In December 2021, Murat Ozyegin, Chairman of Fiba Holding, along with Omer Mert and Ä°hsan Elgin, engaged in discussions about the future of United Payment, a fintech company in which Finberg, a subsidiary of Fibabanka, held a 20% stake. Finberg, established in 2018 as Turkey's first fintech-focused corporate venture capital firm, had invested significantly in United Payment, contributing to its substantial growth in transaction volume from $352 million in 2019 to almost $865 million in 2020. With an offer from OYAK, Turkey's largest pension fund, to invest in United Payment, the leadership team deliberated on whether to accept the proposal or wait for further growth opportunities, considering the company's plans for international expansion and the competitive landscape in the fintech sector. The decision involved weighing the potential benefits of OYAK's investment against the risks of stiff competition and its implications on United Payment's competitive advantage and profitability.
The problem was massive: two million hectares of African forests were lost annually to charcoal production for cooking, an area equivalent to 13 times Greater London, resulting in one billion tons of carbon emissions yearly. At the same time, an estimated 700,000 yearly deaths, primarily children under the age of five, were the result of poor indoor air quality from unclean cooking fuel. Forecasts suggested exponential demand growth for charcoal driven by rising population and increased urbanization in Africa. Eighty-three percent of sub-Saharan African households relied on charcoal or wood for cooking. Greg Murray (chief executive officer), Sagun Saxena (chief innovation officer), Nicholas Stokes (chief financial officer) and Micael da Costa (chief systems officer) had decided to do something about it. In 2014, they co-founded KOKO Networks (KOKO), a climate-technology company that built and operated clean fuel utilities enabling nations to transition away from deforestation-charcoal. KOKO partnered with the owners of existing liquids infrastructure, and then used its unique technology and operating platform to deliver low-cost ultra-clean bioethanol cooking to a dense network of high-tech "KOKO Point" Fuel ATMs located in corner stores across low-income neighborhoods, which it used to retail directly to households. The end result was a safe, clean and affordable fuel located within a short walk of home, and which delivered a modern cooking experience at a price point that was materially lower than charcoal. By August 2023, KOKO served over one million households across ten cities in Kenya and planned to expand further in Kenya as well as build greenfield utilities in Rwanda and other African nations. Yet, the co-founders knew that the road ahead was full not only of opportunities, but also of challenges.
In 2022, Abdulaziz B. Al Loughani, CEO and co-founder of Floward, an online flower and gifting company established in Kuwait in 2017, contemplated the firm's growth trajectory. Floward, an e-commerce enterprise that offered fresh-cut flowers sourced directly from global growers and had control over the entire delivery chain, had expanded its footprint to 32 cities across nine MENA countries and had ventured into the UK. Witnessing a remarkable CAGR of over 160% between 2020 and 2022, Floward was valued at $152.5 million during its Series B investment round in 2021. Having served over 400,000 customers and recently diversifying into the broader gifting sector, Al Loughani faced pivotal decisions: Should Floward pursue further global expansion or solidify its gifting vertical in the Gulf? And, considering its aggressive growth aspirations, should the company opt for an IPO, and if so, which stock exchange should they target?
In 2017, Fatih Uysal (AMP 2021) became CEO of Kariyer.net. By then, the business was already the industry leading online job board in Turkey. However, faced with stalling growth, a turbulent macroenvironment, and growing competition from international players, Uysal kicked off a transformation of the business from an online job board to a horizontally diversified recruitment company, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The case chronicles the transformation, highlighting new AI-driven tools built both for internal use and as products to be sold. The case also describes two new business lines (employer branding services/ virtual job fairs, and an online tech-talent job board coupled with training services) that showed potential to become new core products. By 2023, Uysal and his team were targeting doubling revenue and growing the contribution of non-job ad revenues from 30% to 50% of the total over the next three years. Uysal and his team were constantly balancing exploring promising new products and verticals against doubling down on those generating revenue today. In order to reach their financial targets, Uysal and his team were debating not only which product(s) to pursue but how to do so efficiently.
This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Turkey. It highlights Turkey's economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2023 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case gives an overview of some of the main obstacles faced by businesses operating in the country, such as complexity of doing business, slow legal proceedings and a large informal sector and changing regulatory environment, contrasting these with the efforts undertaken by the government to improve the country's business climate. This is illustrated through the discussion of a business dilemma in which Setur is contemplating its business strategy in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic and changing consumer tastes and preferences.
The case opens in December of 2018, with Sunil Duggal, the CEO of Dabur India (a multinational consumer goods conglomerate with a focus in Ayurvedic products) contemplating who should succeed him at the head of the company. The new CEO will have been the first since Dabur completed its transition from family management to professional management in 2002, and though publicly listed, the majority of the company's shares were still owned by the Burman family, who founded it in 1884. The case then describes how the Burman family grew the company until the mid-1990s, when professionalization began. The case explains the various obstacles and difficulties that the company overcame in the process of professionalization and explains how the family came to step back from the business. It specifies the nature of the family's involvement during Duggal's tenure as CEO, as the company expanded across the globe, and then it closes by returning to the question of what a professionalized, multinational family business should be seeking in its next CEO, sixteen years after it last confronted such a decision.
In the fall of 2018, Rohima Begum considered her options as the small island, or "char," on which her family's house rested slowly but inescapably eroded into the mighty Brahmaputra River in northern Bangladesh. The country, once unceremoniously dubbed a "basket case" by then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, had since emerged according to many economic metrics. At the same time, it remained faced with a unique set of political, economic, international, and climactic concerns. For while most of the world saw climate change as a future threat to be mitigated, Bangladesh faced the immediate challenge of adaptation. Indeed, "climate refugees" from the country had become the single largest group of immigrants to Europe in 2017, and some observers recognized the country as a proverbial canary in the coalmine. Might Bangladesh's challenges be owned by the world?
Founded in 2012, Jumia Nigeria, a startup effort by Germany-based Rocket Internet, aimed to become an African Amazon. The company entered the nascent market and immediately enjoyed an uptick in consumer spending fueled by the strength of Nigeria's oil-based economy. By 2016, however, Jumia's growth had begun to taper, hindered by plummeting oil prices, the subsequent economic downturn, and the pressure of Nigeria's limited retail ecosystem. In addition, Jumia's inventory-intensive retail model required significant infusions of capital that, in the face of a deteriorating economy and the company's inability to show a profit, was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Considering all this and looking to the success of the Amazon and Alibaba marketplace models where third-party sellers largely carried inventory costs, the Board had made a drastic decision: Jumia would shift from an online retail model to a marketplace model. They also made it very clear that a failure to properly implement this transition could mean the end of investor support for Jumia. Senior management wondered how they would meet the challenges ahead. While Amazon in the US and Alibaba in China had found success with the marketplace model, they wondered if Jumia would be able to do the same. Was this the right model for the very different Nigerian environment? Would vendors, many of whom already had retail operations in the country, choose to sell through Jumia? How could Jumia continue to provide the same high quality customer service on which the company's success had been built while switching to a marketplace model in which parts of this critical aspect would now be in the hands of third parties?
This follow up case study explores the ramifications of Jumia's decision to move from a retail led to a markplace business model for its e-commerce platform. The case visits the company's successes as well as its many failures when adopting this vendor-led strategy. It also considers Jumia's options going forward- should it return to the retail-led model or develop a hybrid alternative?
Set in 2008, the case details Tech Mahindra, an information technology (IT) company within the Mahindra Group, an Indian multi-industry company with a diverse stable of businesses including automotives, farm equipment, and financial services, and its decision to acquire controlling stake in Satyam Computer Services Ltd. (Satyam), a troubled Indian IT company managed since January 2009 by a six-member government-appointed caretaker board. Anand Mahindra, Chairman and Managing Director of the Mahindra Group, saw the acquisition of Satyam as a strategic opportunity to move to the next level of growth. The acquisition would allow the Group to diversify across verticals, customers, and geographies, market a wide range of services to Satyam's strong customer base, and capitalize on common support systems in order to reduce operating costs and secure operational synergies. His brief to Vineet Nayyar-the vice chairman and managing director of Tech Mahindra and the vice chairman of Satyam-and C.P Gurnani-the CEO of Mahindra Satyam-was based on a set of clear principles: rectify the issues related to corporate governance; ensure an environment of trust where ethical conduct was valued; manage reputation risks by meeting customers and demonstrating the Mahindra Group's commitment; and restore faith within customers through newfound business models of delivery and engagements. As Nayyar reflected on Anand Mahindra's words, he wondered what series of business decisions he would have to make in order to retain the good elements, throw out the bad pieces, regain trust, and trigger change within the newly anointed Mahindra Satyam.
Nalli Silk Sarees Private Limited was a family owned and operated business that retailed Indian ethnic wear. This 83-year old company had enjoyed impressive growth with a $95 million turnover, a 22 store retail footprint, and had outdone its competitors by being the only player in its segment to have a national presence. Headquartered in Chennai, India, the company built its unique national brand by emphasizing innovation, customer centric practices, quality and honesty across the store's retail operations. In 2011, with changing dynamics in the Indian apparel market, the company started to face intense competition from small and large Indian and foreign retailers. The company's chairman, Dr.Nalli Kuppusamy Chetty, announced a $25 million expansion plan and proposed the opening of 12 new stores over a period of two years. This case focuses on the company's pricing strategy, merchandising process and product assortments to support its own competitiveness and overall customer experience.