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Battery Smart: Navigating Financial Strategy

Rahul Gupta, Gita Bajaj, Rahul Kumar

Product #:W44856
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:Finance, Sustainability
Setting:India, 2023
Details:Case (PDF) • 14 pages • 2025-09-23

Subjects:

Environmental sustainabilitySWOT analysisDiversificationPersonal financeStrategyEntrepreneurshipVertical integrationFinancial analysisBreakeven analysisLeadership and managing peopleFinance and investingManagement

Industries:

Transportation and distribution

Geography:

IndiaAsia
Your Price:$9.71

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In October 2023, Battery Smart, a fast-growing Indian battery-swapping company for electric vehicles (EVs), faced two strategic decisions that could reshape its future. The chief executive officer was considering backward integration through battery manufacturing to reduce supplier dependency amid rising competition across the EV value chain. At the same time, investors were pressing the company to pursue forward integration by entering the ride-sharing market, leveraging its existing infrastructure to serve e-rickshaw operators. While both opportunities aligned with the firm’s mission of accelerating EV adoption, they also posed significant financial and operational risks. As the CEO grappled with whether to expand ambitiously or maintain the focus on core operations, he needed to navigate investor expectations, regulatory uncertainty, and a rapidly evolving industry landscape.

Learning Objectives

This case is best taught mid-way through courses in accounting, financial management, or strategic management. It is suited for senior undergraduate students, first-year graduate students, or entrepreneurship students with a foundational grasp of financial concepts. It introduces students to financial planning and analysis as a tool for achieving strategic goals, with a focus on real-world application. Set in the dynamic EV industry, it challenges students to assess vertical integration and diversification options using both financial data and strategic context. The case encourages independent evaluation of business decisions, blending financial feasibility with broader organizational considerations. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:

  • Use project-appraisal techniques like net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), payback period, break-even analysis, and financial-statements analysis to evaluate business propositions.
  • Use strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis and Porter’s five-forces model to evaluate a firm’s internal and external competitive environment.
  • Identify underlying conflicts and non-financial aspects of strategic decision-making.
  • Use a weighted decision matrix (WDM) to make a strategic choice: to integrate, diversify, do both, or do neither.
  • Present and defend a strategic choice from two equally strong options.
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Case Study: Battery Smart: Navigating Financial Strategy (English version) | Ivey Publishing