It was November 2022. Shruthi Reddy, Founder and Director of Anthyesti Funeral Services (hereinafter Anthyesti), sat in her Bengaluru office, reflecting on the past five years. Reddy had established Anthyesti in Kolkata, India, in 2017. The societal structure in India was deeply rooted in cultural traditions, which made it difficult for commercially run funeral services to be accepted. Reddy was among the few early entrants in this space. The flourishing start-up ecosystem in India was not open to the idea of investing in professionally run services for coordinating cremations and memorials or facilitating the logistics of funeral management. Thus, for a young woman entrepreneur with no business background, running a service in this space seemed unthinkable. Reddy began by bootstrapping her business with personal funds, and after demonstrating high growth within the first year, she expanded her services to six other cities in the next five years. However, she had to deal with several challenges over the years. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, other players entered the market and established themselves in the funeral management services domain. In light of the growing competition, Reddy considered her next move. How should she continue to grow and earn healthy margins that could attract investors? Should she differentiate her services or try to compete on efficiency and cost? What services or service bundles would offer the best opportunity for sustained growth?
It was the autumn of 2022, and Payal Tekchandani, cofounder and partner of The Wedding Clinic (TWC), sat down with her operations team in Pune, Maharashtra, to discuss the plan of action for the upcoming quarter. She had established TWC in 2017. It was a unique offering in medical aesthetics that enabled brides, bridegrooms, and their families to enjoy the best of skin and hair treatments. Payal's entrepreneurial journey included managing operations for diverse and unrelated businesses. She had stepped in to take charge of her family business nine years ago. Three distinct business entities-TWC, Tender Skin Products Pvt Ltd. (TSPPL), and Tender Skin International Cosmetology Academy (TSICA)-operated under the umbrella of Tender Skin International (TSI), a multispecialty skin clinic founded by her mother, Dr. Sonia Tekchandani, in 2003 in Mumbai. TSI also trained beauticians in skincare and manufactured skin care products. Using company-owned clinics, they had bootstrapped the business without external funding. Each clinic required high capital expenditure for operating and purchasing, and installing the machinery. Since Payal took over, business service revenues had quadrupled. However, given the dynamics of the changing business environment, the pandemic, and changing consumer behavior, it was time for Payal to rethink the business interlinkages. She wished to scale the clinics' operations and was facing a dilemma: should she open another center in Mumbai or focus on other cities? The latter option would mean seeking funding and adopting the franchise store model across the country.
Tina Garg, founder and CEO of a creative agency, Pink Lemonade, reflects upon her entrepreneurial journey of establishing a brand, growing the business from a small to a midsized firm, and partnering and scaling up to become a global firm. While planning for growth and expansion, she was at the critical juncture of rethinking her strategy. Garg faced the dilemma of positioning her firm differently while scaling up consistently across pricing, people, processes, and operations. Case A discusses how Pink Lemonade transitioned from a boutique communication agency to a strategic brand partner. It delves into the decision-making dilemmas that Garg faced while growing the firm and the actions needed to reposition the organization during the pandemic. Having worked on prestigious projects, she aimed to grow the ticket size of business engagements with existing clients. Garg confronted several challenges in scaling the business, as well as the risk of diluting the distinct organizational culture she had created over the years.
Tina Garg, founder and CEO of a creative agency, Pink Lemonade, reflects upon her entrepreneurial journey of establishing a brand, growing the business from a small to a midsized firm, and partnering and scaling up to become a global firm. While planning for growth and expansion, she was at the critical juncture of rethinking her strategy. Garg faced the dilemma of positioning her firm differently while scaling up consistently across pricing, people, processes, and operations. Case B discusses how Pink Lemonade grew its business model and transformed its organizational structure. Strategy became a part of each vertical and each engagement with clients. Pink Lemonade adhered to the new normal of working with a hybrid workforce. The case discusses the changes introduced by Garg in pivoting the organization and taking business overseas, leaving the reader wondering if this would be a sustainable business model for Garg in the future.
The case is centered around the 2021 Telangana Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) elections, held against the backdrop of a known unknown: the COVID-19 pandemic. While the project planning was diligent, the team faced several unknown unknowns during the execution of the project. The case study enables readers to create a framework for risk management and associated strategies within the project management context.
The three caselets in the series "Strategies for Firm Positioning" draw the reader's attention to the concept of firm positioning using Porter's Productivity Frontier. For any firm to stay ahead of the competition and build a product or service portfolio, it needs a clear strategic positioning that distinguishes it from its peers. Strategy literature recommends two generic positioning strategies, namely, cost leadership and differentiation, to achieve competitive advantage. These two strategies are very different from one another. Each strategy requires the firm to make choices about quality, operational excellence, innovation, customer centricity, and so on, which are often orthogonal to the choices made under the other strategy. This case series highlights the contrasts between the two generic strategies. Further, the case series shows what happens when a firm selects a hybrid of the two generic strategies.