In 2016, Somany Ceramics Limited (SCL), a ceramic tile manufacturing company in India, needed industry-ready workers to meet the company’s expansion plan; however, the whole ceramics industry was affected by a shortage of labour. Most of the technically competent ceramics and construction personnel in India preferred to work in the construction industry or join other sectors such as information technology. The company’s human resources team needed to develop a strategy to hire an adequate number of skilled employees and to retain them as the competitors also attempted to take advantage of growth opportunities in the global ceramics industry.
In June 2016, Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart Private Limited (Flipkart) faced a common issue among online retailers: the firm needed to optimize its product return rates to reduce losses caused by returns. Accordingly, Flipkart changed its return policy, including raising the commission fees charged to sellers by an average of 5 per cent. Many sellers resented the policy change, and more than 1,800 led an online protest against Flipkart, which was unprecedented in India. These sellers made their accounts inactive and removed the product listings for nearly 1 million product units. Seeing an opportunity, Amazon India decreased its commissions on various product categories by 2–7 per cent to lure disgruntled sellers to its platform. While its competitors experienced rapid growth, Flipkart struggled to keep the market share it had acquired so far. The company experienced a massive drop in its valuation during fiscal year 2015–16, and had not registered any profit since its inception in 2007. Flipkart had to reduce its losses resulting from a high number of returns without displeasing both of its key stakeholders—sellers and customers.
In 2016, India witnessed an intense war for talent acquisition in consulting when Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP (Deloitte) poached 20 partners and their teams—around 300 people in total—from KPMG India (KPMG). Deloitte offered a higher compensation to attract KPMG executives and lured partners with a salary jump in proportion to the number of team members they could bring from KPMG. The rivalry between the firms was fuelled by their desire to challenge Ernst & Young Global Limited, the market leader, which had 125 partners in its advisory vertical. This was the biggest poaching attempt in the industry since 2011 and the third time in the span of a year that KPMG partners had quit to join rival companies. For KPMG, it was a big blow, as the company lost many partners from the vertical that was leading its growth globally. KPMG management was now confronted with the challenge of defending against any such future poaching attempts by its competitors and retaining existing employees. The firm needed to engage its existing employees and boost their motivation to avoid further damage.
On November 1, 2015, the four founders of Kaps Foods India Private Limited (Kaps) invited external business consultants to a business strategy meeting. The ice cream industry was moving toward the premium segment of the market, and Kaps was eager to move out of its stagnant phase. However, two of the four founders were skeptical about the acceptance of the Kaps brand in the higher-end market. They believed that the market would always consider Kaps a local brand, which was not ideal for moving into the premium market. Also, taking on the bigger players at the higher end of the ice cream segment would be a daunting task for the company. The four partners had a number of issues and options to ponder and discuss with consultants. Becoming a pioneer in the ice cream industry in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh was a proud achievement for the team, but what new marketing considerations would be involved in entering the premium market?
A tense situation arose in 2015 after a faculty member at the Premier School of Management in New Delhi, India, mistakenly emailed a test paper to a group email address that included the school’s students, faculty, and alumni. An alumna who received the email responded to the professor using the “reply to all” option. The tone of her email was considered to be disrespectful to the professor. The professor responded by sending his own “reply to all,” explaining his error to the alumna and chastising her for using a tone inappropriate for a student-to-teacher communication. The alumna apologized, but one of the students on the group email then wrote his own offensive email to the alumna. Was there a way to defuse the mounting tension and avoid a possible rift between the alumna and her former school?
Maruti Suzuki India Limited, India’s largest car manufacturer and the only company in that country to have crossed the 10 million sales mark, was struggling with labour problems in one of its manufacturing units. As a result, it was rapidly losing its market share to competitors and its position as market leader was at stake. The strike not only damaged property at the plant and caused one death and hundreds of injuries, it also heavily impacted revenue and market share as customers and dealers dealt with the negative publicity and the shortage of production that resulted in long wait times for the company’s most popular models. The company must come up with a strategy to deal with its vulnerability in light of production cuts, demanding customers, disgruntled dealers and charged-up competitors.
The case examines Harley-Davidson’s decision to enter the Indian market. Due to India’s rapidly growing economy and its swelling base of high-net-worth consumers, numerous luxury product companies lined up to enter India. The case enumerates the factors that such firms should take into account when selecting new markets to enter. Also discussed are the various post-marketing issues Harley-Davidson faced in India after its entry and the resolutions the company could implement to resolve those issues.<br><br>The case provides an opportunity for students to understand the dynamics involved in selecting new markets for the firm to maximize its gain while expanding its business.
In 2008 the Supreme Court of India revoked the 2G spectrum licences issued to many local and international companies because of major violations in the granting procedure by the Telecom Ministry. One of the worst affected companies was Norway’s Telenor communications company, which was involved with a local company in a joint venture, Uninor, which had all of its licences cancelled. The case provides students an opportunity to assess and understand the implications of the political as well as legal risks involved in entering uncertain markets, such as India’s, and to devise appropriate coping strategies to establish and successfully operate in such markets. The case drives home the significance of political and legal business environmental factors that have an impact on the successful conduct of business. Multinational companies tend to be vulnerable to political risks, and the case suggests to students how to handle such situations.
This case discusses the emergence of low-cost carriers (LCCs) in India in relation to the growth of the Indian aviation industry and the subsequent fall of the LCCs into financial loss. The LCCs became important for value-adding and cost-cutting alternatives in corporate business travel. Before the 2008 global economic crisis, domestic air traffic LCCs recorded a compound annual passenger growth rate of 18 per cent. Among the many low-cost airlines in India, SpiceJet had been one of the most popular, with the lowest airfares and highest customer value. Though SpiceJet had a net profit of INR 1.01 billion (US$20.2 million) in fiscal year 2010-2011, the results following the financial year indicated that the company had also joined the ranks of loss-making airlines in India. A host of issues — such as rising debt, increasing cost to revenue ratios, growing management challenges, complicated flight operations, and rising oil prices — were threatening the survival of airline companies, especially LCCs. SpiceJet was no exception.
In 2009, when the Indian cement market was strong, major Indian players were preparing to move from a regional emphasis to pan-India penetration. To become a national player, Jaiprakash Associates Limited grew through acquisitions and setting up new plants. To strengthen its position, the company decided to move from a multiple-brand cement portfolio to a single-brand entity. It merged its two existing brands of cement, Buniyad Jaypee Cement and Jaypee Buland Cement, into a new brand, Jaypee Cement. Expanding into new geographic markets and creating a pan-India presence for the brand was the motive for this merger. When global brands such as Swiss giant Holcim and France’s Lafarge continued with a multi-brand strategy in India, it was understandable that industry experts doubted whether Jaypee’s decision to move from multi-branding to mono-branding was correct.
This case considers Apple’s entry into the Indian tablet PC market. In spite of stiff competition, Apple’s iPad had invariably become the market leader in many countries across the world. However, Samsung and RIM had surpassed its market share in India. This case offers students a unique opportunity to understand the reality of entering a new market and losing the coveted market leader position.