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Supplement to case IN1556

Supplement to case IN1556

In early January 2018, a leading non-governmental organization in the Indian state of Rajasthan was considering an alliance with Airtel Payments Bank Limited (Airtel Payments), the first “payments bank” in India. Although India showed economic growth in key areas, financially inclusive growth was poor. Airtel Payments and its competitors were expected to strengthen financial inclusion with technological expertise, wide distribution networks, and substantial revenue to sustain losses during initial start-up phases of the payments banking Industry in India. Airtel Payments paid a 7.25 per cent interest rate for customer deposits, the highest among the payments banks. However, the non-governmental organization needed to address several questions before initiating an alliance with Airtel Payments for financial inclusion: Could Airtel Payments play a significant role in financial inclusion and help solve India’s persistent age-old issue of last-mile connectivity? Was it viable to offer higher interest rates than competitors? Did the environmental factors favour Airtel Payments? Was the payments bank industry competitive? What would be the impact of Airtel Payments's previous unethical practice of opening bank accounts without informed consent?

Case A is set in 2008. Tong Yee is a co-founder of The Thought Collective (TTC), a group of social enterprises that aimed to enhance the social capital of local society. His background in education led him to provide private lessons to underprivileged children. In 2006, he worked with his partners to launch School Of Thought (SOT), a tuition centre that focused on public welfare and charged affordable fees with the goal of maximising social impact instead of profits. TTC subsequently branched into the restaurant business in 2007 with Food For Thought (FFT) when the opportunity fortuitously arose. FFT began by donating 10% of its profits to the community. Later on, in collaboration with the National Heritage Board (NHB), a statutory board charged with preserving the shared heritage of Singapore's diverse communities, FFT would also be a place where people gathered to share stories of their local life experiences. FFT hence aimed to provide good food for a good cause. At the end of the year, Tong and his team had to decide if a much larger restaurant location at the Singapore Botanic Gardens was worth bidding for. The area was popular with tourists and locals alike and fit their goal of bringing people together in community areas. A dynamic rental model would also allow their rent to fluctuate with sales. However, the costs would be a lot higher than at their other outlets and demand was uncertain. Case B continues in 2011. After FFT decided to rent the space at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, they suffered huge financial losses in the first few years. The team started to face new operational and staffing issues and had to figure out how to move forward or cease operations. The case also explores what the team could have done differently.

Case A is set in 2008. Tong Yee is a co-founder of The Thought Collective (TTC), a group of social enterprises that aimed to enhance the social capital of local society. His background in education led him to provide private lessons to underprivileged children. In 2006, he worked with his partners to launch School Of Thought (SOT), a tuition centre that focused on public welfare and charged affordable fees with the goal of maximising social impact instead of profits. TTC subsequently branched into the restaurant business in 2007 with Food For Thought (FFT) when the opportunity fortuitously arose. FFT began by donating 10% of its profits to the community. Later on, in collaboration with the National Heritage Board (NHB), a statutory board charged with preserving the shared heritage of Singapore's diverse communities, FFT would also be a place where people gathered to share stories of their local life experiences. FFT hence aimed to provide good food for a good cause. At the end of the year, Tong and his team had to decide if a much larger restaurant location at the Singapore Botanic Gardens was worth bidding for. The area was popular with tourists and locals alike and fit their goal of bringing people together in community areas. A dynamic rental model would also allow their rent to fluctuate with sales. However, the costs would be a lot higher than at their other outlets and demand was uncertain. Case B continues in 2011. After FFT decided to rent the space at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, they suffered huge financial losses in the first few years. The team started to face new operational and staffing issues and had to figure out how to move forward or cease operations. The case also explores what the team could have done differently.

Focused on injury prediction and prevention in elite sport, the Melbourne, Australia-based KangaTech prepared to launch a new model of their core product, an integrated exercise frame and software system that used strength exercises to identify and mitigate the risk of soft-tissue and ligament injuries (see Exhibit 2 for overview of product). The team was excited about the new product and was confident that it improved upon many of the features of the previous model. However, Saunders and his co-founders couldn't help but think about the long-term strategy of the company. Spun off in 2015 out of an internal R&D initiative at the North Melbourne Football Club, KangaTech spent the past four years squarely focused on product development and gaining early traction in the elite sports markets in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia (see Exhibit 3 for company timeline). As of 2019, KangaTech had users across 15 different sites, including professional teams in the National Basketball Association, the English Premier League, and the Australian Football League. The company also underwent a successful round of financing recently, and the proceeds of which were used to fund the new version of the KangaTech product. Off the back of this recent success, the co-founders were focused on how they might be able to navigate the future ahead of them. Dilena explained, "We are going through a pretty robust strategy discussion at the moment. It is one of those decision points for us as to how we best proceed.' Dilena continued, "We've been largely product-based and product-development-based until now. How do we scale up? How do we take that next quantum leap as an organization? So part of that has been looking at where do we see the market opportunities?"

The founders of Flytenow, Inc. (Flytenow), a tech start-up dubbed the Uber of the skies, faced a crisis when the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration determined that Flytenow's customers, namely private pilots, would be violating holding out regulations if they used the service. Flytenow had just completed a three-month mentorship program at Y Combinator, the most prestigious Silicon Valley-based new venture accelerator, which had already helped start Airbnb Inc., Reddit, and Dropbox. The news came on the eve of the company's most important funding round. Should the founders go ahead with their planned funding pitch, or develop a new strategy to address the sudden regulatory barriers?

Supplement to case 807028.

Dr. Varda Shalev bridges technology and medicine through Maccabitech, a "research and innovation wing" of Israel's Maccabi Healthcare Services (MHS) that partners with research institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and startups. Shalev hopes to scale Maccabitech's efforts through the creation of a platform that will enable external researchers to access MHS data. Yet it is unclear how best to structure the platform and its policies. How can Maccabitech maximize impact while still creating value for MHS? And what risks does Maccabitech need to manage?

In 2018, Mustafa Koita, Founder and CEO of Dubai-based organic milk company Koita has to decide whether or not to pursue an investment from a potential competitor who is coming into his local market.

Samsui Supplies & Services Private Limited provided 1.8 million meals annually to long-term care facilities in Singapore through the company’s flagship project, Samsui Central Kitchen. The company had won accolades for its work, and in April 2018, the director felt that the time was right to expand the project. He wondered, however, how he would illustrate to the organization’s key stakeholders the social impact Samsui was having in the SG$89 million market of providing meals for long-term care facilities. To gain support for scaling up Samsui’s initiatives and maximizing the social impact the company was delivering, the director needed to quantify the impact of the company’s corporate social responsibility initiatives in a clear and simple message to its various stakeholders.

In 2018, Al Islami Foods CEO Marwan Al Garem and Chairman Saleh Saeed Lootah have to decide on a potential investment partner. They hope to find the best match for a strategic investment in their Dubai-based halal foods company from a list of three global food companies.

After selling SeaMicro, Inc. to AMD, in 2012, Andrew Feldman started a process he called "lightly sifting", trying to stay updated on the ideas and businesses being built in Silicon Valley. Eventually, he started spending more and more time with four of his former colleagues from SeaMicro: Gary Lauterbach, Michael James, J.P. Fricker, and Sean Lie. The casual conversations quickly evolved to regular ideation sessions in which the group discussed and tried to find an idea that would allow them to "do something big." In March 2016, after a few months of ideation, the team stumbled on an idea that was as exciting as it was risky: a computer chip that would be 60 times bigger than the biggest chip ever made, specialized in machine learning. "It is the most audacious hardware product that most people have ever seen," Feldman explained at the time. Now, it was time to decide: Should they pursue the business concept?

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.

Case A is set in 2016. Trung Dung is the founder of iCare Benefits (iCare), a social enterprise established to aid low-income workers. His background included studying computer science in the US and successfully working in the American software industry. Trung returned to Vietnam to discover that many low-income workers had to borrow heavily for basic household necessities, especially migrant workers who moved to the city with nothing. How could he help? Trung decided to tackle the related problems of lack of access to the formal financial sector and the workers' lack of basic consumer durable goods. He partnered with employers, global manufacturers and financial institutions to develop a third-party employee benefits programme that would help low-income migrant workers afford basic goods. iCare would undertake retail functions to enable migrant workers to buy consumer goods. Using an innovative retail model, iCare would provide workers with zero-interest procurement loans for up to six months. His value proposition to partners allowed for a collaborative setup that permitted the social enterprise to operate without donations. Case B continues in 2018. iCare has been successful in reducing borrowing from other sources at usurious rates. Many workers now have access to financing and consequently basic consumer durable goods. Trung is able to scale up and reach many more workers. However, he wanted to help existing members as well. He would start to offer additional consumer discretionary products and services in the areas of education, healthcare and insurance. How might he further improve the lives of low income workers?

Case A is set in 2016. Trung Dung is the founder of iCare Benefits (iCare), a social enterprise established to aid low-income workers. His background included studying computer science in the US and successfully working in the American software industry. Trung returned to Vietnam to discover that many low-income workers had to borrow heavily for basic household necessities, especially migrant workers who moved to the city with nothing. How could he help? Trung decided to tackle the related problems of lack of access to the formal financial sector and the workers' lack of basic consumer durable goods. He partnered with employers, global manufacturers and financial institutions to develop a third-party employee benefits programme that would help low-income migrant workers afford basic goods. iCare would undertake retail functions to enable migrant workers to buy consumer goods. Using an innovative retail model, iCare would provide workers with zero-interest procurement loans for up to six months. His value proposition to partners allowed for a collaborative setup that permitted the social enterprise to operate without donations. Case B continues in 2018. iCare has been successful in reducing borrowing from other sources at usurious rates. Many workers now have access to financing and consequently basic consumer durable goods. Trung is able to scale up and reach many more workers. However, he wanted to help existing members as well. He would start to offer additional consumer discretionary products and services in the areas of education, healthcare and insurance. How might he further improve the lives of low income workers?

Cabalonga S. A. (Cabalonga) was a unique, low-cost hostel located in the small seaside town of Puerto Cayo, Ecuador. The beachfront land on which Cabalonga was established had been inherited by one of the two proprietors. In 2017, the company did little better than break even, but the hostel did provide the occasional weekend getaway for its owners. However, the weekend getaways had actually become hectic cross-country commutes for the owners, and too many hours were spent attending to guests’ needs. While the enterprise was financially stable, the owners wanted it to be a self-sustaining and less time-intensive investment.

In 2017, the humble jackfruit, which grew in weed-like abundance in India, gained sudden prominence in the United States. The underutilized jackfruit crop was also gaining recognition globally for its role in addressing food security issues. An entrepreneur who had pioneered methods of jackfruit processing at Artocarpus Foods Private Limited in his native state of Kerala, India, had faced many entrepreneurial challenges in establishing Hebon, his brand of processed jackfruit products. Now he was considering whether to pursue the opportunity to exploit the overseas market or to continue focusing on domestic expansion.