Case studies

The learning outcomes of this study are to gain an understanding of the banking regulations and their impact on banking performance, to understand the intermediation role of banks by channelizing depositors’ savings and providing loans to borrowers, to explain an impact of a recent regulatory change in the Indian banking that directly impacts their financial performance, to critically evaluate the different financial ratios to analyze the performance of a bank and to build a DuPont analysis framework for banks.

The case serves as a primer on banking regulations in India and provides insights into banking performance. Banking regulations play an important role in maintaining financial stability, specifically in emerging economies like India. The protagonist of the case is Salil Kumar who presented his internship project to the review committee of Stock Investment Company on April 16, 2021. However, he had to rework and present his final project within seven days on the basis of the feedback received from the committee. Kumar faced the dilemma of bringing together a comparative study across two banks, namely, Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI Bank) and State Bank of India (SBI) and building a DuPont framework covering the different aspects of banking performance. The case exemplifies the intricate regulatory landscape in India within which banks operate and highlights the recent alterations introduced by the Reserve Bank of India. For instance, the framework for dealing with domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) was introduced in 2014 and subsequently adopted in August 2015. The D-SIB framework provides inherent guarantee to large banks such as ICICI Bank and SBI. This ensures government backup in the event of any failure, thereby securing financial stability. The case study is suitable for banking and financial accounting courses taught in postgraduate management programs. Once the case is studied, the students are expected to understand the basics of banking, regulations, impact of regulations on banking performance and financial measures.

The case provides valuable insights into the intricate dynamics of the banking industry, offering a critical perspective for analysis. A well-structured teaching note would serve as a valuable tool for instructors, allowing them to facilitate engaging classroom discussions and effectively guide students toward achieving the desired teaching objectives.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

Case explains how female leaders are more concerned about social issues the industry in which they operate could resolve. Obo-Nia, CEO of Vodafone Ghana, showed concern for resolving the digital divide in Africa and offered a collaborative solution. The case also suggests how female CEOs invest in strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) that could create a competitive advantage for firms. The case also discusses gender diversity issues in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) field and how Vodafone Ghana’s CEO tried to enhance gender diversity in the telecommunication sector and Vodafone. Obo-Nai did not emphasize gender diversity from a CSR perspective but believed in a business case for gender diversity, as an increase in participation of women in the STEM workforce could help the telecommunication sector innovate faster and resolve the digital divide challenge while also empowering women working from the informal sector.

What is the significance of a digital divide and the societal role of the telecommunication sector; Why female CEOs are more concerned about CSR and how CSR makes not charity but business case; Why female CEOs are more inclined toward collaborative strategies and how stakeholders are involved in collaborative strategies for reducing the digital divide; Exploring various strategies for enhancing gender diversity in the STEM field and the significance of gender diversity in the STEM field.

The case is about the challenges faced by Patricia Obo-Nai, the first female CEO of Vodafone Ghana, to bridge the digital divide in Africa while doing so in a profitable manner. Obo-Nai was an engineer by profession and won several awards as she rose to the post of CEO in Vodafone Ghana in 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she took several corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, such as making internet service freely available in certain schools and universities so that education could continue. Obo-Nai also emphasized gender diversity within Vodafone and urged other telecommunication players to focus on gender diversity from a social responsibility perspective because it was essential for innovation. Under Obo-Nai’s leadership, Vodafone itself launched several new products. She called for a multistakeholder collaborative approach to bridge the digital divide and to make 4G internet affordable in Africa. Obo-Nai collaborated with competitors like MTN Ghana to enhance Vodafone Ghana’s roaming services.

This case is intended for undergraduate or graduate-level business and management courses, especially international business and society, CSR and leadership courses. Graduate students in public policy may also find the case compelling.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS5: International Business; CCS10: Public Sector Management

The purpose of this study is to make students understand the logic behind and implications of the “Socio-Technical Imbrication Framework” that can help them understand the importance of aligning workforce motivation and capabilities with the modern technology deployed in the organization. Moreover, students will understand the essentiality and criticality of customer satisfaction for the organization.

The technical services operations team at Cotton Web Limited formerly relied on JS Node, e-coordination system, to address customer complaints. There were many bugs in that system as it did not carry along the complaint tracking protocol, was slow in response, fundamentally structured upon manual complaint record keeping that resulted in piling up un-resolved complaints for a longer period of time. The team under the leadership of Mr. Hasan Ali, a competent expert working as GM Research and Data Analytics, undertook detailed analysis of recurring glitches in this system and replaced it with a novel Web-based automated complaint management system at Cotton Web Limited. This entire diagnosis and intervention process took almost three months till completion. The case is written for use in courses in the curriculum of BBA, BBIS, BSIT and BSCS programs at undergraduate level. It is most suitable for the courses in leadership, change management, business process reengineering, soft engineering, team building and business communication.

The case is suitable for teaching at Undergraduate level to the students of BBIS, BBA, BSCS and BSIT students in the last year of their degree programs. Teaching faculty can use case-based methodology for student learning by putting them into a real-life situation faced by an organization and letting them think critically and identify following points for further discussion and clarity: individual or in groups; problem identification through discussion; the stakeholders involved in the company’s situation through presentation or one-pager presentation; case analysis with reaching best solution to prevailing issue at hand through group discussion; reaching a decision or solution with reasonable logic and justification through group discussions; and create further dilemma on the basis of questions unanswered within this case story.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The case has the following learning objectives:

1. understand the various types of comparisons that are possible between groups over time and across space;

2. evaluate a policy intervention using relevant data and different methods; and

3. understand the meaning of the phrase “controlling for other relevant factors” in regression and non-regression contexts.

The difference-in-differences (DID) approach is a useful tool for making meaningful comparisons. This case tries to provide a non-technical introduction to the approach using a basic comparison of crime rates among districts in Punjab (Pakistan's largest province). Being the most populous region of the country, Punjab faces many governance challenges, and street crime is one of them. (Exhibit 5 provides additional information about the geographical and administrative setting used in this case study.) In 2016, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif established the Dolphin (police) Force in different locations to improve urban patrolling and reduce street crime. There were debates about the effectiveness of the Dolphin Force (DF).

Those who are skeptical of DF point to various situations that were handled incorrectly by DF personnel, as well as other administrative and operational problems in the initiative. Optimists believe it is beneficial and want it to be expanded to other districts and regions. The threat of street crime claims many lives and, according to optimists, necessitates the formation of a special force. Whether the huge resources invested in the DF worth their lot or not can be known through sound statistical analysis that can identify the difference in the rate of crime because of the DF. In this instance, the case provides information to answer the following question:

Is there a significant difference in crime rates between areas where the DF is operating and districts where it has not yet been installed?

In quantitative/statistical analysis classes, the case can be used to teach the DID technique to MBA/MS Applied Statistics/Applied Data Analysis students. It can also be used in undergraduate Econometrics classes.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The case aims to understand and analyse the capital structure decisions made by a profit-making, growing organisation which aimed to be India’s premier airline and the market leader. The company that had pursued a high debt policy, to take advantage of the financial leverage that it would get, was now facing problems in an operating environment that proved to be challenging. A decline in operating profit, coupled with high-interest costs and an uncertain environment with cutthroat competition, had caused the company to plunge into losses. Attempts to deleverage by equity infusion were proving to be difficult. The case can be used in MBA, Executive Education and doctoral programmes. The learning objectives of this case are: to analyse the capital structure of the company, to interpret the relationship between financial leverage and risk, to assess the pecking order theory, to analyse the nuances of the aviation sector and the factors influencing the profitability of the companies in the aviation industry, to estimate the risks and the rewards associated with foreign currency loans, to evaluate the magnifying impact of the financial leverage and to propose deleveraging methods like sale and leaseback, debt conversion to equity and devise a revival strategy for the company.

The case discusses the dilemma faced by Naresh Goyal, promoter and chairman of Jet Airways (India) Limited. At the initial stage, Jet Airways, like many other companies in its growth phase, relied on borrowed funds to meet its investment needs. However, over-reliance on borrowed funds with just one equity infusion resulted in a high leverage ratio and an aggressive capital structure. Moreover, the company operated in a sector that was highly regulated, with competition that was cutthroat and a cost structure that was volatile. A high operating risk, coupled with high financial leverage, pushed the company into incurring losses. Having run out of cash, Jet Airways eventually defaulted on loan repayments to its lenders. Facing the eventuality of losing control of the company to lenders or to a strategic investor, Goyal was trying to figure out a way to save the company from insolvency and liquidation. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Goyal to keep Jet Airways, the company he had nurtured like a baby, airborne.

The case can be taught in both online and offline modes of delivery in a 90-minute session. Post-covid, the delivery mode of classes has changed. In online sessions, it may be a challenging task to ensure student participation.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

The learning outcomes are as follows: identify and evaluate the impact of risk factors for health-care organizations during crisis; evaluate the role of different organizational factors in building resilient health-care organizations; define organizational resilience in a health-care context; and apply the effect-strategy-impact resilience framework.

September 2022 found Ranjan Thakur, the Hospital Director at Manipal Hospital, Jaipur (MHJ) reflecting on MHJ’s resilience toward future health-care crises. MHJ was established in the capital city Jaipur of the Indian state of Rajasthan in 2014, as a 225-bed multispecialty unit of the nationally renowned Manipal Health Enterprises Ltd. As the Hospital Director, Thakur had been responsible for navigating his team and the hospital through the multiple health-care related challenges exacerbated by the multiple waves of the Covid-19 pandemic in a large Indian state with a sizable rural and semiurban population. Though Thakur and his team of doctors had worked through the vulnerabilities of their health-care ecosystem, mapping the risks and mitigating the same, Thakur asked himself if they had done enough. He wondered how a health-care institution such as theirs could sustain effective health-care delivery during future crises situations to deliver high-quality health care to the vulnerable communities. Had they effectively mapped MHJ’s vulnerabilities and built resilience into the hospital’s functioning? The backdrop of the case is public health in the state of Rajasthan (Jaipur), and the case is rich in detailing social factors such as behavior issues of patients, doctors and nurses; operational factors such as standardization of treatment and standard operating procedures, availability of resources, clinical concerns; leadership and management of the hospital through the pandemic. This case can be used by instructors to teach organizational resilience building in the health-care context.

Graduate- and executive-level courses in managing change during crisis in health-care context; health-care management/leadership.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:

1) illustrate the project management failures that contributed to the fire accident at Grenfell using a fishbone diagram;

2) identify and classify the power and influence of various stakeholders involved in a brownfield project using a relevant framework; and

3) elaborate the need for following effective stakeholder management processes and project leadership, especially in the context of a refurbishment/renovation project.

On 14th June 2017, the Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, West London, UK, caught fire. The fire raged for 60 h and around 72 people lost their lives. Many criticized the response of the London Fire Brigade (LFB) and their lack of preparedness to respond to such an emergency. There were calls for Dany Cotton, the Chief of LFB, to resign. However, there had been a major cladding-related refurbishment at Grenfell, and subsequent investigations revealed that the use of combustible materials, a lack of compliance with the fire-safety norms and a blatant disregard for resident safety had contributed to the fire. The tragedy was a cumulative outcome of failure on two counts: effective project management and stakeholder management during the process of refurbishment, especially in the context of a low-cost housing project. Given this situation, this case considers whether Dany Cotton should own up to her responsibility and resign from her position. In the process, the case considers Grenfell refurbishment from the theoretical lens of project management in the construction management scenario to understand the factors that could have led to an “avoidable” tragedy.

Postgraduate students of construction management; final year undergraduate engineering students who have a foundational course on project management; and architects.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 2: Built environment.

• After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:• Identify the difference between core competencies and dynamic capabilities and how they make a difference in a crisis towards building an agile organisation.• Evaluate the support through a collaborative, temporary, trans-organisational system to local manufacturers to achieve agility and sustainability.• Realise the importance of clear expectations exchange and communication between partners to enhance collaboration, even in temporary structures in increasing agility and sustainability.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns created a crisis for South Africa and the President, Cyril Ramaphosa called for urgent collaboration between business, labour and government to meet the demand for locally produced Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and medical devices. The case illustrates this response and collaboration between government, labour and business through a temporary newly formed structure, called Business for South Africa (B4SA). Ross Boyd, Head of the innovation work stream of B4SA which housed the local manufacturing partnership (LMP) was considering his dilemma of how to be agile in sustaining their support to the South African manufacturers even though the LMP was a temporary structure. The local manufacturers had to repurpose their production lines to produce local PPE and medical devices. How could the LMP support the South African manufacturers to sustain their agility in building capabilities during COVID-19? At the same time, Ahmed Dhai, the Group Executive of Operations of Kingsgate Clothing, which was benefiting from the support of the LMP, was reflecting on his leadership in taking decisions to repurpose production and increase capacity during COVID-19. Dhai was considering his dilemma of being agile during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The case features several decisions taken by Kingsgate and offers students the opportunity to evaluate these decisions given the fluctuations in supply and demand of PPE and the leadership that Dhai demonstrated in how he communicated and dealt with his staff during the pandemic. Students could also give recommendations to Ross Boyd and Ahmed Dhai on how they could lead their organisations to be more agile during and beyond COVID-19.

The case study is suitable for MBA or MPhil level on Strategy courses. The case would also find good application in Organisational Behaviour and Leadership courses on Masters level and Executive Education programmes.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to be able to evaluate early warning signs/red flags through financial statement analysis; to be able to analyse company’s credit or debt servicing using a thorough process of fundamental analysis; to be able to analyse and decode the financial health of an organization through different financial tools applicable according to the industry such as default probability and financial ratios; and to be able to synthesize credit rating framework and role of credit rating agencies in the bond market.

In late January 2019, the allegation by an online investigative portal about the misuse of the Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd. (DHFL) money by its promoter for buying asset abroad was the start of the fall of the non-banking finance company giant. This was followed by a series of downgrade by credit rating agencies on its debt and eventual default on its interest payment on 4 June 2019 which upset multiple portfolio investors and the regulators. Investors became sceptical about the regulator’s policy and inefficiencies of credit rating agencies in predicting the default along with asset management houses which were expected to guard investors’ interest. One investor, Shikhar Pachori, decided to scrutinize all hidden information on DHFL to investigate if DHFL crisis arises because of unknown factors which was not in control of management or if it a clear negligence on the part of all involved parties. The case tries to emphasize the aspect of Asset-Liability Management and process of credit analysis while looking for red flags which aids in identifying any stress in company’s financial or any potential default by company.

This case can be used in the advance level of post-graduate finance course or MBA program for elective/specialization courses such as Financial Statement Analysis, Financial Institutions and Market and Fixed Income.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance

Upon completion of the case study discussion, successful students will be able to define and list the steps of time-driven activity-based costing system (TDABC); understand and explain the ideas behind the TDABC; implement the TDABC in customer profitability analysis; draw connections among the cost and profitability analysis; evaluate the importance of better costing techniques in profitability analysis; and make managerial decisions based on TDABC analysis.

Gluten Limited’s financial affairs and operations manager, Fatih, was aware that the company was making very little profit from its operations with its biggest customer. The main reason appeared to be that it delivered its products in bulk to the main warehouses of the customer, which then distributed them to the stores. Fatih believed that products were being sent to stores late, so that their expiration dates passed quickly and they ended up being returned.

The case study documents the past year of Gluten Limited’s delivery operations with one of its biggest customers. It focuses on the effectiveness of its delivery operations and ways to increase profitability by reducing sales returns. The case dilemma involves the choices that Fatih faced following a six-month trial period: either delivering products in bulk to the customer’s main warehouses at lower cost but higher return rates or delivering small amounts directly to stores at higher cost but lower return rates. Fatih needed to decide which mode of customer operations was more profitable and continue that way.

Knowing the importance of determining costs properly in profitability analysis, Fatih made the cost calculations using the TDABC system.

This case was written for use in Cost Accounting and Managerial Accounting classes at the undergraduate level. The focus of the case aligns well with discussions of customer profitability analysis, cost reductions, eliminating non-value-added activities, and profitability of operations. Instructors seeking to emphasize the most suitable costing methods for customer profitability analysis could assign this case.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science