This case relates to a novel human resource initiative undertaken by IOCL, one of India's largest public sector organizations. IOCL, a Fortune 500 organization, had 33,000 employees spread across seven business divisions and 40 offices across India and abroad. When Ranjan Mahapatra assumed office as Director of Human Resources at IOCL in February 2018, he realized that many IOCL employees perceived that the human resources department is distant and indifferent, in spite of increasing automation of human resources function. Several concerns related to human resource policies remained unaddressed, although the organization had complaint redressal forums. Mahapatra proposed an idea of a novel role of a human resource facilitator (HRF), HR personnel who would act as a single point of contact for employees within their department and ensure that employee concerns are addressed while navigating the organizational bureaucracy. The case describes how Mahapatra and his team implemented the new HRF scheme. Within seven months of its introduction, the 41 HRFs successfully resolved 1600 queries raised by the employees, which was widely appreciated by the IOCL employees. The case ends by highlighting some challenges faced by HRFs and leaves Mahapatra wondering whether he should delay the launch of the HRF scheme in other business verticals until these challenges are overcome.

The case GoSports: Developing Sports Talent to Create Role Models describes the evolution of an Indian not-for-profit organization GoSports, whose mission is to identify high quality sporting talent and provide them necessary support so that they can excel in international sporting competitions and win laurels for the country. Despite being a nation of 1.3 billion people with no dearth of talent, India's performance in international sporting events have been modest. This is because of multiple structural factors such as lack of hard and soft infrastructure for promoting sports, inadequate financial support from the government and private sector as well as absence of career options for sportspeople after an active career. GoSports has positioned itself as a bridging organization that would provide the necessary encouragement to talented sportspersons until they become famous enough to receive adequate support from the government or the private sector. Being a pioneer in this field, GoSports' journey exemplifies how an organization sets about creating an ecosystem for sports in a country where multiple economic, social and cultural barriers have traditionally prevented sports from getting its due importance in nation building. Learning from its initial failures to build a for-profit talent management organization, GoSports concentrated on raising funds from the corporate sector through their athlete-focused development programs, many of which were mentored by highly acclaimed role models from the world of sports. In parallel, GoSports created a network of support services comprising coaches, nutritionists, and sports scientists - all of whom played important roles in ensuring optimum performance from sportspersons. Dedicated athlete managers from GoSports maintained a trust-based relationship with the sportspersons such that every young sportsperson felt assured there was someone to help them deal with the myriad challenges in their intensely competitive domain.

Mahindra Financial Services (MMFSL) is an Indian non-banking financial services organization largely involved with financing of tractors, commercial, and passenger vehicles. The company is nearly 30 years old with a turnover of more than US$ 1 billion. MMFSL grew as an organization following a regional structure. However, with growth in business both in terms of volume and diversity, MMFL felt that the regional structure was creating constraints rather than facilitating its growth. Therefore, it undertook a restructuring exercise and adopted a product-based structure. The case describes the conditions that led MMFSL to consider the structural change, how it went about implementing the change and what was the impact of the structural change? The elaborate process that MMFSL adopted in implementing the change ensured that the transition was smooth and that the new structure created architecture for further business growth.

The case describes the efforts of GNFC, a large publicly held chemicals and fertilizers company, in establishing a business of manufacturing and selling products made from neem-oil, which was instrumental in creating livelihood opportunities for more than 450,000 individuals from the economically underprivileged segment. GNFC was a government owned commercial enterprise that was listed in the Indian stock market. Like all commercial enterprises, their goal was maximizing shareholders wealth through their primary activities-manufacturing and sales of fertilizers and chemicals. GNFC's Neem project started with the intention of preventing diversion of subsidized fertilizer to the undeserved, involved landless labourers and marginal farmers in collection of neem seeds, which was used to extract neem oil for coating urea and to create products such as soaps and shampoos. Since neem-oil based products could be sold in the market to earn revenues, the entire neem project had the potential to be financially sustainable. Compared to GNFC's fertilizer and chemical business, the revenue generated by the neem project was insignificant. However, the neem project was creating a positive impact on the lives of the economically underprivileged, while being financially sustainable itself and GNFC had the ambition of scaling the project across India. The case ends by highlighting some of the potential challenges that GNFC would face in their efforts in scaling as well as encouraging other similar organizations to adopt their model.

This case describes the evolution of Rural Health Care Foundation (RHCF), which provides primary healthcare services to the economically underprivileged in rural India, its various alliances with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and for-profit organizations. RHCF centers attract large number of patients every day from as far away as 100 km, due to low charges (INR 40, which is less than 1 USD, for consultation and a week's supply of medicine) and availability of reliable doctors. The case discusses the scale up challenges RHCF is facing to expand their centers to other locations as well as to provide other services within each center. The case also highlights the role various alliances, between NGOs and for profit organizations, play in delivering healthcare services to the bottom of the pyramid, especially those living in rural localities and can neither access nor afford proper medical facilities.

The case describes the efforts of Reliance Retail in establishing a dedicated supply chain for sourcing bananas directly from farmers and selling them through Reliance's retail outlets in urban India. Reliance intervenes at multiple points in the supply chain, educating the farmers about better ways of planting, growing and harvesting bananas, introducing hygienic techniques of ripening and bypassing several layers of middlemen. This results in greater income for farmers, lesser wastage in the supply chain and better quality of fruits for the consumers. While Reliance's efforts with bananas seem to be a success, there are various challenges in scaling the model and leveraging the supply chain to source other fruits and vegetables. By describing the challenges and various tradeoffs that Reliance had to make, the case highlights how a large commercial organization such as Reliance can establish a viable business model that makes a positive impact on the lives of poor farmers and traders.

The case describes the inception and early stage evolution of RuralShores - a business process outsourcing organization established in rural India (Rural BPO). RBPO is a unique business model that involves the rural poor in delivering remote services such as transaction processing via telecommunication links. Although India has a thriving BPO business, all BPO organizations are located in urban centers. The founders of RuralShores conceptualized the rural BPO model so that it can be inclusive, empower rural women and solve problems of large-scale migration. Locating a BPO organization in rural India enabled significant savings in cost. However, it had its attendant challenges, such as dealing with poor quality infrastructure and a lower level of skills among the employees. RuralShores not only overcame these challenges but also ensured that its service levels were on par with those of urban BPO organizations. In the process, it was able to create positive impact in the lives of its employees as well as give a boost to the local economy. This motivated it to embark on an aggressive plan of scaling that involves geographic expansion through a franchisee model and increasing the scope of RuralShores' activities.

This case chronicles the evolution and challenges faced by LabourNet, an organization that was conceptualized as a social enterprise to create and enhance income opportunities for workers in the Indian urban informal sector, workers who are typically poor, exploited, and disenfranchised. LabourNet endeavored to establish linkages between informal-sector labourers and potential employers through an Internet-based portal and cellular phones, bringing about efficiency in the search process as well as reducing the role of intermediaries who typically exploited the labourers and reduced their share of wages. Realizing that informal sector labourers were mostly migrants from rural India who did not possess any proof of identity or social security, LabourNet worked with banks and insurance companies to provide the registered labourers with proof of identity, insurance, bank accounts, and ATM facilities. Further, LabourNet provided the registered labourers with training so that they could command better prices for their services. However, LabourNet struggled to earn revenue and to become financially self-reliant because of difficulties in scaling its operations, its inability to monetize the services that it provided as well as for being unable to command any price premium for their labourers from the markets. The case ends at a point where LabourNet had to decide its future course of action because the donor funds on which it was relying was becoming exhausted and LabourNet was unsure about the strategy that it should adopt in order to create a business model that was both inclusive and financially sustainable

SELCO India is a Bangalore-based social enterprise that makes solar lighting technology accessible to the economically impoverished people of India. SELCO was founded in 1995 by H. Harish Hande. Since his graduate student days, Harish firmly believed in the potential of solar energy for improving productivity of rural households. This case describes the evolution of SELCO as an organization and the various challenges that Harish and SELCO had to face before they could build a viable business model of providing solar light to the poor. Two critical success factors of SELCO's business model have been its ability to customize its products to address specific needs of the poor and to arrange finance for its customers. To date, SELCO has sold solar lighting to 120,000 rural homes and several other institutions, such as clinics, seminaries, and schools in the Indian state of Karnataka. Employing about 170 people, SELCO services these households from 25 service centers scattered all across rural Karnataka. Although SELCO has been able to establish a sustainable business model that realizes Harish's vision of bringing a low-cost energy solution to the economically impoverished, its challenge today is to create greater impact by scaling its business and creating an organization that sustains its success beyond the tenure of its founding members.