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In 1992, for the first time in India, Titan Industries Ltd., headquartered in Bangalore, India, introduced a watch brand exclusively for women — the Titan Raga. Launched to appeal to sophisticated women, it was embellished with striking symbolism from Indian culture. Its first targeted customers were progressive homemakers and those who were trying to balance work and family life but who wanted to embellish their traditional or Western attire with a beautiful, sensual timepiece. The watches were often given as gifts during festivals or occasions such as birthdays. However, the customer profile changed to the young career professional with disposable income, who often considered the watches to be too much like jewellery and affected by design flaws such as a difficult to read face and finicky clasp. By 2010, the marketing team realized that it had to revisit its branding strategy to meet this challenge and its global competitors. Should they relaunch Titan Raga as a stand-alone brand with a new brand ambassador who will appeal to this new demographic?

In July 2014, nine months after they had developed a collaborative workplace for independent video game developers in Phoenix, Arizona, the two founders of the Game CoLab were discussing how to move the business forward. Using the Lean Startup method, they had designed their business model and opened a coworking space where they could also hold meetings, competitions and games showcases. However, they now face two challenges — declining membership and the need to move to new premises — and an exciting opportunity to work with corporate and educational organizations who are looking to “gamify” their digital offerings. The founders have four choices: (1) continue to maintain the coworking space concept, which has generated limited revenues so far; (2) pivot their business model to focus more on building the local and virtual community with events and cheaper, more flexible memberships; (3) pursue corporate business for customized game development while either continuing or abandoning the coworking space business; and (4) pursue a more major pivot whereby the company would become a start-up incubator.

For the past 30 years, the president of Benevento Foods, a food processor located in northern New York State, has overseen unprecedented growth. In June 2014, the family-owned company has 90 full-time employees and provides baking mixes and bases to both small stand-alone bakeries and national grocery chains across the United States. It has plans to expand distribution to Mexico and Japan and to develop new product lines, especially for gluten-free items. However, it faces a serious quality failure: one of its customers has discovered pieces of rubber in the latest delivery of baking mix. Is this an isolated event or indicative of a bigger issue? Is it symptomatic of a poor quality culture, lack of accountability on the shop floor and/or a misallocation of resources? What can be done to solve the current problem and make sure it does not happen again?

EcoWash is an all-in-one system that can be used to clean the interior and exterior of a vehicle in an environmentally friendly manner. A soon-to-be business school graduate has been approached by the inventor of EcoWash to embark on a partnership and to market the product. The opportunity looks promising, but a careful examination of the product and the market place — specifically through the lens of the lean start-up methodology — is needed before a final decision can be made.

In 2009, a former engineering student set out with some like-minded friends to create a unique fast food service in Bangalore. Hungry Hogs Private Limited adapted a classic western favourite — hot dogs — to the local palate. The company went on to experience substantial success with revenues in excess of INR 7 million in 2013. The founding partner who set the business in motion must decide between expanding his successful business through franchising options or through the continued establishment of company-owned stores. He is concerned about maintaining the integrity of his products, keeping control over his business and maintaining the brand's favourable image.

The Glasgow-based charity, Impact Arts, was looking for alternative funding streams for its Young Gallery project. As a result, it undertook its first crowdfunding campaign on the Indiegogo platform. The project did not achieve its stated target of £15,000 in the six week campaign period. Instead, only £4,715 (31 per cent of the total) was raised. While the charity did not achieve its goal, the campaign left the chief executive officer and her team feeling motivated and enthusiastic about crowdfunding as a possible complementary revenue source. However, they recognized that they needed to learn from this experience in order to make future campaigns more effective with respect to pitch (the proposition made to would-be donors) and its delivery.

Berendsen Island, an outsourced workwear service, uses the standard costing model to determine its profitability. Because the company recently reported a loss, the plant manager and the business controller investigate time-driven activity-based costing in an effort to gain insights into its cost structures. The company also needs to provide a quote to two potential new customers.

In 2013, London Water, the water system of the City of London, Ontario, has run deficits for eight of the past nine years, leading to significant pressure to pull the organization out of the red. The Water Engineering Division manager knows that something needs to change. Overhauling the rate structure is an attractive option; however, myriad political, economic and environmental issues are at play. Moreover, as steward of one of the city’s most important utilities, the manager needs to determine the best course of action, ideally a solution that will work in both the short run and the long run. See supplement case 9B15B010.

AWARD-WINNING CASE - 2015 AESE Case Writing Competition. The global convenience store brand 7-Eleven entered Indonesia in 2009, with local player PT Modern International as the master franchisor. To differentiate the stores from other convenience stores and to cater to emerging market customers in Indonesia, the CEO combined the idea of a restaurant and a convenience store in his new 7-Eleven outlets. The 7-Eleven stores provided an affordable and convenient location for youth to hang out and have a quick bite to eat. They also offered wireless Internet and a range of services and products like fresh food and beverages. The case requires students to outline the innovative elements that explain 7-Eleven’s success in Indonesia, reflect on its scalability and sustainability, and also to advise the CEO on further strategies to strengthen 7-Eleven in Indonesia.

ABB India, the Indian subsidiary of ABB Global, has been lagging behind the parent company’s other subsidiaries in terms of its percentage of female employees. To rectify the gender imbalance, the parent company has assigned the head of Diversity and Inclusion for India, the Middle East and Africa with the task of introducing and rolling out diversity and inclusion initiatives at ABB India. In June 2014, the chairperson of ABB has scheduled a visit to India and is looking forward to reviewing the status and progress of the diversity and inclusion program.

This case presents the perspective of a Malaysian company, Nora Bhd, which was in the process of trying to establish a telecommunications joint venture with a Finnish firm, Sakari Oy. Negotiations have broken down between the firms, and students are asked to try to restructure a win-win deal. The case examines some of the most common issues involved in partner selection and design in international joint ventures.

In 2015, the vice-president of international operations must decide whether to continue to operate or abandon the company's Nigerian joint venture. Although the expatriate general manager of the Nigerian operation has delivered a very pessimistic report, Larson's own hunch was to stay in that country. Maintaining the operation was complicated by problems in staffing, a joint venture partner with divergent views, and increasing costs of doing business in Nigeria. If Larson decides to maintain the existing operation, the issues with its local partner and staffing problems (especially in terms of the joint venture general manager) have to be addressed.

The head of marketing and sales at National Dairy, a quasi-government co-operative enterprise in the Indian state of Odisha, is hounded by the threat from private milk marketing firms that are attempting to overtake the monopoly position enjoyed by National Dairy for close to three decades. The title company’s field salesforce provides intelligence reports from the market, indicating that National Dairy’s authorized retailers and bulk customers (e.g., tea stall owners and restaurants) were slowly switching to competing brands, lured by attractive schemes and better earnings. National Dairy faced the dilemma of wanting to defend its leadership position and build a sustainable competitive advantage while at the same time continuing to uphold its social obligations towards the farming community in Odisha.

Addons Retail Private Limited was incorporated in 2006 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The objective behind the venture was to sell lifestyle products and fashion accessories to cater to the impulsive buying urges of urban Indian men and women. The retail chain store sold a range of fashion accessories and products; competitors included both small mom-and-pop stores and kiosks as well as multinational chains. By summer 2014, the founder and director had painstakingly created 80 retail touch points in shopping malls and high streets in a range of cities across the country; his goal was to grow to 500 retail outlets by 2019. The company was on a rapid growth model, but it needed customer footfall and loyalty to support its aspirations. How could it achieve the fine balance between novelty and loyalty for a whimsical, impulse fashion product?

The co-founders/consultants at Maynard Leigh Associates (MLA), an HR consulting firm based in the United Kingdom and India, are in a quandary about how to respond to a couple of ethical dilemmas. In the first case, a client has hired MLA to deliver a series of workshops to a group of employees who clearly do not need any help of this kind, and the workshop facilitator feels the client is wasting its money. In the second case, the CEO of a local IT giant has hired MLA to host a workshop that would brainstorm ways to eradicate all roadblocks to his organization’s success, but during the delivery of this workshop, the consultants realized that the biggest roadblock to the organization’s success was the CEO himself. Should the partners be open with the client about their findings and risk damaging a lucrative business relationship, or should they simply remain silent on the subject and pocket their fee. What would be the impact of their decision on the future of their company? Importantly, they need to make a decision that upholds MLA’s corporate values.

When Ashmark Corporation’s largest supplier, Red Star Castings (Red Star), was forced to declare bankruptcy, Ashmark had to develop and implement a contingency plan, while also appeasing its customers, who were growing increasingly impatient for their parts to arrive. Since Red Star closed, Ashmark had been late on 200 units of production due to missing components. Although this figure represented less than 1 per cent of the company’s total monthly shipments, things were likely to get more difficult, especially with the loss of key employees due to the stressful situation. In addition, the new supplier was having trouble bringing the tooling online, there were delays in the qualification and testing process, and the modest amount of inventory built up in advance of the bankruptcy had diminished. As Ashmark looked to move forwards, it would need to develop a much better sense of how to manage supply chain risk.

A merchant fraud scandal threatened Chinese e-commerce group, Alibaba Group, endangering its positioning, corporate values, reputation, brand strength, share price value and performance. It compromised Alibaba’s leaders’ credibility and the public’s perception of the trustworthiness of Internet-based trading. In the fallout of the scandal, two talented executives were accused of negligence. The board of directors had to decide how to respond to this crisis and to prevent future fraud on Alibaba’s diversified web-based trading platform. Was dismissing the executives the most effective way to achieve these goals?

A nascent women’s apparel online store on Tmall, China's largest business-to-consumer retail platform operated by Alibaba Group, was just beginning to establish itself on the online market utilizing the tools and services provided by Tmall to develop and operate its business. Within four months after the business was launched, Tmall unexpectedly released a new policy which significantly increased the annual service fee and cash deposit for individual stores. This new policy, which was to come into effect in less than three months following the announcement, could render the business of small- and medium-sized e-commerce stores, such as the new women’s apparel start-up, on Tmall unprofitable. The management team of the fledgling clothing business had to reconsider whether to renew their contract with Tmall or transfer their store to one of the alternative online platforms, such as Alibaba Group's Taobao Marketplace, Tencent Group’s Shop.QQ or Amazon.com’s Amazon.cn.

It was the peak of summer in Delhi. With the temperature soaring to 47 degrees Celsius, the city was facing power cuts. Amid the looming threat of a potential power crisis, the chief executive officer (CEO) of an electricity distribution company in the city was wondering how technology could help in providing reliable power to all while mitigating other key challenges. He needed to bring down the aggregate technical and commercial losses further so that the company could generate higher revenue with the same power input and still provide better satisfaction to the customers. Not satisfied with the company close to being a benchmark nationally on various parameters, the CEO aspired to meet international benchmarks in power distribution.

In March 2012, the CEO of Fairbridge Capital considered the pros and cons of the potential acquisition of Thomas Cook India. He believed that Thomas Cook India’s two business segments (travel/related services and financial services) had different potential in terms of growth and cash flow generation. Analysts predicted tremendous growth potential in the travel business (although it would require additional investment), while the foreign exchange segment had limited growth potential but generated significant cash flow. Thomas Cook India had changed ownership several times in a short time period, and the stock price had fallen substantially. Would acquiring Thomas Cook India fit the value-investing philosophy rigorously followed by Fairbridge Capital and its parent company, Fairfax Financial? If so, how much should Fairbridge bid? Was Thomas Cook India worth more with two segments or was it better off split into two? Finally, should Fairbridge delist Thomas Cook India or keep it public?