Set in 2021, the case highlights how S4Capital, a digital-first advertising and marketing services company, develops a disruptive and innovative business model to meet the industry's growing demand for agility, digital prowess, flexibility, and efficiency, better than the traditional, analogue, holding company model of existing advertising networks. The company's practice of a 'zero earn-out' approach in its mergers and acquisitions, along with an upfront cash payment, share in its equity to the entrepreneur-founders, and incentives to retain the senior management of the acquired firms, also made it a favourite potential partner for like-minded technologically savvy companies in the domain. By September 2021, the S4Capital group comprised more than 26 companies, had a market capitalisation of around US$6.5 billion, and its revenues had grown by 49%. However, it faced many challenges as well. While S4Capital's adoption of unitary branding provided a platform for seamless integration of talent and capabilities across its offices globally, it required constituent agencies to give up their individual, and often highly iconic identities, and build a collaborative mindset for the collective good. In 2021, the group's merger with Zemoga, a digital transformation company, enabled S4Capital to plug a crucial gap in its menu and offer tech services besides content and media solutions. However, the inclusion and integration of a new practice area as the third pillar would entail having a more complex and unwieldy structure. In immediate terms, S4Capital faced an uphill task in acquiring and retaining talent in some of its markets. In Asia Pacific, where it was focusing on growth, the availability of suitably qualified tech-savvy manpower was inadequate. While in the US, its largest market, the pandemic had unleashed a wave of 'Great Resignation' in the corporate world, resulting in high staff turnover as people increasingly opted out of their current jobs.

At 824 million, Pinduoduo had the most customers in global e-commerce as of March 2021. It had also expanded aggressively into grocery shopping with Duo Duo Grocery, riding on the demands that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and set its sights on becoming the world's grocer. Despite its formidable progress, the e-commerce platform remained in the red, recording a loss of more than US$443 million in the first quarter of 2021. Its closest rivals, Alibaba and JD, remained hot on its heels, matching its forays into its stronghold of the lower-tier cities in the country. The year 2021 also marked a year of leadership renewal for Pinduoduo. Colin Zheng Huang, its founding CEO and Chairman, had passed the baton of leadership to Lei Chen, a fellow co-founder. Huang's decision to step aside was to focus on figuring out the future of Pinduoduo. He believed research on food and life sciences would remake agriculture in China. How should investors see these moves and achievements by Pinduoduo? Are farming and smart logistics its 'end game'?

Set in May 2020, this case describes the entrepreneurial journey of Bynd Artisan (Bynd), a Singapore-based atelier that sold premium paper and leather goods. Founded by Winnie Chan and James Quan in October 2014 as an entity distinct from Chan's traditional paper and leather goods family business, Bynd had grown to become an iconic retail luxury brand recognised for its artisanal excellence and heritage. Over the years, it had won numerous accolades in Singapore for the craftsmanship, quality and designs of its bespoke products. By 2020, Bynd had five retail stores in the city-state and employed 35 people. However, Bynd's sophisticated and premium product line predominantly catered to professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) above the age of 23 years. Its' high-end pricing made it inaccessible to the younger customers such as the Generation Z. In order to target these young customers, Chan and Quan planned to launch a second product line under the brand name 'reBynd' - made of recycled material, comprising simpler but more modern designs, and priced significantly lower than Bynd. However, the founders faced a dilemma regarding the retail channel - online or physical - to be used for distributing reBynd's products. On the one hand, the online channel seemed to be a better fit with the target customers' profile, and the brand's sustainable positioning and value proposition. On the other hand, reBynd, as a new and a lifestyle-related brand, would need a tactile physical environment to gain customers' acceptance. Moreover, despite the high internet penetration in Singapore, brick & mortar sales had dominated its retail industry by far. What retail strategy should Bynd consider for its second brand, given the trade-offs associated with both online and offline channels? More importantly, would the introduction of a cheaper secondary brand dilute the primary brand's luxury status?

This case describes Visa Inc's (Visa) challenges in light of the growing influence of financial technology companies (fintech) in the payments space. In 2018, Visa had firmly established its leadership in the industry with its ubiquitous network of merchants, customers, and financial institutions in 200 countries. However, the rise of fintech over the past two decades had led to an explosion of new competitors and new methods of payment. While Visa found it easier to collaborate with the big tech (e.g. apple) and payment ecosystem (e.g. Paypal) companies in adopting new technologies and offering new payment solutions, it found it challenging to partner with emerging fintech's (e.g. TransferWise and Paytm) fast evolving business models. In less-mature markets, the emerging fintech's low go-to-market cost often bypassed the need for expensive physical payments infrastructure. And, in mature markets, new technologies leapfrogged the traditional card payment infrastructure by building direct connections with merchants and customers through alternate networks. How should Visa proceed vis-à-vis these start-ups that were seeking to redefine the payments industry? Should it preserve its legacy position by competing against these fintechs or should it seek collaborations with them to avail of mutually beneficial market opportunities? Or should it take the lead as a facilitator, actively invest in the start-ups, partner with them, and drive innovation in the payments industry?

Set in 2018, the case describes how Zang Hao, the CEO and co-founder of Iuiga, a Singapore based e-commerce start-up, eschewed the conventional e-retailing model by acquiring complete control over its value chain including ownership of the items retailed through the adoption of original design manufacturer (ODM) business model and marketing of its brand in addition to storage, logistics, and distribution. Under the ODM model, Iuiga contracts the manufacturers of large global brands known for their superior quality to manufacture the same products for Iuiga, and then proceeds to retail it directly under its own brand name at much lower, and transparent, prices on its online platform. By targeting quality-conscious customers with a range of products in the home and living category, Iuiga's sales grew fivefold within the first eight months of its launch. However, soon after, the sales growth began to plateau. One of the key reasons identified for the slowdown was the limited market reach of the brand due to its presence only on the online medium. With e-commerce penetration in Singapore at only 5 percent, the majority of the consumer market lacked awareness of the Iuiga brand and the value it offered. This led the company to consider creating an omni-channel presence by opening a pop-up store to drive face-to-face customer engagement and boost Iuiga's brand building efforts. However, this raised many concerns. Would Iuiga's current team be able to manage both the online portal and the pop-up store? With the omni-channel platform entailing unavoidable additional expenses such as rental, people, services and integration costs, would it undermine the strength of Iuiga's core business model? Also, the brick & mortar space was an unchartered territory for its management team, with no prior experience to bank upon. Most importantly, would Iuiga be able to convert the offline footfall to online traffic?

Set in 2016, the case explores the role of social media in the public transportation sector. It highlights how social media has emerged to be a dominant platform offering both opportunities and challenges for organisations. SMRT, a mass service provider in Singapore, counted amongst the best in the world was struggling to manage consumer expectations in face of a series of train breakdowns and disruptions that had seriously tarnished the company's reputation. The company had a presence on social media; however it largely relied on traditional media in its communication strategy. At the times of crisis, the inability of the traditional media to provide an interactive platform and live updates had often resulted in disgruntled customers. Lack of real- time engagement with the commuters had widened the chasm between their expectations and perceived performance of the transport system negating the painstaking technical and operational improvements done by SMRT over time to provide a more reliable service. Could SMRT better leverage social media in effectively engaging with riders during crises and otherwise? The case showcases the examples of other public transportation firms - KLM and South West Trains that have been successful in this endeavour. Could their social media experiences be applied to SMRT? Through this case, students will gain an understanding of the multi-dimensional impact of social media on an organisation. They will be able to analyse and compare its impact when adopted comprehensively versus a piece-meal approach. Students will also learn about the essential elements of an effective social media strategy and be able to assess the gap between an organization's social media goals and its resource allocation for the same. The case will help students to learn about the evolution of social media and evaluate its effectiveness versus that of traditional media especially in the services domain.

In early January 2017, Vanessa Teo, Director of Global Learning and Talent Development at the DFS Group, is outlining the airport retailer's e-learning strategy. The Group had already invested significant resources in various training, learning and development programmes. These programmes, housed within DFS University, focused on building a deep knowledge and appreciation of the various luxury products sold by incoming sales associates. Associates in these programmes learn different types of sales tactics, and promising employees are enrolled in leadership programmes to fast-track their management potential. Nonetheless, these programmes were expensive. DFS first embarked on an e-learning initiative three years earlier with the development of an e-campus, which was a social learning platform akin to Facebook. This platform was piloted at many locations throughout DFSs' worldwide network of airport duty free stores. The hope was that such social learning could simultaneously reinforce and scale up the learning and training development programmes. Now, Teo seeks to advance into the next stage of developing the e-learning initiative, envisioning a broader type of blended learning experience that could digitise some of DFS's learning content into something even more scalable. However, e-learning at DFS is still a relatively new and untested tool. Teo needs to convince her counterparts to look past the development costs and embrace a more digital approach.

This case follows Aditya Challa, a craft beer aficionado whose passion for good beer led him on an international quest to study the art of brewing in Scotland and eventually to Singapore, where he started a microbrewery business with his friends in 2011. By October 2012, sales of his craft beer have been increasing 20% per month, bringing up his production to about one-third operating capacity. However, future growth remains uncertain - with specific challenges in distribution and branding. Craft beer is still a relatively unknown concept in the city-state, and consumers remain skeptical of premium priced local beer. Moreover, big breweries in the Singapore market have already locked down most retailers with exclusive draft contracts. Challa has to review his business model and growth strategy in terms of how and where he can sell his beer while continuing to build the Jungle Beer brand.

This case is set in September 2007, and revolves around the Head of Sales & Marketing at Tata Chemicals Limited wondering how he could boost the market share of Tata Salt, one of the flagship products of the company. The dilemma is particularly interesting as Tata Salt had been ranked as the 'Most Trusted Food Brand in India' for the fourth year in a row and had very high brand equity - and yet its market share of 46% in the national branded segment and 18% in the total packaged iodised salt market, did not appear to grow in reflection of that high brand equity. Some of the key factors that the protagonist had to consider while devising a strategy was the complexity of the different markets within India across geographical areas, as well as the intensifying competition from other brands and types of salt.

In July 2010, Sujit Patil, head of corporate communications for Mumbai-based Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) has to develop a company branding strategy after a series of acquisitions. TCL has acquired several of the top producers in the soda ash business, making it a commanding player in the global industrial and commercial markets for this product. The acquisitions include the large British producer, Bruner Mond; the US leader, General Chemicals Industrial Products; and Kenya based Magadi Soda - all of which have well-known brands and established customers. The senior management at TCL wants to see these new companies unified under a single global brand. But that task has proved difficult to execute given the long-standing brands and centuries-old companies. Kenyan Magadi Soda even has a town named after it! Patil must consider his next steps - whether to sustain the long-standing and well-selling brands, or scrap them all for a new global brand representing what is now the second largest soda ash producer in the world.