It is our pleasure to announce the winners of the 2022 edition of the EFMD Case Writing Competition. The effort and dedication of all the participants and winners are much appreciated; congratulations to all!

Eric Cornuel, President of EFMD Global, congratulated the 2022 EFMD Case Competition Winners by saying: ‘Warm congratulations to the winners for this achievement! From sustainability to inclusivity, the cases open discussion on contentious issues and inspire innovative solutions to assess key management imperatives. The authors’ dedication to advancing knowledge and shaping the future of business education is truly commendable.

EFMD and the Case Centre put forward this award to recognise innovative and impactful case writing and teaching. In this edition, 504 cases were submitted in 13 management-related categories. We would like to thank our partners and participants for their support and solid commitment to management development, and augur a fruitful 2023 edition.’

Vicky Lester, Chief Executive Officer, The Case Centre said: ‘The Case Centre is proud to support the EFMD Case Writing Competition. I was immensely impressed by the quality and topicality of the cases that were entered, and the winning cases are all outstanding in their individual categories. Congratulations to the winners! ’

Visit the EFMD Case Writing Competition Case Winners website and browse this year’s winners’ short case summaries for more information.

The 2022 Case Writing Awards are awarded to:

African Business Cases, sponsored by China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)

‘Reel Gardening: Pursuing a Social Mission through Market Mechanisms’ written by:

• Wiboon Kittilaksanawong
• Marta Paszta

‘We are honored to be one of the winners of the 2022 EFMD Case Writing Competition. As part of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we hope this Reel Gardening case would help business executives and scholars better understand how the social enterprise start-up could address the global issues, particularly poverty and hunger, while growing profitably and sustainably.’

Bringing Technology to Market, sponsored by EFMD Global

‘Innovate Storytelling: How Webtoon Entertainment Transformed Comics’ written by:

• Renée Mauborgne
• W.Chan Kim
• Oh Young Koo

‘We are honoured to receive this recognition. Our case shows how to innovate a platform-based new market. Not only does the case offer insights into how to build a new business model, but it also introduces a creative approach to case writing format by incorporating technology into the case.’

EFMD Global would like to warmly thank The Case Centre for their expertise and contribution in assessing the cases submitted in the ‘Continuous Improvement: The Journey to Excellence’ category.

Continuous Improvement: The Journey to Excellence, sponsored by EFMD Global

‘Cybersecurity at FireEye: Human + AI’ written by:

• Steven Miller
• Lipika Bhattacharya

‘We are truly honoured and delighted to be one of the winners in the EFMD case writing competition. We wrote this case to help business readers understand the nuances of implementing AI in an organisation, and why it is a continuous process that requires the support of an organisational framework and a symbiotic Human+AI approach for successful AI implementation. While the case story is based on a cybersecurity firm, the learnings from the case are universal across industries, and move beyond the stereotypical ‘Man versus Machine’ myth that is often associated with AI to a Human-plus-Machine framework.’

EFMD Global would like to warmly thank The Case Centre for their expertise and contribution in assessing the cases submitted in the ‘Continuous Improvement: The Journey to Excellence’ category.

Corporate Social Responsibility, sponsored by ESC PAU Business School

‘Back Market and the Global E-Waste Crisis’ written by:

• Syeda Maseeha Qumer

 ‘It is always an honour to win the prestigious EFMD award! The competition enables the development of innovative teaching cases which stimulate rich classroom discussions, create a dialogue with students and encourage critical thinking and research. The purpose of this case study is to help students understand the global problem of e-waste and the need for companies to address it as e-waste is a  major threat to the environment and human health and an imminent challenge to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals. Back Market, a global online marketplace, is addressing this issue by giving expertly restored electronic devices a second life and contributing in building a circular economy for e-waste.’

Entrepreneurship, sponsored by emlyon business school

‘ApiYoo: A New Breed of Entrepreneurship’ written by:

• Gao Wang
• Qiong Zhu
• Rui Zhang

 ‘We are honoured to receive this distinguished award. The ApiYoo case demonstrates a different way for new startups to enter a mature market, which can be taught in the courses such as entrepreneurship and startups. By adopting a strategy of appearance differentiation targeting at a niche market, ApiYoo can avoid direct confrontation with giant incumbents and grow its business quickly. ApiYoo replicates the same strategy to many other categories of consumer goods and aims to turn ApiYoo into a company with annual revenue of up to ¥10 billion. This is an ambitious goal with a serious challenge, but the possibility is not deniable.’

‘Twiga – Improving Market Access for Farmers in Kenya’ written by:

• K B S Kumar
• Indu Perepu

 ‘We feel delighted and honored to receive the highly prestigious EFMD case Award in the Entrepreneurship category. As we have been developing cases for more than a decade with acute focus on entrepreneurship, this award stands as a testimony by itself. Hence we extend our heartfelt thanks to the EFMD organizers for giving us this opportunity to demonstrate our area of expertise. The case about Twiga shows that solutions provided by small entrepreneurial ventures will address the pressing global challenges like food insecurity, agro-supply chains, and the farmers’ lack of access to markets.’

Family Business, sponsored by Suliman S. Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut

‘Pollo Campero, the Taste of Latin America: Can it Capture the US?’ written by:

• Namratha Prasad

 ‘I feel privileged to be declared the winner in the ‘Family Business’ category of the prestigious EFMD case competition. Any case should provide a good learning experience to the reader through the description of a real-life business situation. This award shows that my case has succeeded in that endeavor. Writing this case also enhanced my understanding of the unique aspects of family businesses and how their long-term orientation makes them outshine their peers. I hope that my case would continue to serve as a tool to further unravel the mystery behind the continued success of family businesses across the world.’

Finance and Banking, sponsored by Portsmouth Business School

‘US Bancorp – Fighting Off Malicious Attacks and Ensuring Business Continuity’ written by:

• Namratha Prasad

 ‘It feels great to get this prestigious award from EFMD. My case provides a valuable insight into the murky world of malicious cyberattacks and online financial fraud that banks have to contend with in the digital age. It also emphasizes the need for banks to have plans for disaster recovery and business continuity. This award helps me ascertain that my case has met its objective to teach finance students and aspiring bankers that technology can be effectively leveraged to fend off cybersecurity threats. This award also ensures that more finance faculty would choose this case to teach their course.’

Hidden Champions, sponsored by EBS Business School

‘Coming of Age in Central Asia: BI Group’s Quest for Growth’ written by:

• Onajomo Akemu
• Atanu Rakshit

‘Atanu and I are delighted to win the 2022 EFMD Case Writing Competition. We thank EFMD for the honour, given the high quality of previous winners of the competition. Kazakhstan is a relatively small emerging country. Yet, firms, such as the BI group want to compete in global markets. The case details BI Group’s journey from domestic dominance to tentative forays abroad. We hope the case stimulates scholars and students to take a fresh look at Central Asia in order to understand the unique challenges firms navigate and the capabilities they develop in order to successfully internationalize.’

Latin American Business Cases, sponsored by Universidad Externado de Colombia

‘Mazatlán: The Destination That Did Not Like Its Brand’ written by:

• Nicolas Kervyn
• Fernando Rey Castillo
• Silvestre Flores Gamboa
• Manuel Lopezneria
• Matt Thomson

‘This case study is part of an ongoing research project on Narcoculture (Castillo Villar, Cavazos Arroyo, & Kervyn, 2020; Kervyn, Cavazos Arroyo, Castillo Villar, & Gomez Zuñiga, 2019a; 2019b; Kervyn et al., 2020a; 2020b). We are delighted to receive this 2022 EFMD Case Writing Prize, and we hope that it will attract more interest for this research project at the intersection of culture, management, and criminology.’

MENA Business Cases, sponsored by School of Business, The American University in Cairo (AUC)

TruKKer: The Uberization of Trucking in MENA Region written by:

• Trilochan Tripathy
• Benudhar Sahu

 ‘We are honoured to be the winners of the EFMD case competition in the MENA business case category. We are glad to represent Xavier School of Management (XLRI), India for this achievement.  It was our privilege to share the inspiring story of a young entrepreneur; Gaurav Biswas and his journey from founding TruKKer to scale up the technology-enabled trucking aggregator business in the MENA region. We hope this case would motivate global budding entrepreneurs to streamline their business model around state-of-the-art technology, innovation, and stakeholders’ value creation.’

Responsible Business, sponsored by School of Business, The American University in Cairo (AUC)

‘MITTI Café: enabling disability inclusion in India through scalable business model’ written by:

• Amy Moore
• Tracey Toefy

 ‘We are delighted to be one of the winners of this competition in the Responsible Business category, and to represent the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg, South Africa. Our case highlights the importance of inclusive environments in all businesses, and how our protagonist created that in a short period of time through MITTI Café in India. We hope that this case inspires more business leaders to think strategically about diversity and inclusion, and to make sustainability a strategic imperative in their businesses.’

Responsible Leadership, sponsored by The Knauss School of Business – University of San Diego

‘Carbon is the new calorie”: Logitech’s carbon impact label to drive transparency in sustainability’ written by:

• Julia Binder
• Heather Cairns-Lee

‘We are thrilled to receive this award recognizing the importance of responsible leadership in driving sustainable solutions. The Logitech case exemplifies what it takes to commit to sustainability both internally and externally and the necessary work to advocate for industry standards. Through this case, we hope to inspire managers and students to develop the critical skills and knowledge to engage stakeholders in sustainability and to recognize the critical role of message framing in influencing sustainable behaviour. We hope that this case will serve as an inspiration for companies to collaboratively contribute to a more sustainable and inclusive society.’

Women in Business, sponsored The Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations (ECWO)

‘Aspiration, Action, Determination: Zhu Jing, Founder of Sunkwan Group’ written by:

• Jean Lee
• Xin Zheng
• Liman Zhao

‘Zhu Jing’s case helps our b-school students better understand the difficulty for women to start a business, women’s advantages and disadvantages in resource acquisition, the pros and cons of the female management style, and the positive and negative sides of a highly empathic CEO. With this case, we expect to remind entrepreneurs and managers in a broader sense that in the world of entrepreneurship and management, they should be “ideal without being idealistic” and “care for employees without excessive empathy”, so that the excellent qualities of female entrepreneurs can be better tapped to help run business and fulfill aspirations.’

Please visit The Case Centre’s webpage to access the collection of the winning cases.