Surana & Surana International Attorneys (S&S) is a multispecialty law firm. Since its inception in 1971, it had declined to serve clients who were in the industries of meat, tobacco, alcohol, and gambling (M-TAG). In early March 2023, a large opportunity arose from a world leader in the alcohol business. Sanjay Mehta, Head of Business Development, met Vinod Surana, CEO and Partner at S&S, to convince him about bringing change to its deep-rooted tradition of sticking to no M-TAG. Kartik and Keerti,CEO's two sons would join S&S soon after finishing their legal education. Surana had a dilemma whether to stick to the existing business philosophy of "no M-TAG" clients or be flexible, considering growing competition and the business requirements.
Launched in 2009, Australian-based Shoes of Prey allowed potential customers to design every detail of a pair of shoes. The co-creation strategy offered customers a sense of ownership and increased their perceived value of the shoes. The company initially focused on niche customers; however, as a result of increased business investment, it decided to scale its business to the mass market. This mass customization and co-creation strategy brought numerous challenges. The company’s inability to succeed in the mass market led to the co-founder suspending business operations in August 2018. Should she reboot the business with substantial changes, or was it time sell out?
In 2015, Cerana Beverages Pvt. Ltd. launched Bira 91 (Bira), India’s first handcrafted beer. It was introduced to fill a gap in the market between Indian brands and expensive imported beers. The handcrafted beer was priced lower than several premium beers but was more expensive than the market leaders. This allowed Bira to develop price leadership in the premium beer segment. By setting a new price range, Bira executed “high quality, low price” appeal and became capable of influencing customer product evaluations. With its intention to replicate this pricing strategy in its global expansion, now Bira would have to successfully design a proactive strategy to meet the associated challenges.
In 2017, United Airlines suffered a blow to its corporate reputation throughout the United States and international markets, including China, mainly due to an incident on United flight 3411, in which an airport enforcement officer forcibly dragged a passenger out of a plane. The inadequate public relations reaction following the incident and ineffective crisis management left the company reeling. The company became subject to scathing social media attacks, customer dissatisfaction, passenger anger, and a drop in its stock value. The airline, which had already been grappling with very low rankings in customer satisfaction indexes, realized the need to rebuild its brand and greatly improve its customer satisfaction ratings. To prevent such instances from occurring in the future, United needed to take steps to rebuild its tarnished brand image and consider some important questions: What service expectations did customers have of airlines such as United? How would these expectations develop over time? How important were customer satisfaction, client relationships, and passenger experience to United? How could an airline company conduct a root cause analysis for service failure? How could it analyze the different gaps in delivering good quality service?
Having affirmed its place in the computer, phone, and music markets, Apple Inc. (Apple) decided to embark on a brand extension strategy, shifting its focus to wearable technologies. With this shift in mind, Apple launched the Apple Watch in April 2015 as an attempt to enter different industries. Apple Watch integrated fitness and health features with Apple’s mobile operating system (iOS) and other Apple products and services. Because Apple owned the necessary hardware, software, and services that were augmented through its ecosystem, the watch was virtually inimitable. The innovation thus appeared poised to be a true game changer.<br><br>However, in mid-2016, Apple’s chief executive officer, acknowledged that Apple Watch had not created quite the market impact Apple had expected. Apple management had limited options. Should Apple reconfigure the marketing mix to realign Apple’s marketing strategy to reduce resistance to Apple Watch?
In 2016, Pepperfry.com (Pepperfry) was India’s leading online retailer of furniture and home products. As a pioneer in the online furniture and furnishings space, Pepperfry had a first-mover advantage that led to the achievement of significant milestones within a short period. Online marketing, however, involved distinct challenges compared with traditional marketing practices. Improving customer experience at the different stages of a consumer’s purchase could be the foundational strategy to resolve these challenges. How could Pepperfry’s service design further enhance the customer experience and achieve a competitive advantage?
In September 2015, the Volkswagen Group (VW) was in a state of flux. Its reputation was taking a severe beating in the auto industry and among consumers. The United States Environmental Protection Agency had accused the company of tampering with its EA 189 diesel engines to clear emissions tests. The engines, fitted with a “defeat device,” met the stringent emission levels and higher fuel efficiency standards set in the United States. The defeat device controlled emissions during laboratory testing and driving so that they remained within permissible limits; however, during actual on-the-road driving, the nitrogen oxide emissions were up to 40 times higher. VW’s admission of the intentional manipulation severely dented its value chain, affecting market share, brand image, internal/external stakeholders trust, and supply chain operations. In the wake of the scandal, the company faced the challenge of organizing a product recall and reconceptualizing the VW brand identity.
A 2016 consumer survey in the United Kingdom revealed that five out of 10 people did not know that Coca-Cola Zero (Coke Zero) contained no sugar. Many respondents also expected Coke Zero to taste more like Coca-Cola Classic, but found the taste not similar enough. Therefore, Coca-Cola relaunched the product with an ambitious multimillion-dollar marketing campaign that followed a three-dimension value management cycle encompassing value creation, value communication, and value capture. To successfully relaunch Coke Zero and achieve the company’s objectives, Coca-Cola would need to both anticipate the challenges in each of these three phases and manage them effectively.
<p>The Nestle Maggi Case Study explores what happened on June 2015, when the Indian food regulatory body, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, declared Nestlé’s brand of noodles, Maggi, unsafe for human consumption. Tested samples showed excess levels of lead and added monosodium glutamate. To retain the trust of consumers, Nestlé recalled Maggi from all store shelves in the country. Management was then grappling with an improved re-positioning strategy to help Nestlé retain its considerable market share in India. The other issue that Nestlé needed to resolve was what role pricing would play in influencing consumer purchase decisions during the proposed product relaunch.</p>
In March 2015, the founder and chief executive officer of Nyassa Retail Private Limited — a manufacturer of premium natural and luxury bath and body products based in Mumbai — was contemplating how to ensure the company’s future growth. Product acceptance had been phenomenal, allowing the company to build up a reasonable market share, with healthy profit margins. Although Nyassa had experimented with franchising as a quick way to gain a foothold in and cater to new target markets, it had quickly realized that the odds of losing control over the process due to lack of infrastructure were too high and might result in dissatisfaction and poor service. Thus, it had focused on developing its chain of exclusive retail stores, kiosks, and “shops in shops.” As competition from both Indian and international companies increased, the company was exploring online marketing options, return policy, packaging changes, and cross-selling for its new ultra-premium products. Should it penetrate deeper in India, skim the markets that showed high potential, launch the brand in overseas markets, or accept venture capital funding to achieve its goals?
On September 25, 2014, the prime minister of India extended an official invitation to businesses across the globe to invest and produce in India. The program, called “Make in India,” began as a way to meet the growing needs of the country’s developing economy by encouraging both local innovation and foreign direct investment. Its goal was to make products without defects and with no negative impact on the environment, while protecting intellectual property. Regulatory changes and labour reforms were undertaken to enable favourable conditions for investment. However, various leading authorities had doubts about the program’s focus on manufacturing and the likelihood of a successful replication of China’s export-led growth model. With the many strategic and operating challenges in the way, especially with regards to infrastructure and the availability of a sufficiently skilled and motivated workforce, will “Make in India” be able to succeed in transforming the Indian economy?
The chief executive officer of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) had the daunting task of sustaining a business that had suffered the tragic loss of two of its airliners in a span of just four months. Prior to this, a US$392 million loss, as well as the inability to compete with lower-cost carriers, had posed a great challenge to MAS. Management was planning to initiate a cost-cutting strategy to manage pricing and the competitive challenges of the aviation industry when these incidents shocked the world. The disasters greatly impacted customer confidence, as reflected in the company’s declining booking rates and stock prices. With its reputation severely damaged, MAS was faced with many hard-hitting questions from various stakeholders about the airline’s prospects. Many felt there was a need to transform the entire business model. The top executives pondered various options, including rebranding the airline, a new discounted pricing structure to build volume, a private equity infusion, a merger and filing for bankruptcy. Each option would have to be considered very carefully, as the changes made to the business would decide the future of MAS.
Founded in 2011 in Mumbai, India, Ekohealth Management Consultants Private Limited helped its subscribing members by negotiating bulk discounts with hospitals for all planned surgeries and reducing their monthly bills by suggesting low-cost generic drugs rather than expensive brand names. It ensured ethical health care practices by removing the referral fees doctors routinely demanded from hospitals, pathology clinics, pharmaceutical companies and other medical professionals in exchange for directing patients to them. The company had entered fiscal year 2013/14 with a high momentum and envisioned recording revenue of INR28.3 million by the end of the year. The existing price metric involved a single price point: the annual membership fee of INR1,500 for up to five members of a family. The company has plans to move into other Indian cities by mid-2014. Is the single price metric appropriate for these new markets?
By the end of its first season in spring 2014, “Comedy Nights with Kapil” had become India’s top rated comedy television serial in the nonfiction category. Each episode invited celebrities from Bollywood or sports teams as guests to promote their upcoming movies or ventures. The show had developed its target market and had entered the maturity stage of its business life cycle. What might be future value creation business strategies for the show to sustain its audience engagement and ratings? The intent to telecast once a week rather than twice a week upset the broadcasting channel, Colors TV. How would this change impact value creation for all the stakeholders?
Ludhiana City Bus Service Limited (LCBSL) was created to improve the urban transportation system in the city of Ludhiana, India. As per the existing pricing strategy, bus fares (one of key revenue source for LCBSL) were set by the state government. LCBSL management was convinced that there was ample scope for raising the bus fares. The partial project implementation had been generating a return on capital of 1.9 per cent. To reduce this breakeven period and achieve targeted returns on capital of 4 per cent, management was considering the option to increase fares across different distance categories. Would this price restructuring be a game changer for LCBSL and a benchmark pricing strategy for other city bus service projects to follow?