Case studies

The case can be used in the subject areas of marketing, strategy, business model innovation, and general business growth, particularly those with a focus on emerging markets.

This case can be used in postgraduate and post-experience business courses such as Master's degrees in Business Administration, postgraduate diplomas, executive education, or specialist Master's degrees.

This case looks at craft beer business Jack Black's Brewing Co. started in 2006 in Cape Town. After humble beginnings, protagonist McCulloch grew the company rapidly with a focus on the strategic “tap” market across the country. After systematically working with a number of contract brewers the company finally invested in their own, industrial-scale brewery and brewpub. The dilemma facing McCulloch and Jack Black's Brewing Co. is one of cash flow. In order to generate cash flow, the management team needs to drive sales so that the brewery operates at full capacity. While it strives to attain this goal, there are considerable cash flow and liquidity challenges.

The development of an understanding of an effective marketing mix to position a niche and young brand.

An understanding of the concept “co-opetition” and how it works in a growing market.

The ability to assess the various growth stages of a business.

The case can be used in the subject areas of marketing, strategy, business model innovation in an emerging market. The case introduces a practical example of brand extension as a growth strategy employed by an existing brand to secure additional revenue channels and customer touch points.

This teaching case is aimed at postgraduate business students such as Master's degrees in Business Administration degrees, postgraduate diplomas, executive education, or specialist Master's degrees.

Kauai is a health restaurant with 150 stores across South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, more than 50% of which are franchise-owned. An acquisition of the original Kauai quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain by Real Foods in 2015 leads to a complete rebrand and overhaul of its product offering and store experience. Since the acquisition, the business operates as a startup with few formal processes and KPIs in place to drive performance. Despite the obvious success the team is battling with the factors that need to be considered to ensure that they can scale adequately to realise full potential. Plus how should they position the existing brand effectively within the FMCG space to maximise the contribution of brand equity to its success?

–The understanding around the business model of a strong, existing brand entering a highly competitive and price-sensitive FMCG.

–Analysing the marketing strategy and brand identity approaches that could be used.

–An understanding of the brand extension strategy that could be implemented in light of various challenges.

–Understanding how retail marketing works in an emerging market context.

The subject area is international business and strategy. The case allows scope for the following areas: internationalisation, market strategy, emerging market multinational companies, and doing business in Africa.

The primary target audience for this teaching case is postgraduate business students such as Master of Business Administration (MBA), or postgraduate management programmes. The case is primarily designed for use in courses that cover strategy or international business.

This case centres on the international growth strategy of FMBcapital Holdings Group (FMB), the Malawian commercial banking firm. The case finds the founder and current group chairman, Hitesh Anadkat, in 2016, as he and the FMB board are about to decide on the next move in their Southern African strategy. Since opening the first FMB branch in Malawi and becoming the country's first commercial banker in 1995, Anadkat and his team have ridden a wave of financial deregulation across the region to successfully expand into neighbouring Botswana, Zambia, and Mozambique. Now, an opportunity to gain a foothold in Zimbabwe means the leaders must decide (1) whether they want to continue to grow the FMB footprint across the region, or focus on their integration and expansion efforts within existing markets; and (2) how they will realise this strategy.

International expansion – identifying the need to expand into new markets; identifying the combination of internal strengths and external conditions that make international expansion viable; and identifying and analysing each possible new market(s) and the decision-making process involved.

Political, social and economic factors in Africa – understanding how these external institutional factors present constraints, risks and opportunities for internationalisation and hence shape strategy; understanding that these factors may vary significantly across countries on the continent (in spite of their geographic proximity) and in some cases, within a single country; and understanding that by selecting markets with extreme socially and politically volatile contexts, the risk of a worst-case scenario transpiring (in which institutional forces trump business strategy) is appreciable.

Combination of resource- and institutional-based approaches – recognising that successful internationalisation requires capitalising upon both internal resources and institutional mastery.

Choosing expansion strategies – assessing the type of new market entry (e.g. greenfield or acquisition of existing operations) and its adequacy for penetrating a new market.

Using networks and local partners – to substitute and enhance the benefits that originally flow from a small (and sometime family-established) business, with an emphasis on acquisition of skills and networks in foreign countries.

Regional integration – optimising business operations through a sharing or pooling of resources and improved capital flow between subsidiaries, in some instances by taking advantage of economies of scale (this extends to enhancing the reputation and awareness of a brand across a wider region).

Family businesses – identifying the value that can be gained through establishing a family business with the support of many “close” stakeholders while also noting the limitation that exist as expansion and growth is required.

This case study is intended for an MBA level audience; however, it can be used for upper-level college students as well.

This case's main subject areas include the following: organizational strategy, NGO strategic management, strategy and management during pandemic and women entrepreneurs or women-led business.

This case is about the organizational strategy of the Veronica Robles Cultural Center, an NGO, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The central challenge of this case study is about decision-making for a sustainable future, given limited resources, and thus a great urgency to plan conservatively. The central protagonist of the case is Veronica Robles herself. Veronica is an entrepreneur in both her personal career as a performing and teaching artist as well as the founder and creator of many programs to help spread culture and unite communities, including the Veronica Robles Cultural Center.

Students will learn about entrepreneurial strategy, NGO creation and management, strategy to create social value and organizational management during time of pandemic or widespread crisis.

This case is focused on creating social value through the analysis of a woman-founded and managed NGO. While managing the NGO's strategy through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, operations must proceed with the utmost level of sustainability. With a focus on the well-being of the community, Veronica Robles Cultural Center (VROCC) needs to find a way to remain relevant in the short term while building out a sustainable organizational structure to succeed in the long term.

CSS 11: Strategy

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

The primary target audience for this teaching case is postgraduate business students, especially students of digital marketing, strategy and e-commerce, social media marketing, entrepreneurship and sports marketing. This teaching case is intended to be used as a case study in postgraduate business programmes such as Master of Business Administration, a specialist masters programme such as MM (entrepreneurship), postgraduate diploma in management, as well as selected executive education programmes.

This case can be used in the subject areas of digital marketing, strategy and e-commerce, social media marketing, entrepreneurship and sports marketing.

This case looks at South African fitness Instapreneur Candice Bodington and how her business trajectory unfolded at the same time of the successful Australian Kayla Itsines. The case begins with Bodington considering options for her brand in January 2020. Following her business, Candibod’s, fast initial growth via Instagram, the case tracks its development while also glancing at the enormous success of Itsines and her Sweat with Kayla app. However, as Bodington faces her own health care, the future and next steps of a brand built on social media becomes less certain. The case ends just a few months later with the unfolding effects of Covid-19 and a whole new host of uncertainties, especially in the fitness industry and Bodington having to reconsider her brand’s options.

The learning outcome of this paper is as follows: to understand the challenges of building an online brand. To evaluate the effect of brand communities as a growth strategy. To analyse the impact of social media platforms as a brand-building tool. To critically assess the effect of changing industry dynamics and technology on consumer behaviour. To evaluate how brands can navigate the negative implications of social media. To understand brand differentiation. To understand the strategic decisions associated with brand repositioning.

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 8: Marketing.

Digital marketing, Brand building, Social media marketing, Strategic marketing

Undergraduate courses: Auditing, Leadership, Management accounting. Postgraduate courses: Leadership, Management accounting.

Auditing, Leadership, Management accounting

This case documents the journey of a professional accountancy organisation, namely, the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) and document the MIA’s journey on the establishment of digital blueprint for the accounting profession in Malaysia including some major milestone in innovating audit evidence-gathering technique by introducing e-confirm for auditing bank confirmation in Malaysia. This case highlights the significant role played by a lady chief executive officer (CEO) in embarking into the digitalisation of the accountancy profession and practice in Malaysia. While the ultimate objective of digital blueprint is to transform the accounting and auditing practices in Malaysia, the CEO has led by example by embedding digitalisation within MIA’s practices itself.

The learning outcome of this paper are as follows: to develop students’ understanding on the right attitudes, skills and characters that a successful leader should possess in contemporary business environment by focusing on dilemma and stereo-typing faced by women leaders; to develop the students’ understanding on the changes in business environment particularly the rise of digital technology that affecting the ways in which accounting functions in organisations; to encourage students to be aware that technical accounting knowledge is just one of the key success factors in the career of a professional accountant. The case offer insight into accountants’ role in digital environment and the development needed for accounting profession; to demonstrate how auditing process can benefit from the advancement in technology; and to encourage critical discussion on the development of accounting profession in Malaysia. The case aims to develop students’ critical discussion on the roles of MIA as a regulator of accounting profession and to appreciate historical development of accounting profession in Malaysia. The case also aims to encourage students to realise the existence of other professional accounting bodies, accounting practitioners and academic accountants, and together with MIA, they play significant role in shaping the accounting profession in Malaysia.

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

The case has a strong implication on the role of effective leaders in ensuring that significant efforts involved in digitalisation journal, a vital need for the accountancy professional to continue to be a relevant profession, is a success.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

Women leadership, Digitalisation, Professional accountancy organisation, Electronic bank confirmation, Malaysia

The case is targeted at undergraduate students in international finance, international business, entrepreneurship and strategic marketing classes.

At the broadest level, the case represents an opportunity for students to discuss internationalisation of local firms. It focusses on getting students to analyse the costs and benefits associated with the foreign entry decision as well as the strategies for foreign entry.

The Exploring International Markets: Unique Quality Heads to Kenya case study provides a chronological report of how Unique Quality, a cereal production company, grew locally up until the point when it considers internationalisation. It details the key considerations the firm makes as it considers its foreign entry decision. Unique Quality is a cereal production company in Ghana, which operates within the agriculture industry. The industry operates at almost all the points along the value chain including coordinating the growing of the cereal until it is harvested, packaged and marketed for sale. The company which started operations in 2013 has made great gains in penetrating the Ghanaian market. Salma, who is currently at the helm of affair at the company, together with the board is considering entering into Kenya. This decision is one that must not be taken lightly and has left Salma in a dilemma.

The expected learning outcomes of the case are:To enable students:a) identify the reasons why firms go international;b) identify opportunities for cost-cutting benefits or revenue maximisation opportunities for Unique Quality in Kenya;c) understand and identify the various sources of country risk that Unique Quality could face in its attempt to enter the Kenyan market; andd) identify and analyse the various foreign entry strategy options available to Unique Quality.

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 1: Accounting and finance.

Case can be taught at the undergraduate or postgraduate level, including executive Master of Business Administration programs.

This case is intended for courses in strategic management, entrepreneurship and innovation at the undergraduate or postgraduate level.

The case is about challenges faced by Linda Portnoff, the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Riteband, a Sweden-based fintech startup. In March 2020, Portnoff was conducting beta testing of Riteband’s app, which experts considered the world’s first stock exchange for music trading. After completing a PhD, Portnoff who was working as a Research Analyst, left her job to pursue entrepreneurship. Through Riteband, Portnoff helped to resolve pain points of artists who were forced to give the copyright of their music tracks or albums to distributors, in lieu of funds or promotional campaigns that distributors arranged for them. Portnoff invested in developing a patent-pending machine learning-based algorithm that based on several parameters could predict the likelihood of a music track or an album to become a success. Based on this prediction and royalty that artists were interested in sharing with fans, shares were issued to investors, who were also fans of the artists. As Portnoff identified an innovative business opportunity to trade music on a stock exchange based on Riteband’s machine learning algorithm, competition in Riteband’s strategic group was also becoming intense. Consequently, Portnoff was facing challenges of establishing competitive advantage of Riteband. Furthermore, as women in general faced challenges in raising funds for their startups, and even though Portnoff obtained some funding for Riteband, but overall, funding was a challenge for her as well. Moreover, as machine learning was a technical aspect for artists and potential investors, Portnoff also faced challenges to monetize on its machine learning algorithm.

By the end of the case study discussion, students should be able to: understand the principles of cross-industry innovation and explain the creation of new business opportunities based on cross-industry innovation; differentiate between direct and indirect competitors through strategic group analysis and further critically analyze the competitive advantage of business over other direct competitors; determine ways of reducing gender biases in venture capital funding; describe how machine learning works and further formulate ways to monetize a business through machine learning; and demonstrate the application of the value proposition canvas and business model canvas.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship; CSS 11: Strategy.

This case was successfully taught in a second-year MBA marketing course on the science of behavior change. It would be suitable for first-year MBA and executive education programs. The material would work well on courses on women in business, women as leaders and women in data science. The female protagonist creates a tech platform and uses a data-driven model.

Marketing – it was used in a module around leveraging existing insights and creating new ones in marketing strategies. The course is structured around a “pathway to behavior change” framework. This case focuses on the analysis segment of the model, introduces targeted behavioral challenge(s) and lends itself to identifying consumer insights, biases and behaviors. It uses that analysis to learn about the market, competition and gaps to fill.

This case uses a startup in the retail industry to explore the leverage of behavioral science to enrich a business model and structure a marketing campaign. The material unfolds the testing of an innovative process and use of persuasion to align business practices with human behavior and scale. In addition, it gives the opportunity to discuss how a minimal tech solution could bring in market data and provide a test platform to larger clients.The founder of Rohvi, Sara Whiffen, created a platform that allowed shoppers to buy clothing items from local retail stores, use them and after a few wears, return the items for partial store credit. The business model was based on Whiffen’s experience in the automobile industry with used cars. Following her first few years in the business, Whiffen had to make some decisions around engaging clients on two sides – retailers and consumers. How can an innovative startup leverage behavioral science to persuade multiple stakeholders?

• Learn marketing concepts in material and a tech platform featuring a female protagonist and team; • practice evaluating a product and capturing value using behavioral science; • understand consumer/business biases and practice forming and delivering a persuasive message; • learn to leverage and create new insights to aid behavior change in business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) contexts; • analyze behavioral insights to identify new opportunities in a competitive marketplace; • unfold a framework to explore consumer motivation in recommerce; and • explore the use of experimentation in changing consumer behavior and improving 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.

Females need to be represented in core business education curriculum such as data analysis in addition to classes focused on social equity and business. This all female executive team pursued an innovative process built on a technology platform using a data-driven model to gain enterprise clients. The material offers an opportunity to explore sustainability.

CSS 8: Marketing

Applicable to both undergraduate and graduate courses in managing technology or sustainability.

Technology strategy.

Business Model evaluation.

Sustainable technologies.

In this case study, gas and electric utility holding company Southern Company has embarked on an ambitious experiment to learn more about energy usage at a household level, as well as community scale microgrids. Every minute, 62 homes in Reynolds Landing upload appliance and electrical outlet level data to Southern Company. How can Southern Company use this vast amount of data to promote energy efficiency? Are microgrids a key to creating a more sustainable and resilient energy future? At a higher level, how can microgrids impact or change traditional power generation business models like those used by Southern Company?

1. To explore why companies develop technologies that are counter to current business models.

2. To understand how new technology can lead to new business models for existing businesses.

3. To understand the drivers of company led R&D.

4. To discuss “technology push” applications. Where technology is developed and then a market or markets are sought.

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

Two parts here. The first is looking at sustainable energy solutions such as solar farms and micro-grids. The second is this case challenges students to ask how this research helps the 45% of consumers making less than $40,000/yr.

CSS 11: Strategy.