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The broad teaching objective is underpinned by the themes of purpose and partnerships. This is taught through application of business model innovation for sustainability where the value proposition is broadened to social and environmental, and multi-stakeholder partnerships in a time of crisis. Students will be expected to analyse the above concepts through a meso (sustainable value), micro (business models) and macro (ecosystems) lens. Upon completion of the case study discussion, successful students will be able to better understand the three features that support sustainable value, explore how a global pandemic can create new business models and partnerships to create social value and analyse how business ecosystems operate against the 6 C framework.

Discovery Holdings Limited is a leading financial service organisation in South Africa, and its Digital Health division is responsible for the platform which delivers telemedicine offerings to doctors and patients. The case highlights the development of the telemedicine offering and the period that is covered spans from the launch of the Discovery DrConnect platform in 2017 to April 2020. Adrian Moss is the protagonist in the case. He is a manager in the Special Projects, Digital Health team of Discovery Health, responsible for the DrConnect project. His challenge is how to raise more awareness of the DrConnect offering and how to enhance uptake from doctors and patients. COVID-19 and the lockdown in South Africa in March and April of 2020 presented an opportunity for both doctors and patients to use telemedicine as a new way of engagement and treatment.

This case is appropriate for masters, MBA and executive education students focusing on the fields of study of environment of business, strategy, business model innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 11 Strategy.

Service innovation, ICT-enabled services, museum, cultural and creative industries.

Graduate-level courses of “Innovation Management,” “Service Innovation,” or “Cultural and Creative Industries”.

In 2006, the National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taipei, Taiwan, announced its new vision “Reviving the Charm of an Ancient Collection and Creating New values for Generations to Come”. In recent years, the NPM has been shifting its operational focus from being object-oriented to being public-centered, and the museum has held not only the physical forms of artifacts and documents but also their digital images and metadata. These changes would inject new life into historical artifacts. In addition, archives as its collections would be given a refreshingly new image to the public and become connected with people's daily lives. Among these endeavors for displaying historical artifacts online and prevailing Chinese culture in the modern age, the key issues are related to digital technology applications and service innovations. The service innovations would be further divided into information and communication technologies (ICT)-enabled ones and non-ICT-enabled ones. These shifts clearly claim that adopting digital technologies and innovative services can bring positive impacts to the museum. The NPM administrative team wants to keep infusing life into ancient artifacts and texts, sustaining curiosities of the public for Chinese culture and history, and invoking their interests to visit the NPM in person. However, to develop for the future while reviewing the past, the NPM administrative team has to meditate on the next steps in terms of implementation of service innovations.

Students will learn motivations of digital establishment and service innovations from the organization perspective and the necessities of technological implementation. Students will understand the difference in innovations between ICT-enabled services and non-ICT-enabled services. Students would be able to understand the process of developing a new service. Students will be aware of challenges the organization would face in developing a new service.

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

This case explores the decision of a fast-growing company to expand its distribution network. Financial information is provided in it so students can understand the basic distribution network design covering inbound transportation, outbound transportation, distribution-center operations, and inventory.

The learning outcomes of this paper are as follows: to understand the language of accounting, to interpret financial statements to understand beyond what’s reported and to predict the financial health of a company before it is too late.

The case revolves around the Indian coffee retail giant - Café Coffee Day (hereafter, CCD). Coffee Day Global Limited of which CCD is a part, is the largest producer of Arabica beans in India. The case goes on to discuss the life and profile of VG Siddhartha (hereafter, VGS), whose leadership and farsightedness made coffee a household name in India, traditionally a tea-drinking country. Within just a year or two after its Initial Public Offering in November 2015, the company’s financial and legal troubles began to surface. The worst blow came when VGS, the 60-year-old founder and CEO committed suicide on July 29, 2019. His group’s mounting debt and impending doom had propelled him to take his own life. Today, the future of CCD remains hanging in the balance, with creditors ready and willing to take the firm into bankruptcy.

Under-graduates and above.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

Jeff Hotchkiss, President of the Assembly Test Division of Teradyne, Inc., the largest electronics testing company in the world, returned to the corporation where he had built his career after a three-year hiatus as CEO of a VOIP start-up. Teradyne's operation was struggling through the effects of a bad economy coupled with significant downturns in the electronics industry, and Hotchkiss encountered numerous problems specifically in the China operation, including customer dissatisfaction with service, price, and time required to implement changes. He assembled a strategic team to address these issues and to recommend and implement an accelerated turnaround in China. Students are challenged to design the turnaround plan.

The tech giants Alibaba and Tencent compete on many fronts. This case focuses on three areas where they have competed very hard: new retailing, mobile payment, and ride-hailing. At the beginning of 2018, Alibaba and Tencent were gathering retail investments in bids to battle each other for shoppers' digital wallets. Key to the battle is China's mobile payment market, worth more than 200 trillion RMB, where Alibaba and Tencent are going head to head. The giants are not only directly competing in the payment platform area but also extensively fighting in other areas, such as ride-hailing, where they invested in and supported Didi and Kuaidi, respectively. To enhance understanding, this case also briefly goes through the history of the two giants. The purposes, methods, and consequences of their platform competition deserve an in-depth discussion

Learning objectives of this case is to understand the hairdressing industry and develop the sub-branding strategy. After reading this case and practicing in class, students should be able to understand this business and marketing terminology and apply them in the real world. Students will learn the branding strategies: brand extension, brand architecture and brand portfolio. Students will design (DS) the brand name for the new store.

Case synopsis Mr. Tai-Hua Teng (aka TR) was a hair artist and opened his first hair salon, vis-à-vis (VS), in 1989 using a high-end positioning strategy. VS focused on offering superb and diverse services to keep ahead of the competition rather than trying to undercut prices. VS hair salon had a solid foundation based mainly on the elite, celebrities and high-salary customers. In 2017, TR owned 16 stores (including one in Canada and two intern salons), 1 academy, 265 employees and 3 brand names. The three brand names were VS, DS and concept (CC). DS and CC were less known to the public, so now these two brands had been carried the parent name and were known as VS DS and VS CC. Quick cut hairdressing businesses were thriving because customers needed quick and cheap hairdressing services. Acknowledging the benefits of entering the highly competitive quick haircut market, TR began to contemplate the new brand name and services to offer. VS had adopted the brand house strategy but TR wondered if it was better to have an individual brand name when entering the quick haircut market. The sub-branding strategy carried the established quality assurance of VS but there was possible brand overlap. An individual new brand name might lack the well-established values from VS but it also showed the potential to reach different segments of customers. TR’s decision to make: a branded house or hybrid? This case showed a high-end hair salon facing the need for simplicity in the market and considered how to expand its business to the lower-end market. Keywords: hairdressing, brand extension and sub-branding strategy.

Level of difficulty: easy/middle level to undergraduate courses specific prerequisites: it is not necessary for students to prepare or read any marketing theory or chapters of the textbook. However, it would help a more in-depth discussion if students know the CCs of brand architecture, brand portfolio, brand extension and line extension.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The case study is based on field research and also on secondary data. A primary survey is included in the case study. Simple frequency and factor analysis as statistical tools have been used.

Family businesses, like that of Kiran Rai’s, owning a local Mom and Pop store in an emerging city were faced with a serious problem of sustaining their businesses. These family businesses countered immense competition from: their own types, i.e. from other local Mom and Pop stores within the same cities; online stores; and the organised stores.The choice of the customers to buy goods from the neighbourhood shops has remained largely as an age-old tradition in the households. With the millennials and the Generation Z (Gen Z) exposed to an array of brands, can they become the first choice of young customers for shopping for all kinds of products and varieties? Can the local Mom and Pop stores spread their wings across the young generations, particularly the Millennials and Gen Z through inexpensive social media channels? What are their growth options? How can the social media serve this purpose? The case uses the social cognition theory and the use gratification theory to throw light on the new concept of Social Shopping.

The case is meant to be discussed in courses like Fundamentals of Marketing, Digital Marketing and Retail Marketing in a 90-min session in the Post Graduate as well as in the Working Executives’ Management programmes. The case analysis will expose the students to the use of social media and its benefits to the small businesses. The students will also be able to analyse and understand the different types of Online Consumers’ Shopping Personalities. This would enable them to strategize for different stages in the decision-making processes.

A family business founded by Chinese immigrants grew into a $133 million toy and costume maker by exploiting seasonal niche segments in the highly competitive, global toy industry. Sales of traditional toys stagnated when replaced by game consoles and electronic toys. Unable to compete in high tech toys, MegaToys moved instead toward seasonal products. In 2007, brothers Peter and Charlie Woo were about to pitch what they hoped would be $63 million in Easter basket sales to Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart took the full order, it would come to represent over half of MegaToys' revenue.

The company was faced with the dilemma of how to grow, and at what pace. Charlie Woo knew that MegaToys could continue to grow as long as it was able to satisfy Wal-Mart's demands. Peter Woo wondered if this was the smartest way to grow the business. “Growth is a good thing as long as you don't sell your shirt to get it,” he noted. Should MegaToys continue to increase its sales to Wal-Mart, or would dependence on Wal-Mart eventually threaten the firm's success? Were there other, untapped opportunities for MegaToys that were well aligned with its strengths, resources, and capabilities?

After completion of the case study, students will be able to identify the strategic key components of the Woolah tea brand through the business model canvas framework, to evaluate the major challenges faced by different stakeholders, to analyse the potential effects of bagless tea dip innovation and understand the principles of design thinking and its application in developing innovative solutions, to assess the strategic framework of Woolah tea brand to scale up its business and operations and to align the Woolah tea brand’s sustainability practices with a triple bottom line approach and contribution to UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Upamanyu Borkakoty and Anshuman Bharali, the founder duo of Woolah tea, began their entrepreneurial journey on a noble note. They recognised that plastic tea bags, which customers worldwide consume, create harmful health effects in the form of microplastic. They aimed to provide an authentic and sustainable tea experience while making it microplastic-free. When the world is heading towards securing a sustainable future, they envisioned adding a feather to it by proposing their Truedips. The USP of their product is Truedips – a tea ball they prepare by compressing one bud and two premier leaves. The founders were convinced that their innovative idea of tea consumption would provide customers with an authentic and exhilarating experience. However, there were dilemmas and roadblocks. They faced roadblocks related to the farmer’s traditional approach to growing tea, untrained tea growers, lack of financial assistance and customer readiness for a bagless tea experience. The dilemmas they faced related to their customer acceptance of their idea and the price affordability of the product. The big question hovering around was the customer’s feedback and acceptance of the product.

This case study suits graduate and postgraduate business administration students and other management programmes. The case study can also be used for business, marketing, design thinking, innovation and and social entrepreneurship courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.