Emerging Markets Case Studies Collection
 

Title – Aztec Fluids & Machinery: issues in managing growth in India

Subject area – ?strategic alliances/collaborative strategies; ?defending against global competitors;? related diversification;? entrepreneurship-organizational life cycle; and ?evaluating strategies for firm growth.

Study level/applicability – MBA/PGP level programmes in management and/or entrepreneurship.

Case overview – Aztec Fluids & Machinery, set up just over four years ago in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India, caters to the printer hardware, spares and consumables needs of the digital ink jet printing market. The company has identified vendors principally from the UK and China for its printers and consumable sourcing and presently markets these using a hybrid channel structure of direct selling and through 12 distributors in ten cities of India. A recent development of note is the successful transformation of a flexible roll printer into a flat-bed type one by the co-founder. The experiment assumes significance since the cost of a conventional flat-bed screen printer is almost five times that of the improvised printer. The huge, fragmented, price-sensitive, yet quality-conscious market in India offers immense potential for this innovation. At the same time, Aztec's recent interactions with a couple of its UK-based vendors present other alternatives for growth.

Expected learning outcomes – ?To explore organizational life cycle: the introduction and early growth phases. ?To understand alliance dynamics for early-stage entrepreneurs –rationale, management and the manifestation of trust between different types of partners: suppliers and customers. ?To understand how small firms prepare for and evaluate the challenges of growth.

Supplementary materials – Teaching note.