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The case is meant to be used in an introductory course on Data Visualization or Analytics in either a business school or any other context where students have had some exposure to management topics. This case primarily focuses on introducing students to the basic philosophy and techniques of exploratory data analysis (EDA). The Steaming Mug, a US based hot beverage chain is provided as a context for engaging in a hands-on exploratory data analysis exercise to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the company's operations and performance. The learning from exploring this case will help students understand that many different insights can be drawn from the given data. The students will understand that there is no “one correct path” for this analysis. The values of getting multiple groups to present their findings is that students realise that there are many other angles that could have been explored, than the path they had gone down.

Addresses how flow times and capacity calculations can be made for a service process such as the Bariatric Surgery Center at a clinic. Highlights how these calculations can be made for a service process just as in any manufacturing setting. Discusses the notions of critical paths and bottlenecks and what factors affect both time and capacity. Also, discusses the relative profitability of two types of bariatric surgery, the goal being to link product profitability to the process.

The case is based on a real $25 million project at a major U.S.-based computer manufacturer. For confidentiality reasons the company has been disguised as A&D High Tech. The Web-based online ordering system project is required by sales and marketing for the fall holiday season. If the project misses this window, the firm will lose substantial market share to competitors. Part (B) takes place three months into the original project plan. The project manager has just been fired and the management challenge is to find out what is wrong with the project and recommend fixes. In addition, the scope of the project has changed: the VP of marketing has an additional promotional bundle requirement. A&D High Tech (A) examines how to create and analyze a project plan in Microsoft Project. In order to make the case manageable for students we reduced the size of the project, and corresponding number of resources, to approximately $1 million, but retained all of the features of the original project. Part (B) gives actual work done on each task three months into the project. Students must answer the management questions: Can the project be fixed and completed in time for the holiday season? Can the additional requirements be incorporated, and if so, what is the best approach? In order to answer these questions, earned value data can be extracted from Microsoft Project and analyzed. These data provide important insights into the root cause of problems with the project. The next step is to reduce the scope of the project and reassign resources. However, one must be aware that indiscriminately adding people can slow a project down, not speed it up. Finally, the additional promotional bundle requirement from the VP of marketing provides an important outsourcing management discussion. The case can also be taught using other project management software tools, such as Primavera.

The case teaches students how to analyze a project in trouble using Microsoft Project (or other project management software tool). More important, the case teaches prospective executives how to manage a project in trouble by first accurately diagnosing the problems, then reducing scope where necessary, and finally replanning the project with reallocated resources. In addition, students will learn the tradeoffs of outsourcing to highly specialized professionals vs. average contractors.

The case is based on a real $25 million project at a major U.S.-based computer manufacturer. For confidentiality reasons the company has been disguised as A&D High Tech. The Web-based online ordering system project is required by sales and marketing for the fall holiday season. If the project misses this window, the firm will lose substantial market share to competitors. The A&D High Tech case examines how to create and analyze a project plan in Microsoft Project. Specifically, data is given to build the project plan step-by-step and then analyze the plan using the Microsoft project management tool. In order to make the case manageable for students we reduced the size of the project, and corresponding number of resources, to approximately $1 million, but retained all of the features of the original project. The project plan that students construct from the data given in the case is fraught with risks, and students must apply risk management techniques to diagnose the plan. Ultimately, students must answer the management question: Will the project be completed for the holiday shopping season? This case is the first in a series; the second is the case entitled “A&D High Tech (B): Managing Scope Change.” The case can also be taught using other project management software tools, such as Primavera.

The case teaches students how to build a project plan in Microsoft Project (or other project management software tools). More important, the case teaches prospective executives how to analyze a project plan and identify risks of the plan, and define strategies to mitigate these risks. Students learn that in the planning stage of any project the risks are highest, but this is the best opportunity for proactive management intervention.

This study aims to investigate the factors that contribute to the overall tour experience and services provided by Top Tier Holidays. The study is mixed in nature, and the researchers have used analytical tools to analyse the data factually. Multiple regression using MS Excel is used in the study.

This case is based on the experiences of a real-life travel and tour company located in New Delhi, India. The case helps understand regression analysis to identify independent variables significantly impacting the tour experience. The CEO of the company is focused on improving the overall customer experience. The CEO has identified six principal determinants (variables) applicable to tour companies’ success. These variables are hotel experience, transportation, cab driver, on-tour support, itinerary planning and pricing.

Multiple regression analysis using Microsoft Excel is conducted on the above determinants (the independent variables) and the overall tour experience (the dependent variable). This analysis would help identify the relationship between the independent and dependent variables and find the variables that significantly impact the dependent variable. This case also helps us appreciate the importance of various parameters that affect the overall customer tour experience and the challenges a tour operator company faces in the current competitive business environment.

This case is designed for discussion with the undergraduate courses in business management, commerce and tourism management programmes. The case will build up readers’ understanding of linear regression with multiple variables. It shows how multiple linear regression can help companies identify the significant variables affecting business outcomes.

Strategic management, HR Management, Change management, Marketing.

Potential audience. This case will serve to undergraduate students, master level students, in the subjects, entrepreneurship, managing change, marketing, H&R management, strategic management.

The Brunes Company was founded in 1994 by Gerond Cela and his brother, with the goal to provide quality products for bathrooms in the then-emerging Albanian market. During the next few years, it had grown into one of the biggest wholesale and retail chains in Albania, with huge portfolio of goods for home refurbishing. The beginnings were very humble. Armed only with the high school diploma in textile trading, born and raised in an ex-communist country without developed entrepreneurship culture, Gerond set off to Italy, a popular destination for young Albanians who were looking for an opportunity to escape the pitfalls of the post-communist transitional economy. Gerond recognized the huge gap in the market for imported tiles in his home country, so he began importing quality Italian tiles in 1994. Initially, he was doing the wholesale from his truck, due to the lack of retail stores. He focused on increasing customer satisfaction and built the company name as trustful provider of quality goods. This strategy brought him less profit, but his long-term goal was to build the company name and to establish it as a trustful provider of quality goods. In 1999, he bought 18,000 m² (for 50.000 euro) land on the highway Tirana-Durres, 7 km from the city centre, which proved to be extremely worthwhile in the long run because the price of the land had skyrocketed up to ten times during the next decade, due to the economic development of Albania. In 2004, Gerond and his brother epitomized their business idea. They entered the market of home furniture. In 2009, the company expanded further in country towns like Lezha, Saranda and Fier. After two decades of establishing his company as a market leader with approximately 30 per cent of market share, Brunes Company is at the crossroads. On one hand, it is pressured by very stiff competition in the form of their main competitor Delta Home, which succeeded in taking 10-15 per cent of the marketing just in one year. On the other hand, the company has been stagnating for some period without a concrete plan to overcome this problem, as well as without a clear strategy for the future directions of the expansion. To diversify the company’s portfolio, Gerond built a factory for tiling accessories which will cost 8 million Euros and employs about 30 workers.

Specific objectives of the case are as follows: to portray individuals who became successful primary through their leadership abilities, and to examine how their experiences and values contributed to the success of their business; illustrate the impact on operations of an increasingly competitive environment and how this environment affects the need for a change in strategy; identify the challenges of selling luxury goods in a competitive retail environment; to assist students to critically think about diversification strategy; to gain an understanding how to adapt to change; to discuss for issues that must be changed (culture, people, technology, values and philosophy of leadership, marketing, business model), to grow.

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

Marketing; direct sales and networking in marketing.

Undergraduate marketing students.

What are the main problems faced by direct sellers in Mexico within a selling context based on social networking? This case has the objective to approach the difficulties direct sellers face in their operations in order to address potential bottlenecks inhibiting the flow of sales. In the present case, direct sellers expressed openly their personal views about the issues they generally had to deal with in order to survive in a highly competitive market, namely the market of cosmetic and beauty products. The decision of whether to implement changes to improve the flow of sells through the network created by direct sellers would eventually affect direct sellers performance given that they are the final appendix of the selling chain. This case helps to develop a direct seller typology for direct selling success. Accordingly, it highlights the importance of every element participating in a business. Summarizing, it strategically links direct sellers performance with the overall business performance.

The case contributes to the analysis of personality attributes of sellers and the elements affecting market penetration of cosmetic and beauty products. It is also interesting to observe how some foreign brands have become iconic in the local direct selling businesses. This case also contributes to developing tactical competition to strategic planning of marketing of direct selling in emerging markets. Particular learning objectives are as follows: analyse marketing planning from a perspective of decentralization and growth and explore creative possibilities for sustainable growth of this kind of business; stimulate strategic thinking concerning system operation and free bottle necks of selling channels by analysing the effect of system subordination of operations and training to upper levels of vendors; analyse the brand expansion process and loyalty development of customers in a competitive market of products that are sold in network.

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

Marketing and entrepreneurship.

The case is applicable to MBA core marketing, sales and distribution, strategic marketing, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) marketing and entrepreneurship.

Isaac Padmasingh, a first-generation entrepreneur who was awarded TiECon's “Extreme Entrepreneur of the Year 2010”, has built a thriving enterprise. From his first job as a salesman in Godrej to being the founder of “Aachi” group of companies with a turnover of INR 700 crores (USD132 million) annual revenue, he has had quite an eventful journey. His early insights in Godrej in sales and distribution, coupled with his entrepreneurial passion, have enabled him to grow his company this far in a short span of 14 years. His business is partly managed by his wife and his two sons who are the directors of this private enterprise. Now he is making bold moves to venture outside Tamil Nadu and become a national brand, which means a major scaling up and moving into the next orbit. Vital questions in scaling are: Is Aachi pursuing the right growth strategy in their effort to scale up? How can Aachi look at the imminent foreign direct investment in retail as an opportunity for growth? Looking back over the years, what has Aachi learnt and how to carry forward the best practices and learn from the mistakes made?

Entrepreneurship: to introduce the entrepreneurial vision in creating a new enterprise, and to understand the characteristics of an entrepreneur. FMCG marketing: to discuss the importance of going-to-the-market strategy, to discuss the importance of distribution reach in rural marketing, to discuss the nuances of branding in Aachi's growth story and to familiarize students in successfully marketing FMCG products. Growth strategies: identifying opportunities for the future, and to explore the growth strategies suitable for Aachi.

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

In late 2011, Jerry Bertram, vice president and general manager of the fire retardant additives business of Huber Engineered Materials (HEM), a division of family-owned J. M. Huber Corporation, was preparing to present the potential acquisition of the precipitated alumina trihydrate (PATH) business to the environment, health, and safety committee of Huber's corporate board. He had convinced HEM's leadership of PATH's strategic value to their business and the urgency of the acquisition based on PATH's parent company's movement into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and its plans to close the PATH plant.

Winning board approval posed a major challenge. It was unclear whether the plant would remain operational, because HEM would have to enter a shared-services arrangement with PATH's parent company, which continued to use the site. In addition, acquiring PATH would mean integrating its specialized, unionized labor force into Huber, which had very few union workers. Finally, early due diligence had revealed tens of millions of dollars of potential environmental risk on the site. The last issue was particularly critical, given Huber's generations-long history of respect for the environment, and its executives' and directors' reluctance to take on any business with excessive environmental risk.

This case illustrates in depth the family business values that can promote consideration of an ostensibly unconventional and risky strategic move, and enable executives to push for approval of the same, as backed by comprehensive risk assessment and mitigation plans.

The case demonstrates the use of strategic management tools such as pros and cons analysis, SWOT analysis, strategy canvas, the four-action framework and the eliminate–reduce–raise–create grid to create a Blue Ocean.Through a discussion of the case, students will be able to:▪ conduct pros and cons analysis to objectively understand a situation;▪ conduct SWOT analysis to understand the internal and external ecosystem;▪ understand non-customers and paths to reach them;▪ demonstrate the role of strategy canvas and the four-action framework in designing a new offering; and▪ explain how to create a Blue Ocean market space, by implementing the concept of value innovation.

This case describes a situation in which Dr Vishal Sardeshpande (Sardeshpande), a first-generation entrepreneur in the agro and food processing industry, started Sarvaay Solutions to provide technological solutions for the sector, especially for the small/medium-sized farmer. Such farmers did not have access to technology and the markets to create value addition on their farm produce, and hence were at the mercy of the middlemen or the large farmers. After years of experimentation from 2006 till 2018, Sardeshpande made a resource-efficient jaggery manufacturing process (REJMP) in Pune to enable and empower the farmer to produce quality jaggery using their own sugarcane, which otherwise was sold to the middlemen. Sardeshpande knew the industry and was aware of the challenges faced by the farmers, traditional jaggery producers and cooperative farming bodies. In June 2022, while sitting in his house, Sardeshpande was struck with an idea that the key to success of REJMP is to empower farmers or traditional jaggery producers or cooperative farming bodies to create value from agriculture produce and wondered the way forward. The purpose of this case is to provide an opportunity for the participants to use management tools such as strategy canvas, four-action framework, Pros and Cons analysis and SWOT analysis to understand noncustomers and paths to reach them and understand new industry creation. Participants need to take into consideration the data given in the case and make realistic assumptions to understand how new industries are created.

The case engages the participants in deciding a suitable course of action for Sardeshpande to decide the Blue Ocean strategy. It helps them to delineate the challenges faced by an entrepreneur to select a route for the new market space.The case is ideal for undergraduate, postgraduate or executive education students and can be used in the following courses of a business management, agri business management or entrepreneurship programs:▪ creating new industries;▪ Blue Ocean strategy; and▪ strategic management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.