SimpliFlying: Making a Great Idea Take Flight by Michael Netzley, Adina Wong, Robin Speculand Discipline:Strategy, Marketing

Description

This case won the Entrepreneurship category at the EFMD Case Writing Competition 2015.

More details here.

This is a two-part case series. Part (A) of the case is about how Shashank Nigam, CEO of SimpliFlying Pte Ltd, a company based in Singapore, searches for the corporate strategy and vision for his company. SimpliFlying was founded in March 2008, and was originally a blog which commented on issues in marketing aviation. After thinking about how he could find a niche for his business, Nigam decided to sell his company’s services by combining the three pillars of aviation, marketing and technology through social media. However, he recognised that he still needed to decide on the long-term positioning of the company – should SimpliFlying focus on strategy consulting, strategy execution (agency) work, or both? At the same time, Nigam’s company was also receiving calls from hotels to help them with branding projects. Nigam needed to make a decision.

This case study can be used for undergraduate, graduate, and executive level teaching. In case A, students will follow the story of a professional services firm starting-up from scratch, learn to compare emergent versus planned strategy and develop an understanding of some project execution processes in a start-up.

Part (B) of the case covers a specific project that SimpliFlying is handling. By November 2011, SimpliFlying had developed into a reputed aviation marketing strategy consulting and training firm. Estonian Airline’s social media loyalty programme was not only SimpliFlying’s second major airline project, but also the first airline loyalty programme in the world to be driven purely by social media. Despite the challenging timeline – only eight weeks from conceptualisation to launch – SimpliFlying had managed to deliver beyond expectations.

However, Nigam had to consider if the approach he had used was the best way to implement bigger projects going forward.

This case study can be used for undergraduate, graduate, and executive level teaching. In case B, students will further explore strategy execution and the challenges likely to be faced by a start-up scaling up in size into a larger organisation.

Inspection copies and teaching notes are available for university faculty. To receive an inspection copy and teaching note, please email cmpshop [at] smu.edu.sg with your registered faculty email ID and a link to your contact information on the faculty directory at your university as verification. An inspection copy and teaching note will then be sent to your faculty email account.