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Established in 2010, Mellower Coffee has 40 exquisite chain stores and three branches, namely Mellower Coffee Sales, Mellower Business Management and Shanghai Mellower Roasting Factory. Positioned as a premium coffee brand in China, Mellower Coffee has realized the integrated operation and management of the whole industrial chain from raw coffee trade, roasting factory, coffee retail products, specialty coffee chain, office coffee to coffee academy. It has a vision to attract and cultivate more and more coffee lovers by constant innovation coffee culture promotion.

Interviewing the protagonist and collecting information from secondary resources such as company documents, company and competitor websites, industry reports and online databases like Euromonitor International.

The case explores the metamorphosis of JK Masale from a small-scale family business in India to a regional player. Over a period of six decades, JK Masale (JKM) has emerged against the backdrop of a fiercely competitive spice industry. India, being a confluence of varied regional cultures, poses a diverse consumption pattern. It varies to a great extent with respect to the specific food habits prevalent in each climatic zone of the country. While the brand had successfully captured the Eastern Market and the western market of the country, Mr. Vikash Jain, Managing Director of JK Masale, contemplated to venture in Southern India and introduce new product categories. The case delves into one of the major challenges faced by JKM over the brand architecture and labelling across product categories. Thus, the case provides an excellent opportunity for budding managers to: analyse the company’s performance in the backdrop of a dynamic competitive environment; understand the nature of strategic decision-making and its appropriateness for a small family-owned business; evaluate a brand amongst brands on the architectural framework and select appropriate brand architecture for new products; and understand applicability and risks associated with growth strategies.

The case study can be positioned in both undergraduate and postgraduate level programs for courses on marketing strategy and brand management. Primarily, this case would be ideal to discuss brand relationship and brand architecture in the given context. Instructors have an option to cover concepts like market structure, company analysis, growth strategies and emergent and deliberate strategy through the case.

As an Internet fashion brand, HSTYLE has developed into an Internet enterprise with annual sales of 1.5 billion RMB within 10 years, establishing its position as the top industry performer in China. This case studies HSTYLES' innovation in business model and organizational management. HSTYLE's workgroups have achieved the balance of responsibilities and rights in a small team of three members at minimum, while mobilizing the enthusiasm and initiative of the line managers with the support of public service sector. At the same time, HSTYLE enriches its brand style, establishes a fashion cloud platform, and integrates individual and organizational consumers into its existing fashion design, manufacturing and sales system.

Upon completion of the case study, the students will be able to understand brand differentiation and marketing challenges faced by small businesses in emerging markets; recognize the significance of marketing strategies for a growing business in emerging markets; assimilate paid, owned and earned media to improvise the effectiveness of firm’s communication and digital marketing strategy; analyze the relevance of social media marketing in developing a brand; and create a content marketing strategy.

The case dilemma involved a possible course of action that Fusion Creations faced at the beginning of 2022 about marketing strategies across paid, earned and owned media. “Fusion Creations” was the creation of two sisters who were avid cake bakers since young age. They identified the demand for homemade cakes and the growing number of home bakers in India. It was during the Covid-19 pandemic that they faced challenges in terms of lockdown and scarcity of supply for baking essentials. Moreover, although the pandemic had brought most sections of the society worldwide to a standstill, home bakers were thriving. After the pandemic, these home bakers turned their passion into full-time profession. It was time for the sisters to view this stage as a challenge because of competition from aspiring entrepreneurs and rising home bakers, and convert it into an opportunity. Can Fusion Creation leverage the online social media platforms for their product sales and marketing? With presence established on various social media platforms, were they doing it right, or was there a better way? A few questions lay in front of Chaitali and Kena, owners and bakers of Fusion Creations.

This case is written for use in digital and social media marketing classes for graduation-level courses. The focus of the case aligns well with discussions of digital and social media marketing strategy. The case also has application in discussions regarding implementation of digital marketing strategy. Instructors that choose to emphasize social media strategies could assign this case to explore online marketing and digital communication.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS8: Marketing.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to examine the financial implications of Maghreb Steel’s substantial investment in the Blad Assolb complex in 2007 within the restructuring plan; explore how this decision influenced the company’s financial health and strategic position in the steel market, within the context of the restructuring plan; assess the impact of the 2008 economic crisis within the restructuring plan; analyze how the crisis affected the company’s pricing strategies, profitability and overall business strategy; investigate the financial and strategic consequences of the hot rolling activity initiated as a result of the Blad Assolb project within the company’s restructuring plan; and critique how this venture impacted the company’s operations, cost structure and competitiveness in the steel industry, aligned with the restructuring plan.

This case study deals with the only flat steel producer in Morocco: Maghreb Steel, the Moroccan family-owned company created in 1975 by the Sekkat family. It was a leading steel company. At the beginning, the company was specialized in the field of steel tubes, but thanks to its growth ambitions, the Sekkat family had made Maghreb Steel a major player in the Moroccan steel sector. In the same logic of development, the top management of Maghreb Steel launched in 2007 in the adventure to create the first production complex of cold rolling in Morocco – an investment that pushed Maghreb Steel to resort to a debt of more than 6bn dirhams (DH) with a consortium of six banks and would have allowed the company a huge leap in growth, except that the decision-makers of the group Sekkat could not see coming the economic crisis of 2008 causing the fall of steel prices by 62% compared to 2007. Thus, from its effective launch in 2010, the activity of hot rolling would become, for the company, a regrettable orientation. Moreover, the national market could not absorb all the production of the complex that the company called Blad Assolb. In response to this difficult situation, Maghreb Steel decided to store its goods to avoid selling at a loss. Faced with this situation of sectoral crisis and deterioration of its activity, Maghreb Steel lost its ability to honor its financial commitments with the banking consortium. From then on, the company became a case of failure, and the recovery measures had not ceased to be duplicated by the various stakeholders: State, Sekkat family, creditors and management of the company, having only one objective in mind: Save Maghreb Steel! This said, the present case study is dedicated to the financial and strategic analysis of the current situation and the evolution of the company throughout the crisis period to finally propose a suitable recovery plan to save Maghreb Steel.

The case study can be taught to students of master’s degrees in financial management as a synthesis of finance courses. It can also be used to train executives and managers working in family businesses as part of professional certification training.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

Data for the case came from public sources, including legal proceedings, court filings and Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The authors perused hundreds of court documents and identified 28 that were most relevant to this case. The authors also used press interviews with the women highlighted in the case. The authors have no relationship with the company and no one from the company has reviewed the information presented in this case. As the case is drawn from sworn legal testimonies, interviews and related documents in the public domain, the authors did not have to seek approval for publication.

Pinterest touted itself as “the nicest place on the Internet.” It had an almost 80% female user base and purported to have an inclusive culture that embraced diversity. However, in June 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, two former female employees of color violated their non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to publicly accuse Pinterest of racial and gender discrimination. In August 2020, Pinterest’s former Chief Operating Officer, Francoise Brougher, filed a lawsuit charging the company with gender discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination, and authored a public blog post titled, The Pinterest Paradox: Cupcakes and Toxicity, detailing her own experience with the company’s discriminatory culture. Three days later 236 of Pinterest’s 2,545 employees staged a virtual walkout and 445 employees signed a petition in an attempt to change Pinterest’s policies and culture. The case provides a brief overview of Pinterest, including its mission, values and organizational culture, and details several incidents and complaints by female and minority employees. The case questions whether employee complaints are a relatively narrow issue involving disgruntled former employees who did not fit at the organization or a much broader issue involving discrimination and managerial neglect in creating and maintaining a nondiscriminatory, inclusive culture. Students are encouraged to evaluate the situation in which Co-Founder, Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Ben Silbermann finds himself, evaluate the actions taken and decide if Silbermann should take any additional actions to address the discrimination claims and ensure a positive culture for all employees.

This case is appropriate for graduate and advanced undergraduate level courses in organizational behavior, human resource management and business law or any course where discrimination and workplace culture are discussed.

This case study exposes students to conflicts with distributors, escalated scenarios of a trade association and the possible repercussions of such a scenario. Upon completion of this case study, the students will be able to understand the critical success factors for a distribution setup and alignment of channels for driving growth; understand and manage the power dynamics with a stakeholder, like trade associations, distribution reach, fallacies in managing the distributors and identifying the gaps; critically evaluate negotiation opportunities when a trade association is not directly related to the principal organization.

This case study showcased a conflict between the distributor and Universal Heater Industries (UHI), a leading player in the water heater business in India. In 2015, the global leadership of UHI identified India as an emerging market and undertook a complete management overhaul to implement a new growth plan. Several measures were put in place that leveraged the global product portfolio and new people were appointed to push the agenda. Manish Singhal, the national sales head of UHI, selected Kerala as the pilot state to implement the new plan. However, the projects failed, as the distributor escalated the treatment meted out by UHI to the Electrical Trade Association (ETA). Trade associations have had a history of playing truant with players like UHI, and because of this, business came to a complete halt. The UHI and ETA teams met once; however, the suggested closure by ETA needed to be aligned with UHI’s interests. Singhal’s dilemma deepened, and they had to decide the next steps.

This case study is suitable for a postgraduate marketing course in a segment on managing channels, intermediaries, distribution management and channel conflicts. The uniqueness of this case is in the dimension of the trade association and managing the stakeholders.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS8: Marketing.

The objectives of the case study are to provide an overview of intellectual property rights and intellectual property rights in Indian context; understand the intellectual property rights implementation and challenges for implementing it in emerging economies; understand what would be the best approach that companies can adopt when the companies face backlash in such circumstances; and explore the scope for redefining the intellectual property rights in the changing global environment.

In December 2021, the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPV&FRA) in India revoked the plant variety protection (PVP) certificate granted to PepsiCo India Holding (PHI) for its Lays variety potato (FL-2027, known as FC-5). The FC-5 variety possessed low moisture content which made it suitable for making potato chips. The controversy started with Pepsi suing the small and marginal farmers of Gujarat for alleged patent infringement and cultivating the patented variety. Pepsi’s legal suit against nine marginal potato farmers in Gujarat initiated the dispute over how intellectual property (IP) rights are used to intimidate small, marginal farmers and its infringement of farmers’ rights. But, on the other side, the interesting aspect was how IP infringement could be a setback for the companies that made the capital investment to develop the variety. The case study discusses the backlash Pepsi faced due to this IP rights legal suit and the punitive aspects of IP rights (IPR) law. Moreover, in the context of the global pandemic, the case study helped discuss the need to redefine the intellectual property rights regime keeping in mind global welfare.

The case is intended for use in postgraduate-level management courses in agricultural marketing, agribusiness, international business and economics. This study can help management students understand how IPR is defined, the apparent complexities associated with it and the adverse effect of it on small and marginal farmers in emerging economies.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International business.

The case was devised using both primary and secondary data sources. Primary sources of data consisted of in-depth interviews with individuals using the cycle hire project. The researcher also had first-hand experiences of using the cycles. The case study has been tested with undergraduate and graduate students taking management information systems courses.

This teaching case study charts the London cycle hire project, mostly from its first inception in July 2010, right through to the planned expansion of electric cycles from Summer 2022. The main aim of the case is to introduce students to project management challenges which are part of the London cycle hire project. While the project was filled with enthusiasm from its early beginnings, various challenges were encountered including issues associated with the project procurement/sourcing process, software and technical problems, as well as other project management issues. Problems became so severe in 2011 that the service provider was hit with a penalty and had to make critical project improvements. Would these accountability measures prompt the service provider to resolve these issues? How would the service provider go about undertaking a fact-finding exercise to verify the existence of the challenges and address them to ensure renewed project success?

The case was written for classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The focus of the case is particularly well suited for exploring topics and issues relating to types of information systems, project management and accountability, multiple global supplier procurement, as well as challenges associated with hardware integration and software design. While the case was targeted at MIS students, the case study would also be effective for an introductory level project management course or a general management course. The subject of the case, the bicycle rental program, is likely to appeal to students, and the basic underlying business issues, processes and objectives of the project are easily understood.

Upon completion of the case study, the students will be able to find the challenges and underlying structures that cause the problem; the students will be able to identify the dynamic variables and develop the interconnection and interlinkages among the time-delayed variables to build the story of the business case; the students could develop the block diagram and could build the system dynamics model using the simulation software STELLA, and if they do not have the simulation software, even then they could have a mental model to understand the problem well; the system dynamics students can design the policies to make the system better behaved and recommend solutions; and the students could make mind maps and develop the mental model and could recommend solutions and way forward to overcome the challenges and solve the issues.

Tradeasia is a small-scale manufacturing firm that had started its business activities near Sundar Industrial Estate, Raiwind, in September 2007. The company’s prime focus was to buy the potato starch from chips manufacturing companies and, then, extract the potato starch from the waste potato using its own machinery and sell it as a sizing agent to textile mills. Quality characteristics in terms of better millage and enhanced gullibility made it compatible with Rafhan corn-based starch. The major challenge linked to potato starch was its degree of wetness; the potato starch either extracted from rotten potato or procured from the potato chips manufacturing companies had a high degree of wetness and moisture content. Wet potato starch sometimes had more than 60% moisture content, which was really a challenge. Owing to the high degree of wetness, the wet starch was prone to fungus growth, and within hours, the fungus created toxins if it was not dried immediately, and then after 24 h, toxins acquired a black colour, and they became hardened like pebbles. The starch then was unusable even for sizing purposes for textile products. Reduction in the degree of wetness was really a big challenge and demanded prompt action and high productivity of the operational staff to make that product dry for sale purposes. This was the biggest challenge that ended up in huge inventories of wet starch. Capacity constraints and operational inefficiency killed the company’s productivity and affected the company’s profit.

This case study is written and developed for MBA and MS-level supply chain students of the system dynamics course or those studying management of supply chain complexities. This case study discusses the operational challenges while running the business; huge inventories, capacity constraints and inefficiency in production operations were the challenges associated with almost all manufacturing industries. This case study discussed not only why such challenges are appearing in the business but also the solution that resided in the wisdom shared by the employees in the board meeting. An integrated system dynamics model could be used to design the policies to overcome such challenges. Even the block diagram of the model and causal loop diagram could help to conceptualize the problem and explore the way forward.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management science.