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." 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.
Cervus Equipment Corporation, the major Canadian dealer group for John Deere and Peterbilt Motors Company equipment, had grown from CA$56 million in 2004 to close to $1 billion in 2014. It had achieved these results through an aggressive acquisition and growth-oriented strategy, by purchasing heavy-equipment dealerships representing John Deere, Bobcat, and other high-end original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The company's move into the long-haul trucking industry, beginning with the acquisition of 16 Peterbilt truck dealerships in 2013, was timely, as the agricultural and construction sectors entered what many believed would be a prolonged downturn in its base in western Canada. However, these acquisitions and this move into the trucking industry presented significant challenges related to integration, leadership and management skills at the dealer level, OEM partner control, and the presence of established competitors that served the major vocational and fleet markets. The bottom line: Cervus Equipment required its transport division to drive profitable growth in 2016 and beyond.
In 2015, AXE, one of Unilever's largest and most well-known personal care brands, was experiencing challenges in growing sales across its full product portfolio. Historically, AXE's unique activations and campaigns had been successful in generating high brand awareness and, ultimately, driving sales in Canada. However, sales growth had slowed over the past three years, and the AXE team wondered whether the brand's current messaging still resonated with consumers. The previous year, Unilever's global consumer insights team had conducted significant research to better understand the AXE consumer. The company now needed to prepare and present a client brief to AXE's advertising agency in preparation for a major 2016 campaign.
Cervus Equipment Corporation, the major Canadian dealer group for John Deere and Peterbilt Motors Company equipment, had grown from CA$56 million in 2004 to close to $1 billion in 2014. It had achieved these results through an aggressive acquisition and growth-oriented strategy, by purchasing heavy-equipment dealerships representing John Deere, Bobcat, and other high-end original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The company’s move into the long-haul trucking industry, beginning with the acquisition of 16 Peterbilt truck dealerships in 2013, was timely, as the agricultural and construction sectors entered what many believed would be a prolonged downturn in its base in western Canada. However, these acquisitions and this move into the trucking industry presented significant challenges related to integration, leadership and management skills at the dealer level, OEM partner control, and the presence of established competitors that served the major vocational and fleet markets. The bottom line: Cervus Equipment required its transport division to drive profitable growth in 2016 and beyond.
In 2015, AXE, one of Unilever’s largest and most well-known personal care brands, was experiencing challenges in growing sales across its full product portfolio. Historically, AXE’s unique activations and campaigns had been successful in generating high brand awareness and, ultimately, driving sales in Canada. However, sales growth had slowed over the past three years, and the AXE team wondered whether the brand’s current messaging still resonated with consumers. The previous year, Unilever’s global consumer insights team had conducted significant research to better understand the AXE consumer. The company now needed to prepare and present a client brief to AXE’s advertising agency in preparation for a major 2016 campaign.
The case describes the challenges around sustainability within the Energy industry using Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) as an example. Two key challenges for Shell are explored: How to meet the demand for energy sustainably and profitably, and how to gain a licence to operate from society. Further, the case presents some negative views of Shell in the media; describes what is happening in adjacent industries, the investor community and with policy makers that will impact the energy transition; and concluded with what Shell, other oil and gas companies and policy makers are doing in relation to the sustainability and the energy transition. Lerning objective: The case can be utilized to accomplish several learning objectives: 1) How sustainability topics affect business strategy, and vice versa; 2) How to manage through a major industry transition (using PESTEL to assess "new" vs "old" industry); 3) How the media and external communications policies impact strategic decision making; 4) Overall awareness of sustainability.
In 2014, three former Code for America fellows embarked on a one-year skunk works journey to use technology to improve the enrollment process for California's SNAP (food stamp) program, CalFresh, to increase the number of residents receiving benefits in San Francisco. The case describes a user-centered approach to identifying bottlenecks within the CalFresh enrollment process and the low cost, fast solution proposed-and built-by the group. The case asks students to consider the opportunities, challenges and risks created by information technology in the public sector and whether taking a user-centered approach to policy implementation can improve social service delivery.
Sahaj e-Village Limited, an initiative of SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd, hoped to answer the need of the Indian government's National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) to set up 100,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs) across rural India in 2006. This figure was subsequently revised to 250,000 CSCs in 2009. Sahaj aimed to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural India and set up one of the largest brick and mortar --and human --networks in rural India. With close to 27,000 IT-backed centers in villages with a population of less than 10,000 and 50 critical services in the domains of microinsurance, education, utility and government-to-citizen (G2C) services to over 300,000,000 rural people, Sahaj e-Village was literally taking urban services to the remotest nooks of rural India. Sahaj CSCs would provide rural consumers with direct access to modern, state-of-the-art technological facilities and computer education, thus dovetailing with its long-term plans of providing Internet connectivity across rural India. Case A, set in July 2010, presents the tough challenge that the top management at Sahaj e-Village Ltd had on its hands. It was serving a virtually untouched rural market through a greenfield project with a jittery workforce in place and was justifiably concerned about the viability and sustainability of the business.
Sahaj e-Village Limited, an initiative of SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd, hoped to answer the need of the Indian government's National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) to set up 100,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs) across rural India in 2006. This figure was subsequently revised to 250,000 CSCs in 2009. Sahaj aimed to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural India and set up one of the largest brick and mortar --and human --networks in rural India. With close to 27,000 IT-backed centers in villages with a population of less than 10,000 and 50 critical services in the domains of microinsurance, education, utility and government-to-citizen (G2C) services to over 300,000,000 rural people, Sahaj e-Village was literally taking urban services to the remotest nooks of rural India. Sahaj CSCs would provide rural consumers with direct access to modern, state-of-the-art technological facilities and computer education, thus dovetailing with its long-term plans of providing Internet connectivity across rural India. Case B moves ahead from the challenge described in Case A and outlines Sahaj's transformation process. Starting August 2010, Sahaj guided its troops through an ideological transformation that would take the organization from being primarily a government service provider to an enterprising business entity capable of fending for itself. In order to achieve this goal, Sahaj took the important first step of understanding the intricacies and dynamics of the relationships among the various stakeholders involved in the project. This, in a sense, proved to be a breakthrough in the organization's transformation process.
Founded in 1972, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) was the governing body of three professional men's tennis circuits: the ATP World Tour, the ATP Challenger Tour, and the ATP Champions Tour. In addition to the ATP World Tour tournaments, there were four highly coveted and extremely competitive Grand Slam tournaments, one of which was Wimbledon. In 2014, two professional tennis players sought to determine their respective odds of placing first at Wimbledon, by using an understanding of probability, stochastic modelling, and Markov chain application. Both players were ranked outside the top 100 and faced a momentous task.
In April 2016, Canopy Growth Corporation, one of Canada's top producers of medical cannabis, was planning a strategy for its future. The government of Canada had just announced its plans to introduce a bill to legalize recreational cannabis use in 2017, followed by a rollout of the policy in early 2018. The company's chief executive officer needed to plan a strategy that addressed three main issues: product messaging for recreational cannabis, establishing a retail footprint in recreational cannabis, and building an international business.
In the spring of 2016, Cyklop Packaging Systems India Private Limited (Cyklop) was facing the critical situation of high employee turnover. One out of every two employees was leaving the company each month. Although most employees were leaving voluntarily, some were being asked to leave because of below-par performance. The problem was not grave for major competitors as they were able to retain most of their employees. Cyklop's managing director, was concerned about the impact the turnover would have on relationships with key clients. He was also worried about increasing managerial and other costs. He asked the head of human resources to analyze the problem and provide an action plan for containing turnover in the service domain.
In April 2016, Canopy Growth Corporation, one of Canada’s top producers of medical cannabis, was planning a strategy for its future. The government of Canada had just announced its plans to introduce a bill to legalize recreational cannabis use in 2017, followed by a rollout of the policy in early 2018. The company’s chief executive officer needed to plan a strategy that addressed three main issues: product messaging for recreational cannabis, establishing a retail footprint in recreational cannabis, and building an international business.
In the spring of 2016, Cyklop Packaging Systems India Private Limited (Cyklop) was facing the critical situation of high employee turnover. One out of every two employees was leaving the company each month. Although most employees were leaving voluntarily, some were being asked to leave because of below-par performance. The problem was not grave for major competitors as they were able to retain most of their employees. Cyklop’s managing director, was concerned about the impact the turnover would have on relationships with key clients. He was also worried about increasing managerial and other costs. He asked the head of human resources to analyze the problem and provide an action plan for containing turnover in the service domain.
<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - INFORMS Case and Teaching Materials Competition</strong></p><br>Founded in 1972, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) was the governing body of three professional men’s tennis circuits: the ATP World Tour, the ATP Challenger Tour, and the ATP Champions Tour. In addition to the ATP World Tour tournaments, there were four highly coveted and extremely competitive Grand Slam tournaments, one of which was Wimbledon. In 2014, two professional tennis players sought to determine their respective odds of placing first at Wimbledon, by using an understanding of probability, stochastic modelling, and Markov chain application. Both players were ranked outside the top 100 and faced a momentous task.
In 2015, Snapdeal, an e-commerce company in India, faced a supply chain situation in reverse logistics. In conforming to the industry trends, the company had a policy on assured product returns, which led to most customers returning to an online merchant for future purchases. However, by the end of 2015, the estimated worth of products returned under the Indian e-commerce platform was $800 million to $1 billion. The rate of returns of online products could add substantial logistics costs to each product return, hampering the industry’s growth. Snapdeal had some serious questions to address. Should it reverse its policy and not give customers a chance to return products? Should the company connect organizations and retailers with customers and derive valuable feedback from them? Should Snapdeal alter its product return policy in favour of a free returns or no questions asked return policy? Would corrective action be required for the e-commerce industry so companies like Snapdeal could create a return policy for customers who had legitimate reasons to return products?
In 2014, Hubtown Limited (Hubtown), an Indian real estate development company, was attempting to implement a process to differentiate between its employees in order to enhance performance, identify employees who could be groomed for future growth, and distribute rewards. Hubtown was consolidating to concentrate on a few large, complex projects in residential and commercial spaces in urban centres. Like other companies in the industry, it competed for talent and faced challenges when attempting to retain, reward, and promote valuable employees.<br><br>Earlier efforts to implement a results-based performance management system had failed, so the organization decided to design and adopt a behaviour-based approach and to implement it from the bottom up to bypass resistance from senior management. Case A describes the challenges the human resources head faced in creating an institutionalized performance culture and designing the implementation plan for this system. Case B describes the implementation process and presents the initiatives taken by the human resources team to implement the process, train the stakeholders, and address challenges along the way.