In 2022, Manisha Pande, the co-founder and managing director of Village Ways (VW), a responsible tourism company in India, was facing financial challenges which threatened to wipe out her company’s 16 years of growth. VW offered personalized trips within India and in neighbouring countries, fostering the well-being of rural communities while limiting environmental damage. But then the COVID-19 pandemic stopped tourism worldwide and created significant financial setbacks for VW. VW thus needed a new strategy to ease its financial strain, save the business, and preserve the community’s trust. Should Pande stick to her pre-pandemic plan of further expanding VW into other countries, or should she focus on saving the company today? Amid these twin challenges of short-term survival and long-term growth planning, Pande also had to uphold VW’s core values of environmental conservation and responsible tourism.
In October 2021, Ashish Agarwal, vice-president of the solar business vertical at Blupine Energy Pvt. Ltd., was preparing for an upcoming tender for a 300 megawatt solar project. Relying on his industry experience, Agarwal noted all the assumptions related to the capital and operating expenses for setting up this plant. He wanted to compute a tariff that he could bid that would be competitive while generating a 16 per cent equity internal rate of return—the minimum Blupine required for greenfield projects. Agarwal knew the most critical project risks were a delay in arranging the required land and module price fluctuations, so he wanted to also consider their effect on the rate of return.
In 2023, Puthran & Associates, an all-women intellectual property law firm in India, was grappling with challenges in employee retention as women employees resigned or relocated due to family commitments. Elizabeth Puthran, the firm’s founder–partner, believed strongly in her founding policy decision that P&A be an all-women team of lawyers and attorneys. Yet with the increasing departures of its employees, the firm needed to balance maintaining a women-centric workplace with ensuring operational stability and growth. While Puthran’s authentic leadership style emphasized inclusivity and talent development, she needed to consider potential policy adjustments to improve retention and employee satisfaction.
In August 2024, the founders of Advancer Group (Advancer), Australia’s first AI-powered expert assistant for human resources (HR), needed a strategy that would best meet the varied interests and concerns of all potential stakeholders. Their goal was to help Australian managers and team members be more productive and efficient, thereby supporting business growth, by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with human HR advisors. Although the entrepreneurs had a plan for expansion, they still needed to persuade the executives at small and medium-sized enterprises to invest in Advancer’s products and services. It was therefore crucial for them to gain a deeper understanding of how to foster trust among their primary stakeholders.
<div style="font-size: 0.95em; line-height: 1.4;"><p align="justify">Robertet Group was established in 1850 and headquartered in Grasse, France, the world’s perfume capital, specializing in crafting premium natural ingredients for flavours and fragrances. By early 2022, Robertet Group was facing a unique strategic and survival threat from intensifying competition between the industry’s leading Swiss company, Givaudan, and its US challenger, International Flavors & Fragrances Inc., a rising power in the industry that had completed several acquisitions to challenge the ruling Givaudan by quickly gaining market share. As the smallest of the major market leaders in the global flavours and fragrances industry, Robertet Group was suddenly facing the risk of being overtaken and subsequently acquired. The company was caught in what was known as the “Thucydides trap,” and facing a destabilized industry. Robertet Group had to find a way to respond to imminent threats. Could the company remain a leading brand in a natural, sustainable, and environmental flavours and fragrances market, while avoiding being consumed by the industry’s giants?
In September 2023, the founders of Pocket Frequency Modulation (FM) Private (Pvt.) Limited (Ltd.) (Pocket FM) reflected on a year of remarkable growth in the expanding audio-storytelling market in India. Launched in 2018, Pocket FM had quickly amassed over 100 million downloads on Google Play (part of Google Limited Liability Company) and in 2022, it clocked an astounding 45 billion minutes of streaming time. Users were spending an average of 110 minutes each day on the platform, drawn in by the innovative content and a robust hybrid revenue model that included subscriptions, advertising, intellectual property licensing, sponsorships, and strategic partnerships. Yet, with international industry giants like Spotify Technology Société Anonyme, Audible Incorporated, and Kuku FM (owned by Mebigo Labs Pvt. Ltd.) now eyeing the audio series space in India, Pocket FM faced significant competition. Standing at a crossroads, the founders debated what would be their best choice of moves to take next to sustain growth and differentiate the platform. Would refining their established hybrid-income model be enough, or was it time to pursue an entirely new strategic direction? The answers to these questions could shape not only Pocket FM’s future but also the broader landscape of audio storytelling in India.
A small apparel manufacturer was given an ultimatum by its largest customer, Walmart Inc., to become more sustainable or else lose its business. The firm had to make both macro strategic decisions about its business, and micro operational decisions about how it would implement the massive process innovations required to accede to Walmart’s demands.
Oscar & Oliver Brothers was founded in 2002 and faced numerous challenges, including the death of one of its co-founders and the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war. The company had, however, been resilient and had continued to grow during the war. Maria, Oscar, and Andrey, the three current co-owners of Oscar & Oliver Brothers, gathered in January 2024 for their annual strategic planning meeting. Maria was reluctant to pursue a strategy of internationalization due to the failure of a previous attempt the company had made to expand into Poland and because the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war was creating uncertainties in the region. She suggested diversifying and expanding locally instead. Oscar and Andrey advocated a cautious international expansion into Poland and the Czech Republic. Following a long debate, they were unable to reach a consensus and scheduled another meeting for June 2024.
This exercise provides a structured framework for introducing business students to supervised machine learning (SML), unsupervised machine learning (UML), and reinforcement machine learning (RML). The exercise revolves around applying these techniques to evaluate harassment policies, offering a hands-on and practical approach to understanding how machine learning (ML) works in real-world scenarios. The exercise is suitable for undergraduate classes and graduate business classes, particularly in core information technology (IT) management, innovation management, fundamentals of AI, and governance courses.
In January 2021, the founders of Meal’d, a lunch subscription service based in Kerala, India, were waiting in a cafe to meet with a potential new business partner. They took off their masks and recalled their first meeting in the same cafe, which had led to the beginning of Oru Pothichoru (later renamed Meal’d) in 2017. Now, three years later, their idea had prospered; however, it had reached a standstill with the onset of the pandemic in 2020. The operations of the company had stopped completely in August 2020, and since then, the founders had been struggling to pay employee salaries. Prior to the pandemic, they had been on the verge of obtaining a sizable investment to expand into cities in neighbouring states. But with the recent drastic changes in the business ecosystem, they simply needed money to stay afloat. The founders had been deliberating over the possible alternatives for survival to pitch to the potential partner. Were they back to square one, or could they sustain the brand?