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This case examines the business strategies available to an Indian company, Indraprastha Cold Storage Ltd. (IPCSL). It has made substantial investments in upgrading its existing cold storage to differentiate itself from the competition based on the premise that by providing superior product quality, it could charge a premium for its value added cold storage service. However, competitors lowered their rates in an attempt to capture even more customers, and IPCSL was concerned about the long-term viability of the business. It must decide on a course of action, taking into consideration the constraints of growing, transporting, storing and selling fruit in India; the asymmetry in price information available to growers and commission agents in the market, coupled with the old-fashioned way of doing business through open and closed auctions; and the costs and benefits of vertical integration between grower and IPCSL.

Spreadsheet for case KEL707

This case describes the formation and operation of Leopard Capital, a "Frontier Market Private Equity Fund" from its establishment in 2007 up through the end of 2012. The case focuses on the fund's founder, Douglas Clayton, and his history doing business in Asia and what led him to the decision to start Leopard Capital as a Cambodia- focused private equity fund, and later to expand into other frontier markets such as Mynmar, Mongolia, and Haiti. The case emphasizes the fundraising challenges Clayton faced as a first-time fund manager operating in a developing country, and some of the creative strategies Leopard employed in order to attract capital from investors. The case also overviews the economic and political history of Cambodia.

Value Retail PLC owned and managed a number of premium shopping destinations (Villages) across Europe. Soon the company would be moving into an entirely new market: China. The company's Villages had proven popular with both shoppers (many of whom were international tourists who had come to Europe specifically to visit one of Value Retail's Villages) and brands, a number of which were luxury brands that had historically avoided selling product at outlet locations. The company's Founder and Chairman, Scott Malkin, looked to the future challenges his company might face in China, as well as to the challenges his company faced around human resource management and organizational control as the company grew in size and formalized parts of its processes, and how his company would be impacted by the ongoing changes in the retail industry, including the rise of online shopping.

A recent business school graduate has enjoyed moderate success with her YouTube channel, which is devoted to videos detailing how to artistically transform T-shirts into unique fashion items. The entrepreneur has successfully monetized the site by allowing YouTube to place ads on it, through the YouTube Partner Program. The case outlines the entrepreneur’s efforts, describes her participation in YouTube’s Partnership Program and asks students to consider her next steps. The options include monetizing her videos by renting them through YouTube or another channel, creating and selling do-it-yourself kits, opening a physical store to sell her creations and to conduct classes or extending her brand into other arts and crafts.

Books for Change (BfC), a small publisher, produces books that focus on the social sector. The company’s purpose is to raise awareness about specific development issues among academia, researchers and policy makers. BfC was started in 1998 by ActionAid, an international non-governmental organization working in the field of social development. Like other small publishers, BfC faces various challenges, including a lower demand for its books and difficulty in distribution and marketing. ActionAid has provided financial support to BfC by covering its operating losses; however, it now needs to allocate greater funds to its own development activities and, therefore, has asked BfC to become financially independent. BfC needs to prepare the strategy and plan for making BfC profitable.

Brand battles occur in every industry and in practically every product category. They consume significant managerial attention and consist of far more than marketing tactics — they are ultimately about winning customers’ cognitive resources. Brands make it easier for consumers to find the products they want and need. They also make markets more efficient by bringing buyers and sellers together at a lower cost than would otherwise be possible. In fact, the loss of a brand would often be more harmful to a company’s ability to continue business operations than the loss of its upstream assets. Consumers’ attention is finite, but available information is increasingly abundant, which gives rise to a principle of scarcity that makes brands particularly valuable. Moreover, cognitive economy states that because information-processing capacity is finite, customers often trade off accuracy of results and optimal outcomes for what is most accessible. This partly explains the high failure rate of new, novel products — and why Lexar, when it introduced memory cards for digital cameras, wisely packaged them in gold packages similar to those used for Kodak film. As this article shows, the battle between brands takes place inside the minds of consumers.

This second part of a two-part case provides the epilogue to the story of BP's conflicts with Russian oil partners and underscores the importance of alliance management.

Marketers face new challenges in the era of crowdsourced opinions, where sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp allow consumers to share opinions that may contradict marketing messages. This article identifies ten sources of influence that can sway consumers, four of which (social networks, opinion aggregators, recommendation engines, and price comparison services) have only gained prominence recently. With the shift from traditional marketing channels to digital realms, consumers now comprehensively inform themselves, loudly inform others, and make purchase decisions at their own pace. Marketers can take four approaches in order to gain value from the crowd. 1) Endorse the crowd: Bringing the “voice of the crowd” into marketing efforts can provide the credibility and authenticity that consumers seek. 2) Venture among the crowd: Engaging with consumers directly, e.g. through social media, can highlight a company’s transparency and build trust with consumers. 3) Listen to and learn from the crowd: Monitoring online discussions of user needs, desires, and trends can provide highly valuable data. 4) Invite the crowd inside: Companies like WebMD offer users a diverse portfolio of guidance and a useful forum in which to hold their own conversations.

Four businesses had, by 2012, grown to dominate the infrastructure that all firms rely on to reach online customers. Will the balance of power among the four persist, will one take command at the expense of the other three, or are all four more vulnerable than they seem to outside forces? What are the implications for the pace at which consumers go online? Amara's Law claims that we tend to overestimate change in the short run, and underestimate it in the long run.

Francesco Mutti, owner, CEO, and great-grandson of the founder of Mutti S.p.a., ran the 113-year old Parma, Italy-based tomato-processing company. Mutti sales grew from €11 million in 1995 to €185 million in 2011, without producing for store brands in a market in which these offerings were steadily gaining share. The company's leaders wanted to make sure Mutti maintained its position in Italy and further, to move into a leadership position in several countries around the world. What was next for the family firm and brand leader from northern Italy's Emilia-Romagna region? How would the singularly focused, consensus-driven firm fare in an increasingly competitive, globalizing retail landscape?

This case examines the business strategies available to an Indian company, Indraprastha Cold Storage Ltd. (IPCSL). It has made substantial investments in upgrading its existing cold storage to differentiate itself from the competition based on the premise that by providing superior product quality, it could charge a premium for its value added cold storage service. However, competitors lowered their rates in an attempt to capture even more customers, and IPCSL was concerned about the long-term viability of the business. It must decide on a course of action, taking into consideration the constraints of growing, transporting, storing and selling fruit in India; the asymmetry in price information available to growers and commission agents in the market, coupled with the old-fashioned way of doing business through open and closed auctions; and the costs and benefits of vertical integration between grower and IPCSL.<br><br>This case also includes a two-part video which instructors may share with the class. The first part shows the buzz of daily activities in New Subzi Mandi, Azadpur - including market exchanges by open and closed auctions. The second is an interview with Sanjay Aggarwal about the challenges IPCSL faced and his immediate reaction to the crisis. Please refer to the teaching note for details.

The traditional marketing mix--product, place, price, promotion--yields narrow strategies that are increasingly at odds with the imperative to deliver solutions. Marketers need to adopt a new framework focused on solutions, access, value, and education--SAVE.

New research from the UK shows that people are less likely to choose the highest-rated option in a quality ranking when it appears first on the list. So which option will they probably be drawn to? One that falls in the middle.

As her top 60 executives arrived in London for the first strategic planning meeting after Ahrendts took the helm, she noticed that not one of them was wearing a Burberry trench coat, despite the damp, gray weather. It was a sign of the challenges the company faced. Even in a burgeoning global market, Burberry was growing at only 2% a year. It had lost focus in the process of global expansion: Each of the 23 licensees around the world was doing something different. Ubiquity was robbing the brand of its luster. Ahrendts realized that if Burberry was going to be a great, pure, global luxury brand, it needed to have one design director--a "brand czar"--and it needed to capitalize on its historical core: the trench coat. The company decided to innovate at the core to attract the luxury customers of the future: millennials.

Thunderbird has built a strong and efficient Internet presence in the past five years. The effort was supported by a consistent effort to develop its internal online marketing capabilities, resources, and technical infrastructure. As the MBA recruitment process becomes increasingly dependent on its online marketing strategy, the ability to buy media effectively, measure performance, and adjust plans quickly acquire incredible relevance. Kelly Santina, the school's online marketing director, must assess the Google Analytics data covering the past seven months of website activity. Thunderbird's online marketing goals are defined as follows: (a) to improve the effectiveness of display/sponsored ads placement; (b) to increase traffic to the programs pace by 25%; (c) to improve conversions, measured by the downloading of an application form, by 30%.

Based on the automobile sale model in the mainland of China, this business case describes Xiamen Honda 4S Shop's current sales situation, marketing strategy and management. It emphasizes the dilemma faced by the company CEO - whether or not he will implement the plan proposed by the sales department to offer lifetime car care for customers who bought car insurance from the company. Deeper marketing management problems are also raised, such as how to distribute marketing resources, how to evaluate the marketing plan and its performance and how to raise company value when it supplies better value to the customers. This case can be used in marketing management for MBA students and senior undergraduates. It provides an opportunity to discuss the subjects of customer lifetime value and marketing budget management.

Based on the automobile sale model in the mainland of China, this business case describes Xiamen Honda 4S Shop’s current sales situation, marketing strategy and management. It emphasizes the dilemma faced by the company CEO — whether or not he will implement the plan proposed by the sales department to offer lifetime car care for customers who bought car insurance from the company. Deeper marketing management problems are also raised, such as how to distribute marketing resources, how to evaluate the marketing plan and its performance and how to raise company value when it supplies better value to the customers. This case can be used in marketing management for MBA students and senior undergraduates. It provides an opportunity to discuss the subjects of customer lifetime value and marketing budget management.

This case concerns the branding and marketing of a comic book series that started in the 1960s as an educational tool to make Indian children aware of Indian mythology, history and culture. By 2010, Amar Chitra Katha had around 500 titles covering a vast range of topics, but it was facing competition not only from international and indigenous comic book companies but from electronic media such as children’s games and shows on cable TV and the Internet. In November 2007, all the Amar Chitra Katha titles and Tinkle magazine were bought by Mumbai-based entrepreneur Samir Patil, who created ACK Media as an umbrella brand. The company tried to reach its audience through the launch of an online portal, the creation of DVDs/VCDs, sponsoring movies based on Amar Chitra Katha and placing comics on mobile phone platforms, etc. However, such actions were shifting the focus of the brand from books to electronic media. The shift was inevitable to maintain a stable position in the marketplace and to achieve growth, but the management wondered how it could and whether it should maintain its print presence in the marketplace.

This case concerns the branding and marketing of a comic book series that started in the 1960s as an educational tool to make Indian children aware of Indian mythology, history and culture. By 2010, Amar Chitra Katha had around 500 titles covering a vast range of topics, but it was facing competition not only from international and indigenous comic book companies but from electronic media such as children's games and shows on cable TV and the Internet. In November 2007, all the Amar Chitra Katha titles and Tinkle magazine were bought by Mumbai-based entrepreneur Samir Patil, who created ACK Media as an umbrella brand. The company tried to reach its audience through the launch of an online portal, the creation of DVDs/VCDs, sponsoring movies based on Amar Chitra Katha and placing comics on mobile phone platforms, etc. However, such actions were shifting the focus of the brand from books to electronic media. The shift was inevitable to maintain a stable position in the marketplace and to achieve growth, but the management wondered how it could and whether it should maintain its print presence in the marketplace.