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The key learning objectives are as follows: analyze Mamaearth’s growth trajectory in the Indian market, illustrate the meaning of a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand, analyze the importance of social media in building a D2C brand, analyze the challenges and advantages associated with a D2C brand, analyze growth and expansion options available with Mamaearth and evaluate the strategies for Indian start-ups in the beauty and personal care space.

In 2016, what began as a quest to find safe baby care products for the first-time parents Varun and Ghazal, turned into an entrepreneurial opportunity. The couple started Honasa Consumer Private Limited at Gurugram, which owned the brand Mamaearth. Conceived as a D2C brand for mothers opposed to harsh baby care products, it debuted with just six baby care products with exclusive online availability. For the brand to grow, it recreated the marketing mix to be perceived as a brand for all ages. The step successfully garnered a customer base of over 1.5 million consumers in 500 cities and a valuation of INR 1bn within four years of operations. In February 2021, Mamaearth became a brand with INR 5bn annualized revenue run rate and aspired to double it to INR 10bn by 2023. Though Mamaearth debuted as a D2C brand, after tapping around 10,000 retail stores, the Alaghs realized that many consumers still preferred transacting in the offline space. Alaghs decided to expand by acquiring a robust offline space in 100 smart cities in India. Would it be wise for Mamaearth to take forward their offline expansion plans? Alternatively, would an aggressive product innovation coupled with a more substantial online presence be a more sustainable proposition?

The case study is appropriate for Post Graduate Diploma in Management/Master of Business Administration level courses of second year in strategic brand management, digital marketing, integrated marketing communication and marketing strategy. The case stuudy may also be useful for prospective entrepreneurs planning to embark upon a D2C venture. The case study elaborates on the emergence, marketing and branding of Mamaearth. The case study helps students understand the meaning of a D2C brand and the growth options available in the Indian market for a D2C brand from the perspective of Mamaearth.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Utilising componential theory of creativity the study aims to examines the roles of green transformational leadership, organizational culture and green mindfulness as antecedents of green creativity.

A three-wave data collection method was used to collect data from the 304 hotel employees belonging to hotels located in the tourist’s location of India. The study used PROCESS macro to test the hypothesized model.

The results found a significant serial mediating effect of green organizational culture and green mindfulness for strengthening the association between green transformational leadership and green creativity.

The study establishes that a transformational leadership can bring about a much-needed green turnaround and thus makes significant practical contribution. As customers are becoming environmentally conscious, the industry can translate the green practices and motivate their subordinates by exhibiting the environmentally conscious behaviour and exhibit the same in their actions at work.

The current research work expands the body of literature on green transformational leadership and green creativity nexus in tourism and hospitality industry by exploring the boundary condition that increases the strength of this relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the prediction of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) using X-ray image.

This study proposed convolutional neural network (CNN) approach to predict COVID-19.

Prediction of COVID-19 using CNN.

The work has implemented multiple CNN models to classify chest X-ray of affected patients by using their chest scans. According to three models, the ResNet-50 is advantageous because of its high service reliability.

The purpose of this paper is to develop comprehensive model of business social responsibility (BSR) for small-scale enterprises (SSEs) in Indian Context.

The data were collected from 156 SSE owners/managers using snowball sampling method, operating in three industrial estates namely: Bari Brahmana, Gangyal and Digiana, Jammu, North India.

The three-step procedure based on exploratory factor analysis (EFA), item/reliability analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were undertaken to establish the multidimensionality of BSR scale. The empirical results identify five BSR dimensions in SSEs – local community, employees, environment, suppliers and customers.

The major limitation of the study relates with data collection from only owners’/managers’ perspective, which might have resulted in biased perceptions.

This study has direct practical implications for owners’ actions in relation to establishing BSR culture and orientation in SSEs. Besides, SSE owners/managers can also be benefited from the study's findings through their increased awareness on the activities that contribute to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.

The study is based on extant research gap in the literature on significance of CSR practices for SSEs in emerging countries context. This study contributes to existing research on CSR by developing a better understanding of the role of owners in establishing BSR culture in the SSEs.

Fashion brands are one of the strongest means of expressing consumers identity. This study explores and empirically validates the concepts of brand love and hate for masstige fashion brands from the purview of emerging markets. This study deciphers three components of masstige fashion brand promise through the lens of hedonic identity, uniqueness and expected social gains for the affluent middle-class consumers. The model is complemented by the impact of environmental and society’s well-being.

Empirical evidence was obtained through an online survey in India. Total of 222 complete responses were used to test hypotheses by fitting a model with the partial least squares algorithm.

Fashion brand love is triggered by consumers’ hedonic identity and expected social gains. Brand hate is fuelled by environmental and societal well-being concerns, expected social gains and uniqueness. Theoretical contribution is threefold: First, the relevance of social and environmental consequences reflecting consumers’ accepted responsibility for their masstige consumption is introduced. Second, the study deciphers the emotions related to masstige brand love and brand hate for emerging market’s affluent middle-class. Third, empirical results contribute to the ongoing discussion on whether brand hate and love are two distinct concepts or collapse to be two extremes of one and the same continuum.

Middle-class consumers in India are strict in their avoidance and rejection of the lower classes’ preferred fashion brands. Targeting must consider the social classes hierarchy. Marketing-mix design, particularly prices and distribution networks, need to enable a distinction between the social classes.

Masstige fashion brand love and hate turn out to be two distinct constructs that co-exist rather than being two extremes of one and the same dimension.

Indian middle-class consumers satisfy their need of environmental and social caretaking by avoidance and brand hate but continue to choose masstige brands to demonstrate social status and are not modernizing their traditional accumulative materialism.

The main purpose of this study is to revisit Ishikawa's statement: “95% of problems in processes can be accomplished using the original 7 Quality Control (QC) tools”. The paper critically investigates the validity of this statement in higher education institutions (HEIs). It involves analysis of the usage of the 7 QC tools and identifying the barriers, benefits, challenges and critical success factors (CSFs) for the application of the 7 QC tools in a HEI setting.

An online survey instrument was developed, and as this is a global study, survey participants were contacted via social networks such as LinkedIn. Target respondents were HEIs educators or professionals who are knowledgeable about the 7 QC tools promulgated by Dr Ishikawa. Professionals who work in administrative sectors, such as libraries, information technology and human resources were included in the study. A number of academics who teach the 7 basic tools of QC were also included in the study. The survey link was sent to over 200 educators and professionals and 76 complete responses were obtained.

The primary finding of this study shows that the diffusion of seven QC tools is not widespread in the context of HEIs. Less than 8% of the respondents believe that more than 90% of process problems can be solved by applying the 7 QC tools. These numbers show that modern-quality problems may need more than the 7 basic QC basic tools and there may be a need to revisit the role and contribution of these tools to solve problems in the higher education sector. Tools such as Pareto chart and cause and effect diagram have been widely used in the context of HEIs. The most important barriers highlighted are related to the lack of knowledge about the benefits and about how and when to apply these tools. Among the challenges are the “lack of knowledge of the tools and their applications” and “lack of training in the use of the tools”. The main benefits mentioned by the respondents were “the identification of areas for improvement, problem definition, measurement, and analysis”. According to this study, the most important factors critical for the success of the initiative were “management support”, “widespread training” and “having a continuous improvement program in place”.

The exploratory study provides an initial understanding about the 7 QC tools application in HEIs, and their benefits, challenges and critical success factors, which can act as guidelines for implementation in HEIs. Surveys alone cannot provide deeper insights into the status of the application of 7 QC tools in HEIs, and therefore qualitative studies in the form of semi-structured interviews should be carried out in the future.

This article contributes with an exploratory empirical study on the extent of the use of 7 QC tools in the university processes. The authors claim that this is the first empirical study looking into the use of the 7 QC tools in the university sector.

This study tests the influence of Big Five Personality Traits (BFPTs) and demographic factors on Facebook behavior of Posting, Feature Usage, and Making Friends in India, home to the highest number of Facebook users in the world. Gen-Z is the demographic most involved in social media, thus this age group’s behavior can be most accurately gauged from Facebook habits and so it forms the basis of this study. Facebook behavior identified in this study was the outcome of an elicitation study conducted among university students. The sample survey consisted of 290 Facebook users aged between 17 and 24 years. The chapter uses factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) for data analysis. Results revealed that extroverts and those open to experiences would post more. Meanwhile, the conscientious were less inclined to use features such as emoticons while those more agreeable embraced them. Women and those more neurotic would not befriend strangers. Also, posting and feature usage increased with user age. Study results highlight the potential of analyzing Facebook behavior to gauge personalities, which could benefit recruiters and marketers. Academically, this is the first study related to India where a scale for Facebook behavior is developed (namely Posting, Feature Usage, and Making Friends) and then validated for future research work.

Recently, blockchain technology (BT) has resolved healthcare data management challenges. It helps healthcare providers automate medical records and mining to aid in data sharing and making more accurate diagnoses. This paper attempts to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for successfully implementing BT in healthcare.

The paper is methodologically structured in four phases. The first phase leads to identifying success factors by reviewing the extant literature. In the second phase, expert opinions were solicited to authenticate the critical success factors required to implement BT in the healthcare sector. Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method was employed to find the cause-and-effect relationship among the third phase’s critical success factors. In phase 4, the authors resort to validating the final results and findings.

Based on the analysis, 21 CSFs were identified and grouped under six dimensions. After applying the DEMATEL technique, nine factors belong to the causal group, and the remaining 12 factors fall under the effect group. The top three influencing factors of blockchain technology implementation in the healthcare ecosystem are data transparency, track and traceability and government support, whereas; implementation cost was the least influential.

This study provides a roadmap and may facilitate healthcare professionals to overcome contemporary challenges with the help of BT.

Supply chain efficiency can be enhanced by integrating the activities in supply chain through digitalization. Advancements in digital technologies has facilitated in designing robust and dynamic supply chain by bringing in efficiency, transparency and reduction in lead times. This research tries to identify and prioritize the customer requirements and design requirements for effective integration of supply chain through digitalization.

The key nine customer requirements and 16 design requirements applicable for an electronics company were shortlisted in consultation with the experts from the company and academia. An integrated analytic network process (ANP) and quality function deployment (QFD) methodology has been applied for prioritizing the customer and design requirements. The relative importance and interdependence of these requirements were identified and a House of Quality (HOQ) is constructed.

The HOQ constructed has prioritized and identified interrelationships among customer requirements and design requirements for effective supply chain digitalization. These findings could be effectively used by managers for planning the objectives on long-term, medium-term and short-term basis.

This study tries to bridge the gap of identifying and prioritizing the design and customer requirements for effective supply chain integration through digitalization. The results could aid practicing managers and academicians in decision-making on supply chain digitalization process.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors affecting agile supply chain and evaluate the effect of these factors on profitability. To that end, after reviewing the theoretical foundations of this field, the authors identified the factors affecting supply chain agility and profitability and provided an appropriate conceptual model to measure and verify this relationship.

A 48-item questionnaire was prepared and distributed among 270 members of staff and managers of the company from which 240 questionnaire were completed and returned. The response rate was 88 percent. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), 37 indicators were selected and redundant questions were excluded. Results were analyzed using the structural equation modeling technique, and the relationships between factors were obtained and the impact of each supply chain agility factor on profitability was determined and prioritized.

Through EFA, the indicators related to each supply chain agility factor and profitability were extracted and using the literature, supply chain agility indicators were classified in four factors of speed, responsiveness, competency and flexibility and the indicators related to profitability in one factor, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted accordingly. The CFA results showed that all four factors are significantly associated with profitability, and flexibility has the greatest impact on profitability, and speed has minimal impact on profitability.

As this study has been done in the context of Iran, cautious should be taken to generalize the results.

Other studies have examined the effect of agility on business performance and the relationship between them but this study, by providing a comprehensive set of supply chain agility evaluation criteria and indicators and considering all its dimensions, intends to identify the factors affecting supply chain agility and evaluate and determine the effects of these factors on profitability and examine if supply chain agility affects profitability.