Product Overview

Three college friends came together to start 'Santa Express'—an on-demand delivery service serving customers for pickup and delivery of handy and non-perishable goods in Kochi, Kerala. The idea was based partly on market research and raw intuition. While they were initially able to grab public attention with their social networks and innovative branding exercises, and support from customers, lately, things were not going smoothly. Inability to scale up the business, workforce issues, inability to secure funding, lack of long-term planning, shifting commitments of co-founders, perception of high pricing among customers, etc. had put them in a difficult situation. As hopes wavered, two co-founders left for better career options and funds were quickly drying up. Hope had come in the form of a dry-cleaning company looking to explore possibilities of Santa Express helping it with its deliveries. Should Santa Express move ahead with the new client? Or should it shut down completely?

Learning Objectives

The case and assignment questions provide students an opportunity To demonstrate the importance and role played by founders and the initial team composition in the firm’s strategy and growth, To introduce to the participants the idea of business model and value proposition, To develop an understanding of the crucial challenges faced by entrepreneurs in scaling up, To figure out the major reasons for new ventures failing The case has a special emphasis on the topic of Business Model (BM). From a BM perspective, the Santa Express case can be used for two purposes: firstly, to emphasise the role of a business model in making the firm scalable and achieving competitive advantage, and secondly, to discuss the processes involved in developing and refining a business model. It illustrates beautifully what BM literature states, that a successful BM must achieve two things at the same—time, value creation and value capture.