The case describes the current state of the Indian textile (inclusive of apparel) value chain from a circular economy perspective. Looking through the lens of a small startup named Saahas Zero Waste (SZW), the case explores different waste streams in India, the current waste treatment activities, and the challenges in adding waste back into the value chain. Globally, textile is one of the most polluting industries; the rise of fast fashion has worsened the situation over the years. The complexity of the reverse supply chain, quality concerns in recycled materials, and lack of traceability and accountability for different types of waste make it challenging to ensure a closed-loop supply chain. SZW mostly looked at post-consumer textile waste and focused on ensuring both environmental sustainability by diverting waste from landfills and social sustainability by providing training and livelihood for women self-help groups (SHGs). Traditionally, brands were not even ready to take responsibility for their pre-consumer waste, let alone post-consumer waste. The scenario had started changing, thanks to the regulatory landscape in western countries. India being an important sourcing hub for global textile brands, many domestic garment manufacturers started investing in recycled yarn production. While continuing its operation in post-consumer waste, SZW was also eager to partner with brands to complete the cycle by facilitating responsible treatment of both pre-and post-consumer waste and seamlessly reintegrating it back into the value chain. Over the years, the volume of collected waste increased, and SZW started facing multi-faced challenges. Their in-house thrift shop was not ready to handle a higher volume of good quality reusable clothes and upcycled products; it needed proper marketing channels and selling platforms. On the flip side, the volume of recyclable waste was not high enough to achieve economies of scale and be cost-effective.

The case describes the disruption caused by the shortage of chips and sensors in the automobile sector. Although semiconductors used in the automobile sector are essentially low value and cost only a few dollars, they are technologically intensive in terms of both design and manufacturing. Moreover, only a few players in the manufacturing sector have the capability to produce chips, creating an asymmetry in the power equation. Interestingly, the semiconductor value chain is adapting to new geopolitical tensions, and the chipmaking landscape may undergo a significant change in the next 10-15 years. In this context, the case discusses the structure of the semiconductor industry as a whole and its characterization within the automobile sector. It also describes the current sourcing model of semiconductors used by automakers. The main objective is to help students better understand the complex and evolving supply chain structure and its implications for automobile companies worldwide. The case concludes with specific questions about how automakers should restructure their semiconductor supply chains and address future disruptions.

Spreadsheet supplement for case IMB959.

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?

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case IMB935

Looms of Ladakh (LL) is a women's cooperative that has a vision to empower the local women artisans by not just upskilling but also making them independently manage the entire cooperative. The cooperative is managed and governed by the local artisans and has recently hired talent from leading design and management schools to oversee their operations. The founders realized that to scale up and collaborate with design houses and online retailers, and thereby increase their presence and profits, they will have to work in a more structured and data-driven fashion. Optimal use of resources and material is key to compete in the modern market and sell their products in international market at competitive prices. The case provides the students an opportunity to come up with a resource optimzation model using the data collected by LL over a period of time. The objective is to help LL earn maximum profits by making optimum usage of the avaibalbe human and material resources and by identifying an optimal product mix that maximizes their profitability.

Godrej Appliances Division (GAD) of Godrej & Boyce manufacturing company limited - which had been around for more than 60 years and was the first company to manufacture refrigerators in India - began to face intense competition in the early to late 2000s due to the entry of multinational companies (MNCs), such as LG and Samsung, after liberalization of the Indian economy. GAD had been among the top-3 players in the industry until the entry of the MNCs, and subsequently, their market share fell by half to 13% in the late 1990s and further decreased to 6% by 2010. To improve their competitiveness, to benchmark with industry best practices, and to get feedback from the assessment process, GAD chose to participate in the Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) Business Excellence (BE) award, modeled after EFQM, from 2011 onward. The objective was to use this feedback to identify their internal gaps vis-à-vis the competition and improve the respective processes in order to regain their market share. The case describes how GAD made use of the EFQM philosophy and the award criteria to completely revamp their processes and bridge gaps with the competition. They focused on the five enablers: (1) Leadership (2) Strategy (3) People (4) Partnerships & Resources and (5) Processes, Products & Services, to improve their business and organizational processes. These efforts paid off, and GAD progressively improved their products and processes during the next several years, finally achieving the CII-BE award in 2019. The case A ends with a list of operational capabilities that GAD acquired in the process and how they can exploit them, just when COVID-19 pandemic hit India. Case B then goes on to describe how GAD made use of these capabilities to quickly develop and introduce new products that were urgently needed in the country, to address the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Godrej Appliances Division (GAD) of Godrej & Boyce manufacturing company limited - which had been around for more than 60 years and was the first company to manufacture refrigerators in India - began to face intense competition in the early to late 2000s due to the entry of multinational companies (MNCs), such as LG and Samsung, after liberalization of the Indian economy. GAD had been among the top-3 players in the industry until the entry of the MNCs, and subsequently, their market share fell by half to 13% in the late 1990s and further decreased to 6% by 2010. To improve their competitiveness, to benchmark with industry best practices, and to get feedback from the assessment process, GAD chose to participate in the Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) Business Excellence (BE) award, modeled after EFQM, from 2011 onward. The objective was to use this feedback to identify their internal gaps vis-à-vis the competition and improve the respective processes in order to regain their market share. The case describes how GAD made use of the EFQM philosophy and the award criteria to completely revamp their processes and bridge gaps with the competition. They focused on the five enablers: (1) Leadership (2) Strategy (3) People (4) Partnerships & Resources and (5) Processes, Products & Services, to improve their business and organizational processes. These efforts paid off, and GAD progressively improved their products and processes during the next several years, finally achieving the CII-BE award in 2019. The case A ends with a list of operational capabilities that GAD acquired in the process and how they can exploit them, just when COVID-19 pandemic hit India. Case B then goes on to describe how GAD made use of these capabilities to quickly develop and introduce new products that were urgently needed in the country, to address the challenges posed by the pandemic.

The case describes the problems in agricultural practices in the north-western states of India and the efforts of a non-governmental organization, CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development (CESD) and CII Foundation (CIIF), to address those problems. Through the journey of the CIIF team in learning about the problem and piloting the solutions, the case describes the nature and scale of the problem of crop residue burning (CRB) after harvesting the paddy crop. The case explains the decision-making pattern of farmers and the factors that compel them to adopt the unsustainable practice of CRB. The case sensitizes students to the adverse impact of such unsustainable agriculture practice not just in the local ecology but also in the air quality of the nearby region of Delhi NCR. The students can not only learn about the various technical solutions but also about non-technical aspects such as how successful collaborations between various governmental and non-governmental stakeholders can help address the problem of crop residue management (CRM). The pilots on a smaller scale (select villages) by CIIF also generated valuable data about the key considerations of farmers in choosing CRB over the eco-friendly alternative CRM solutions. The students are expected to use this data to objectively arrive at the CRM option best suited for a particular farmer. The data presented in the case allows for the learning and application of various multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques such as analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and decision tree analysis.

Supplement to case IMB893.

The primary objective of this case is to introduce the concepts of sustainability and its operationalization in practice. To achieve this objective, the case makes use of a manufacturing firm in an emerging market, from one of the most polluting industries, namely, cement production. With the help of this example, the case demonstrates (i) the criticality of setting aggressive sustainability targets, (ii) role of top management in setting a long-term sustainability strategy to achieve these targets, (iii) creating a culture of sustainability, and finally, (iv) operationalizing the strategy on a day-to-day basis. The case also provides detailed description of carbon pricing and its role in promotion and adoption of various green technologies. The case narrates the sustainability journey of Dalmia Cement, which is part of a well-respected business group in India. The case begins with a detailed description of the cement production process, which along with the main raw material input (limestone) is the major contributor to the carbon emissions. The efforts of senior management towards creating a sustainability culture and instilling the appropriate values are discussed next. The case summarizes the various commitments made by the management towards environmental and social sustainability and the respective initiatives adopted to fulfil these commitments. The case finally ends with a dilemma regarding how the company will fulfil the pledge that their CEO had made at the Global Climate Action Summit-2018, that they would become Carbon Negative by 2040.

The case narrates the inception and operationalization of a public, private partnership (PPP) between the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) and Apollo Tele Health Services - the tele-medicine arm of one of the largest hospital chains in India, to provide free Tele-Ophthalmology services to rural population residing in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh (AP) using technology. The PPP is called "Mukhyamantri e-Eye Kendram (MeEK)", and its objectives are to provide (i) ophthalmic diagnosis and (ii) free spectacles, to the needy citizens of the state. As part of the PPP, Apollo refurbished 115 vision centers across 13 districts of the state and launched the MeEK project in February 2018. Apollo created a pool of 30 ophthalmologists to provide tele-diagnosis from a remote location; contracted a vendor to manufacture and deliver spectacles; and designed and developed an electronic medical record (EMR) software to integrate all stakeholders in a seamless fashion during the delivery of these services. However, after the launch of MeEK, Apollo began to face various challenges in terms of both software customization and integration, as well as delivery of spectacles, as the demand far outweighed supplier's capacity. As a result, Apollo could not meet the key performance indicators (KPIs) put in place by the government, and began to incur penalties. The case provides the students with an opportunity to analyze various operational trade-offs such as cost, quality, variety and speed in a capacity constrained environment and identify opportunities for improvement without sacrificing one performance indicator for another.

The case narrates the evolution of the Alibaba Group, starting with Alibaba.com in 1999, in four different phases, with the last phase beginning after its IPO in 2014. The evolution is described from a social sustainability perspective, highlighting Alibaba's initial efforts to help small businesses in China access the world markets and later, its focus on facilitating e-commerce led entrepreneurship in rural parts of China. Not surprisingly, Alibaba Group's evolution coincided with China's economic growth, as the e-commerce platforms have significantly contributed to the growth of businesses and consumerism in China. Specifically, the development of e-commerce ecosystem by Alibaba Group, created a platform where not only retail businesses, but also allied third party service providers could emerge and grow. After its IPO in 2014, Jack Ma, Alibaba Group's chairman, explicitly defined "E-commerce in rural areas" as one of the three strategic directions going forward. The case discusses in detail the two rural initiatives "Taobao Villages" and "Rural Taobao" that the Alibaba group pursued as part of its rural strategy. It is estimated that the e-commerce of Taobao villages created more than 840,000 direct job opportunities and rural Taobao reached 202 counties in 22 provinces and established 9,278 village-level service stations by August 2016. The case also provides a brief overview of the ecommerce industry in India and ends with the questions: if there is a way for e-commerce players to provide socially sustainable business opportunities for the Indian rural population and how Alibaba should plan its entry and growth in the Indian market.

This case describes the activities and documents the challenges faced by a small-scale firm in the unorganized sector of textile wet processing industry in India. While the small scale and manual nature of operations allows firms in this industry much flexibility of accepting a wide variety of orders, in terms of size and the type of processing needed by the customers, it also poses quality and delivery related challenges that arise due to the manual nature of operations. The case therefore exposes students to the operational trade-offs between flexibility, cost, quality and delivery time and highlights the tensions between various competitive dimensions in a business scenario. The students are then provided a choice of options to choose from, which will require them to consider the pros and cons of choosing one dimension over the other, in the context a small-scale firm in an unorganized sector of an emerging market, that is constrained for resources.

The case narrates the journey of an environmentalist, M Revathi, who as a young child with polio affected legs, could not move around on her own, and therefore began to develop friendship with birds, who kept her company. She thus grew up appreciating life other than mankind, such as birds, insects, plants and animals, and became an avid reader and a birdwatcher. Revathi eventually chose a career as a science teacher, and her passion for birds led her to the discovery that usage of pesticides, insecticides and other agricultural chemicals was severely damaging the environment and destroying the farming ecosystem. The case then describes Revathi's tryst with farming communities and her enquiries into India's green revolution, which revealed the root cause of increased pesticide usage in Indian agriculture. Revathi successfully uncovers the various connections between fertilizers, high yielding variety (HYV) seeds and the need for pesticides; and how the water-intensive modern agricultural practices gradually reduced the fertile delta lands in India into infertile dry lands. The case next describes how Revathi's efforts to change the habits of farming communities towards more ecofriendly methods and her determination to build morale of debt-ridden farmers on the verge of suicides, led Revathi to quit her job as a school teacher and travel around the rural parts of India. Her husband followed suit, giving up a well-respected position in the Indian Navy, to support Revathi in her journey. The couple soon found themselves in the midst of Tsunami-hit Nagapattinam district, offering relief and rehabilitation to poor and marginal farmers whose livelihoods have been hit hard by Tsunami. The case ends with the following dilemma: whether Revathi and her husband should implement the ecological techniques they have been using to recover the land damaged by chemical-based farming, to recover the Tsunami-hit land in Nagapattinam district.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Despite India's economic growth and potential, developing a successful strategy for the country remains one of the most complex challenges for foreign multinationals. This challenge is rooted in the hard realities of global scale and costs. Most foreign executives have found it difficult to make money in India with their existing product portfolios at the scale of operations dictated by local demand. In addition, India has not provided foreign direct investment incentives anywhere near those of neighboring China. However, U.S. management consulting firm A.T. Kearney estimated in 2014 that India's share of global trade would be approximately five times greater by 2025 -and at that point would represent 6% of all global trade. Given that growth projection, waiting for a target income segment to reach the break-even level or waiting for greater government incentives to materialize is not the right strategy. Indeed, the authors observe, many foreign multinationals have increased their focus on India. However, they add, many foreign executives are frustrated that they cannot replicate the same strategies in India that led to success in China. One reason is the local high-income segment, which constitutes the initial target market for most foreign companies, is relatively small in India compared with China. This often causes foreign executives to refrain from investing in more extensive value-chain activities in India and delay committing to local manufacturing. Based on their research, the authors present a framework for foreign multinationals for a successful first-time entry into India or for upgrading an existing operation in India that has not been very effective. This approach involves simultaneously taking advantage of local sourcing, manufacturing, and marketing activities in conjunction with local adaptation of global products to generate mutually reinforcing advantages.

Supplement to case IMB615. Set in early 2009, Part (A) of the case describes the operational challenges faced by a growing subsidiary firm of a global auto major, in an emerging economy. The case illustrates how India emerges as a key market and the Indian subsidiary evolves into a material management and logistics (MM&L) hub for its Asia Pacific and Africa (APA) region. As the volumes of APA region begin to increase, the parent company realizes the need to automate material planning and scheduling-related processes across the plants in the APA region, which were being managed manually. The company takes this opportunity to virtually integrate the entire supply chain across all the plants in the APA region, by linking sales planning, material planning, procurement, production scheduling, and delivery activities, through a common order-to-delivery (OTD) system for the APA region. The Indian subsidiary in the meantime decides to introduce a small car, specifically engineered to meet the requirements of a high-volume, but price-sensitive Indian market. The case then focuses on the challenges the APA MM&L team faces in implementing the OTD system, for the first time in India plant (to be followed by plants in Australia, South Africa, China, and Thailand), replacing the existing built-to-stock (BTS) model. Part (A) of the case ends by unfolding the age-old tension between the upstream material planning and scheduling activities and the downstream marketing and distribution networks. The various stakeholders in the system are left to grapple with these challenges before they can arrive at a consensus regarding "if and how to implement" the OTD system in order to enjoy the benefits of automation and virtual integration. Case (B) describes the outcomes of the actual implementation and provides scope for investigating the impact of OTD on the success of the small car introduced in the Indian market.

Set in early 2009, Part (A) of the case describes the operational challenges faced by a growing subsidiary firm of a global auto major, in an emerging economy. The case illustrates how India emerges as a key market and the Indian subsidiary evolves into a material management and logistics (MM&L) hub for its Asia Pacific and Africa (APA) region. As the volumes of APA region begin to increase, the parent company realizes the need to automate material planning and scheduling-related processes across the plants in the APA region, which were being managed manually. The company takes this opportunity to virtually integrate the entire supply chain across all the plants in the APA region, by linking sales planning, material planning, procurement, production scheduling, and delivery activities, through a common order-to-delivery (OTD) system for the APA region. The Indian subsidiary in the meantime decides to introduce a small car, specifically engineered to meet the requirements of a high-volume, but price-sensitive Indian market. The case then focuses on the challenges the APA MM&L team faces in implementing the OTD system, for the first time in India plant (to be followed by plants in Australia, South Africa, China, and Thailand), replacing the existing built-to-stock (BTS) model. Part (A) of the case ends by unfolding the age-old tension between the upstream material planning and scheduling activities and the downstream marketing and distribution networks. The various stakeholders in the system are left to grapple with these challenges before they can arrive at a consensus regarding "if and how to implement" the OTD system in order to enjoy the benefits of automation and virtual integration. Case (B) describes the outcomes of the actual implementation and provides scope for investigating the impact of OTD on the success of the small car introduced in the Indian market.

This case provides an opportunity to perform value stream mapping for an assembly line and use the same to identify inefficiencies and areas of improvement in the operations processes using VSM. It features a manufacturer of machine tools who has recently doubled the throughput rate one of the assembly lines, through half-day indexing. Amid cut throat competition, the firm needs to reduce costs throughout the plant and therefore the case prods students to come up with further process improvements the firm could implement, before adopting the half-day indexing to other assembly lines in the plant.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF) was founded in 2000 in Bangalore to provide free mid-day meals to the students of government schools. TAPF's kitchen in Vasanthapura provided meals to 650 schools in and around Bangalore benefitting 87,045 children. In 2014, TAPF provided meals to 1.4 million students and by 2020 they wanted to reach out to 5 million students. This massive expansion needs to be achieved without compromising the quality of food provided and simultaneously ensuring that all the key performance indicators such as time of delivery and temperature of food at the time of delivery are maintained as per the specifications. Muralidhar, the head of quality at TAPF along with his team have implemented several quality improvement projects. However, massive expansion plan by TAPF posed a greater challenge to Muralidhar. One of the critical to quality metric in TAPF is the "cooking-to-consumption time'', which should ideally be less than 6 hours. As the number of children to be fed increases, the cooking-to-consumption time is likely to increase. Muralidhar is contemplating use of lean and Six Sigma concepts to ensure that the cooking-to-consumption time is kept within the allowable time limit.