OSUM, headquartered in Canada, is a privately held company in the oil and gas sector and enjoys being a significant producer in Western Canada. It is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. In 2023, Canada was the single largest supplier of imported oil to the United States, responsible for over 35% of US imports, much more than Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and all the OPEC countries combined. OSUM uses steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) technology to extract heavy crude oil using an advanced form of steam stimulation. Water plays an important role in this extraction process. In an oil extraction plant, there are several interconnected systems that communicate with each other with established controls and interlocks. The plant operator's role is to ensure the plant runs smoothly without malfunctions, breakdowns, and other disruptions. To facilitate this, alarms and sensors are attached to different systems to signal any potential disruption and mandate a call for timely intervention. However, there are times when multiple alarms are set off, creating a conundrum for the operator, who is challenged with prioritizing which alarm to tackle first. Nuisance alarms, such as chattering, can be a source of distraction for the operator. Such distractions can negatively impact plant operations and result in plant downtime, costing the company significant dollar loss. Being concerned about the increasing cases of spikes in alarms, the company tied up with Drishya AI Labs to help solve this problem by leveraging machine learning algorithms so that such distractions could be reduced.
Crop residue burning (CRB) is a major factor contributing to the pollution in the northern part of India and the national capital region (NCR). In November 2021, the NCR consistently recorded an air quality index (AQI) of more than 450, which is hazardous to human health. As a result of these bad weather conditions, Delhi residents have experienced multiple health issues such as red eyes, headaches, cough, itchy skin, and itchy throats. Farmers burning crop residues during the winter months in the states surrounding Delhi contributed to these environmental conditions. Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) has been working with farmers in Punjab and Haryana to encourage them to adopt eco-friendly straw management practices as part of CII's Crop Residue Management (CRM) initiative. The CRM's main objective was to eliminate the practice of burning crop residues in the open. Chandrakant Pradhan, manager for CRM, wondered how to demonstrate CRM's results in the upcoming funding agency meeting. As part of his presentation, he wanted to raise stakeholders' awareness of the alternative methods based on ground realities and the tools that farmers have been using primarily in different districts and villages of Punjab and Haryana. As he weaved through the traffic, several thoughts began to race through his mind. How should the data collected diligently by his team through farmer surveys be presented to potential funders? How best to examine and analyze the data? What valuable insights can the data provide that can help raise more funds and support from various stakeholders? Is there enough evidence to show whether this initiative will reduce pollution over time and hence needs to be scaled up?
This case focuses on the challenges faced by the Shri Ram Janma Bhoomi Teerth Kshetra (SRJBTK) in managing the fund collection drive project for the construction of the Shri Ram Janma Bhoomi Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India. The campaign was designed to raise awareness of the temple's construction, enlist public support, generate a large base of contributors, and accept contributions, regardless of size. While raising funds was part of the campaign, the focus remained on the masses' emotional and social support. The targets were defined based on the number of connections established and the number of people reached out to, rather than on the collected funds, the COVID 19 pandemic notwithstanding. The campaign wanted to reach out to as many people's hearts and not just their wallets. Various strategic dilemmas needed to be resolved. Accountability, integrity, and trust are the key focus areas of this campaign since misuse of funds can create a huge trust gap between the people and the campaign management team of SRJBTK. What role does communication play in building and sustaining trust? Could a loosely defined network of organizations run an extensive campaign with no formal organizational structures in place?
Champo Carpets is one of the largest carpet manufacturing companies based in India, with customers across the world, including some of the most reputed stores and catalog companies. Champo Carpets is based out of Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, which is one of the most famous clusters of carpet weaving in India. This cluster is spread over 1,000 sq. km and comprises many villages and districts in and around it. The company is a vertically integrated manufacturer and exporter of carpets and floor coverings, with more than 52 years of existence. At the beginning of 2020, the company employed 1,500 people with a capacity to produce 200,000 pieces of carpets and floor coverings per month. As part of sales and marketing, Champo Carpets shared sample designs with its potential customers, based on which the customer placed an order. The sample design selection was done in various ways and the process itself is costly and elaborate. To capture industry trends, a team of the company visited various trade shows and events and sent samples to the client as per the latest fiber and color trends. However, their sample-to-order conversion ratio was low compared to the industry average. This had cost repercussions as well as lost opportunities. The company identified the cause as inaccurate targeting of products to their customers. It subsequently implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application and has been capturing data at every point of production as well as sales. They believe this accumulated data can help target their products accurately to the right clients and design an appropriate recommender system.
Trans Neuron Technologies (TNT) is a learn-to-launch (L2L) company, which aims to transform job-seekers into industry-ready professionals by providing them with adequate backing to undertake that journey. TNT is an innovative company with immense faith in the power of the youth. The company offers eKaushal, a unified platform for various stakeholders in the skilling ecosystem, including candidates, training providers, employers, and assessment agencies. Hundreds of youth visit the eKaushal platform every day to undergo various forms of professional training. These candidates belong to various demographics, education level, income brackets, etc. It was found that some of the candidates could not leverage the training for employment opportunities. The business goal is clearly defined for TNT - they want to enable efficiencies in the entire skilling ecosystem, thus helping youth with employment opportunities. For Shivaam Sharma, the Chief Executive Officer of TNT, the objective is to recommend relevant training to the candidates to increase their employability chances. Sharma wants to use the collected data to achieve the following: 1. Recommend suitable trainings to candidates, so that dropouts are reduced and placement chances for candidates are increased. 2. Compare efficiencies of the training providers (TP) and understand if some of the TPs are underperforming and therefore leading to fewer training completions.
We Sell Everything in Software (WSES) Inc., sold innovative off-the-shelf products and had customers across the world. WSES specialized in providing software solutions for different industries such as defense, clinical research, consumer goods, capital markets, security, banks, retail, and insurance among others. Although the products were commercial off-the-shelf, many clients required personalization and after sales support which WSES was happy to provide. WSES did not have a structured approach to take decision regarding chasing a sales lead. Therefore, it incurred high marketing cost including their travel costs, client visits, time spent by the sales team/technical experts/support staff, and logistics costs; most importantly, this list excluded the cost of advertising, which in effect meant that the advertising costs were over and above the ones mentioned. The marketing team had several beliefs about chance of winning a deal across different geographical locations, different domains, etc. However, none of these beliefs have been validates. Jack Williams, the CEO of WSES, was worried that despite having such a huge expenditure list, the sales conversion possibilities based on the pipeline was at best an ancillary information, as there was no substance in justifying ''gut feeling''. Thus, WSES engaged Liz with a Ph.D. in statistics to understand if they could determine a structured approach to check whether the beliefs of the marketing team were in fact correct or not. Jack also believed that simple statistical analysis could help WSES with useful insights about sales conversion.