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The dematerialization and servitization of products being brought about by the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) is making it imperative for platform businesses to look at consumers and suppliers from a lifetime value perspective. This technical note compares two fundamental strategic marketing perspectives: the push strategy and the pull strategy, using simple systems-dynamics and agent-based models. The models, developed using Vensim and NetLogo software, illustrate the efficacies of push and pull marketing strategies at the individual customer level. Specifically, they demonstrate the possibilities of market failure due to excessive pushing and consumer community formation.

Headquartered in Botswana, Wilderness Safaris was an ecotourism operator that organized several camps and mobile safaris in Africa. Recently, Wilderness Safaris, and the industry in which it operated, had suffered from significant revenue loss because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Wilderness Safaris had managed to remain operable, the pandemic had changed the industry’s long-term landscape. The vice-president of Wilderness Safaris was interested in applying for an award designed to financially support organizations in solving wildlife conservation problems through technologies. She needed to assess and prioritize several technology innovations and communicate a clear strategy for balancing business profitability with social impact.

Headquartered in Botswana, Wilderness Safaris was an ecotourism operator that organized several camps and mobile safaris in Africa. Recently, Wilderness Safaris, and the industry in which it operated, had suffered from significant revenue loss because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Wilderness Safaris had managed to remain operable, the pandemic had changed the industry's long-term landscape. The vice-president of Wilderness Safaris was interested in applying for an award designed to financially support organizations in solving wildlife conservation problems through technologies. She needed to assess and prioritize several technology innovations and communicate a clear strategy for balancing business profitability with social impact.

WeChat Pay is one of the leading mobile payment platforms in China. The SME sector is one of the target customer groups WeChat wants to help with its ESG (environmental, social, and governance) efforts to facilitate financial inclusion. SMEs are characterized by diverse needs but limited financial, technological, and human resources. WeChat Pay wants to leverage its technological strengths to provide the products that can address the pain points of SMEs. This case illustrates the challenges that WeChat has faced during its efforts to develop technologies that can meet the various needs of SMEs. The case gives students an opportunity to discuss such topics as why companies like WeChat need to include ESG strategies, and how leading companies can develop IT solutions that are useful for SME users. After studying this case, students will be able to suggest how to make sustainable ESG efforts, instead of as window dressing, and how to develop technologies that the potential users will accept and use.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 522098.

It is January 2020. The chief advisor to the chief minister (CM) of Bihar is particularly unhappy after a long meeting with the cabinet members. Four years after the prohibition on the sale and consumption of alcohol in Bihar, it is time to review the full impact of the ban on the state's socioeconomic fabric in light of upcoming elections. As multiple growth and development avenues emerge, the state is embarking on a vibrant journey to realize dreams of a better future. To achieve its goal, the state is focusing on gender mainstreaming and development through various government initiatives. In response to a perceived increase in women's voice against alcohol consumption, the Bihar government introduced a prohibition on alcohol in 2016. However, the stringent policy with a hefty fine and non- negotiable jail term had its downsides. It hindered the much-needed economic growth because of massive losses in sectors such as tourism, food and beverage (F&B), and hospitality. It also hit the state's economic development plans because of massive shortfalls to the state exchequer. The CM stood by his decision undeterred. Yet, in a state plagued with a lack of economic development, many serious gender gaps impacting human development, and a historical lack of capacity for law enforcement, should this be the approach of choice? The chief advisor is grappling with the nagging issues of law and order, budget shortfalls, and the ability to continue the current policy while weighing the social cost of this ban on the public.

This case explores the reasons why Wirecard AG (Wirecard, FRA: WDI) could have concealed its fraudulent accounting practices for more than a decade. As a German payment processor and financial services provider founded in 1999, Wirecard became listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2017 and one year after that, became a constituent stock of the DAX index. From 2017 when Wirecard was listed, the stock price rose from around EUR50 to almost EUR200 during its peak in 2018 with a market capitalization of more than EUR24bn. Despite its size and reputation, Wirecard was first alleged by whistleblowers about its fraudulent practices in early 2018. In-house legal team and news media started to uncover more and more truths later on. It was revealed that Wirecard had not properly obtained licenses for most of its overseas operations. For instance, the business addresses were faked, so as the cash at banks, revenues as well as profits. Not until KPMG issued a special audit report in April 2020 did the regulatory authorities take investigative actions. During June 2020, Wirecard's stock price fell to below EUR2, and below EUR1 two months later. The case seeks to highlight the accountability of different parties to the corporate governance failure, namely the management, board of directors/supervisors and audit committee, external auditors, and regulators. Through the case, students will grapple with the practical questions of how to understand and evaluate the effectiveness of corporate governance of a large-scale organization in multi-national setting.

In 2021, the chief executive officer of Cocoa Luxury SA moved back to Switzerland and founded his premium chocolate brand, SwissOne, after spending two decades in Australia manufacturing confectionery products. Growing up in Bern, Switzerland—the location of the original Toblerone factory—had inspired his unique chocolate recipe and the first three chocolate bars he intended to sell. In January 2022, once he had finished his prototypes, to finalize his marketing plan, the CEO had to consider three questions: First, what was his overall marketing strategy? Second, what was the Swiss business environment like, and how competitive was the Swiss chocolate industry? And third, how could he best position his SwissOne brand, and what should the marketing mix look like?

In late 2020, the board of the Edmonton Community Foundation (ECF) was preparing for its strategic planning session. The question on the agenda was, Should the ECF target millennials or baby boomers for its endowment development tools and strategies? Board members were of two minds when it came to millennials. Some members believed the ECF should intensify its efforts among baby boomers, as time was running out on this donor demographic. Others believed the ECF’s relationships with baby boomers were strong and that it was now time for the ECF to begin actively courting a new generation of donors.<br><br/>Nneka Otogbolu, the newly appointed director of communications and equity strategy for the ECF, was working on her presentation for the board. Her team had carefully researched the two options, leaving it to her to decide what the recommendation should be. She would need to make her mind up soon, as the board meeting was in two days.

In 2016, just four years after launching their business, the four founders of Campus Sutra (a youth-oriented online fashion brand) had to decide whether to join an online marketplace’s brand accelerator program. Joining the program promised rapid growth, but the exclusivity clause was risky. How should the founders evaluate the lucrative proposal? Nurturing high-quality private labels through support programs that accelerated the growth of exclusive brands seemed to help the platforms enhance customer engagement, but was the promise of support from the online marketplace worth the restrictions of platform exclusivity?

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case W20038

Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank's launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank's mobile money app, Illico Cash literally promised "Fast Cash" for its users who also had a Rawbank account. Unlike most mobile money platforms on the African continent, Illico cash was backed by an established bank - not a technology or a telecommunications company. As he contemplated Rawbank's next strategic move, the future of Illico Cash, and the bank's future moves into digital payment systems in the DRC, he saw multiple challenges to Illico Cash's adoption in several regions across the DRC. Seeing lower-than-anticipated usage rates, he wondered if local preferences for cash seemed just too powerful to overcome. Can the bank's digital payments efforts overcome hurdles in local infrastructure, entrenched interests that favored cash, and currency instability? Would crafting a digital ecosystem be a worthwhile investment for Rawbank without a wholesale structural shift in beliefs?

Malabar Gold & Diamonds (Malabar) was established in 1993 in Kerala, India. By 2019, the company was a leading retail chain in India's jewellery market and one of the top five jewellery businesses in the world, selling their products through 117 Indian outlets and 143 global outlets across nine countries. Most of Malabar's domestic revenue came from the southern region of India, and the company was looking to extend its footprint across the entire Indian market. However, the country's jewellery market was highly competitive, with a strong presence of regional players, and consumers in each Indian state had their own unique preference for jewellery design. Malabar needed to find a strategy to expand its presence into the country's uniquely different geographic areas.

Hisense Group Co. Ltd. (Hisense) was a leading manufacturing enterprise in the Chinese household appliance industry. In 2010, Hisense began to lay out its online channels. At that time, the same products had different prices in different channels, which caused fierce channel conflicts. To solve this problem, Hisense segmented online and off-line products and took a series of actions to help off-line channels improve efficiency and reduce prices. Therefore, Hisense successfully changed from having different prices for the same products to having different prices for different products. However, in early 2020 the new model was challenged again, and channel conflicts soon reappeared. How would Hisense break the recurring channel conflict this time?

Recent years had witnessed the social phenomenon of the rise of Internet brands. Looking at Internet fitness unicorn brand Keep’s brand commercialization process, Keep demonstrated the path of creation, product adjustment and upgrade, and brand extension logic of Internet app brands. Keep started as a single-tool app providing exercise content and data records, and gradually developed into a one-stop fitness and exercise platform by actively adjusting its brand goal, surpassing similar products to become the largest social platform for exercise in China. Keep then went through a bottleneck period where it had huge traffic but could not monetize it. Finally, Keep pursued commercialization, transforming into a comprehensive ecological fitness chain. Now, in April 2021, how would Keep respond to the competition and continue its strategic vision of providing a fitness ecosystem? Should its strategic focus continue to shift from online to offline? What should Keep’s next steps be?