Gondal, a serial entrepreneur, was supported by top technology experts in GOQii's angel round of funding. Case A details GOQii's journey from its incorporation in 2014 until April 2016. It describes GOQii's product-service offering of wearable fitness band technology supplemented with remote personalized coaching, its launch in the Indian market, and its emergence as a pioneer of a new category of product in the health and lifestyle space that had the ability to integrate human assistance with built-in artificial intelligence. Gondal realized that while people were adopting wearable technology solutions for healthy living, there was still a lack of awareness and an air of hesitancy about the usefulness of and need for wearable devices in India. Gondal's dilemma: whether to continue GOQii's positioning as "wearable technology with personalized coaching" and aggressively expand globally, or consolidate and broaden his present offering by embracing the customer more fully and focusing on the "customer healthcare journey" in India. Case B picks up from October 2016, by which time GOQii had consolidated and broadened its offering by focusing on the "customer journey" in India. It had successfully on-boarded different service providers such as doctors, a diagnostic center chain, a hospital chain, sports and grocery stores and Axis Bank (for payments) on their platform, thus providing a complete health ecosystem to the GOQii user. By the second quarter of 2016, GOQii had achieved the number one spot in the Indian wearables market. The immediate decision that GOQii core team need to make is whether they should tie up with multiple insurance providers or explore the possibility of partnering with a reinsurer to complete the entire health spectrum services offering on their data platform. The two cases allow for an in-depth discussion on the key role of a business model in ensuring the competitive advantage and sustained success of a business venture.

Supplement to case ISB079. Gondal, a serial entrepreneur, was supported by top technology experts in GOQii's angel round of funding. Case A details GOQii's journey from its incorporation in 2014 until April 2016. It describes GOQii's product-service offering of wearable fitness band technology supplemented with remote personalized coaching, its launch in the Indian market, and its emergence as a pioneer of a new category of product in the health and lifestyle space that had the ability to integrate human assistance with built-in artificial intelligence. Gondal realized that while people were adopting wearable technology solutions for healthy living, there was still a lack of awareness and an air of hesitancy about the usefulness of and need for wearable devices in India. Gondal's dilemma: whether to continue GOQii's positioning as "wearable technology with personalized coaching" and aggressively expand globally, or consolidate and broaden his present offering by embracing the customer more fully and focusing on the "customer healthcare journey" in India. Case B picks up from October 2016, by which time GOQii had consolidated and broadened its offering by focusing on the "customer journey" in India. It had successfully on-boarded different service providers such as doctors, a diagnostic center chain, a hospital chain, sports and grocery stores and Axis Bank (for payments) on their platform, thus providing a complete health ecosystem to the GOQii user. By the second quarter of 2016, GOQii had achieved the number one spot in the Indian wearables market. The immediate decision that GOQii core team need to make is whether they should tie up with multiple insurance providers or explore the possibility of partnering with a reinsurer to complete the entire health spectrum services offering on their data platform.

This case study investigates the phenomenal development of M-PESA in Kenya, the world's most successful mobile phone-based financial service, and the way it transformed its parent company, Safaricom from being an incumbent telecommunications operator to also becoming a digital platform working across different industries and sectors through an extensive business ecosystem. Safaricom, Kenya's incumbent telecom operator, developed M-PESA in partnership with Vodafone. The service was launched in March 2007 and has since been used by more than 23 million people in Kenya! It started off as a mere person-to-person remittance service and now provides a wide array of financial services for retail customers, businesses and government. Nearly a decade after its launch, M-PESA has drastically transformed the daily life of its users as well as Kenya's economic landscape, where it impacted the banking and telecom landscape, boosted the development of e-commerce and facilitated operations for thousands of small businesses, online and offline. Internationally, M-PESA has become a role model for mobile financial services and payment platforms as well as inclusive business practices. Learning objective: The case provides insights about the digital business transformation (DBT) of an incumbent telecom operator through the offering of mobile financial services. It helps to: Comprehend the why, what, and how of DBT; Assess the different dimensions of DBT; Appreciate the crucial role in DBT of leadership, lean management, talent development and organizational alignment; Understand the business opportunities enabled by leveraging breakthrough innovation, digital platforms, and big data.

The automobile industry has been shaped by several inflection points, each signaling a dramatic shift. Since the turn of the new millennium, it has been caught in a wave of radical transformation. For auto majors, it is no longer about pursuing sales growth and higher margins through scale, international expansion and outsourcing. The very definition of what it means to be a car manufacturer is being challenged by four mega trends that are transforming the entire automotive ecosystem: (1) the rise of electric vehicles, (2) car sharing as the new form of ownership, (3) mobility as a service, and (4) connected and intelligent cars as a precursor to autonomous vehicles. These trends bring opportunities and threats that automakers have never encountered before. They are looking for ways to get in front of these trends, rather than being caught on the back foot with their business model disrupted. How should they respond? Can they form the right partnerships and innovative alliances to ride out the turbulent shifts? Learning objective: Identifying the disruptive changes in an industry. How can traditional companies deal with ongoing industry shifts? Jumping the S-curve requires unconventional thinking in addition to traditional business wisdom.

Forward-thinking established companies utilize new routes for external innovation with start-ups and crowds. The reading reviews strategic partnerships, strategic investments, strategic acquisitions, and crowd-based collaborations. Case examples include Google, SK Telecom, DaVita, UPS, and GSK. The note can be paired with Core Reading: Leading Breakthrough Innovation in Established Companies (#5272).

In the fall of 2016, the management team at thredUP, the largest U.S. online retailer of secondhand clothing, is deciding whether to expand into international markets. Over the past 12 months the 7-year old startup, which had raised over $130 million in venture capital, had seen revenue grow 100% and gross margin double. Would moving abroad expand thredUP's total addressable market and help position the company for an IPO? Or would it prove a distraction, derailing momentum in the core U.S. business?

This case describes the origins of the traditional circus, including its rise to popularity in the United States in the 1800s, and examines the factors that led to its decline in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The case considers alternative specifications of demand for food in India. Based on theoretical understanding and conceptual clarity, the most appropriate demand function for food in India needs to be identified and its coefficients need to be interpreted for further analytical use.

The case illustrates application of the concepts of demand elasticities of an agricultural product with high protein contents - pulses. It considers the current situation where good monsoon has raised hopes for the bumper crop of pulses in India. From a deficit of about 20% met by imports the county now is looking for attaining self-sufficiency. Public Policy option in this regard are also considered.

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 1, the authors highlight the importance of effective internal communication and outline historical approaches to corporate structures and communication in the workplace. They then outline five emerging trends that are shaping internal communication practices, including employee engagement, technological advancement, ethics and value communication, leadership communication, and measurement and evaluation.

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 2, the authors argue that managers must understand and organize their employees in order to communicate effectively with them. They call employees and the groups they form "internal publics," writing that employee communications should be targeted at subsets of the employee population by segmenting employees based on demographic characteristics and common interests. Segmenting employees based on an organization's hierarchical structure can also be useful in devising targeted communications, as each level has different needs, responsibilities, and methods of communication. The authors also cover Grunig's situational theory of publics and summarize characteristics of today's workforce, which include multigeneration, diversity, globalization, powered by technology, and an emphasis on work-life balance.

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 3, the authors illustrate a model for internal communication based in ethical decision making. They discuss the central role that an organization's governance and regulations have in establishing an ethical workplace culture. They write that public relations divisions have the resources to understand stakeholder values and therefore can most effectively use these to develop a corporate conscience. The authors also highlight a deontological ethical framework for guiding internal relations and provide a step-by-step model that organizations can use to make principled decisions, which includes actions that promote honesty, candor, dialog, collaboration, respect, and good intention with stakeholder communities. They also emphasize the power of leaders in modeling ethical behavior and creating a culture where this is the norm.

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 4, the authors discuss both senior leadership communication and supervisory leadership communication. They highlight the power that leaders have to set the tone for internal communication and influence the organization's reputation in the eyes of both internal and external stakeholders. The authors also write that senior leaders should rely on face-to-face communication and social media to have meaningful communication with employees. Supervisors are tasked with communicating their competence and effectiveness. The authors write that supervisors should aim to create a climate characterized by two-way, transparent communication. The chapter also summarizes research-driven principles that can inform leaders at all levels as they communicate with employees.

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 5, the authors discuss communication channels that organizations can use to communicate with internal stakeholders. They highlight face-to-face communication, print publications, videoconferencing, e-mail, social media tools, intranet, blogs, SNSs, and social messengers. They write that face-to-face communication is the most preferred channel because it is instant, interactive, and personal, but they acknowledge the benefits of each mode of communication. The chapter also discusses criteria that companies and leaders can use to choose channels for certain messages and audiences. These criteria include audience needs, available resources, delivery speed, sender objectives, message attributes, channel attributes, and characteristics of receivers.

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 6, the authors discuss different organizational structures and the communication styles different structures demand. They outline both vertical centralized organizational structures and horizontal decentralized structures and write that hierarchies and reporting chains in these structures impact the formalization of communication. The authors also highlight two approaches to organizational culture: authoritarian and participative. They outline the Theory X style of management, which relies on authoritarian commands and a reward/punishment incentive structure, and the Theory Y style, which is based on team-building as a way to motivate employees to contribute to the success of the organization. They discuss findings that Theory Y is superior to Theory X and conclude that Theory Y management will drive productive internal relations.

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 7, the authors discuss the definitions, drivers, and consequences of employee engagement. They write that employee engagement nurtures positive attitudes, drives supportive behavior, and contributes to business success. They classify the organizational factors that drive employee engagement into four groups: work environment, organizational leadership, organizational strategic internal communication, and organizational culture. The chapter ends with ten research insights that can inform organizations as they act to cultivate employee engagement.

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 8, the authors discuss the role of strategic internal communication in change initiatives. They argue that communication reduces uncertainty, helps an organization overcome resistance to change, facilitates employee participation, and builds shared understanding and mutual interpretation. Change communication requires an understanding of the change process in question and the ways in which communication strategies can help. The authors conclude that communication that emphasizes ethics, transparency, openness, listening, and upward communication facilitates strategic change and that strong leadership is crucial to successful change. They also suggest that two-way communication channels like face-to-face meetings and social media communication are good ways to foster mutual understanding among employees affected by change.

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 9, the authors discuss how to measure the value of internal communication. They write that internal communication can be measured at the outputs, outtakes, outcomes, and business impact levels and that both quantitative and qualitative research methods can be used to gather data. "Big data" analytics can be used to determine correlative relationships and improve communication practices.

Emerging markets have become an attractive destination for multinationals as they provide these companies with high growth potential due to low product penetration and also help them in reducing costs of production due to reduced labor costs. The case brings out the trajectory of growth of Micromax Informatics Limited which started as a company depending on China and Taiwan for manufacturing of their handsets because of better technological infrastructure, stronger supply chain and cost effective workforce. As the government enhanced import duty on CBU (Completely Built Unit) electronic products and reduced excise duty and import duty on SKD (Semi Knocked Down) units required for manufacturing of electronic products, Micromax started its production facility, Bhagwati Products Limited in India and reduced import of finished electronic products to a large extent. To keep the cost low all across the value chain, it focused on development of indigenous design and manufacturing capabilities to achieve higher localization. This helped Micromax in keeping the cost of the products low and thus being a cost leader in the market. The case also brings out how costs can be kept low by utilizing central and state government initiatives in providing subsidies that helped the company build competitive advantage and how these specific actions resulted in creation of a vibrant electronics industry in the country. This case focuses on the specific issues faced by Bhagwati Products Limited, the production arm of Micromax in production of mobile phones locally, with regard to sourcing of raw material, manpower, research and development, competition and reduction in cost of production.

Entrepreneurs looking to launch start-ups in developing economies must confront numerous challenges that their peers in more developed countries may be less likely to encounter. Depending on the country in which they are operating, entrepreneurs in developing economies oftentimes lack access to human capital and professional services, sufficient sources of funding, large markets for their products, adequate infrastructure, and predictable legal and regulatory processes, among myriad other challenges. This note aims to explore these challenges in more depth-while simultaneously examining some representative countries and regions in which entrepreneurship is thriving. The note also serves as a complement (and informal update) to the 2013 World Economic Forum Report: "Entrepreneurial Ecosystems around the Globe and Company Growth Dynamics," as well as an update to our 2016 Teaching Note to include recent developments in select Asian, African, and Latin American entrepreneurial ecosystems. This note is intended primarily for current or budding entrepreneurs interested in starting a new venture in a developing economy, as well as investors seeking to fund start-ups in these countries. The note is also relevant for policy makers looking to encourage entrepreneurship in their cities or countries, universities wanting to support entrepreneurship, and corporations seeking a better understanding of their role in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of a developing economy.