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Subject area Information Systems – IT Strategy Design and Implementation. Study level/applicability The case can be discussed in Marketing Management courses and IT Strategy classes in MBA, executives from NGOs who are participating in Management Development Programs, etc. It can also be used in entrepreneurship classes. The case serves as an illustration to entrepreneurship projects, and so this case can be discussed in training program for budding entrepreneurs intending to implement cloud in its IT infrastructure. Case overview E-commerce is big nowadays in India. In e-commerce, particularly e-tail in India is witnessing a boom with players reporting achieving revenue targets earlier than anticipated. Though e-tail sites are now ubiquitous and dime a dozen with multiple offerings or specialized offerings, the e-grocery model is yet to take off on a large scale across India. E-grocery model has its unique challenges on both supply as well as distribution side unlike other e-tail business. As it deals with perishable items, it faces challenges in supply chain, procurement, inventory management, cold storage management, quality and logistics. To solve such problems, high degree of localization is needed for players in this business. It requires them to open up multiple warehouses at strategic locations in a city if they decide to have control over the goods they sell. Start-ups in this space face the problems in monitoring inventory levels across warehouses where they use disparate Point of Sales (POS) systems. There is a lack of synchronization among the POS applications across the warehouses for which they are able to take the benefit of economies of scale during procurement and distribution. Also, they face stock out and excess inventory across stock keeping units (SKUs). To solve this problem, a strategy is needed so that they can maintain data for all its warehouses through a single database and also by which they can scale up easily and at a lower investment without disturbing continuity in business. Expected learning outcomes Following are the learning outcomes: to learn about the business model and market ecosystem of an e-tailing business dealing in grocery items in a tier-II city in its introduction phase of organizational life cycle, to learn about various processes involved in online ordering of an item from an e-commerce website, to understand the various challenges faced by an organization dealing in e-tailing business in its introduction phase and to find out whether IT Strategy can be of help to overcome these challenges, to have an understanding of the Balance Score Card and Departmental Score Card, to understand how cloud can be of help to overcome the challenges and what are the possible cloud architectures to address such problems, to get an idea about how return on investment can be measured for finding feasibility of investment in cloud and to have the understanding of risk associated with implementing cloud and the cost of mitigating those risks. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS:11 Strategy.

Since the inception of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Asia Pacific countries are facing difficulties in attaining the SDG objectives, as maintaining the environmental quality has been a challenge for them. In this study, we have revisited the technology policies of these countries, and in doing so, we have tried to address the problem of environmental degradation, while addressing the issues of sustainable economic growth, clean and affordable energy, and quality education. In this pursuit, we have designed two indices for environmental degradation and technological advancement, and then analyzed the association between them following the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Following IPAT framework, and by using quantile approach, over a period of 1990-2017, we have found that the turnaround points of EKCs rise with the rise in quantiles, i.e. quantiles with low pollutions are having turnaround points within sample range, whereas quantiles with high pollutions are having turnaround points outside sample range. Using Rolling Window Heterogeneous Panel Causality test, unidirectional causality has been found running from technological advancement to environmental degradation. Following the results obtained from the analysis, we have tried to address the objectives of SDG 13, SDG 4, SDG 8, SDG 9, SDG 7, and SDG 10.