The case is set in 2015 and follows Angela Toh, the founder and director of AJA Enterprises (AJA), a Singapore-based company established in 1999. The business began as a distribution company for silicone sealants and aluminium cladding for windows. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Toh was inspired to focus on building security services and products. Expertise in this area led to the launch of Enerzorb in 2014, a patented AJA blast mitigation system for glass building facades designed to absorb, diffuse and transfer blast energy away from the impact area. The company has always pursued a cautious growth strategy, but now Toh must bring her company's patented Enerzorb technology to the international market in order to continue growing her company. A more aggressive approach may therefore be required. Creating greater awareness for her branded product remains a key challenge. AJA needs an effective strategy to not only grow new business beyond Singapore, but also attract serious investors and partners that can help the organisation scale up.

Tagit is a Singapore-based mobile solutions company. The company's offering was based on Mobeix, a ground-breaking technology that allowed enterprises to build secure, scalable and innovative mobile applications across multiple mobile devices and operating systems. Leveraging on Mobeix, Tagit had successfully secured its first contract from PVR Cinemas in India, offering the first online ticket-booking platform. Following this, in 2007, Tagit was contracted by Singapore Airlines to develop a mobile app for the airline's passenger services. Facing intense competition and rapid technological advancement in the online ticketing space, Naffi and his business partners started to consider other options to grow revenues and profits. At that time, many banks in Singapore were looking to offer mobile services. Tagit therefore seized such an opportunity and managed to get Citibank India signed up as a client. On the one hand, winning the Citibank contract opened up a whole new business space for Tagit. On the other, new business lines required the operations of Tagit to be scalable, yet controllable. Naffi was pondering over the possible solutions to this dilemma. Is Naffi able to handle the changes and expansion of business lines? Can Tagit's business model be scaled up? How can Naffi build up the credibility of Tagit?

'Greenpac' - a Singapore-based company, offering green, innovative, packaging solutions to clients. Under the leadership of its founder and CEO, Susan Chong, Greenpac has positioned itself as a company that offers unique, customised solutions to its clients. It focuses mainly on design and innovation to come up with a 'green' solution at a reduced cost. Its clients are mostly companies dealing with high-end, sensitive equipment, such as surgical microscopes; and a majority of its clients are manufacturers of medical and defence equipment. In this case study, set in 2011, Greenpac has just made a pitch for an innovative packaging proposal to industry representatives of the ornamental fish industry in Singapore. Susan Chong (the CEO) has taken a conscious strategic decision for the company to step out of its comfort zone to enter an unfamiliar market. Greenpac has invested significant time, effort and money into the project. The packaging it has proposed is clearly superior to the existing packaging: it is green as well as innovative in terms of design and ease of handling. However, it is also significantly costlier. Will the industry representatives agree to go with this solution? Will they have the long-term vision to adopt an innovative solution even though it will increase cost? Or will they be conservative and stay focused on their bottom line?

In September 2013, Alex Leong, co-founder of Rainmaker Labs, considers where to invest the limited resources available to his technology start-up company in order to grow the business. Earlier that year, Rainmaker Labs launched ShopGuru, a mobile shopping application that enables users to earn and redeem loyalty points for browsing or shopping at select retail outlets. The ShopGuru application works hand-in-hand with Rainmaker's proprietary iSenze hardware, which sends signals to the ShopGuru mobile application and captures information about each customer using the application. Keenly aware of the valuable customer data the company is collecting, Leong wants to further explore how this could be converted into a revenue opportunity. However, it has been a challenge to find investors, and after two and half years the company is still cash negative and operating on slim margins. Leong faces a common tech start-up dilemma - whether to focus their limited resources on expanding the business, or to strengthen their back-end systems and develop a stronger technology base to position future business growth. The flip side of this argument is equally relevant - good technology is only as good as its commercial application. This case also discusses the role of strategic business planning in commercialising a cutting-edge technology.

This case is the first part of a two-part series on Innova Technology, a technology start-up company based in Singapore. The two cases focus on: Case (A) - Developing, producing and marketing a product innovation Case (B) - Growth strategies for a young technology company The case is set in May 2012, and begins with the protagonist, Rick Tan, chief executive officer of Innova Technology Private Limited, contemplating what his company's go-to-market strategy should be. Tan and his business partner, Jonathan Lim, who is also the Chief Technology Officer for Innova Technology, developed PROTAG, a new anti-loss device, using Bluetooth technology. The device, which is about the size of two credit cards stacked together, is synched to a mobile phone and can be attached to valuable personal belongings such as keys, wallets, handbags, passports and even phones. If the valuable item were to be separated from the person by more than a certain distance, the device would set off an alarm alerting the owner of its potential loss. Tan and Lim are two young entrepreneurs who set up Innova Technology in January 2011 as a technology start-up under the auspices of Singapore Management University's Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Tan, the partner with the business and finance skills, focused on developing a sound business plan and raising funds for their product. Lim, the technology guru, channelled his efforts to fine-tune the technology and develop a design with unique functionality. After extensive market research and encouraging results from beta test sales using the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo, Tan had confidence in his product. Yet, he was keenly aware that a great product could fall flat in the market if it was not backed by a well-designed marketing strategy. The partners had invested in manufacturing and 5,000 pieces of PROTAG had already been shipped out from the factory.

Arunachalam Muruganantham is a social entrepreneur dedicated to solving India's menstrual health problems. He developed an unprecedented product: a low-cost, locally produced sanitary pad. In a paragon effort of frugal innovation, he reverse-engineered the industrial processes used to make sanitary-pads. The result was a small-scale, low-cost machine that could manufacture quality pads sold at a retail price 20% lower than the cheapest mass-produced brands. However, no one bought his pads until his wife began to sell them. Soon the two were unable to keep up with demand. This helped Muruganantham realise the importance of including women as stakeholders in the operation. His next step is to figure out how to scale-up to increase availability and access to the pads.

Supplement to case SMU403. This case is the second part of a two-part series on Innova Technology, a technology start-up company based in Singapore. The two cases focus on: Case (A) - Developing, producing and marketing a product innovation Case (B) - Growth strategies for a young technology company The case is set in May 2012, and begins with the protagonist, Rick Tan, chief executive officer of Innova Technology Private Limited, contemplating what his company's go-to-market strategy should be. Tan and his business partner, Jonathan Lim, who is also the Chief Technology Officer for Innova Technology, developed PROTAG, a new anti-loss device, using Bluetooth technology. The device, which is about the size of two credit cards stacked together, is synched to a mobile phone and can be attached to valuable personal belongings such as keys, wallets, handbags, passports and even phones. If the valuable item were to be separated from the person by more than a certain distance, the device would set off an alarm alerting the owner of its potential loss. Tan and Lim are two young entrepreneurs who set up Innova Technology in January 2011 as a technology start-up under the auspices of Singapore Management University's Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Tan, the partner with the business and finance skills, focused on developing a sound business plan and raising funds for their product. Lim, the technology guru, channelled his efforts to fine-tune the technology and develop a design with unique functionality. After extensive market research and encouraging results from beta test sales using the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo, Tan had confidence in his product. Yet, he was keenly aware that a great product could fall flat in the market if it was not backed by a well-designed marketing strategy. The partners had invested in manufacturing and 5,000 pieces of PROTAG had already been shipped out from the factory.