Case studies

On completion of this case study, students will be able to understand collaboration and synergy between farmers and organisations through value creation, like fundraising, based on the comprehension of the resource-based theory; understand the overview and concept of the value chain and supply chain management in the agribusiness to reduce costs of inventories; understand the concept of segmentation and positioning to increase revenue for organisations by leveraging existing resources – human and financial; and understand the branding strategy to create a sustainable competitive advantage for Suguna Foods.

Suguna was started by two brothers, B. Soundararajan and G.B. Sundararajan, to help other farmers. Suguna, with just 200 broilers in 1984, grew to be the number 1 poultry company across India. Soundararajan was a pioneer and innovator who started “contract farming” in India in 1991. This model helped both the farmers and the company to became successful. The farmers always struggled to pay the cost of feed and other materials, as credit was not readily and easily available from financial institutions. Suguna helped farmers by providing feed, medicines, etc., free of cost in return for the good rearing of chickens. Because of the success of this venture, they decided to continue with it. Today, Suguna is a successful company that sells chicken, eggs and processed meat. They modernised the retail chain to supply consumers with fresh, healthy and hygienic meat. Suguna’s vision was to “Energize rural India” by helping farmers succeed. They helped over 40,000 farmers from 15,000+ villages in 18+ Indian states. Although the growth helped both farmers and Suguna, the increased cost of raw materials for Suguna and increased input costs/power costs for farmers had to be tackled on a war footing so that both could have good income despite the increased inflation. Moreover, the retail price of live chicken was more or less stagnant in the past five years, especially after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This case can be used as the basis for a 90-min class discussion. This case study is suitable for use in an master of business administration course module or in an executive education program on developing an understanding of value creation in the business model in a rural market and also how the supply chain works. This case study can also be used to teach pricing, segmentation in marketing and supply chain perspectives and decision-making skills.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS8: Marketing.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows: identify key elements of luxury branding in the context of a new residential real estate brand; select target segment/s and outline the sales pitch for a luxury residential real estate brand; plot the pre-sales stage of the customer journey path (CJP) for a luxury residential real estate brand; and plan a pre-sales customer engagement strategy for a luxury residential real estate brand.

This case enumerates Aldeola de Siolim, Goa’s (ASG) pre-sales promotional challenges. ASG was an upcoming luxury residential property in Goa, India. Venky Infar – the developer of ASG – a family-owned civil construction firm – wanted to diversify into Goa’s vibrant luxury housing market. In India’s housing market, the success of a project often depends on the “pre-sales,” i.e. attracting target customers and maximizing the sales before the construction. V. Rama Rao, the project manager’s task, was challenging because ASG and Venky were new entrants in a mature and competitive market. However, Rao was determined to capture a slice of this lucrative market. The case discusses the following four points to help the students understand the marketing challenges and decision context. First, ASG’s key attractions, second, overview of the Indian real estate market, third, characteristics of Goa’s luxury home market and finally, Customer Journey Path for residential real estate purchase. The case elaborates on the nuances of strategic dilemmas and and presents competitors' practices and emerging consumer trends.

The case will help students analyze and formulate a pre-sales promotional plan for a luxury real estate product. It is suitable for marketing elective courses, e.g. branding, sales management and luxury management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing

After completion of the case study, students will be able to understand the concept of clustering and identify clusters for improving capacity utilization, analyse transport routes to optimize logistics resources, analyse the impact of a full truckload on resource optimization, evaluate unused capacity and ascertain the impact of reverse milk run to reduce the same and apply clustering and reverse milk run to optimize the logistics resources.

The case study is about a freight forwarding company that offered end-to-end logistics solutions for the exporters based in India. Within a short time span, the company became one of the sought-after service providers for its clients. However, when the company planned to expand its business by expanding its client base, the efficiencies reduced and hurt the profitability of the company. It was all excellent with the limited number of clients, but as the number of distantly located clients surged, the operating costs increased. Trucks were running with partial loads, thus reducing efficiency. The rate of increase in cost surpassed the rate of revenue every time. The cost per mile of transportation was on the rise. The surging fuel prices were adding to the heat. In spite of being one of the first choices for clients, the company could not generate good profit margins. If they chose to increase prices, the company would have lost customers to the cheaper unorganized players in the market. It was time to choose between growth and survival. The company could not sustain itself without devising a mechanism to reduce costs. The company would not have sustained itself without devising a mechanism to reduce costs. To sustain in the business, the company had to device a mechanism to reduce costs. Whether to continue operating the conventional way or to transform? Was there a logistics strategy that would have improved transportation efficiency and reduced the costs for the company?

The case study is suitable for teaching post-graduate management courses in operations and logistics, supply chain management and supply chain analytics, as well as entrepreneurship-related courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 9: Operations and logistics.

This case study will allow students to learn about effective segmentation and how to choose an appropriate segment, analyse the attractiveness of the target market by using five-forces analysis and explore business growth alternatives by using Ansoff’s growth matrix.

The Left-Out Store was an online shop that sold products exclusively for left-handers. Maitri Wadher, the proprietor of the store, being a left-handed person and driven by her childhood experiences, started the store to help left-handed people find products for their use. She started the online-only store in September 2018, and in October 2022, she found that, despite the COVID-19 pandemic having abated, her store had not grown as expected. How, then, should she push for growth? Was the niche segment substantial enough? Was her target market attractive? Should she penetrate the market or go for market development? What should she do?

PG level (MBA/PGDM).

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Supply Chain Management, Technology, Procurement, Supply Chain Finance

The key learning objectives are as follows: to gain critical insights into e-commerce supply chains of fashion garments; understand the importance of digitization to manage the risks due to supply chain disruptions; evaluate the role of digitization to improve supply chain performance; understand the importance of supply chain finance in maintaining a healthy buyer–supplier relationship; and appreciate the role of supply chain digitization to transform a regional supply chain into a global supply chain.

This case highlights the challenges faced by fashion garments industry due to fragmented nature of their supply chains, where the manufacturing base was in the east and most of the consumers in the west. Digitization can create a bridge to integrate these supply chains to drive out their inefficiency, fragility and vulnerability to disruptions.

The case could be discussed in 90 min of an Operations Management, Supply Chain Management and Technology Management class at MBA or Executive MBA level.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics.

To understand a firm’s service concept and process; to explain the service design that differentiates itself by making trade-offs in operations and service offering; to identify the importance of deliberately designed interrelated systems and resources to achieve growth in services and to evaluate the fit of new design elements in the service offering.

Ajay Takeaway Foods LLP (Ajay Foods) is a food venture founded by Mr Jaideep Solanki and Mr Ajay Solanki and operates as a chain of quick service restaurants with a simple mission to sell food that is good, affordable and accessible to all. Ajay Foods serves only pure vegetarian and limited variants of burger, pizza and cold coffee. Ajay Foods rolled out 75 stores in just 18 months during the COVID 19 pandemic. Ajay Foods’ founders were contemplating on expanding menu. There was growing demand for food items such as samosa, wraps, sandwiches and French fries. One of the founders got into dilemma: How many items? and Which item(s) to add to the menu?

This case can be used at post-graduate level to teach basic frameworks of service concept and design. The case covers a range of topics such as service processes, service elements and product offerings in a service setting. It can be used effectively with MBAs and Hospitality Management program in courses that focus on Service Management, Service Operations or Service Marketing Strategy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics.

The purpose of this paper is to understand a new restaurant venture's target segment and create a consumer profile for the new restaurant; to design a positioning statement for the new restaurant; to appraise the marketing strategy and suggest improvements in the marketing mix of a new restaurant venture in the new normal; to discuss the augmentation of services by a new restaurant to compete effectively in the market; and to identify and discuss the vital marketing steps for opening a restaurant in the new normal.

Kelvin, an ambitious and budding restaurateur, had high aspirations with great plans. V café was his first running venture. The income from V café was not enough to improve his social position. He wanted to open a new restaurant (Haikou) and earn more. Kelvin was well aware of COVID-19's current condition and its severe implications for the restaurant business. He did not have any experience in marketing a restaurant. So he was puzzled about understanding the target segment, positioning and marketing mix of the proposed restaurant in the new normal.

The case will cater to business management students pursuing a postgraduate management program. The case can be applied in Marketing Management, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality Management and Services Marketing courses. The prerequisite for this case is a basic understanding of marketing concepts.

Supplementary materials teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing

The case is intended to assist students to:1. understand the customer’s purchase decision with reference to channel values;2. evaluate and assess the channel strategy using conventional and digital channels; and3. design the channel strategy for start-ups in emerging markets.

The subject area for this teaching case was marketing management. The teaching case could be used for the undergraduation and graduation levels of students. The case was about the marketing channel strategy of a small start-up boutique called Chirmi in India, with the theory of consumption values explained. In this case, primary data was taken directly from Chirmi, whereas secondary data for market analysis was taken from various reports, articles and other sources. Because the owner provided the records and documentation, the account was therefore substantiated by the collected first-hand information. The case uses quantitative methods to make students understand the channel arithmetic and consumption values of all the channels used by Chirmi.

In the course of core marketing classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels, this case may be used. The case addresses the channel structure, including wholesaling, retailing and e-commerce. Distribution channel management, the theory of consumption values and e-commerce marketing management are explained. Evaluation of channel strategy, design, implementation and management is emphasized.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 8: Marketing.

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.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:▪ to analyze service attributes that influence customers’ decisions to purchase services;▪ to identify the factors that influence customers’ perceptions of service quality;▪ to identify the “moments of truth” that the service provider (IndiGo) would need to monitor and manage through the service encounter; and▪ to use the Servuction model to analyze the various elements of the service process.

In May 2022, the chief executive officer of IndiGo Airlines - India’s largest passenger airline by market share, Ronojoy Dutta, faced flak over the airline staff's handling of a specially abled child travelling with his parents on IndiGo Airlines. The staff member, reacting to the tantrums of the disturbed child, had refused to allow the boy and his parents to board the flight. He had cited the “risk to other passengers” from the boy as the reason for such a refusal (Biswas, 2022). In spite of the boy’s parents being supported by their fellow passengers, the IndiGo staff member refused to relent, and the flight took off without the trio (Firstpost, 2022). The incident goes viral when a fellow flyer shares a Facebook post describing it first-hand and provokes widespread condemnation of the nation's “preferred airline” (IndiGo, 2023) by citizens and politicians on various social media platforms besides Facebook (Gupta, 2022). Dutta initially supports his employee even as he issues a statement expressing his regret at the “unfortunate incident” (Business Standard, 2022a). The regulatory body for aviation in India, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, imposes a fine of INR 5 lakh on IndiGo for denying boarding to a specially abled child (Indian Express, 2022). How could an incident like this impact the perception of IndiGo’s service quality? How could Dutta better ensure that IndiGo managed the various touch points with the customer over the entire service encounter – the “moments of truth”? How could he prevent such a fiasco in the future, ensuring that IndiGo remains India’s “preferred airline”?

This case is intended to be taught in an undergraduate or MBA marketing course in a module on service marketing. The case can also form a 90-min module in a service marketing course within an advanced management or executive education program.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CCS 8: Marketing.