Makoye Safaris, a jungle safari tour company based in Tanzania founded by Vicent Makoye, offered fully guided, safe, and environmentally friendly tours largely to international tourists. The tours were private, custom designed, and flexible and included airport pick-up and drop-off, accommodation, transportation, and three meals daily. Makoye wanted the company to grow and acquire a larger market share. However, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread worldwide, and Tanzania’s tourism sector went into a downturn. Although the number of tourists started to increase in 2021, Makoye Safaris needed a good marketing plan to achieve its target of doubling the number of international tourists it served by 2025.
In January 2022, MitiMeth was a Nigeria-based innovative social enterprise that produces handcrafted products made from natural fibres—agricultural waste and aquatic weeds—that are otherwise considered to be waste or a hazard to the environment. MitiMeth added value to this material by transforming it into well-designed furniture and home furnishings, storage boxes, lamps, kitchen and dinner ware, stationery, and souvenir items. Mitimeth’s initiative of transforming this environmental nuisance into marketable products provided work for more than 600 people from over twenty-five communities in Nigeria. Despite challenges in exporting from Nigeria, MitiMeth had made good progress in reaching international markets. MitiMeth had already gone through several challenges, and the COVID-19 pandemic only added to the difficulties the enterprise had experienced. Mitimeth needed a plan that ensured MitiMeth’s long-term sustainability.
For the co-founder and CEO of Booster Juice, Canada’s largest chain of juice and smoothie bars, international expansion was integral to the firm’s strategy, especially as the Canadian market matured. However, working with business cultures and practices in different countries was a major challenge. Booster Juice had been opening three stores per month through the end of 2013, and the CEO was re-examining Booster Juice’s international operations, including those in India, where Booster Juice had 18 stores. The CEO was contemplating considerable expansion in the Indian market, which had great potential but presented many challenges. He wanted to open many more stores in India, but existing stores showed merely average performance. Could India provide the sustained market growth that the CEO desired? What would be the perfect approach to India’s complex market?