個案資料

Vikrant Kadian founded Cherrygrocer Pvt. Ltd. (Fresherry), an online app and delivery service for fruits and vegetables, in February 2021 in Gurgaon, India, and was joined in the venture by three friends. In January 2023, Kadian was still the majority shareholder. The venture promised its customers better prices, convenience, an alternative to physical inspection of the produce, and traceability. However, the company had no defined target market and insufficient capabilities to straddle two main market segments, and the bootstrapped venture was suffering from wastage and inefficient resource allocations and facing high operational losses. Kadian had to choose from among the options available: Should he target a specific market or continue to straddle two segments and invest in capabilities? If he decided to choose a target market, should he chase the premium or budget segment? Should he continue bootstrapping the firm or bring in an external investor to implement a marketing strategy? Realizing the importance of his entrepreneurial dream and the principle on which he started his venture, Kadian had to decide the way forward without losing time.

This case is suitable for management students in graduate and post-graduate level courses. It can be used to teach the following topics and subtopics:<br><br><ul><li>Strategic marketing—including service quality and market targeting</li><li>Holistic marketing—including linkages between strategy, marketing, and finance in achieving targets</li><li>Strategy and entrepreneurship—including the business canvas model for strategic planning and positioning and the resource-based view for defining the business strategy and operations</li></ul>After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:<br><br><ul><li>Evaluate two marketing strategies: straddling two or more market segments and targeting a specific segment.</li><li>Identify the elements of the growth decisions of a business.</li><li>Identify the linkages between company strategy, marketing decisions, and financial alternatives.</li><li>Apply an appropriate marketing framework to communicate and enhance the service quality of an online retail business.</li></ul>

• start up
• target market
• entrepreneurship