This fictional, international case explores online delivery models through the voices of two female protagonists: Melis Aydin, COO, who is from Turkey; and Athena Galini, CEO, who is from Greece. They have recently begun an online grocery-delivery (OGD) service called GidaExpress (i.e., Express Food) by closing on a TRY300,000 low-interest loan and entering a start-up incubator in Istanbul, Turkey. Aydin and Galani are evaluating three models for hiring drivers-all full-time employees who can be trained (and perhaps provide more consistent and higher-quality customer service); all independent workers who are paid a wage rate that escalates in order to meet demand; or a hybrid of the two. This story allows for a discussion of the strategic trade-offs between investing in a full-time workforce and sourcing independent workers of unknown quality using a fluctuating wage rate, and how these decisions impact the ability of the business to deliver on the value proposition.

Student spreadsheet for case UV7907.

The case is about the emergence of the virtual contact centre, which employs a geographically dispersed workforce in the cloud. LiveOps' 'home-shore' business model combines the following innovations: (1) it allows agents to work when they choose to, but pays them only for the time they are serving customers, and (2) it is based on meritocracy, i.e., better performing agents get more work and are paid more. The virtual contact centre is evaluated against traditional contact centre solutions in the context of a relief operation helping storm evacuees connect with relatives in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.