The Wadhwani Research Centre for Bioengineering (WRCB) at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), established in 2014 with support from the Wadhwani Foundation, entered its transformative second phase after a successful initial five years. With over 40 professors from nine departments involved, WRCB’s phase one had yielded 316 publications and 38 patent applications and spawned two entrepreneurial ventures. Heading phase two were Debjani Paul, the professor in charge, and Abdur Rub, the chief executive officer, who were focused on propelling deep-tech research toward commercialization. As the disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic subsided in late 2021, Paul and Rub looked toward the future with new hope and clear goal: to enable academic researchers to secure follow-on funding crucial for sustaining momentum beyond WRCB’s initial catalytic support. This initiative aimed to cement WRCB’s status as a global leader in bioengineering translational research, bridging academia and industry to overcome funding gaps and nurture innovation in a dynamic academic setting.
Indus Motors was a large automotive dealer and service provider in the state of Kerala (India), with a network of five zonal warehouses and 76 service centres. The company was grappling with inventory management issues, such as excess stock and procurement and distribution practices that accounted for higher costs. Although the company had recently implemented an enterprise resource planning system, the management believed that benefits accruing from the digital system and supply chain capabilities were not put to good use. The management was looking to streamline inventory management and procurement and sourcing practices, leveraging technology and analytics capabilities.
<div style="font-size: 0.94em; line-height: 1.4;"><p align="justify">The December 2022 holiday season was anticipated to mark the first “post-COVID” holiday. However, an unusually severe storm hit at the end of December, causing widespread flight cancellations. Most airlines recovered within a day or two, but Southwest Airlines Co. was disproportionately affected. By December 28, 2022, the airline had cancelled 59 per cent of its flights, compared to an average of 1–2 per cent for other airlines. This led to a total of 16,700 cancellations between December 21 and December 31. The crisis was exacerbated by Southwest Airlines Co.’s outdated crew management software, insufficient ground crews, and its unique point-to-point route network. Unlike hub-and-spoke networks, which concentrated resources at major hubs. Southwest’s point-to-point system offered more non-stop flights but lacked flexibility in crisis response. In the aftermath of the crisis, Southwest was grappling with various critical questions. Would investments in new technology suffice? Which technological advances would make the best investments? With obvious structural deficiencies in place, should the airline consider restructuring? How should Southwest navigate the aftermath of the December 2022 crisis to ensure resilience and sustainability?
Nick worked as the weekend shift leader at the fulfillment center of Lee Valley Tools. in Ottawa. The company operated three shifts—a day and night shift on weekdays and a weekend shift on Saturday and Sunday. Reviewing performance statistics, Nick noted that members of the night shifts in the warehouse seemed to be achieving higher performance in order fulfillment and line item fulfillment. On the other hand, the members of the weekend shifts were more aligned with the performance of members of the day shift, which had to deal with deliveries of incoming items and placing these items in the warehouse. Nick wondered why the weekend shift seemed to lag behind. He also wondered whether these differences were significant and meaningful. Nick found that there appeared to be a lag in the picking and packing processes.
Bay Towel Linen and Uniform Rental Inc. (Bay Towel) was a family-owned business based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that had been serving the state and growing organically for about 100 years. The company provided uniform and linen rental and laundry services from its head office in Green Bay and two distribution centres in central and southern Wisconsin. But in the wake of disruptions to global supply chains caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Bay Towel faced challenges in serving customers better while reducing operating costs. The company had a few options to do so, but how could it choose the most cost-effective solution with the least investment?
In December 2021, the director of Options Pregnancy Centre (Options) was challenged with determining how to expand the services offered by the organization in its Montreal, Quebec, community, as the need to support women who planned to carry their pregnancies and pursue parenting was becoming more acute. Options already offered counselling, grief and loss support, and a variety of parenting programs; it also facilitated required medical services and provided opportunities for pregnant teens to live with host families on either short- or long-term bases. The organization occasionally had opportunities to develop its own residential program. Doing so would mean shifting its strategy from providing services on a non-residential basis to having its own residential program. Should Options expand its current non-residential programs? Should it more actively recruit families who were willing to take pregnant teenagers into their homes for short periods of time? Should it take the bold step of making an offer on a residential building that was currently available? The director recognized that it would be necessary to carefully prioritize Options’ programming to ensure that it could secure the resources it needed to run effective programs.
The case looks at an organisation called CSG Group (CSG), which successfully diversified over the span of several years to become an integrated facilities management and talent services provider. Along their journey of diversification, they acquired a business which had misrepresented its finances – however this was only discovered after the sale had gone through. The financially distressed acquisition threatened the future viability of the company and required a swift turnaround in order for the organisation to remain afloat. Many varying turnaround strategies were implemented, and the division ended up successful. During the turnaround, the protagonist took the opportunity to restructure the divisions and merge multiple businesses inside
In February 2023, a prominent retail investor was contemplating selling his investment in Narayana Hrudayalya Limited, one of India’s leading health care companies, when the stock price reached an all-time high of ₹800. The investor had initially bought the shares in 2017, when the price was ₹350 per share. On February 6, 2023, he came across an article about the company that discussed its future prospects, which prompted him to investigate the company’s financials and other key aspects more closely. As he delved deeper into the company’s financial details, the investor discovered various diverse opinions in various reports. To gain some clarity on the company’s financial situation, he asked for the professional advice of his nephew, who was an investment analyst at a prominent stockbroker firm. The analyst knew the importance of conducting a thorough analysis of a company before offering an informed conclusion and investment recommendation to his uncle. He also saw his analysis as an opportunity to provide valuable insight to his own current and prospective clients.
St. Gianna Healthcare (SGH) was a community health centre located in Kochi, in the southern state of Kerala, India, offering government-approved medical checkups and health certifications, specialist consulting services in obstetrics and gynecology, and dental care. SGH’s medical administrator was concerned about service management issues at the clinic in recent months. While there had been a recent increase in patient numbers, she was concerned about customer experience. In particular, she was trying to assess whether patient waiting times and service turnaround were satisfactory, given the dependencies SGH had on capacity, scheduling, and overall service management at the clinic, and was considering her options for improvements.
Kae Jonishi, the protagonist in the case, is a marketing analyst at Force Energy (Force). Her company has advertised with Major League Baseball (MLB) teams in the past and has gained moderate amounts of exposure from these marketing campaigns. However, Jonishi’s manager wants to increase the company’s exposure to MLB fans. One way to do so is to sponsor teams that are likely to advance into the MLB post-season, or playoffs. The top performing teams during the MLB regular season advance into the playoffs and increase their fan base, which results in greater marketing exposure for advertisers.<br><br>Jonishi has access to a data set that contains aggregate team statistics for offence and pitching performance during all MLB seasons from 1995 to 2019. With adequate knowledge of both baseball and data science, Jonishi begins by analyzing and visualizing the data. She then builds a machine learning model that can predict whether a team will make the playoffs. Using this model, Jonishi can input future offence and defence performance predictions to determine if the team would have advanced to the playoffs in previous years.
In January 2022, the vice-president of technology for Nata Supermarkets was reviewing the company’s performance against its competitors for the 2021 calendar year. The company had been performing poorly both based on its internal metrics and against competitor growth rates. The vice-president also noticed that many competitors began revealing new data analytics initiatives in their annual reports. Many companies experienced industry-leading growth because of these changes and upgraded their guidance for the following year. To compete with an increasing number of data-driven competitors, Nata Supermarket created its internal data set to collect information on customer shopping habits and customer demographics such as age, educational background, and frequency of complaints. With the emergence of visualization tools and data analytics, the vice-president was wondering what useful insights could be drawn from its internal data set. Could this information be useful to resolve various issues such as targeting promotions and forecasting demand?
In July 2022, a senior data scientist for Guell Appliances was aggregating customer reviews from the company’s recent appliance launch. The previous month, the company had launched a revamped product line that required a significant amount of investment in research and development. The success of the product line was paramount because it defined the success of the company. The senior data scientist wanted to apply modern analytical techniques to thousands of product reviews to thoroughly understand the preferences of customers, based on what they were saying about their new appliances.