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The case study titled "Ace Micromatic Group: A Hidden Champion in the Indian Machine Tools Industry" details the journey of Ace Micromatic Group (AMG): how a mid-sized Indian company founded in 1979 and headquartered in Bangalore grew to become India's largest machine tools company by 2005, a position it held until 2020. The case highlights how the group's cofounders have stayed together and committed to managing the group by adopting professional practices. With 700 on-field employees and over 55 service centers, AMG became the undisputed market leader in India. However, 2020 was a challenging year, with the COVID-19 pandemic impacting businesses worldwide. The case describes the concerns of the Managing Director and CEO of Micromatic Machine Tools (MMT) Private Limited, T. K. Ramesh, regarding the changing manufacturing map of the world. Ramesh wanted to envisage how this would affect AMG's expansion strategy and how the group should allocate resources between different markets. Another development that Ramesh and his team followed closely were the disruptive technologies- electric cars and car-sharing platforms-that had already created waves in the automobile sector. The emergence and growth of automobile hiring and sharing economy platforms such as Uber and Ola meant that the public, especially the younger generation, preferred the convenience of on-demand automobiles on a pay-per-use basis to vehicle ownership. With the number of automobiles being produced and sold declining over time, how should AMG respond?

Set in April 2021, the case study traces the process of amalgamation of the Union Bank of India (UBI) with the erstwhile Andhra Bank (e-AB) and Corporation Bank (e-CB) following the announcement by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), Government of India (GoI), on August 30, 2019. With the Amalgamation Effective Date set as April 1, 2020, Rajkiran Rai G., the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UBI, who oversaw the amalgamation project was faced with formidable challenges. The banks had distinctive cultures and values. While UBI was pan-national, the employee and customer compositions of the e-AB and e-CB reflected their regional dominance. The case documents how Rai and his team successfully integrated people, products, policies, cultures, technology, and customers within a stringent and short timeline. It describes the sustained efforts to unify employees under a common identity and align them toward the shared vision of becoming the best in the industry. The case provides an overview of the differentiated measures undertaken by Rai and his team to engage the different stakeholders, the governance structure for decision making and implementation, comprehensive measures to ensure transparency through communication and access to resources, meticulous planning, delegation, monitoring, and course corrections in the face of obstacles. One year after the AED, the financial performance of UBI testified to the success of the amalgamation. However, Rai had to foster a customer-centric and performance-oriented culture at UBI. He had to fortify the bank's future prospects by institutionalizing the learnings from the transformation. As the bank embraced digital transformation more frequent changes were imminent. Rai had to tackle the challenge of building an agile, mission-driven, and learning-oriented organization.

Infosys Consulting was known for delivering innovative consulting services to some of the world's most complex companies. Launched in 2004 as a separate subsidiary, Infosys Consulting was integrated into a new business unit within its parent company in 2011. This case study examines strategic and operational decisions the global leader in consulting and technology faced in growing the increasingly commoditized-and competitive-systems integration and IT outsourcing business. This path involved several bumps in the road, to be sure, and achieving a healthy growth trajectory would require careful decisions about everything from leadership to client relationships to company governance. And it would take a new global model primed to capture the massive opportunities at the intersection of strategy and technology.

Set in August 2019, this case describes the efforts of L. V. Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) to implement an initiative to improve the well-being of its employees by addressing their needs holistically. LVPEI is one of the leading medical institutions in India and the world in eye care treatment and research. As part of its mission to treat its patients well and provide excellent eye care services, LVPEI also sought to treat its employees well and provide them with a work setting that enabled them to thrive. This focus on employee well-being led LVPEI's Chairman, Dr. G. N. Rao, and Vice-Chairman, Dr. G. Chandra Sekhar, to invite Ram Nidumolu, co-author of the case study (referred to as "the consultant" in the case for the purposes of objectivity), to identify areas of improvement and implement initiatives to enhance employee well-being. The initiative described in this case study began in August 2018 and was completed a year later. The initiative was built around a new approach to employee well-being called "beingful work". Beingful work theory, developed by Nidumolu and his associates, posits that employee well-being is influenced by the extent to which the workplace fulfills the needs of the employee's "whole self" or being. These holistic needs include material, psychological, social, ecological, and moral/spiritual needs that employees bring to their work. The more the organization cultivates a work setting that fulfills these needs, the more meaningful work becomes for employees, making them more engaged with their work. Meaningful and engaging work, in turn, promotes the holistic well-being of employees because of the positive energy it creates. The case describes three phases of implementation of beingful work at LVPEI, of which the third phase-scaling up-is proving to be the most challenging.

Headquartered in Botswana, Wilderness Safaris was an ecotourism operator that organized several camps and mobile safaris in Africa. Recently, Wilderness Safaris, and the industry in which it operated, had suffered from significant revenue loss because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Wilderness Safaris had managed to remain operable, the pandemic had changed the industry's long-term landscape. The vice-president of Wilderness Safaris was interested in applying for an award designed to financially support organizations in solving wildlife conservation problems through technologies. She needed to assess and prioritize several technology innovations and communicate a clear strategy for balancing business profitability with social impact.

In the second decade of the 21st century, many time-honored baijiu distillers faced challenges from the digital economy. Going digital was undoubtedly tricky for them, but the mega-trend of digitalization was unavoidable, and the time-honored baijiu distillers had no choice but to adapt. Leading time-honored baijiu distillers were the first in the industry to jump into this trend. However, the road ahead seemed more challenging for small and medium baijiu distillers. This case study focuses on digitalizing a time-honored baijiu distiller in Jiangxi - LIDU Liquor (hereinafter referred to as LIDU). The case describes LIDU's digital journey starting in 2014, focusing on defining digitization, influencing factors, digital measures, and evaluating indicators. It aims to help students understand why and how time-honored baijiu distillers start digitalization. It also provides suggestions on how to assess its digitalization performance. This case offers insights and references for traditional manufacturers and companies in the digital era.

WeChat Pay is one of the leading mobile payment platforms in China. The SME sector is one of the target customer groups WeChat wants to help with its ESG (environmental, social, and governance) efforts to facilitate financial inclusion. SMEs are characterized by diverse needs but limited financial, technological, and human resources. WeChat Pay wants to leverage its technological strengths to provide the products that can address the pain points of SMEs. This case illustrates the challenges that WeChat has faced during its efforts to develop technologies that can meet the various needs of SMEs. The case gives students an opportunity to discuss such topics as why companies like WeChat need to include ESG strategies, and how leading companies can develop IT solutions that are useful for SME users. After studying this case, students will be able to suggest how to make sustainable ESG efforts, instead of as window dressing, and how to develop technologies that the potential users will accept and use.

Bevi was founded to enable a permanent transition away from single-use bottles and cans in order to make an environmental impact. The company built and sold thousands of IoT-enabled smart water dispensers that offered filtered, sparkling and flavored water on tap. Bevi's machines have helped save over 150 million bottles and cans from ending up in landfills. This case explores Bevi's product roadmap, market structures that impacted the company's growth and the complexity of pursuing a dual distribution model in the beverage industry. The case also highlights issues of leadership management and retention in high-growth startups, as well as the strategic decisions the company faced along the way.

The case is set in 2021 and follows the journey of Dr. Shailesh Jhawar, an intensivist trained in the United Kingdom, who returned to India to join his father, Dr. Shiv Bhagwan Jhawar, at Apex Hospitals in Jaipur, Rajasthan, which his father had founded in 1994. The case describes Jhawar's efforts to improve patient outcomes in critical care with the tele-intensive care unit (tele-ICU) model. It takes the reader through Jhawar's journey from the time he discovered the need for tele-ICU and understood the various facets of its implementation to the establishment of Hopes Critical Care (HCC) as a tele-ICU provider and the induction of the first few ""spoke"" hospitals into the tele-ICU network. The case then describes the dilemmas confronting Jhawar as he sought to scale up HCC. Students are encouraged to use their critical thinking skills to design a strategic framework for identifying domains with the greatest potential for adopting and growing the tele-ICU model. First, the case acts as a resource for classroom discussion on what Jhawar should do differently during the next implementation, given the failure of the pilot at the Sky Lifeline Multispecialty Hospital. Second, the case enables the instructor to introduce the concept of the business model canvas, a strategic management tool used to present a business plan in a straightforward and structured way. By developing the business model canvas for the tele-ICU business, students can gain insights into the customers, value proposition, channels, revenue, cost streams, etc., of the business. This case will also introduce students to quantitative (using the net present value, or NPV) and qualitative tools to evaluate the revenue model used in the associated business model.

Spreadsheet supplement for case ISB321.

The case is set in July 2020, when Lynk Biotech (Lynk), a pharmaceutical research company based in Singapore is facing the dilemma of designing new products from its existing transdermal platform which is a well-researched proven technology developed by the company. Lynk was a university spin-off focused on drug research, and had pivoted its business model to come up with over-the-counter topical cream products for the market. The company had followed the research publication route to gain visibility for its technology innovation and the clinical trial route to use its proprietary technology to develop products and bring them to market. All along, the company had relied on Open Innovation methods to build collaboration with local educational institutions to publish its research and help conduct clinical trials. However, the company faced significant challenges in expanding its market outside Singapore, as its products required expensive clinical trials and faced regulatory challenges in most countries. In late 2019, a local research firm with ties to a renowned university in Singapore had approached Lynk to collaborate on using its proprietary technology for a new product that it was designing. While sharing its technology with appropriate licensing measures could be a plausible approach for the company to expand its outreach, were there other avenues that Lynk could explore to expand its business? Was partnering with research organisations the right way forward? Had the clinical trial method been the right way of embarking on its Open Innovation journey?

This case provides an overview of "Franz for Life," an advertising campaign that independent advertising agency Mekansim created and executed to revitalize the brand image of Franzia, a low-cost boxed wine. For several years, Franzia's popularity declined among Millennial consumers, many of whom abandoned the brand for higher-priced wines as they grew older. In 2018, executives at The Wine Group (TWG), Franzia's parent company, recruited Mekanism to change younger audiences' perception of the brand. Mekanism developed the "Franz for Life" campaign based on the insight that Franzia was a brand meant to be enjoyed with friends throughout all stages of the post-college journey. In 2020, TWG decided to renew its relationship with Mekanism and launch "Franz for Life 2.0," a second stage of the campaign that would build on the original campaign's momentum, as well as focus on Generation Z consumers. The case describes how Mekanism developed the 1.0 campaign's creative strategy, media budget allocation, influencer marketing efforts, and brand merchandising. At the conclusion of the case, the TWG team must respond to storyboards that Mekanism pitched to inform the creative direction for Franz for Life 2.0. Which, if any, of the storyboard represents the best path forward for Franzia? Should TWG executives request Mekanism to create additional options? Depending on the creative direction ultimately selected, how should Mekanism propose to allocate the 2.0 marketing budget across media options? More broadly, could Mekanism and the "Franz for Life" campaign help Franzia become an iconic brand?

This case reveals the events that took place after the conclusion of the case "Thinking Outside the Wine Box (A): Mekanism and the Franz for Life Campaign." After reviewing Mekanism's pitches for the Franz for Life 2.0 campaign, TWG executives felt that the proposed storyboards were not the right direction for the campaign, and requested that Mekanism develop a second round of storyboards. At the conclusion of the (B) case, TWG leaders must decide whether to choose one of the new storyboard sets, revisit one of the previous ideas, or request yet another iteration of the pitch.

This case reveals the events that took place after the conclusion of the cases "Thinking Outside the Wine Box (A-B): Mekanism and the Franz for Life Campaign." After selecting a creative direction for the Franz for Life 2.0 campaign, independent advertising agency Mekanism must decide the campaign's influencer marketing strategy as part of the media plan. Mekanism Chief Social Officer Brendan Gahan must review a proposed roster of social media influencers and decide which are likely to be the best ambassadors for the Franzia brand. Gahan also needs to decide how many influencers to contract, how much to pay them, how many pieces of content to commission, and what guidelines to provide.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 522098.

In January 2021, Byte co-founders Scott Cohen and Blake Johnson reflected on how far their Los Angeles-based direct-to-consumer (DTC) orthodontics company had come since launching its clear aligners just a little over two years earlier. Cohen and Johnson were both serial entrepreneurs who had guided several companies to successful exits. They had planned to take the same approach with Byte, preparing for an exit by focusing on profitability and stable growth and forgoing dilutive venture capital (VC) funding. Neither of them had expected Byte to grow as quickly as it had, but the market opportunity had unexpectedly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many consumers sought at-home treatment options. Cohen and Johnson thought about what their next move should be. Given Byte's rapid growth, the founders considered whether they should instead consider other options, such as a strategic acquisition or an eventual initial public offering (IPO). Either option would help position Byte for global expansion, which the founders felt would be a promising growth opportunity for the company.