Summary of the Case The case titled ‘ekShop to Rule Them All?’ outlines the issues facing ekShop which is an assisted rural e-commerce platform established under a2i. It brings together several individuals and establishes e commerce entities of Bangladesh under one platform, whence people can buy desired products. The target customer of ekShop is the mass people of Bangladesh in general and the citizens living in rural and the most remote locations of the country in particular. Since its emergence, ekShop continues to grow. ekShop, at this moment, does not prioritize it’s financial sustainability to a great extent as the major concern of the relevant authorities is keeping the platform open for the public with the fear of loss of income for their service center entrepreneurs if the shop closes. product. CGS is identical with many advantageous features whereas the manufacturer could not properly communicate such valuable information to the target customers.

Case Summary A story exceptionally grows appealing to the business readers when the challenges of an organization are transformed into the sources of innovative entrepreneurial opportunity. The topic of discussion in the case enables the readers to enthusiastically develop a prying inquiry into how a well-reputed, leading company named Shyamoli Paribahan (SP) got confronted with challenges in the transportation sector; and how the survival strategy of the organization enabled it to transform challenges, or in other words, obstructionist force, into the fountain of business opportunity. SP—while facing challenges—adopted the strategic planning initiative that incorporates creative insights into the business venture and accuracy of direction in the right pathway. And as such, it was able to revitalize its business operation. The key strategy—which made SP successful—involved exploring the new river route by speedboats, a line of travel that connects the missing link between two highways. A 20-minute journey by speedboat shortens the total journey duration by 43%. This strategy alleviates unspeakable sufferings of passengers, travelling from Dhaka to Pabna and vice versa. The tagline ‘Quick Service’ as a convenient solution for SP became appealing to multiple customer classes. This strategy, indeed, helped the company allure a wide spectrum of customers in the business world. The communication strategies of SP including the big banner, Word-of-Mouth (WoM), etc. earned success. Within a short period of time, the strategies led to the creation of a brand buzz and strong customer base, a particular achievement which is highly desirable for the sustainability of business. Another important aspect of SP is that it is, no longer, complacent about its current strategies. It is always aware about the probable upcoming challenges including new competitors, fare of speedboat, future infrastructural development, abrupt weather issues, and the like. Nothing can dissuade the company from doing an update on the potential problems or risks and behaving accordingly. Such a cautious approach helps the organization to be on the right track and come up with a set of dynamic strategies.

Summary of the Case This case elucidates a rather unorthodox case of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) initiative which is solely focused on producing high quality images for businesses to use for commercial purposes. Producing a clean and professional version of the image serves as a propellant force for online shopping. To make the tedious image processing task scalable, The KOW Company Ltd has implemented a hybrid of traditional project management methods and the fairly new SCRUM methodology. The reasons why business requires the images to be processed bear a link with responsiveness and clarity of image when viewed by consumers on a wide array of devices. And as such the ‘why’ factors, most importantly, are held responsible for the production of lucrative photographs. Moreover, it is reasonably assumed that most marketing outreach programs or campaigns attain higher reach among any given target demographic when paired with well processed high-resolution images. The size of the global photo editing services industry is estimated to be over $50 billion. Large retailers and other businesses which require a large number of photos to be edited and processed are often faced with two options. They can either hire a group of photo editors or they can outsource the whole work of image processing to a third party. Since the latter option often appears to be more cost-effective, businesses naturally gravitate towards obtaining service from companies such as The KOW Company Ltd. The company currently employs around4 00 people and processes more than 16,500 images a day. While giant retailers continue to expand their businesses online, companies like The KOW Company Ltd are thriving on such high-volume image processing jobs. They are currently providing image processing service to leading global retailers and football league. While owning a state-of-the-art solution center with all sorts of image processing services and studio support solutions, The KOW Company Ltd expects to experience drastic growth in the years to come. Despite the unavailability of data regarding the market share of image processing BPO occupied by Bangladesh-based companies, according to conservative estimation, The KOW Company Ltd currently holds about 25% of the market share in Bangladesh. By the end of 2018, The KOW Company Ltd carried out extensive promotion which caused them to gather a lot of clients, more than they could possibly cater to at that time. Eventually, the company hired more people and offered relevant training to form the sizable teams required to take on large scale projects. The KOW Company Ltd now helps customers with data-driven activities which include employee and client feedback, equipment allocation, and better turnarounds to operate the process in a smoother way. In the future, The KOW Company Ltd plans to take on more skill intensive work such as VFX, Pre-Press, and video editing by building on the current strategy of dividing complex tasks into simpler achievable goals assigned for a number of teams.