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This case is about an ambitious “technopreneur” with ideas that were at the forefront of technology, such as in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Compassion Web had been successful initially, then swamped with challenges, and the original business model needed major changes in order to work in the fast-changing environment. At the same time, the company was facing a lawsuit with a major client, which could threaten its survival. To make matters even worse, the company lacked the strong and unified leadership necessary to pull it out of its difficulties.

It was late January 2011, and although Rachel De Marchi had gotten used to the long days of physical labour, she knew it was bothering her, and today brought her to a reality that she knew she would have to face. Since having founded her dog-walking service six years ago in Oakville, Ontario, this was the first time she had asked for help. She made a very embarrassing phone call to her father when she could not wrestle a dog into her car. What made the day even more frustrating was that she received three phone calls from potential clients, none of whom she could fit into her schedule. De Marchi knew that she was running out of capacity, both in terms of time and energy, and that something would have to change, but she wondered where to begin.

It was late January 2011, and although Rachel De Marchi had gotten used to the long days of physical labour, she knew it was bothering her, and today brought her to a reality that she knew she would have to face. Since having founded her dog-walking service six years ago in Oakville, Ontario, this was the first time she had asked for help. She made a very embarrassing phone call to her father when she could not wrestle a dog into her car. What made the day even more frustrating was that she received three phone calls from potential clients, none of whom she could fit into her schedule. De Marchi knew that she was running out of capacity, both in terms of time and energy, and that something would have to change, but she wondered where to begin.

In April 2011, Vithal Gambhir, the marketing director of Vibhava Chemicals, an entrepreneurial venture and leader in the black phenyl category in the home cleaning agents (HCA) market in South India, was faced with a marketing challenge. A slew of multi-national corporation (MNC) brands in the emerging new category of specialty cleaning agents had eroded Vibhava’s share of the traditional black phenyl category by 50 per cent over the previous eight years. The marketing efforts of the MNCs had also led to a gradual transformation of the HCA market, expanding and segmenting it in terms of applications (e.g. floor-cleaning agents and toilet-cleaning agents) and benefits (e.g. disinfecting, cleaning, and deodorizing). As a result, Vibhava’s leading brand, “Black Belt” black phenyl disinfectant, had begun losing ground in the market. Vibhava had successfully responded to this decline by launching Ozone, a pine-oil-based floor cleaner, in 2003. Positioned as an herbal, eco-friendly, deodorizing floor cleaner, Ozone had managed to avert Domex, the leading MNC brand of disinfecting floor cleaner. However, during the last couple of years Domex had been available in many variants serving many segments and the market had become flooded with both MNC and established Indian brands. While the sale of Ozone rose in absolute terms, Vibhava’s share in the growing home cleaning market dropped from 25 per cent in a predominantly traditional product market in the 1990s, to 11 per cent in the transformed market of 2010. Gambhir now faced the daunting challenge of meeting an ambitious sales target of INR 1 billion for 2011-2012, which was double the sales of the previous year.

The world had changed as a result of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Canada was engaged in the Afghanistan War, and the first casualties were being felt. It was November 28, 2005, as Rene LaRose, the director general of Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) Toronto, sat in his office preparing for an all-staff briefing the following day. He knew that for his research institute to remain relevant and be a major contributor to the emerging needs of the Canadian Forces and national security in this rapidly changing landscape, a major transformation of his centre was required. The Canadian Forces was undergoing its own metamorphosis under its new Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, and DRDC Toronto needed to be in synch with this development. LaRose had spent several years trying to convey the message that profound changes at DRDC Toronto were needed — changes that were as much cultural as they were structural. The sense of urgency was now acute with Canada at war, and DRDC Toronto was poised to embark on a major organizational alignment program.

This case is a supplement to Defence Research and Development Canada — Toronto (A): The Organizational Alignment Program.

Goli Vada Pav Pvt. Limited (GVPPL) identified an opportunity to brand one of Mumbai’s favourite fast foods — the vada pav. GVPPL’s founders saw a huge opportunity in the Indian fast food industry, which was highly unorganized and largely serviced by small-time local vendors. There was a need in the market for a hygienic, branded product and Goli Vada Pav was created to fill this void. GVPPL broke the stereotype of unhygienic, manhandled vada pav. Its strategy for success was built on the four-point formula for a high-quality product, with value for money and efficient delivery to customers. The absence of a hygienic, branded product in the Indian fast food industry contributed to the initial success of GVPPL. This case series illustrates an entrepreneur’s ability to identify and exploit a market opportunity. It details challenges faced by GVPPL in the competitive dynamics of the Indian fast food industry. These cases further question the viability of GVPPL’s business model as one of the founders aspired to expand to the national and international markets. Would he be successful in strategizing GVPPL’s future growth?

In August 2010, SKS Microfinance became India’s (and South Asia’s) first publicly traded microfinance institution with a stock exchange listing. A share in the company was offered at INR 985 and it commenced trading at INR 1,036, reaching INR 1,404 within a month. However, that was the extent of the good news as far as the company and its shareholders were concerned. Things began to unravel rapidly. The initial public offering of shares was seen as the initiation of a conflict between the interests of the company’s shareholders and the poor rural borrowers it was expected to serve. Further, the company fired an arguably successful chief executive officer due to “inter-personal issues” within days from the end of the post-listing 40-day silent period. Matters were aggravated when 30 women who happened to be microfinance borrowers committed suicide within a span of 45 days, 13 of whom were reported to have been SKS members. The provincial government in the state of Andhra Pradesh, the hub of microfinance activity in the country, brought out an ordinance that effectively curbed microfinance lending and recovery operations. By May 2011, the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s banking regulator, had issued a notification placing caps on interest rates and margins and specifying minimum tenures for relatively larger loan sizes. Was this the end of the microfinance movement in India?

The Singaporean software company Lan-Ray attempted to enter the prepaid cash card (PCC) business in China. Equity funds were sourced to acquire Protection Communications Network (PCN), a payment intermediary in Quanzhou, China, with a vast payment network that could be instrumental to the success of the PCC business. However, PCN would need to demonstrate profitability before it could obtain the licence to run the PCC business.<br><br>Together, Lan-Ray and PCN ventured into the mobile phone campus e-card business, which was initially thought to be able to help PCN achieve profitability in the short run. However, the campus e-card business did not prove to be as profitable as expected. At the same time, the acquisition of PCN by Lan-Ray was problematic, as PCN was unwilling to transfer shares to Lan-Ray. How could Lan-Ray’s CEO finish the acquisition of PCN and make the campus e-card business profitable?

Recounts the history of People Express Airlines, which grew rapidly after its inception in 1980 then failed spectacularly in 1986. Profiles People's aggressive strategy and its distinctive approach to human resource management, which emphasized job rotation and minimal hierarchy.

The case traces the milestones of a 26-year history of a social entrepreneur creating a social enterprise, Madras Craft Foundation (MCF). The story leads up to a three-decade retrospective on the role social ventures play in our lives. Based on the entrepreneur’s critical reflection, the case shows how the paths of the social entrepreneur and the social enterprise became closely interwoven. After MCF had been self-sufficient for three years, the success of the social venture precipitated a crisis as to who could succeed the founding social entrepreneur, whose love for South India’s arts, crafts, and culture had become inseparable from MCF and its best-known offering, Dakshina Chitra. The case details MCF’s revenue-generation model and shows the interdependence between the social entrepreneur and the social enterprise — their “co-becoming” over almost three decades. The analysis makes apparent links between the founder and her venture, and challenges the divide between social entrepreneur and social enterprise. It also provides an opportunity to discuss what is alike or different in social entrepreneurship and traditional entrepreneurship.

The case focuses on HTT, a small Canadian automotive manufacturer working in the highly specialized niche of supercars. HTT was only three months away from finishing the design stage of its vehicle, the Pléthore, and had to make decisions regarding the production stage. Among them, the company needed to decide how it would support its value chain processes with information technology (IT). However, a detailed set of requirements for an IT system could not be elicited until the company had successfully produced and distributed at least a few vehicles. In the meantime, the CEO, who was also a shareholder, wanted to develop a shortlist of potential IT products that would give him a better grasp of the available options.

This case examines how CARE, a non-profit international development organization, begins to pursue a market-based approach to meeting its poverty-reduction mission. Specifically, a CARE project manager explores how previous work with low-income livestock herders in drought-prone eastern Kenya might offer an opportunity to work with value chain actors to improve access to markets and increase farmers’ incomes.<br><br>With the Kenyan livestock project as the pilot for this new approach, Case (A)’s main decision point concerns a strategic choice on what role CARE should play in the value chain to support low-income pastoralists. Options include 1) becoming directly involved in value chain transactions, buying and selling livestock, and providing inputs to farmers or 2) acting as a value chain facilitator to provide the information and incentives to existing actors to make the value chain more efficient and inclusive for low-income producers. This strategic decision is part of a larger proposal that students are tasked to create for CARE’s market-based livestock project.

This case is a supplement to Value Chain Development: Care Kenya’s Challenge to Make Markets Work for the Poor (A).

The case focuses on HTT, a small Canadian automotive manufacturer working in the highly specialized niche of supercars. HTT was only three months away from finishing the design stage of its vehicle, the Pléthore, and had to make decisions regarding the production stage. Among them, the company needed to decide how it would support its value chain processes with information technology (IT). However, a detailed set of requirements for an IT system could not be elicited until the company had successfully produced and distributed at least a few vehicles. In the meantime, the CEO, who was also a shareholder, wanted to develop a shortlist of potential IT products that would give him a better grasp of the available options.

The case traces the milestones of a 26-year history of a social entrepreneur creating a social enterprise, Madras Craft Foundation (MCF). The story leads up to a three-decade retrospective on the role social ventures play in our lives. Based on the entrepreneur's critical reflection, the case shows how the paths of the social entrepreneur and the social enterprise became closely interwoven. After MCF had been self-sufficient for three years, the success of the social venture precipitated a crisis as to who could succeed the founding social entrepreneur, whose love for South India's arts, crafts, and culture had become inseparable from MCF and its best-known offering, Dakshina Chitra. The case details MCF's revenue-generation model and shows the interdependence between the social entrepreneur and the social enterprise - their "co-becoming" over almost three decades. The analysis makes apparent links between the founder and her venture, and challenges the divide between social entrepreneur and social enterprise. It also provides an opportunity to discuss what is alike or different in social entrepreneurship and traditional entrepreneurship.

The director of new business development and strategy at Redmas Digital, an enterprising start-up, needs to write two sales e-mail templates for Redmas’s newest pet project, YouPostIt! One of the e-mails is for leads that the company has not done business with before (cold leads) and the other is for leads that the company has done business with before (warm leads). The director has to write concise e-mails with high “skim value.” He must distill a large amount of information regarding the company value proposition and company history in an engaging way. <br><br>YouPostIt! is an experimental marketing company owned by Redmas Digital. The concept is simple: consumers get a chance to send physical postcards for free. Consumers log in at YouPostIt.com, upload a photo and write a short note, and then choose a border to go around the picture on the postcard (the border is a corporate logo). The business that occupies the border of the postcard assumes the cost of the postcard. Businesses have the opportunity to include coupons on the physical postcard and via an e-mail notification message after sending. How can the director write these sales e-mails to businesses he believes will want to pay for consumers’ postcards?

The president of Image Pipeline Services, a pipeline flushing and inspection firm, is taking a step back from the past few weeks, where he has spent virtually all his waking time working on his new business in Edmonton’s oil sands industry. A few months after starting his business, he controls virtually the entire market, but competitors will be encroaching soon. One competitor has offered to purchase his business and the president wants to weigh his options before agreeing to sell or continuing to compete.

Simbhaoli Sugars Limited has deployed a new system of communication services through Voice Web, a mobile-based Internet technology, in rural areas for better engagement with the farmers who supply sugarcane to the SSL factory. The importance of perceived value of services to the end-users and the need to involve all stakeholders during the innovation set-up process are explained. Critical aspects of the service innovation concept are used to analyse the issues observed during the pilot deployment of Simbhaoli Sugars Limited’s new communication services.