This case illustrates how Sour Sally’s brand was built. The process of development, including brand positioning, brand formulation, and brand delivery, is presented. This can be used to develop a discussion about brand equity, brand positioning, brand formulation, and brand delivery. In this case, brand positioning was formulated by specifying a Point of Parity (PoP), which is a product category that will be entered and set by the PoD (Point of Difference), which contains the key to brand differentiation by Sour Sally.

At the initial launch, Sour Sally occupied a new category. It was a pioneer in the frozen yogurt category and competed with a nearby cross-category, ice cream. Sour Sally also seeks to provide differentiation by building the perception of USA’s brand, that is, by using the tag line "U.S. Premium" and "Non-Fat" Frozen Yogurt as a way to provide tranquility for the customers to consume this "ice cream" yogurt. Sour Sally's brand positioning was for a target market comprising women within 15 to 45 years of age.

After setting its position, Sour Sally performed brand formulation which contained: name, logo, design, packaging, and the identity of Sally's own figure. Brand delivery was done with an emphasis on public relations and customer relations compared with advertising. PR function was done through various print and online media. Customer relationship was engaged via community marketing through networking websites and members.

As Gunawan Taslim, Director of PT Central Protein Prima, flew from Jakarta to Lampung in June 2009, he thought about the decision he must soon make on CP Prima’s strategic action to some problems from declining orders affected by global crisis, rejection from US Custom for their 37 containers contained frozen shrimp product,  accusation from Shrimp Club Indonesia (SCI) that the company would re-sell the rejected product into domestic market while the frozen shrimp product should be exported to overseas market, to a failure of shrimp harvest caused by virus disease. He was due to attend a meeting with Board of Commissioners in early July 2009. Gunawan thought, “The good news is the sales increased almost 39% in the last September comparing to last year. The bad news is we still can not find the market to re-sell our rejected 37 containers from US Custom.”

This was a critical decision for Gunawan and CP Prima. An increasing leverage and rupiah depreciation caused by global crisis would affect cash flow position. The declining cash flow position could lead a default on debt covenant. The default could lead a declining rating on CP Prima obligation position.

APMI, a non-profit organization for multimedia industry, served as a platform that associated communications among the industry stakeholders such as vendors, academics, and the government. These stakeholders were convinced that the industry would have grown faster if there were more facilities to encourage the creation of the content.

Hence Brata T. Hardjosubroto who acted as the chairman of APMI together with a government body, initiated to form a community (called MIKTI) to encourage the production of information technology-based multimedia contents. At the same time he carried out concepts into action by building a render farm facility to encourage the digital content creations.

On September 2008, the render farm facility was ready to operate, and MIKTI was due to launch. Hardjosubroto and APMI realized that they needed to stick back to their vision and mission, and let the development of the content advances through MIKTI. Together with some political and technical situations, Hardjosubroto and his team must decide on who would run the render farm facility.

As one of the major investment companies in Indonesia, PT Bakrie & Brothers Tbk (called BB) is considering a major expansion of the business, growth through internal investment (organic), or invests by acquiring other companies (inorganic). From the firm's perspective, the investors' expected return is a cost of using the funds, called the cost of capital.  A variety of factors influencing a firm's cost of capital, such as level of interest rates, tax policies, and the regulatory environments.  The degree of risk in the projects it undertakes and the types of funds it raises both have a profound effect on its cost of capital.

PT Ciputra Development Tbk was one of the leading property companies in Indonesia. Their property projects were built in several major cities and had a well-known reputation. Two of its subsidiaries were also listed on the Stock Exchange Indonesia, PT Ciputra Surya Tbk and PT Ciputra Property Tbk.

PT Ciputra Development Tbk had total assets of Rp. 9 trillion at the end of September 2010 increased from Rp. 5.3 trillion at the end of 2005. Equity also increased from a negative Rp. 96 billion at the end of 2005 to Rp. 4.78 trillion in late September 2010. On the other hand, the company held cash and cash equivalents Rp. 2.133 trillion, bank loans Rp. 210 billion to various banks, and customer advances was Rp. 1.341 trillion in the end September 2010. The customer advances was Rp. 1.341 trillion as of end September 2010. That is, companies did a very significant progress in the last six years.

However, this was not always the case. On the severe financial crisis on 1997, the company suffered very much from huger losses, mostly because of the foreign exchange debt. The foreign currency debt reached nearly U.S. $ 200 million. With the exchange rate reached Rp 16.000 per dollar, it made the company shuffled. Payable in foreign currencies were very large and negative equity made the company should take action to survive.

On Asian crisis 1998, the palm owner and businessman still could face the crisis smugly. The base price of crude palm oil (CPO) for one fresh stem of oil palm (tandan buah segar) was USD 600 per ton, but with the exchange rate of Rp 16.000 per 1 USD, the producers were quite blessed from the crisis condition. With the average area owneship was at minimum 2,5 hectare each farmers with the output of 2 tons per hectare crude palm oil, the farmers gained at least USD 12.000 (2,5 hectare x 2 tons x USD 600).

The reason was the demand of CPO was still high. Even in China, although it was in Asian region, its economic was growing. It happened also in India. In Europe, countries like Germany and Netherlands were consumers of crude palm oil originated from Indonesia and Malaysia. It was very much affected positively the farmers and the local economic.

A very different story came up on crisis on September 2008. The price of CPO declined and so was the demand. The producers were on the edge of the egg. A lot of TBS were left unharvested by the farmers because the price went down to Rp 300 per kg from Rp 1.200-1.400. Big players in Indonesia and Malaysia were oversupplied. The firms were to hold on their expansion or to hold the planting.

The crude palm oil was now a disaster. If before it was a green gold, now it was a dead card. Victims were tumbling down. Now, could the price shine again on the next year? A lot of people depended on bio fuel programs in most countries as an anchor price. It that was the case, the CPO price would be better. The problem was the oil price was on the bullish and made the bio fuel was more expensive than the fuel.

Now the case questions were what the producers should do? What government should do? What were the real threats on this business? How could we control the prices? How could we adjust with macroeconomics environment? If Indonesia had a comparative advantage for area of plantation, would it be still comparative advantage or became big liabilities? Why Indonesia did not start to develop the downstream crude palm oil industry?

The timeline of this case began in June of 2003, while Ms. Noni Sri Ayati Purnomo, Vice President of Business Development at the Blue Bird Group, was preparing her presentation for the company’s President Director. She had to make decision to improve the business process to comply with ANDAL – “aman, nyaman, mudah, and personalized” – translated to “safe, comfortable, accessible, and personalized”). Ended in 2004, the company developed and implemented the ERP system with several challenges, such as in maintenance process, inventory process, and also human resources.

On August 2007, Mr. Eddie Cendana, the CEO, was very irritated when he received another complaint from one of the most important clients of PT Edpmedia Multimitra Primanusa. There were increasing complaints and dissatisfaction from customers over the last few months, so he decided to initiate the Six Sigma program to improve the quality for the company.

The Six Sigma project at PT EDPMEDIA started in January 2008 using the DMAIC 5 stages approach, namely Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. In the first stage, PT EDPMEDIA had set the CTQ (Critical to Quality) and CTP (Critical to Process) targets, which were based on results of the extensive customer and employee surveys. They had discovered that the CTQ and CTP issues were employees’ workload, productivity and training. The surveys proved that the three factors contribute the most significant percentage towards customer satisfaction and royalty. In the second stage, a number of measurement and capability tests were conducted. The results showed that the company must start immediate improvements to employee productivity. The analyzing stage indicates that the employee productivity figure was affected by:

1. 45% - workload factor;
2. 32.5% - lack of training;
3. 30% - job satisfaction.

When the project neared the end of its implementation stage in early 2009, the company employee productivity had increased to 3.69 from the initial target of 3.5. Another related indicator such as Hour Service Rate had also increased close to 75% from the target of 70%. So the CEO claimed that the Six Sigma project initiative was successful though more improvements and optimal benefits were anticipated further in the future.

In 2006 Asahimas recorded net sales value of Rp 1.5 trillion or 10 % decreased compared to 2005. The increasing oil price was the culprit. Actually, the feasibility study to change the fuel for combustion process to natural gas had been done before 2005. Unluckily the increasing oil price advanced the progress of the project.

Then, early in 2006 the company established a task force team to continue the study of fuel conversion. The aim of the team was to reduce cost of production, the conversion should be done without loss of production, no materials in the flat glass process should be changed, and the project should be completed as soon as possible.

Despite the noble aim of the project, questions still remained for the management were : should they continue the conversion program ? Regarding the big value to invest, should they apply to all plants or not? What was the plan B if the conversion was done and the price of natural gas increased?

In his new office at the Research and Development Division of PT Korindo Heavy Industry (KHI), Mr. Miet Sugiarso, the newly-appointed head of Research and Development, pondered about the challenges that he and his associates would have to face in the months ahead. He had just been in another meeting with the Board of Directors of KHI regarding  the development of KHI’s newly formed automotive manufacturing division.

Several months before, sometime in late 2005, Sugiarso, along with his co-workers and friend, Puryanto, were invited to the offices of Korindo Heavy Industry by the company’s Board of Directors and offered positions to lead the development of a new business division for the manufacture and assembly of commercial vehicles. However, the company had never been involved in any project that was remotely close to automotive manufacturing.

Korindo Heavy Industry had been originally established to handle some of the manufacturing projects of the Korindo Group, a business conglomerate under which KHI operates. Originally, the Heavy Industry’s main business operation involved the manufacture of containers for shipping and transportation purposes. Within this industry, KHI prospered for nearly a decade before eventually being forced out of business due to competition from Chinese container manufacturing companies, as well as other external factors.

As the company declined, its directors began formulating plans to change the company’s core business towards more profitable ventures, which they hoped would be able to bring the company out of its current predicament, as well as provide them with new opportunities for growth. After much deliberation, the board of directors eventually decided to enter the automotive industry. A new course had been charted; what was needed next was to set the foundations for a successful take-off. The responsibility was offered to Sugiarso and his co-worker Puryanto, both of whom, had extensive knowledge of the automotive industry. They accepted the offer seeing it both as an opportunity and as a challenge, though, they realized that it would not be easy.

Korindo, having no prior experience in the motor the automotive industry meant that the company was ill-prepared to face the challenges of the new venture. Container manufacturing and motor vehicle manufacturing were completely different from each other. Many of its processes and systems would have to be rebuilt in order to meet the more stringent requirements of motor vehicle manufacturing. Furthermore, they faced the challenge of entering an industry that was already dominated by other more mature, and experienced players like Mitsubishi, Toyota, Hino, and others.

Meanwhile, there were pressures, from the Board of Directors, for the automotive manufacturing division to quickly begin its operations and to introduce and launch their first product within the next 6 months. Before that, Sugiarso and his team would have to first set up a working system as well as address critical issues such as a market penetration strategy, along with competitive strategies for their new products.