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After reading this case study, the students will be able to identify the various choices available in social e-commerce using network marketing, interpret data-driven decisions in social e-commerce and evaluate their role in scaling business, analyse cost and revenue management in value segments, evaluate technology adoption among the masses using appropriate communication structures and develop customer relationships and manage their sentiments in the era of social media.

DealShare became a unicorn in 2022 and targeted the rural and low-income groups. Based on a networking model for customer acquisition and a hyperlocal supply chain model, DealShare is increasing its customer base at a rapid pace. However, profitability was still a challenge, and converting high volume into high value continued to be a daunting task. This case study delves deep into the challenges co-founder Sourjyendu Medda and the DealShare team faced. It seeks to address key issues: how should DealShare leverage customer network for faster customer acquisition and how should they increase ticket size and profitability? As a data-driven business, what advantages does DealShare have in influencing customers’ buying behaviour using data? Dependence on social media could have a cascading effect on “word of mouth”. How can they manage customer complaints and increase engagement?

This case study has the potential to be used in different settings. In strategic cost management, this case study can demonstrate strategies for cost management in the value-conscious segment. This case study can be used in marketing management courses while teaching “positioning” in business-to-consumer markets and CRM. For second-year management students, this can be used in entrepreneurship and strategic management courses to demonstrate the network effect in social e-commerce start-up businesses. This case study is also relevant for various course modules in graduate management programmes to demonstrate the power of data-driven decision-making in business.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing

Company turnaround, General Management.

Executive education, MBA.

This is a four-part case study in which the case of a company turnaround emerges as the students work through a series of decision-making processes. In teaching the case, the students would only be given Part A to begin with, about which they need to make decisions as to what they would do, as preparation for the first part of the lecture. After that has been discussed, they are provided with the second part which tells them what in fact happened in the situation and leads them to the next decision point, and so on. The case deals with an entrepreneur hearing about a business that has gone insolvent; it then tracks the process from investigating the small manufacturing and sales company through the various stages of its subsequent remarkable turnaround to the point where the protagonist was voted Entrepreneur of the Year in South Africa. It covers the period 2007 to 2012 and includes the annual financial statements.

Following are the expected learning outcomes: an understanding of the broad range of management competencies; an understanding of how to turnaround a small organisation; and to experience group-based decision-making.

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.

Xyberspace Consulting, Inc. is reconsidering the allocation of the costs associated with its Training and Educational Services Group (TESG), a shared-services or support department to its user departments. Currently, the company uses a single departmental rate to allocate actual training costs to the user groups, using the user groups' actual usage of TESG resources. The company is exploring whether it should allocate TESG fixed and variable costs separately, whether it should use budgeted or actual allocation rates and whether it should allocate costs based on budgeted or actual usage. This case is intended to give students exposure to allocating shared-services or support-department costs, understanding the implications of different allocation strategies, and evaluating whether and how allocation systems can facilitate strategy implementation.

Business Management and Strategy.

The case study is relevant for undergraduate and post-graduate management degrees. It includes courses such as business management, corporate ethics and change management.

This case study illustrates one of the important initiatives that the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi (EAD) has undertaken to help save the atmosphere and the environment. This case study describes the Paperless Day initiative that EAD launched in 2008 and how it was carried out for five years. The study also describes how EAD implemented this initiative internally.

Creating awareness and encouraging individuals in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere to reduce their use of paper, water and energy for a cleaner environment.

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 was developed using a mixture of publicly available documents created by the partner community, general information from public sources like the First Nations Finance Authority (FNFA) website and Government of Canada websites, and personal and first-hand experience of the indigenous coauthor, Storm Gould.

Wisikk is a Mi’kmaq sovereign reserve territory located in Mi’kmaq’ki in the place that settler governments call Nova Scotia. The community has existed in its location since time immemorial and has been recognized by the settler government since the early 19th century. An opportunity for community-run business has arisen for Wisikk based on the legalization of cannabis throughout Canada in 2018. This case’s protagonist is the community’s Vice-President for Business Development, Andrew Googoo, as he considers bringing a proposal for a cannabis retailing venture to the Chief and Council. Cannabis legalization in Canada left sales policies to the provinces and was silent as to the rules governing cannabis sales by indigenous communities on their sovereign territory. Considering both potential negative impacts to the community, as well as the potential financial benefits from a successful reserve-based cannabis dispensary, Andrew must soon present his initial findings to the Chief and Council for their deliberation and decision. Any venture undertaken by the reserve would require a loan from the FNFA, so Andrew must also consider the projections and reports that the FNFA would require to support their lending decision.

The case is appropriate for mid-level or capstone undergraduate and graduate business courses, especially those focused on entrepreneurship, business ownership or indigenous ownership. The case was originally developed for the accounting division of an international undergraduate case competition. In addition to accounting concepts like pro forma/budgeted income statements and decision analysis, it is intended to showcase some legal and cultural features of community-led indigenous business ventures. The idea is for students to explore concepts of sovereignty, community involvement and broader stakeholder impact, as well as more technical accounting and financial concepts.

The learning outcomes of this case study are to understand and apply the PESTLE framework with a special focus on sociocultural nuances of a conservative society, appreciate the role of innovation and effective leadership in the success of entrepreneurial ventures, understand the bricolage theory to critically evaluate the role of entrepreneurs as agents of social change and develop monetization strategies for digital start-ups and recommend strategies that would help social enterprises to strike the right balance between their social aspirations and commercial goals.

In March 2020, Kanwal Ahmed, founder of the much-lauded Facebook group Soul Sisters Pakistan (SSP), was posed with a critical situation. SSP’s first face-to-face member meetup, which had been hyped up by Pakistanis residing in Canada for months, had to be called off due to the advent of COVID-19. What worried Ahmed was not just the immediate impact of the postponement; rather, she was more concerned about how her social enterprise would sustain in the longer run. The new normal had changed the way businesses operated; tried and tested revenue generation strategies of SSP would neither be feasible in a COVID-stricken world nor reap the same results. Ahmed knew that her social enterprise could have a far-reaching impact in a pandemic-stricken world. However, she was unsure about how to monetize her business model so as to ensure steady revenue generation streams that would keep the enterprise afloat. Ahmed knew that the clock was ticking, and she had to act quickly and think of ways to ensure SSP’s long-term sustenance.

This case study is suitable for undergraduate students enrolled in courses of entrepreneurship and strategy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

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.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows: use advanced frameworks and tools to convey complex ideas related to corporate social responsibility and ethics; apply relevant concepts and theories of ethics and corporate governance to a practical situation while making decisions; demonstrate understanding of the importance of stakeholders when developing socially responsible thinking; and analyze ethical and legal conflicts that need to be considered by employees in situations of whistleblowing.

Sara Khan was a Pakistani-American who had moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2015 to pursue her Bachelor’s degree in accounting. After graduation, she started working for a baked products manufacturer, Dough Fresh, which was a business unit of Dubai-based Fresh Foods Co. Three years later, she enjoyed her work in the company that embraced strong ethical values and socially responsible practices. She was recently given the task of delivering a financial statements’, investment projections’ and cost-cutting presentation to the senior management of Dough Fresh. Her performance at completing this task was of critical importance for her obtaining the eagerly awaited promotion to the senior accountant position. One day, while Sara was looking through some files to update the financial statements’ records, she came across a deleted purchase order of poppy seeds that amounted to AED 680,000. While poppy seeds were widely used as ingredients in baked products in other countries, they were illegal in the UAE. After approaching her colleague from the purchasing department, she realized that the purchasing manager, who was the grandson of the chairman, was closely involved in the matter. Moreover, it appeared that poppy seeds were used unwashed, which triggered deleterious health consequences and made them highly dangerous to consume. As Sara spent more time researching about poppy seeds and whistleblowing laws in the UAE, she questioned whether she should divulge this information or keep it for herself. Making this decision was extremely challenging. Because the UAE laws regarding whistleblowing were not comprehensive and constantly evolving, she was not certain whether her identity and reputation would be protected in case she decided to blow the whistle. Even more, she worried immensely about the prospect of her colleagues losing their jobs if this information became public, as many of them needed the money to support their families back home and to finance expensive health-related treatments of their relatives. At the same time, she was also aware that if poppy seeds were consumed by people unknowingly, this could lead to serious and even fatal health consequences. All things considered, Sara was caught between deciding what was the right thing to do.

This case study can be used in a higher level undergraduate business course on Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Innovation, reverse innovation, frugal innovation and disruptive innovation.

Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Executive Education.

This case describes the strategy adopted by Cisco India to develop the Advanced Services Router 901 (“ASR 901”), which is a next-generation 3G/LTE capable mobile backhaul and carrier Ethernet platform that is deployed at a cellular tower site or business premise to backhaul voice and data traffic into the core of the network. This was part of a larger strategy by Cisco headquarters to understand what could be built in the developing markets for the developing markets, as opposed to products conceived with only developed markets as the focus. Within a time frame of a few months, a team formed from scratch developed the ASR 901, the next-generation global networking technology product that was developed completely – from conception to launch – at the Bangalore site in India. The ASR 901 successfully took on the challenge of delivering all the functionalities and features required by sophisticated telecom clients, while meeting the specific requirements of its customers from the developing markets. ASR 901 was undoubtedly a milestone in Cisco India's indigenous innovation initiatives, and this case discusses the many challenges that had been faced during the process and the actions that had been taken to achieve success during this process.

Through this case, students will understand the concepts of innovation, particularly reverse innovation, frugal innovation and disruptive innovation. They will learn how large organisations have managed to successfully innovate by creating small and independent teams within the organisation. Students would also have the opportunity to analyse and discuss whether the lessons learnt by Cisco, while progressing through the several stages of developing the ASR 901 product, could be applied to similar new initiatives.

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After a successful discussion and analysis of the case, the participants will be able to distinguish and appreciate the situations of conflict of interest (COI), whistle-blowing, etc. Initiate appropriate methods to avoid/minimize the impact of COI and ensure justice and fair-play to all stake-holders. Identify and appreciate the work-context of each executive-position and initiate standard operating procedures to protect the interests of the enterprise and all its stakeholders. Appreciate the relevance of whistle-blowing and to initiate appropriate methods to ensure justice and fair-play to all stake-holders.

In the context of the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI)-bank, the systemic inadequacies seemed to have failed in preventing the incidences of COI. The organization was too centralized to be able to respond proactively to the allegations. The case lays bare the inadequacy of professionalism among the media in responding promptly to such instances. The case generalizes that, with increasing globalization, such incidences have global ramifications and the organizations face much greater risks than ever. The case concludes that to emerge as a mature and leading organization in the global market, ICICI-bank needed to strengthen various aspects of corporate governance; similarly to emerge as a developed economy, India needed to develop independent watchdogs to monitor the activities of corporations continuously. Media needed to be independent and mature to fulfil its duty of continuous and transparent communication to the public.

The case can be understood and analysed by management students in the post-graduate level or by working executives with at least four to five years of experience in the corporate sector.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.