個案總覽

Spreadsheet supplement for case ISB128.

The case describes the challenges related to topline enhancement faced by Sparsh Nephrocare, a growing chain of dialysis centers in India. In the early years of its operations (2010-2015), Sparsh grew mainly by opening new centers and focused on cost leadership to maintain profitability. However, as Sparsh's founders, Gaurav Porwal and Saurav Panda, look to raise Series B funding, they are faced with the challenge of how to fuel the next phase of growth at the existing centers. Any option worth investigating must ensure that the company's relationships with various stakeholders in a fragmented ecosystem are not adversely affected. This includes ensuring good outcomes for patients and preserving the autonomy of nephrologists and the importance of the hospitals that house these dialysis centers.

Spreadsheet supplement for case ISB131.

DHAN was a non-government organization with a difference. It was neither a philanthropic organization nor a service organization but a development organization focused on grassroots development aided by professional management. At the same time, it had a clear vision of being only an enabling institution rather than a directing agency. Dedicated to the mission of poverty eradication through grassroots development action, DHAN had made a significant impact on the Indian scene in the years since its inception in 1997. By 2017, it had touched the lives of 1.5 million households and was poised to reach out to another one million households over the next five years. In its mission to combat poverty, DHAN initially employed two major thematic interventions, namely, community banking and water management. However, over a period of time, it forayed into several other domains such as healthcare, education and livelihood generation in response to the dynamic requirements of its community of beneficiaries, specifically, the marginalized and the poorest of the poor in India. This case explores the theme of sustainable livelihoods and how interventions in this sphere need to be viewed and managed in an integrated manner with a conscious focus on the conservation of the larger ecosystem in which they are embedded. The case describes DHAN's various initiatives and interventions in the sustainable livelihoods arena, the challenges it encountered along the way and its innovative responses to those challenges.

Case A is set in 2016. Trung Dung is the founder of iCare Benefits (iCare), a social enterprise established to aid low-income workers. His background included studying computer science in the US and successfully working in the American software industry. Trung returned to Vietnam to discover that many low-income workers had to borrow heavily for basic household necessities, especially migrant workers who moved to the city with nothing. How could he help? Trung decided to tackle the related problems of lack of access to the formal financial sector and the workers' lack of basic consumer durable goods. He partnered with employers, global manufacturers and financial institutions to develop a third-party employee benefits programme that would help low-income migrant workers afford basic goods. iCare would undertake retail functions to enable migrant workers to buy consumer goods. Using an innovative retail model, iCare would provide workers with zero-interest procurement loans for up to six months. His value proposition to partners allowed for a collaborative setup that permitted the social enterprise to operate without donations. Case B continues in 2018. iCare has been successful in reducing borrowing from other sources at usurious rates. Many workers now have access to financing and consequently basic consumer durable goods. Trung is able to scale up and reach many more workers. However, he wanted to help existing members as well. He would start to offer additional consumer discretionary products and services in the areas of education, healthcare and insurance. How might he further improve the lives of low income workers?

Case A is set in 2016. Trung Dung is the founder of iCare Benefits (iCare), a social enterprise established to aid low-income workers. His background included studying computer science in the US and successfully working in the American software industry. Trung returned to Vietnam to discover that many low-income workers had to borrow heavily for basic household necessities, especially migrant workers who moved to the city with nothing. How could he help? Trung decided to tackle the related problems of lack of access to the formal financial sector and the workers' lack of basic consumer durable goods. He partnered with employers, global manufacturers and financial institutions to develop a third-party employee benefits programme that would help low-income migrant workers afford basic goods. iCare would undertake retail functions to enable migrant workers to buy consumer goods. Using an innovative retail model, iCare would provide workers with zero-interest procurement loans for up to six months. His value proposition to partners allowed for a collaborative setup that permitted the social enterprise to operate without donations. Case B continues in 2018. iCare has been successful in reducing borrowing from other sources at usurious rates. Many workers now have access to financing and consequently basic consumer durable goods. Trung is able to scale up and reach many more workers. However, he wanted to help existing members as well. He would start to offer additional consumer discretionary products and services in the areas of education, healthcare and insurance. How might he further improve the lives of low income workers?

The case discusses how Pepperfry, India's largest online furniture retailer, disrupted the furniture and home decor market while overcoming the challenges of India's weak infrastructure, age-old methods of buying and selling furniture from local carpentry shops, lack of consumer trust in e-commerce and a massive geography. By 2018 Pepperfry had grown exponentially to control over 60% of the online furniture business in the country. However, several questions regarding its current and future trajectory remained. First, despite controlling costs and significantly expanding revenues, it was not profitable. What could it do to achieve profitability? Second, in response to the demands of the market, Pepperfry embarked on an omnichannel strategy, establishing 34 studios in Tier 1 cities with targeted expansion to 70 studios by 2019. How could it manage this added online-offline complexity, while still staying on track to break even? Finally, the competitive space had significantly heated up, with the arrival of IKEA (September 2018), and with Flipkart's (acquired by Walmart) growing focus on the furniture segment. Did Pepperfry have the systems, brand name and agility to respond to these challenges? Or will the disruptor be disrupted?

Student spreadsheet to case UV2297

In 2017, the humble jackfruit, which grew in weed-like abundance in India, gained sudden prominence in the United States. The underutilized jackfruit crop was also gaining recognition globally for its role in addressing food security issues. An entrepreneur who had pioneered methods of jackfruit processing at Artocarpus Foods Private Limited in his native state of Kerala, India, had faced many entrepreneurial challenges in establishing Hebon, his brand of processed jackfruit products. Now he was considering whether to pursue the opportunity to exploit the overseas market or to continue focusing on domestic expansion.

Cabalonga S. A. (Cabalonga) was a unique, low-cost hostel located in the small seaside town of Puerto Cayo, Ecuador. The beachfront land on which Cabalonga was established had been inherited by one of the two proprietors. In 2017, the company did little better than break even, but the hostel did provide the occasional weekend getaway for its owners. However, the weekend getaways had actually become hectic cross-country commutes for the owners, and too many hours were spent attending to guests' needs. While the enterprise was financially stable, the owners wanted it to be a self-sustaining and less time-intensive investment.

This case highlights the differences in the business models of Amazon and Alibaba, respectively. Readers need to analyze the characteristics of India with respect to culture, wealth and income distribution, demographics, economy, infrastructure, digital potential, diversity, and foreign direct investment policy. Based on their assessment, they need to decide which company represents the better strategic fit for success in India. Theoretical models illustrated are Hambrick's strategy diamond, SWOT analysis, customer segmentation, concept of clockspeed by Charles H. Fine (double helix model), and principles of platform business models.

To succeed, projects must meet the conditions defined by the project's stakeholders. Sometimes these conditions are explicit: it must be finished by this date, it cannot exceed this budget. Sometimes they are more subtle: the outcomes, must meet specific-often poorly articulated-criteria. The context shapes what must be achieved, how it has to be done, and when. To deal with this 'uniqueness' and its uncertainty, project managers must plan. There is no single approach to planning a project, but for a given set of circumstances, there is a best one. This book takes you through many common planning situations you will meet. It uses stories of real projects to show how planning decisions alter depending on the project context. It discusses how resource-constrained planning differs from end-date schedule planning. It looks at what is different between cost-constrained plans and time boxing. It explores why you must plan when using Agile approaches, and how to plan for innovation. Chapter 1, Planning a Project, introduces two fundamental models: one to establish the strategic aspects of a project plan-the project mission-the second, the tactical concerns. It also set outs a structure for a plan that reflects the different levels of volatility. In doing so, it provides an overview of the book, defines many of the key terms used in the book, introduces the Project Mission Model, and identifies the key steps involved in planning.

To succeed, projects must meet the conditions defined by the project's stakeholders. Sometimes these conditions are explicit: it must be finished by this date, it cannot exceed this budget. Sometimes they are more subtle: the outcomes, must meet specific-often poorly articulated-criteria. The context shapes what must be achieved, how it has to be done, and when. To deal with this 'uniqueness' and its uncertainty, project managers must plan. There is no single approach to planning a project, but for a given set of circumstances, there is a best one. This book takes you through many common planning situations you will meet. It uses stories of real projects to show how planning decisions alter depending on the project context. It discusses how resource-constrained planning differs from end-date schedule planning. It looks at what is different between cost-constrained plans and time boxing. It explores why you must plan when using Agile approaches, and how to plan for innovation. Chapter 2, Schedule-Driven Planning, focuses on time-constrained project planning. It provides examples of such projects. It also identifies both the challenges of this form of planning and potential strategies and tactics to increase the odds such a project will succeed.

To succeed, projects must meet the conditions defined by the project's stakeholders. Sometimes these conditions are explicit: it must be finished by this date, it cannot exceed this budget. Sometimes they are more subtle: the outcomes, must meet specific-often poorly articulated-criteria. The context shapes what must be achieved, how it has to be done, and when. To deal with this 'uniqueness' and its uncertainty, project managers must plan. There is no single approach to planning a project, but for a given set of circumstances, there is a best one. This book takes you through many common planning situations you will meet. It uses stories of real projects to show how planning decisions alter depending on the project context. It discusses how resource-constrained planning differs from end-date schedule planning. It looks at what is different between cost-constrained plans and time boxing. It explores why you must plan when using Agile approaches, and how to plan for innovation. Chapter 3, Resource-Driven Planning, highlights the challenges of planning when resources like time and/or money are scarce, and indicates the specific nature of several such challenges. It also provides various techniques to mitigate the effects of these constraints.

To succeed, projects must meet the conditions defined by the project's stakeholders. Sometimes these conditions are explicit: it must be finished by this date, it cannot exceed this budget. Sometimes they are more subtle: the outcomes, must meet specific-often poorly articulated-criteria. The context shapes what must be achieved, how it has to be done, and when. To deal with this 'uniqueness' and its uncertainty, project managers must plan. There is no single approach to planning a project, but for a given set of circumstances, there is a best one. This book takes you through many common planning situations you will meet. It uses stories of real projects to show how planning decisions alter depending on the project context. It discusses how resource-constrained planning differs from end-date schedule planning. It looks at what is different between cost-constrained plans and time boxing. It explores why you must plan when using Agile approaches, and how to plan for innovation. Chapter 4, Not a Penny More-Budget-Constrained Planning, highlights the uncertainly of planning related to budgets, and indicates the nature of this uncertainty. It also provides various techniques and factors to consider when responding to these challenges.

To succeed, projects must meet the conditions defined by the project's stakeholders. Sometimes these conditions are explicit: it must be finished by this date, it cannot exceed this budget. Sometimes they are more subtle: the outcomes, must meet specific-often poorly articulated-criteria. The context shapes what must be achieved, how it has to be done, and when. To deal with this 'uniqueness' and its uncertainty, project managers must plan. There is no single approach to planning a project, but for a given set of circumstances, there is a best one. This book takes you through many common planning situations you will meet. It uses stories of real projects to show how planning decisions alter depending on the project context. It discusses how resource-constrained planning differs from end-date schedule planning. It looks at what is different between cost-constrained plans and time boxing. It explores why you must plan when using Agile approaches, and how to plan for innovation. Chapter 5, When It Really Does Have to Work, discusses projects that are mission critical. In such situations, the avoidance of risk drives planning, which must center on total conformance to a pre-specified capability that forces usual planning efforts to be modified to avoid the possibility of events that cannot be managed and known performance must be reliable and verifiable through testing. The chapter thus highlights the uncertainly of planning related to budgets, and indicates the nature of this uncertainty. It also provides various techniques and factors to consider when responding to these challenges.

To succeed, projects must meet the conditions defined by the project's stakeholders. Sometimes these conditions are explicit: it must be finished by this date, it cannot exceed this budget. Sometimes they are more subtle: the outcomes, must meet specific-often poorly articulated-criteria. The context shapes what must be achieved, how it has to be done, and when. To deal with this 'uniqueness' and its uncertainty, project managers must plan. There is no single approach to planning a project, but for a given set of circumstances, there is a best one. This book takes you through many common planning situations you will meet. It uses stories of real projects to show how planning decisions alter depending on the project context. It discusses how resource-constrained planning differs from end-date schedule planning. It looks at what is different between cost-constrained plans and time boxing. It explores why you must plan when using Agile approaches, and how to plan for innovation. Chapter 6, When Stakeholders Really Matter, identifies the importance of stakeholders to projects. It indicates questions that project planners must ask regarding stakeholders' criteria, the characteristics of such stakeholders, and the general types of projects that are stakeholder intensive. It also provides guidance on how to manage such projects and the questions it is necessary to ask when doing so.