Next Skills 360 EdTech Private Limited (Next Skills 360) was founded by Suraj Meiyur and Sowjanya Suraj in 2020 to teach computer skills to low-income schoolchildren, particularly those from remote and rural areas who did not have access to electricity, computers, or the internet. By May 2022, around 160,000 students and 3,500 teachers across India had used Next Skills 360’s products, ProGame and Life Skills 360. The company had also been recognized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of the 2021 Solve team. Meiyur felt happy that he could impact the lives of so many poor schoolchildren across the country, particularly those who had never had access to computers or the internet. Next Skills 360 had ambitious plans to reach one million students by the year 2025. However, Meiyur wondered if this business was sustainable and scalable. Did a market of one million students exist for this innovative disruptive and product?
Braithwaite & Co. Limited (BCL) was a leading railway-engineering public sector company in India. The company was incorporated in 1930 as the first wagon manufacturing company in India. In 1976, the Government of India (GoI) nationalized the company, registering and incorporating it as a fully owned GoI undertaking to support Indian Railways by supplying railway wagons. However, following nationalization, BCL faced growth challenges and gradually accumulated significant losses during the 1990s; eventually, it was declared legally sick and referred to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR). The reasons identified for its sickness were failure to technologically upgrade and adapt to changing market scenarios, dependence on a single customer (Indian Railways), and operational-level issues within the organization. Yatish Kumar joined BCL in 2018 and took a series of strategic and operational measures to turn the company around. These measures resulted in BCL’s improved financial performance, profitability, and a quick turnaround, and the company was awarded Miniratna Category-I status in 2021. Although BCL had been growing at a good rate, Kumar was concerned about how to sustain the turnaround and maintain that growth rate in the future.
<p align="justify">VaccineOnWheels (VOW), a social enterprise providing doorstep vaccination to India’s low-income and marginalized communities, was founded in December 2019. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and arrival of COVID-19 vaccines, VOW was perfectly positioned to contribute to the government’s immunization drive. In 2021, the company entered into a public-private partnership with some of India’s largest municipal corporations as their on-the-ground COVID-19 vaccination partner, then made forays into the business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets. VOW set out to vaccinate one million people by the end of the fiscal year 2021, but faced with shortages of funds and resources; its founder needed to decide on the target market and business model to allow him to achieve his goal and make the enterprise scalable.<br><br>This case was the second winner of the 2021 Fox International Business Case Writing Competition.</p>
Integrated Centre for Consultancy Private Limited (ICCPL) was a small company operating in India’s public relations (PR) industry. ICCPL was a successful and established company in this industry, with a focus on a niche segment of the market—real estate firms that offered affordable housing and operated on thin margins. ICCPL’s strong client relationships had resulted in an excellent track record for executive brand building and a client retention rate of above 75 per cent, which the company boasted as the highest in the market. In December 2018, one of ICCPL’s clients requested that the company lower its pricing or risk losing the contract to either a new in-house PR department or a small competitor that was offering a similar service at half the price. ICCPL refused to lower its price and, in June 2019, the client announced its plan to cancel the contract. ICCPL was analyzing all data for client satisfaction and loyalty to determine what went wrong. Should the company attempt to retain this important client? If so, what strategy can the company use?
LenDenClub (LDC) was a primarily online platform operated by Innofin Solutions Pvt. Ltd. in the peer-to-peer lending industry in India. To offer differentiated products in a growing segment, LDC decided to focus on the untapped segment of low-salary earners. However, it was risky to serve this segment; borrowers had little credit history but often required loans immediately for emergency expenditures, and these borrowers had limited repayment capacity, so it was challenging for LDC to remain profitable. LDC responded by developing a new product based specifically on the targeted segment’s needs that allowed LDC to give small loans to more borrowers while achieving the lowest default rates. In June 2020, with preliminary testing done, LDC needed to refine InstaMoney’s features to achieve the best version of the product and obtain the best performance of InstaMoney in terms of conversions and the lowest default rates.
In January 2020, Bombay Shaving Company had established an in-house digital team that was able to achieve the best digital marketing key performance indicators in its industry. BSC’s marketing strategy focused on conversion rates, influencer marketing, heatmaps, A/B testing, keyword cloud analysis, and emailer marketing. In using these tools, BSC was carving out a differentiated strategy for each step of the customer journey, including customer acquisition and customer retention. However, analysis of online purchase data had indicated that out of every thousand customers who visited the company’s website, only 13 ended up making a purchase. BSC had to address its poor conversion rate and determine how to ensure that its conversion rate would meet the industry standard.
In 2016, the managing director of Wingreens Farms, a social enterprise based in India, was considering the company’s future. Wingreens Farms partnered with rural Indian farmers living in poverty to produce and sell homemade processed foods, including salsas, dipping sauces, hummus, garlic butter, breads, teas, organic fresh pickled sprouts, microgreens, and wheatgrass. This small company had a unique, sustainable, and profitable business model with a managed sales turnover worth R160 million (US$2.4 million) in 2016. However, the managing director wondered whether Wingreens Farms could eventually transition from a small, personalized, family-owned company to a large systems- and process-driven organization. Could the company retain its commitment to ethical values and its handmade, labour-intensive production methods if it began competing against factory-produced, cheaper products from large, organized companies?
As a small-scale hospital located in the city of Faridabad in northern India, Drishti Eye Center (Drishti) had recently expanded its operations by diversifying into pharmaceutical sales. The founder and managing director of the hospital soon faced conflict among the members of his sales force when a young sales representative received a poor performance evaluation, which he viewed as unfair. In response to this situation, the salesman decided to join a union, a move that was completely unprecedented at Drishti. Facing a high-performing team that now found itself operating in a hostile environment, the hospital’s director had to decide how best to manage the conflict.
Teracom Limited was a medium-sized engineering manufacturing firm in India whose product portfolio included modems. The company catered to the various telecom service providers across India, including Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited , a major state-owned telecommunications company. Teracom’s customers were primarily business-to-business entities such as government organizations and telecom operators. However, it was considering selling its modems to retail customers. After seeking applications for new distributors of Teracom modems, the company narrowed the list down to four candidate firms. In December 2014, Teracom’s president of corporate business had to use a distributor selection model and undertake a distributor performance appraisal. What were the main criteria for evaluating the four applicants, and which firm was the best fit?
Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services Limited is a non-banking finance company in India whose product portfolio includes vehicle loans, used vehicle financing, housing finance, personal loans, fixed deposits, mutual fund distribution, insurance broking, gold loans and loans for construction equipment. Catering to the rural poor across India, the company has close to 6,600 employees, mostly hired locally to serve local needs. Because it focuses on future cash flow projections and not on past credit history, and takes into consideration the integrity and character of the customer — primarily farmers, small traders and vehicle operators but also some small and medium enterprises — as well as the projected business plan, it is a good fit for poor rural Indian consumers. It bridges the gap between moneylenders, who charge exorbitant interest, and public sector banks that require collateral. In 2013, the manager of the Bijnor branch is approached by the owner of a transport firm who requests a loan to buy two more trucks to expand her business of moving goods for small pharmaceutical companies. Given that the prospective borrower has been rejected by a competing bank, should the loan to her be sanctioned?