Third Wave Coffee (TWC) was established Bengaluru, India, in 2016. In 2024, the company had 114 outlets in different regions of India. Though TWC increased its revenue manifold due to rapid expansion, the operational efficiency remained poor compared to the competition. Most stores lost money, and investors were concerned about the firm’s future. The founders roped in a professional CEO, Rajat Luthra, a quick-service restaurants industry veteran, .....more

The successful integration of information systems (ISs) in any merger and acquisition (M&A) was crucial for achieving the expected synergies of the transaction. This case described the journey of the merger of two telecom giants in India, Vodafone India Limited and Idea Cellular Limited, into Vodafone Idea Limited (Vodafone Idea), India’s largest telecom services provider at the time of the merger in August 2018. The case invited students to understand .....more

On June 16, 2024, the chief executive officer (CEO), founder, and director of V21 Group of Ventures (V21), a real estate conglomerate based in Pune, India, was preparing to meet with members of a housing society in Mumbai to finalize the agreement for a residential reconstruction project. While the CEO had successfully built five real estate ventures, this was V21’s first project in the challenging field of real estate development, and it presented .....more

DMI Finance (DMI) was formed and registered as a non-banking financial company in 2008. The enterprise utilized a technology-driven process comprising application programming interface (API); algorithms; and data points captured using Aadhaar, a unique identification assigned to Indian residents, to disburse loans to individuals and firms. As a digital lender, DMI initially operated in personal loans, SME loans, and housing finance. After 2018, it .....more

Chaitsi Ahuja, founder and CEO of Brown Living, was discussing the firm’s future with her teammates. Ahuja started Brown Living in 2019 with a vision for a zero-waste lifestyle and used a marketplace model to partner with other brands and artisans and offer sustainable products for consumers. It strove to maintain a 100 per cent green supply chain and was guided by its Brown Lens method to ensure accurate green assessments of every product. But it .....more

Teaching note for product W39458.

On January 16, 2023, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (Cognizant) appointed a new chief executive officer who was a former president of a key competitor. The US-based major multinational information technology company, with 70 per cent of its workforce in India, provided global consulting, technology, and outsourcing services with a focus on digital transformation across various industries. At the time, Cognizant was experiencing a high .....more

Nimish Aggarwal inherited Shakti Brick Store M/S (Shakti Bricks), a clay brick manufacturing company, from his father, Suresh Chandra, in 2020. In May 2024, Aggarwal realized that rising competition, emerging alternatives to bricks and production technologies, and increasingly stringent regulation required decisive action if the company were to survive. Aggarwal was concerned about the changing kiln industry, its significant challenges, the decreasing .....more

Since its founding in 1993, KPIT Technologies Limited followed a series of changes in scope and organizational structure. Based in Pune, India, the company was a global leader in software for automotive manufacturers. The first major shift in scope it underwent in 2018 was a successful decision to drop all other business clients from its portfolio and focus only on the automotive engineering segment. The company that emerged from that decision grew .....more

Kumar Mangalam Birla, chief executive officer of the Aditya Birla Group (ABG), was a descendant of a prominent business family in India. Under his leadership, ABG had increased its annual revenue from $2 billion to $60 billion. After overcoming many difficulties, in 2023 Birla started considering passing the reins to the next generation, although he still had some time before retirement. To prepare his successor for the leadership role in managing .....more