Can Replacing the Founder CEO Help Zivame Grow?

Can Replacing the Founder CEO Help Zivame Grow?
Case Code: LDEN185
Case Length: 9 Pages
Period: 2012-2021
Pub Date: 2022
Teaching Note: Available
Price: Rs.300
Organization : Zivame
Industry :Retailing
Countries : India
Themes: Women in Business, Business Models, RetailTech, Growth Strategy
Can Replacing the Founder CEO Help Zivame Grow?
Abstract Case Intro 1 Case Intro 2 Excerpts

Abstract

The case ‘Can Leadership Changes Help Zivame Grow?’ describes the leadership challenges that start-ups tend to face when they move across the various phases from inception, product/service development, operational scale-up, and becoming profitable. The case first describes the problem identification and ideation that led to Richa Kar deciding to start an online lingerie company. She observed that the offline lingerie shopping did not offer a comfortable shopping experience to women. This was generally because the retailers had limited stock and variety and usually pushed fast moving designs to consumers without even considering their body profiles. The case then touches upon how Richa put in place various ways and means to assist shoppers and facilitated services such as an online bra size calculator, appointment for a personalized fitting session with Zivame’s Fit Advisors at the Zivame Studio, and a range of nightwear, lingerie, and related products exclusively for women. Richa’s business model of building a private label brand with a wide product portfolio and excellent customer service paid off and helped Zivame report a 300 percent year-on-year growth in revenues. The case then focuses on the decision by the company’s investors to pivot the business in order to move to the next phase of growth as Zivame grappled with an increase in losses and with minimal growth in net sales in fiscal 2016. The investors decided to move away from the in-house branding to a multi-channel approach that led to an alternative leadership and Chief operating officer Shaleen Sinha became the CEO of the company in March 2017. Under his leadership, Zivame reported INR866 million in revenue in fiscal 2018, an almost 63 per cent increase from fiscal 2017. The company’s losses declined by 44 per cent to INR321 million from INR576 million in fiscal 2017. The case then describes how the investors again decided to replace the CEO in order to shift to implementing an omnichannel strategy for Zivame. Amisha Jain (Amisha) joined as the new CEO in May 2018 and initiated several omni-channel strategies such as Fit Code, Love Yourself Inside Out, Extending Reach to Tier II and III Cities, Endorsement from Real Consumers, and Technology and Data usage for personalization helped the business create a niche position in the market. The case ends with the outlook for Zivame’s future plans to expand to over 100 stores by 2022. The company was also looking at tech-based innovations to attract and bring in more customers and was planning to launch Fitcode 2.0 to further revolutionize the online lingerie industry.

Issues

The case is structured to achieve the following teaching objectives:

  • Understand the importance of a founder’s leadership role in a business.
  • Examine the need for the founder and investors to agree upon company strategy.
  • Examine the role of venture capital investors in scaling up start-ups.
  • Learn about the need to pivot in order to scale up the business.
  • Learn about the importance of bringing in an external CEO when scaling-up.

Contents

Keywords

Women Entrepreneurs; Pivoting; Private Label Strategy; Omni-channel Strategy; Business Models; Retailing; Online Buying Behavior; Customer Experience; Growth Strategy; Stages of Start-up;

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