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Young professors Baxter, Jim, and Robert are eager to start a new graduate certificate in educational leadership with a focus on technology. The department supports their initiative. The department is even supportive of offering this certificate fully online. Support waned when, in an effort to boost student enrollment, it is suggested that additional graduate courses and programs within the department also move fully online. In department meetings, faculty members argue about the rigor of online courses and if it is possible to convert existing courses and programs to an online delivery format. Tammy and Larry are veteran faculty members who do not want to teach online and have made it clear to the rest of the faculty they are not eager to change. When there are not enough students to offer their programs in the traditional format, all faculty members are forced to begin teach online.

This is a disguised field-researched case.

This case may be used in a variety of graduate business or education courses, such as introduction to business, business ethics, educational leadership, technology leadership, or higher education.

Students should have some understanding of systems change, ethical decision making, and human resources development.

On a fine afternoon in January 2015, Divakar Kaza, President, Human Resources, at Lupin Ltd., took a sip of coffee from his cup, and shared the good news he had just received, with Rituraj Sar, head of Learning & Development. Lupin had just won the ‘Outstanding Company of the Year’ Award at the CNBC-TV18 India Business Leadership Awards, 2014-15¹. The accomplishment was heartening, given that it reinforced similar recognitions in the recent past. Lupin had won the NDTV Business Leadership Award for the Indian Pharmaceutical Company of the year in 2012, backed up by the same acclaim in 2010 by Frost & Sullivan².

The learning outcomes of this study include: recognizing the strategic inflexion points and related business and strategic perspectives in the life of an organization; understanding sources of sustained competitive advantage and connect it with resource-based view for internal analysis; applying dynamic capability theory to identify capabilities that help an IT company stay relevant in an IT sector characterized by VUCA (an acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) environment; analyzing the multi-dimensional and multi-contextual challenge an organization faces, or is likely to face, in the foreseeable future and the possible ways it addresses or should address them; evaluating strategies adopted at various points of an organization’s journey for their effectiveness; and helping a company co-create value for its customers.

This case of Nitor Infotech Private Limited (Nitor), a mid-sized software product outsourcing company, outlines its decade-long journey, highlighting its achievements. While the company has consistently grown by leveraging its expertise in software product engineering and its domain knowledge in the healthcare segment, it entered into a stage of its life cycle where it had to develop a long-term strategy to effectively compete in the product engineering market. Nitor’s strategy was built around product engineering and outsourced product development. The two major choices for a software company were either to develop its own product and thereby own the intellectual property (IP) or to develop modules which would be part of a product that would be owned by a client. In the latter case, the IP would be held by the client. So far Nitor chose to follow the second option by developing components for its client’s products. Although this strategy allowed it to develop expertise in a particular domain, and serve different customers in a particular market, the chances of a competitor attacking its position was high. On the other hand, if it developed its own product, it can create its own brand name and can sell packaged software to several different customers. However, the challenge with the latter is that the cost of marketing could be very high. The choice for the company in the future is to decide on selecting a specific strategy to expand its international business.

This case is appropriate for an undergraduate and postgraduate management course in the area of strategic management. The level of difficulty can be from medium to high depending on the learning level. Knowledge of management fundamentals is not a prerequisite but is desirable for case analysis.

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

Business ethics, sustainability and economic development.

This case is suitable for both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The case presents a pioneering initiative run by the Egyptian General Authority for Investment (GAFI) to mitigate the implications of the 25th of January revolution on SMEs. The case describes the “Business Clinic” program that was designed to provide SMEs with world class consultancy services through the CSR programs of large local and multinational consultancy firms.

The case should help students in: defining corporate social responsibility and describing its importance; describing the role of SMEs in economic development; identifying the different growth obstacles that face SMEs; relating theories in different managerial fields that could be linked to CSR and development; investigating the Arab Spring and describing its repercussions on economic development and sustainability; and illustrating CSR role in solving SME problems.

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 understand the subject of entrepreneurship and project management through techno-economic intervention.

Postgraduate students of management and graduate students of engineering and management.

Multiple challenges existed at the ground level in the Moradabad Brass Cluster in terms of gaps in technology, skill, infrastructure and market that all needed to be improved upon.

The objectives and learning outcomes were proposed to understand the cluster economic crisis, entrepreneurship, project management, technical improvements and better understanding of certain theories.

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

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.

The HR President of Lupin and the Head of Learning and Development, were looking with satisfaction at the latest attrition figures. The annualized attrition rate for managers had been showing a steady decline, and was pegged at 1% for the first quarter of 2010–11, much lower than the industry average of 35%¹. It had been a long, arduous journey and figures were looking decent for now. However, the HR President knew that this was just the beginning. With competition intensifying in the industry, the war for talent was going to heat up further. He wondered how they were going to manage talent in an industry which was fast-growing, insular and obsessed with domain knowledge.

This case study attempts to sensitize the impact of restructuring on the organization’s employer brand. The students shall learn to appreciate the criticality of maintaining a balance between being an employee-centric organization and building a sustainable business model, to analyze the alternative people management strategies in emerging start-ups.

This case study illustrates the innovative human resource (HR) policies adopted by the start-up Meesho. Meesho was started as “Fashnear” by two Indian Institute of Technology graduates Sanjeev Barnwal and Vidit Aatrey in the year 2015, with the headquarters located in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. It was a social commerce platform wherein the local apparel sellers or manufacturers could register themselves on the app and sell their products online to nearby consumers and the product would be delivered to their homes. Later, it was renamed Meesho (Meri E-Shop) with an improved business model. The innovative people-centric policies got Meesho recognition as one of the most employee-friendly start-ups and an innovative employer. However, later as part of the restructuring exercise, it had to lay off employees, which had a counter impact on its reputation and image as a desirable employer. This case study captures the dilemma faced by start-ups like Meesho who were in the process of sustaining their growth and optimizing their workforce and, at the same time, have to manage their employer brand in the process.

This case study can be used at the postgraduate level of management and in executive management programs.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS6: Human resource management.

The case is about the selecting the agency to take up the brand building challenge of SRF Limited, a well established, large business in India having diverse lines of “industrial products”. The business decision problem of SRF stemmed from the fact that the corporate leadership team, which had to take a decision on the topic had considerable reservation about the appropriateness of each of short–listed agencies for the job at hand. There were also differences of opinion on what would be the criteria for selecting the brand consultant. The Managing Director had to ensure that the team arrived at a consensus, rather than being foisted with a decision from top.

This case can be taken up in executive education programs as well as the basic marketing management program at the postgraduate level or in a specialist advertising courses. The case can be taught in the core marketing course at the postgraduate level while discussing the selection on advertising agency.

The decision–making focus of the case is about selecting an advertising agency among a set of three, which was most suited to help SRF achieve the repositioning, branding and the awareness creation challenge. The agencies, however, were mostly experienced in building brands for consumer product which was distinct from industrial intermediaries company like SRF. As an organization, SRF had no experience of dealing with an advertising agency, thus the selection was quite a challenge. It brings to focus the decision–making dilemma faced by a large number of companies in emerging markets which are making the transition to brand building.

The following insights could be elucidated by the case:

Help the students understand the corporate branding concept as distinct from product branding. Decision–making dilemmas associated with corporate brand building for a company with long legacy of product branding. Criteria for evaluating the proposals by advertising agency from the perspective of a client organization.

Teaching notes.

The case presents the situation prevailing in Loreto Day School, Sealdah, when Sister Cyril took over as the principal of the school. It details the initiatives taken by her to turn around the school. With her active interest and concern for marginalised children, the school started admitting a greater number of non - fee paying children, bringing their number to half of the total enrolled children in the school. Several programmes like providing shelter to street children and integrating them into the education system, weekly visits by school children to nearby village schools, addressing the problem of hidden child labour, programmes for platform children and training for barefoot teachers were organised along with other teaching and learning activities in the school. Pedagogic changes like activity oriented science teaching, value education, work education, and an assessment programme which took into account the effort put in by children were also initiated. Views of a cross-section of parents, some of whom had high praise for the school while some others expressed concerns about its divergent activities are also included.