Case studies

The case is meant as a way for students to develop ideas related to the challenges facing environmental eco-friendly social enterprises that sell their products in a country like Egypt where consumers are way behind considering the value of their products. In response to these challenges, students learn to evaluate the company status quo by analyzing its weaknesses, strengths and opportunities to grow and expand geographically to a new market. Students also learn about the growth expansion strategies and internationalization modes, options and associated barriers. Accordingly, they can plan the marketing strategies associated with entering this new market for up-cycled products. Objective 1: Analyze the international geographical growth alternative for an enterprise that improves its scalability applying weaknesses, strengths, threats and opportunities analysis. Objective 2: Propose a strategic plan for growth and scalability. Objective 3: Discuss the various modes of doing business in foreign countries. Recommend an internationalization mode for a social enterprise to explore in a new market. Objective 4: Assess the possible barriers associated with internationalization modes and how to overcome them. Objective 5: Propose marketing strategies for an eco-friendly enterprise to enhance its efficiency and effectiveness in the international host market. Other topics that might be discussed in this case include consumer behavior toward environmentally friendly products. Pricing challenges faced by ecologically friendly firms in developing countries.

Rania and Yara were inspired by Germany’s approach to waste reduction, particularly plastic bags. In 2017, after winning several competitions and awards, Up-Fuse was officially established as a social enterprise. The entrepreneurs faced great challenges selling sustainable products made of plastic waste to Egyptian consumers. Egyptian consumers were not fully aware of the value of eco-friendly products which presented a great challenge for Up-Fuse to grow and sell their products in Egypt. After shifting its pricing strategy and expanding beyond the local recycled product markets, Up-Fuse further faced fierce competition from well-established local and international brands with larger market shares. Thus, most of Up-Fuse’s sales were generated from expats and foreigners. In response to local obstacles and limitations, Rania began to consider targeting international markets. Rania thought it was the opportune time to drive growth through geographic expansion. After all, in 2020, Up-Fuse had some minor success when the co-founders experimented with exporting their products to the US market. Rania’s co-founder Yara, on the other hand, felt that the enterprise was not yet ready to enter a new market and it would be wiser to emphasize growth in the local Egyptian market. The co-founders were torn between two growth strategies. On one hand, they faced intense local competition for their products. On the other, expanding by entering a new market came with many challenges. Which growth strategy should Up-Fuse adopt? How could Up-Fuse determine which market to penetrate? What were the possible scalability challenges they faced by entering a new market? How could Up-Fuse reach and increase their international customer base abroad? What was the best marketing strategy for their products?

This case would be appropriate for graduate students enrolled in marketing, consumer behavior, international marketing, international business and social entrepreneurship courses. This case is written at a graduate level and would also be appropriate for use in customized or short programs.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 5: International Business.

The sub field of academia that the case is designed to teach is small business development, entrepreneurship or women in business.

This case is appropriate for graduate and post-graduate, MBA and executive education students focusing on entrepreneurship, small business development or women in business.

This real-life case is based on interviews that took place with Kate Rogan, the co-founder of Love Books, and other stakeholders associated with the small bookselling business that is based in the suburb of Melville in Johannesburg. It describes how Rogan’s past influenced how she saw and was open to the opportunity; and how, through passion, commitment, dedication and stakeholder management, she created a business that brought meaning to her and others’ lives. Rogan’s vast experience in editing, publishing and radio influenced how she evaluated the bookstore opportunity. For the past 11 years, she focused on building a loyal customer base through knowing her customers, staying on top of current industry and market trends and constantly thinking about how she could add value through minimal financial outlay. COVID-19 further complicated her thinking about how to traditionally market and sell books to her client base. As the case concludes, Rogan wonders how to build upon the foundations of her successful bookshop and grow profitability while remaining true to her and the business’s values.

The case allows students to consider the key enablers for assessing entrepreneurial opportunities and drivers of small business growth. Following discussion and analysis of the case, students should be able to: explore how cognitive dynamics affect an entrepreneur’s evaluation of opportunities; analyze the case against the 4Cs (continuity, community, connection and command) of competitive business advantage; evaluate building blocks for sustainable business profitability; and assess and recommend different learnings for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

Rendering digital services have taken centerstage in the current ICT for development discourse. E-Government services are mostly under this discourse with the aim to provide citizen centric services in the public domain. Business and development organizations alike are also investing in developing their own digital infrastructure for rendering services to its stakeholders. This case describes scenario in which a cooperative organization wishes to use digital infrastructure and provide digital services to its farmer members. The cooperative continued investing in ICT since the last couple of decades and constantly upgraded it to ease the transaction and bring efficiency and reduce information asymmetry. This had greatly benefitted the members. However, the cooperative is aware that its communication network built on the wireless medium has its own limitations in introducing new services and integrating its databases and applications. The cooperative took note of “Digital India (DI)” initiatives to provide digital services to rural areas and build an ecosystem to empower the citizens in its governance set up. This DI policy has implicit provisions of better networking protocols with improved bandwidth. The organization has a dilemma to continue with investing its own resources or explore possibility of piggybacking on the DI initiative. The cooperative wished to examine the total cost of ownership in either case and assess the feasibility of converging with the infrastructure created by the government.

The Government Information Technology Policies are increasingly favouring citizens and in favour of shared infrastructure and services. It is worth the examination to evaluate strategies to deploy IT infrastructure and services with optimized cost and better returns in an enterprise. This is far more important for a social enterprise like AMALSAD cooperative (user-owned firm) that has deployed its own IT infrastructure and ITeS. AMALSAD cooperative deployed its IT assets long back and in the meanwhile, the Government policy is in favour of providing services over the internet.

The case serves to help students to understand the theoretical concept of Enterprise information systems infrastructure and services. It brings to the students understanding: the drivers of IT infrastructure to provide digital services; challenges that would make the social enterprise (in this case user-owned firm) to understand the opportunities and challenges of deploying the right digital infrastructure and get services on demand. The case presents the scenarios for the students to deliberate and find answers to the right approach for estimating the total cost of ownership (TCO).

The case situation presents a scenario for digital government services. Most of the customer-facing enterprises including social enterprises are also providing digital services. It is important that such services converge at an optimized TCO.

Masters in Business Administration with a concentration in Information Systems.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to structure the impact investing phenomenon and distinguish it from traditional investing or philanthropy, including the motivation of investors in impact investing projects; to analyse stakeholders in impact investing projects according to four main categories; to structure the implementation model of the theory of change in the context of impact investing; to build managerial decisions concerning the development of impact investing projects in crisis situations.

The case describes the development path of the Promprylad.Renovation project from its concept to the critical moment at the end of 2018. Yuriy Fyliuk – the case protagonist, acts as the main ideologist and leader of the project, the essence of which is the establishment of an innovation centre on the area of the old Promprylad plant in Ivano-Frankivsk. Impact investing was selected as the main project development tool, as it allows for attracting investors who share the aspiration for positive change of the city and potential financial benefit. The project is implemented in several stages as follows: partner involvement (Insha Osvita, MitOst, Pact Ukraine and LvBS), vision finalisation and research (together with Stanford Research Institute, Zotov & Co, FORMA Architects, Moris Group, etc.), the launch of the pilot floor (attracting more than $683,000 from allocated grants and more than $590,000 of private investments). Open equity crowdfunding and the purchase of the entire plant, with its subsequent renovation, should be the next stage. As of 2017, agreements have been reached to pay fully for the purchase of the plant by the end of 2019. After a successful pilot and lengthy negotiations, it was agreed that $1,000,000 should be paid by the end of 2018 and $2,000,000 by the end of 2019 to complete the buyout. However, as of the end of 2018, martial law was proclaimed in Ukraine. Hence, considering the risks, a major US investor refuses to contribute. The main dilemma is either to find a suitable solution to complete the buyout of the plant or to stop the project.

This case can be used in the master’s programmes of business schools (MBA, Executive MBA, Entrepreneurship, etc.), as well as in training programmes for public and state sector managers. The case study will be particularly useful for mixed groups with representatives from different sectors of the economy. This case study might be taught in the following disciplines: social entrepreneurship, social investing, leadership and crisis management. The subject of impact investing allows recognition of the benefits of combined cross-sectoral efforts over joint projects.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management science.

The case, while acknowledging the difficulty of managing a family business in view of the accompanying human issues, emphasizes that sound business practices and procedures, and clarity with regard to the goal, remain the key; a firm is a complex, interconnected system and management needs a systems viewpoint; and technology can only support underlying business processes if there is clarity with respect to these.

SomPack had survived low-cost Asian competition starting the mid-1990s, a revolt by some extended family to try and bring it down with the help of a competitor, the Turkish banking crisis of 2001, and the global economic crisis of 2008 all the while watching its suppliers, competitors and customers collapse. A focus on cost-cutting and internal discipline by the successor, who had been promoted to CEO in 2004, had exacerbated internal discontent somewhat and had led to issues with production planning, but everyone understood that times were tough. Several large customers who had left were asked to return because the alternatives had been worse. By 2012, SomPack was considering expansion into new products in collaboration with its international partners. Then one day, in July 2013, it suddenly collapsed. Could the entire approach have been wrong? What should management have done instead?

Undergraduate, graduate business management.

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CSS 7: Management Science.

Upon completion of the case discussion, students will be able to: identify the enablers of a mental skills coaching process and the broad outcomes as a result of a coaching intervention; understand the contributing factors towards creating greater psychological safety in a team and the impact this has on team performance; and identify positive leadership strategies to create an environment in which meaningful work and goal achievement increase engagement.

Leanne Redding was the mental skills coach for Maccabi, a professional league soccer club in Johannesburg, South Africa. Redding had worked with the club’s players using mental techniques, the ultimate aim being to improve performance. Redding’s work was based on the premise of trust, lived values, self-respect and reflection. She believed that a strengths-based approach grounded in sports psychology and aligned with mental contrasting enabled resilience. Her process of holding individual and team sessions helped with sustaining motivation, overcoming limiting fears and encouraging focus on the greater good of the team. The result was Maccabi’s promotion to the professional league of soccer. However, not all of her broad stakeholder group had bought into the value of sports psychology coaching. The case explores Redding’s process and her belief of the importance and buy-in from all players of the team values which should inform behaviour. The case concludes with Redding contemplating what she should do to gain greater acceptance from the rest of the coaching staff for her work.

This case can be used in graduate and postgraduate level courses such as an MBA, in management development programmes or in short executive education courses focusing on organisational behaviour, leadership and human capital development and sports management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The learning outcomes are as follows: How to establish credibility of data sources; measurement scales of data; the importance of descriptive statistics and generating the following based on the type of data: mean, median and standard deviation; graphical methods; and test for differences: t-test and analysis of variance.

The case is set during the COVID-19 pandemic and the South African Government’s response to the pandemic. A brief timeline is provided as part of the introduction to the case study, with the following being a timeline of the events: 14 March 2020, 114 South African citizens were repatriated from Wuhan the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak; 15 March 2020, South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa declares a National State of Disaster, and this includes various measures to protect against the spread of COVID-19, while the health-care system is geared up to deal with the pandemic. Among the measures implemented, travel bans from high-risk countries and closing of air-traffic, closing of land ports and banning of gatherings of more than 100 people; 23 March 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a national lockdown beginning on 27 March 2020 for three weeks; 9 April 2020, President Ramaphosa extends the national lockdown by a further two weeks. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had commended South Africa on the swift action taken to curb the spread of the virus. Individuals and organisational leaders are grappling to make sense of the spread of the virus, and the barrage of the information that is being communicated through multiple channels, formal and informal. To make sense of the information, the case is premised on getting access to the raw data and conducting the analysis based on the publicly available data. The central requirement of the case is to compare the number of positive cases per million, based on the population data contained in the data set, of South Africa to a comparable country.

Post-graduate students learning statistics as part of a degree programme. The case assumes no prior statistics knowledge and therefore is aimed at teaching the importance of the basics of statistical analysis and then progressing to tests for differences.

CSS 7: Management Science

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

The learning outcome is to understand the difference between correlation and causation.

The case is set during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, globally a search for effective treatments were underway. An initial forerunner that was being considered was Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), given its effectiveness in the treatment of tuberculosis and other pulmonary-related infections. While there were a lack of randomised controlled trials, initial data from publicly related secondary data sources indicated that, in countries with BCG inoculation policies, the severity of the spread and mortality of COVID-19 was muted. The case is centered around the available information on BCG and COVID-19.

Post-graduate students learning statistics as part of a degree programme. The case assumes no prior statistics knowledge and therefore is aimed at teaching the difference between correlation and causation.

CSS 7: Management Science

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

The case can be used in strategic management, international business or ethics courses. In strategic management courses, students will be able to identify political relationships as sources of a firm’s competitive advantage. Students will also understand the role of ethics in the firm’s competitive advantage. In international business courses, the students will be able to analyze the role that corruption and bribery play in the analysis of a country’s institutions. Students will also understand how corruption in a host country influences a firms’ decision to internationalize. Finally, students will understand the challenges that firms face when serving customers in other countries. In ethics courses, students will understand the nature of state/business corruption, i.e. the abuse of public office for private gain and the concept of state capture, i.e. managers controlling the political system for their advantage. Students will be able to analyze the decision of whether to collaborate with unethical partners or customers.

Bell Pottinger Private (BPP) was a British public relations (PR) firm with a successful but questionable reputation of helping famous critical figures and despots improve their public image. In 2016, Lord Tim Bell and the other leaders of BPP were asked to create a PR campaign for the Gupta family. The Guptas were a group of businessmen headed by three brothers who migrated from India to South Africa in the early 1990s. By the 2010s, they had built a business empire allegedly thanks to a corrupt relationship with the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma and his family. The press and prosecutors were increasing their investigations on these relations. The case has two parts, which address two separate challenges and can be taught as standalone cases or in a sequence in two sessions.

MBA and Executive Education.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International business.

The learning outcomes are as follows: educate the students about the challenges in the development sector in general and in work of organizations working for women empowerment in particular; understand the overall concept of women empowerment vis-à-vis social entrepreneurship; explain the importance of technology in entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and development sector especially in marginalized communities in developing countries; and learn operational-level resource management in a resource-constrained setting of a non-profit sector.

Kaarvan Crafts Foundation (referred to as Kaarvan henceforth) worked for women empowerment in Pakistan with a focus on creating economic opportunities for rural women entrepreneurs. The case shares different initiatives by Kaarvan for creating opportunities for economic empowerment of rural women entrepreneurs. The main focus of the case is a program “Digitize to Equalize” in which Kaarvan offered digital literacy training to rural women entrepreneurs. The program involved developing an ecommerce platform where rural women entrepreneurs could sell their handicrafts and other products. A comprehensive training activity was designed as part of the program to facilitate trainees to sell their products on a purpose-built website. The training covered different activities ranging from using smartphones, basic product photography to order handling. Even in the initial phase, the challenges were somewhat unexpected for the team as they grappled with diversity of learning among the trainees. Few trainee women were able to learn the skills quickly and requested their trainers from Kaarvan to train them on widely popular skills of social media marketing. At the same time, other trainees were struggling with basic skills and needed more time to get basics right. Because the program had limited resources, Kaarvan’s management found themselves in a fix. The mission-oriented organization wanted to ensure the best possible opportunities for the trainees but the resources did not permit to create separate cohorts for different training areas.

In terms of complexity, this case study is suited for business students enrolled in senior undergraduate, graduate programs and executive MBA programs.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.