 exacerbated the existing struggles of the underrepresented communities, creating a double pandemic. It has also amplified inequities among marginalized groups including black, indigenous and people of color; women; immigrants; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning; people with different abilities; working parents; single parents; religious minorities; and people with low income. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Yale University School of Medicine (YSM), like other pioneering schools in the field of health care, doubled their efforts to face both the public health crisis and the substantial social turmoil (racial tensions after the death of George Floyd, food insecurity, vaccine resistance, social inequalities, etc.). Professor Marietta Vazquez, MD, who was the first Latina to be named Associate Dean for Medical Students Diversity at YSM, launched with Dr Latimore (Chief Diversity Officer) and her other colleagues many strategic initiatives aiming at improving the diversity, equity and inclusion of organizational and community members.

The case is an invitation to graduate students and students in executive education programs to reflect on the grand challenges leaders faced at YSM as well as in other institutions across the nation and the globe. It is also a call to reimagine ways leaders can accelerate the pace of change in their organizational ecosystems.

This case was written for use in graduate-level courses, including executive education dealing with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, Leadership and Change, Health-Care Equity/Policy, Health Sciences, Human Resource Management, Organizational Behavior, Crisis Management, Sustainability, Business and Society, Social Issues in Management, Strategy, etc. Faculty members can easily adapt the case to fit the content of the course they teach, the students’ context as well as the specific learning outcomes to be achieved.

After working on the assignment questions, the learners can achieve the following learning outcomes: understand the buying behavior towards sustainable products in the context of mindful consumption and product characteristics, appraise the market segmentation and positioning strategy of a sustainable business, understand the application of 5C’s framework for a sustainable business and critically evaluate a new sustainable business’s challenges in the emerging business environment.

Dr Joe Fenn, founder and director of PFoods, with extensive experience in the pharma industry overseas, observed a decline in the consumption of traditional dairy foods. Alternative plant foods come as a savior to people who are lactose intolerant and offer a host of health benefits with low environmental impact. Riding on the waves of veganism and sustainable foods, he saw an opportunity in India. PFoods developed and launched two products, namely, Just Plants (plant-based milk alternative) and Plotein (plant-based protein alternative), in collaboration with scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, a premier scientific institution in India, and PMEDS (PreEmptive Meds), a US-based nutraceutical Company. PFoods launched and pilot-tested Just Plant, a dairy alternative substitute for milk in select reputed organizations in Bangalore. The upcoming challenges for Fenn would be to select the right segment, educate the market and position the product that would resonate well with the target customers.

The case study suits undergraduate and graduate courses such as marketing management, sustainable marketing and sustainable business. The case study can also be used in entrepreneurship management and entrepreneurial marketing courses to introduce the challenges of a sustainable startup. The case study highlights the marketing challenges faced by the disruptive and growing plant-based foods or alternative dairy industry in emerging markets.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Pharmaceutical marketing, brand protection.

It could be used with the pharmaceutical marketing students and MBA students for analysing counterfeit medicines' menace in developing countries and positioning of a disruptive technology. The case could be used for marketing consultants, Brand managers and executive development programmes to explore issues such as protecting brands through technology, pharmaceutical packaging marketing, competitiveness of counterfeit drugs, global harmonisation.

Against the backdrop of rising menace of counterfeit drugs in developing countries, the case talks in particular about an innovative pharmaceutical packaging company. The company has developed a unique security technology called non-ClonableID™ which can enable products to be authenticated throughout the supply chain, thus protecting brands and preventing misuse. Despite a promising technology, it poses challenges regarding its adoption and commercial success.

Counterfeiting as an inevitable result of Globalization has become a global nuisance and has to be dealt at global level. Brand protection could be one of the lowest cost tools for pharmaceutical companies to restore public confidence in their products and themselves. While all methods for anti-counterfeiting are known to have short lives the menace still must be dealt with. For this, companies need to deploy anti-counterfeiting strategies that set up various layers of security.

Teaching note.

The pandemic induced lockdown lead to supply and manufacturing disruptions that were swiftly dealt with by the Indian Pharma Industry through successful industry-government collaboration. By May 2020 production was back to normal and exports were higher than the same period in May 2019. The case deals with the processes that enabled this to happen, the policy responses and the changes that happened in the period from March 2020 to August 2020.

Public Health; Leadership; Organisational Development; Organisational Behaviour; Public Administration Management.

Postgraduate level for honours or masters programmes in courses on public health; executive leadership and management programmes; MBA level.

The case unpacks decentralisation as a means to promote and improve local decision-making and accountability through community participation and engagements. Ayanda Nkele was a programme manager in a health district in South Africa. He was faced with many challenges when trying to implement his programme, most of which were related to local authority, responsibilities and decision-making abilities at his level. This case describes briefly the South African health system. and how it functions. It describes the proposed changes to the health system and its transformation towards Universal Health Coverage. The decision space analysis as discussed in the case illustrates the types of decentralisation in the country and how this also applies to Nkele’s level.

Understanding the concepts and principles of decentralisation within the context of strengthening district health services, the re-engineering of primary health care (PHC) and rolling out a National Health Insurance in South Africa. Applying the “decision space” approach to analyse the extent of decentralisation. Grasping the requirement of leaders to be “contextually intelligent” and identify the important contextual variables to take into account when analysing public health care.

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 7: Management Science.