Case studies

The case study’s primary learning objectives are to develop a number of professional competencies, such as personal ethics and citizenship, decision-making acumen and business acumen. Students deal with a novel situation, underpinned by four Sustainable Development Goals (reduced poverty, quality education, decent work and economic growth, and reduced inequalities) and are required to consider a broad range of historical and cultural nuances in a resource-constrained environment, to address the dilemma at hand.

This case study tracks the efforts of a non-profit company called Just Grace, which was established in 2012 in Cape Town. Just Grace’s mission is to uplift the Langa community, an underprivileged urban suburb in Cape Town, via educational, career development and social programmes. Just Grace’s programmes have achieved success in Langa. The dilemma now facing Just Grace is whether their existing model is transferable to a rural community in the Eastern Cape in South Africa.

The case study is aimed at both local and international postgraduate students studying an honours or master’s degree in a business-related field such as accounting or an MBA.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Upon completion of the case study, student will be able to discuss valuation of new-age ventures and understand how it is different from the valuation of organisations with a longer history; analyse the considerations (quantitative and qualitative) while evaluating investments in new-age ventures; and develop a framework involving the various dimensions of investment readiness.

The fintech space in India has seen an upsurge of activities since 2016. The growth of Paytm, RazorPay and many such ventures and the drastic improvements in this ecosystem have been significant catalysts for this segment of new-age tech companies. Funding and valuations have seen a sharp increase, especially when businesses worldwide felt the after-effects of the pandemic, with India being home to a large number of unicorns, second only to the USA. Open Financial Technologies Ltd (OPEN TECH) is one such venture that claimed its spot as the 100th unicorn of India within a span of five years since inception. With a strong focus on disrupting the banking sector in India, this neo-bank aspires to be the equivalent of Stripe in India and eventually be a strong competitor in the international market.

Richard O’Neil is an active investor in the fintech space, based out of the UK, and he is currently looking to expand the market by considering investment options. In the process, Richard and his team have identified India as a viable and competitive market, as new venture support and funding are increasingly emphasized through policies such as Startup India, Make in India and many such more to sustain and propel its benefits. As the team was exploring ventures worth investing, Open Financial Technologies caught their attention. However, Richard, given his experience across fields and being a seasoned private equity investor, realised that valuing new-age companies is as much an art as it is a science. Multiple quantitative and qualitative aspects need to be considered while relevance of traditional valuation techniques to put a value on such entrepreneurial ventures is questioned. At this juncture, he finds it crucial to evaluate the investment readiness of OPEN TECH.

This case allows students to understand how valuation of new ventures is different from that of established companies and analyse the crucial factors worth considering while evaluating an investment proposal as a venture capitalist, which eventually helps shape the funding pitch of an entrepreneur in the space.

This case study can be useful for students undertaking graduate- and executive-level courses on business valuation and strategy and entrepreneurship, as well as entrepreneurial finance elective at the undergraduate level. One could use this case in courses on entrepreneurship and innovation, such as an introductory course on entrepreneurial finance and a course on venture capital and private equity. It also allows discussion on fintech and neobanking and the valuation of privately held companies.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

This case aims to introduce students to the social sector financing (internal and external) landscape, and its nuances. It specifically provides material to enable critical evaluation and decision-making around financing a for-profit social enterprise and its associated challenges.

The case highlights the fundraising options available to a social enterprise in an emerging economy like India. EnglishHelper Technologies Private Ltd. (EH) commenced operations in 2011 as a subsidiary of its parent Boston-based company, to provide technology-based learning solutions primarily to the underserved segments of the country’s population. Sanjay Gupta, co-founder and CEO, EH Inc., wanted to explore funding options suitable for the company’s next growth stage. The existing funding sources of equity from its parent company, grants and revenues (mainly from product sales to government schools) had worked well for EH in the initial years of its growth. But its financial performance was being impacted, and, additionally, further scaling up would require sources that could give a much larger quantum of funds and add support to EH’s operations. EH would also need to revisit its revenue model to strengthen its financial sustainability, by drawing lessons from the other prevalent ones in the ed-tech sector and make it more effective. The case encourages students to assess the various funding alternatives, internal and external, for a social sector private company with a for-profit model like EH, to enable it to achieve its scaling-up plans while serving its social mission.

The case is relevant for both undergraduate and postgraduate students and can be used in business administration programs.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to recognize essential considerations for the initial public offerings (IPO) decision, compare different types of fundraising options for startups, evaluate the free pricing regime for IPO pricing, examine the pricing process of IPOs, explore the issue of valuation of IPOs and assess the decision choices of the founder regarding IPO given the trade-offs and market conditions.

The case study explores the dilemma of Ghazal Alagh, the co-founder and chief innovation officer of Mamaearth, a direct-to-consumer babycare and skincare unicorn, regarding its IPO decision. Mamaearth had filed the draft offer document with SEBI in December 2022, and Ghazal was busy engaging with the investment bankers for the upcoming IPO. However, the weak market sentiments and shelving of IPO plans by many startups were forcing her to think about facing the possibility of postponing the IPO or continuing the IPO process but at lower valuations. The case study provides an opportunity to explore a startup’s financing choices. It allows for discussion of various IPO challenges from the perspectives of founders, venture investors, regulators, investment bankers and new IPO investors.

This case study is best suited for senior undergraduate- and graduate-level business school students in courses focusing on entrepreneurship, corporate finance, financial management, strategic management and investment banking.

CSS1: Accounting and finance.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Upon completion of this case study, students will be able to understand Recaudo's contribution to sustainability; analyze circular economy principles in Recaudo's operations; understand Recaudo's contributions to Sustainable Development Goals; exploring Recaudo's role in social innovation.

The purpose of this case study is to understand sustainability practices in a Mexican microenterprise that employs fair trade, circular economy and local cuisine. Despite implementing these practices, the founder aims to expand impact and further professionalize them. The study poses questions to enhance her proposals in social innovation and aims to reach business schools and entrepreneurs initiating enterprises.

This case study can be useful for undergraduate students majoring in fields such as business administration, entrepreneurship, sustainability studies and hospitality management; for postgraduate students pursuing advanced degrees in areas like sustainable business management, social entrepreneurship and development studies; and for professionals and practitioners in the restaurant industry, sustainability consulting firms and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) focusing on sustainable development.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

This case study is designed to enable students to understand the reasons behind the launch of a beauty brand grounded on traditions and culture, understand the strategies adopted by Florasis to establish its presence in the C-beauty space and emerge successful, analyze the positioning of a C-beauty brand in a highly competitive beauty market, identify the issues and challenges faced by a C-beauty brand in its efforts to disrupt the C-beauty space and suggest strategies that Florasis can adopt to emerge as a market leader in the global beauty industry.

Set in 2021, the case study discusses about the emerging C-beauty brand Florasis innovative strategies to promote the brand. Florasis was founded in 2017 with a vision to become a century old national makeup brand of China. Florasis was successful in getting on board a story-telling experience that featured traditional Chinese culture, aesthetics and heritage. It sold cosmetic products with retro packaging, concepts derived from traditional Chinese style, promoting a sense of national pride and nostalgia. The case study highlights the innovative strategies Florasis adopted like influencer marketing through key opinion leaders and key opinion customers, celebrity endorsements, user co-creation programs, social content and network marketing, brand crossovers and collaborations, etc. In April 2021, Florasis became the No. 1 cosmetic company in China with a gross merchandise value of 218m yuan and further the total sales for second quarter of 2021 reached 830m yuan, endorsing its supremacy over other global and local beauty brands in China. However, with success came along a set of challenges. Some analysts pointed that the brand was slow in innovating its product line-up, it focused more on promotions and advertisements and the brand positioning with a single sales channel, the cost performance and quality of the products and excessive marketing campaigns targeting a niche segment. Going forward, what should Florasis do to conquer the global beauty space? Can Florasis aspire to become a digitally empowered global beauty brand? Has it got the momentum? Will its direct-to-consumer model and unprecedented marketing and promotion gimmicks, help it achieve the lead in the global beauty space?

This case study is suitable for students of the graduate and undergraduate programs in management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

This case study is designed to enable students to understand the demand for flexible containment products in India, understand the need for a joint venture (JV) with an international company, assess Agastya Inventions Private Limited’s (AIPL) cost and benefits of acceptance of the JV offer, evaluate the growth possibilities in the Indian biogas sector, and conduct the valuation of AIPL for its better positioning during the JV deal.

The case study is about the dilemma faced by Prantik Sinha, co-founder and director of Indian company AIPL, to accept or decline a JV offer from a French industrial conglomerate Serge Ferrari Group SA (SFG). AIPL is a leading manufacturer and trader of biogas storage tanks, water storage tanks, airlifting bags, floating boom barriers, trash floating boom barriers and inflatable swimming pools. The company adopts business-to-business and direct-to-customer business models. It develops products as per clients’ specifications and their exact requirements. In 2022, SFG proposed collaborating with AIPL to market its biogas digesters in India and abroad. As per the partnership deal, AIPL needed to split its biogas digester portfolio and sell it to the proposed JV for a specific one-time value. Sinha believed that the JV was an opportunity to scale the business globally and would likely shape the company’s future. However, he was in a quandary about making a final decision on accepting the JV offer because biogas digesters remained the company’s highest revenue-generating product portfolio. It was against this backdrop, what would Sinha do to accomplish his business objective and protect the interest of the company? The case study highlights Sinha’s commitment to nurture and expand AIPL’s business in India and beyond. It provides ample scope for students to analyze the pros and cons of AIPL’s JV initiative with SFG and suggest whether the company can leverage this offer for business growth.

This case study is meant for MBA-level students as part of their strategic management and financial management curriculum.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance

The primary objective of this case was to grant the students an exposure to the students regarding how to manage a retail business during an economic crisis. In this case, all three of the aforementioned objectives as the students were given opportunity to dissect the business process through business model canvas, find out the key success factors and more importantly, were encouraged towards cost cutting behaviour by presenting the real-life dilemmas that were faced by an actual entrepreneur. Furthermore, the students were shown the importance of stakeholder management through this case, as support is very much needed for the retailers from macro-economic and micro-economic level.

This case study is the story of Global Gadget Limited, a premium retailer of cell phones and other relevant devises, which is located in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. The story is revolving around the challenge that Mr Shahadat Hossain Dipto, the owner of Global Gadget is facing over the past two years. Dipto mainly runs his business by selling budget phones from brands like Oppo, Xiaomi, Samsung and Vivo to the middle class and lower middle-class people of Bangladesh, who are very much cost conscious. To persuade these customers to buy his phones, he offers discounts, free gifts, equated monthly instalment services (a monthly instalment plan for the customers who cannot afford to pay the full amount when buying the phone) and sometimes even lottery. In the process, if he can sell more phones, these brands reward him with attractive commissions and all the necessary supports that help him run the business with marginal profit. However, due to the Russia–Ukraine war, he is now in crisis as the resulting economic crisis is causing a price increase on these phones, while drying out his customer’s pockets. This case study is designed to teach the students the importance of product segmentation, inventory management, cost management and relationship management to the students and future entrepreneur, so that they can understand, what does it take for an entrepreneur to survive an economic crisis.

This case study is aimed at undergraduate, masters’ students in business schools and Master of Business Administration students or short course executives and for the students of entrepreneurship education programme.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS3: Entrepreneurship.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to decipher key concepts underpinning sustainable entrepreneurship and its application in the recognition and exploitation of sustainable business opportunities, decipher the application of circular economy business models, understand the pivots to achieve the billion-dollar valuation and analyse the strategies for value creation during the pivoting journey of a startup.

The case study traces the journey of Phool.Co, a sustainable biomaterial startup based in a Tier II city of Kanpur located in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, by Ankit Agarwal in 2017. Agarwal started with the vision of providing solution to the effects of water pollution and environmental damage. Ganga is not just a river, rather it is the symbol of cultural and religious faith in India. Although the river Ganga is considered a deity in India, it is one of the most polluted rivers. Every year 8,000,000 metric tonnes of waste flowers are dumped into the sacred river to pollute it further. The pollution poses grave dangers to the health and livelihood of millions of Indians. Phool.Co is a sustainable enterprise that has pioneered flower cycling technology. The dumped flowers are recycled to produce organic incense sticks, Florafoam, and “Fleather – the organic alternative to leather”. The case study traces the genesis of Phool.Co and its approach towards sustainability in the context of the circular economy. The case study primarily explores the pivot points for a startup to enter the unicorn club in the present context. To achieve the desired valuation, Agarwal must decide to rethink its business model. Will franchise model work for Phool.Co? Should Agarwal scale up with commercialization of Florafoam to capitalize the opportunity in packaging industry? Vegan leather is a nascent market and how will the consumers respond to Fleather is a pertinent question. The case study attempts to explore the challenges encountered in augmenting the valuation of sustainable enterprises.

This case study is suitable for graduate and postgraduate students enrolled in courses related to entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability. The case study is of intermediate-level difficulty. There are no specific prerequisites to understand the case.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to understand how a business model could use sustainability to develop a brand, assess the marketing logic of a new startup and how that links to marketing plan, identify the relevance and need of a marketing plan in a startup and its growth, understand the differences between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumers (B2C) business strategy for a new startup and enable the construction of a communication strategy for promoting a brand.

Iro Iro is a circular fashion business founded by Bhaavya Goenka in the year 2018 in Jaipur, India. By early 2023, Goenka had decided to scale her business. But scaling would indicate several decisions she has to make. Firstly, she needed to identify what scaling means in a circular business model (CBM) like Iro Iro. Secondly, she primarily operated in B2C markets; however, she also had a (B2B market through collaboration. This would indicate creating a competition for her own self. How could she still grow while not compromising on her competitive advantage? Should she continue with both B2B and B2C/only B2B/only B2C? Thirdly, she primarily catered to customers who were already sensitive towards conscious or sustainable clothing, but scaling would indicate gearing up marketing and communication skills to reach out to larger customer base. Would the marketing and communication strategies be the same if she continued in the current model/B2B/B2C? This case study thus involves various issues that arise in entrepreneurship management for a small business, such as decisions related to scaling (traditional businesses or adopt different strategy relevant for CBM); business model (B2C vs B2B or both) and how the communication is different in each of the business models.

This case involves various issues that arise in entrepreneurship management for a small circular business, such as decisions related to growth strategy and choice of market between B2B and B2C. The case study is aimed at graduate students in an entrepreneurship progamme. It can also be used as a case study in a sustainable fashion and design course. It could also be taught in a marketing management course as well as may be for new startups.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.