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Product cover image for Melo Interiors: Preserving the Personal Touch vs. Scaling Up

Melo Interiors: Preserving the Personal Touch vs. Scaling Up

Jaiben Sahadevan, Kakoli Sen, Devi Kodappully Ravy

Product #:W47379
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:Entrepreneurship, Strategy
Setting:India, 2025
Details:Case (PDF) • 9 pages • 2026-02-18

Subjects:

EntrepreneurshipStrategy

Industries:

Business services sectorBusiness services sector

Geography:

India
Your Price:$10.54

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In early 2025, Melo Interiors (Melo), a boutique interior design firm in Kerala, India, faced growing strain after building a premium reputation for its personal touch. Rapid referrals, celebrity visibility, and client expectations brought success but also financial stress, rework, and dependence on the founders’ constant oversight. As co-founder Lekshmi Gayathri prepared to relocate to Bengaluru, she had to decide if Melo could pursue growth through a boutique focus, hybrid execution, subcontracting, or geographic expansion without compromising the trust, quality, and authenticity that defined its brand.

Learning Objectives

This case enables students to examine entrepreneurial growth challenges in a founder-led service venture. It can be taught in courses on entrepreneurship, strategy, service operations, or brand management. By comparing growth paths such as a boutique focus, hybrid execution, subcontracting, and geographic expansion, students evaluate how businesses can scale while preserving brand identity and trust. The case highlights the financial and ethical decision-making involved in scaling a small and medium enterprise in India’s fragmented design market. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:
  • Evaluate scaling strategies in service-based, founder-led small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by applying Slack et al.’s operations performance objectives (cost, quality, speed, flexibility) and a make-or-buy analysis to compare the trade-offs of a boutique focus, hybrid models, and full subcontracting.
  • Analyze brand positioning and customer loyalty using concepts from Keller’s customer-based brand equity (CBBE) model, exploring how personal touch contributes to premium pricing and how operational changes impact brand resonance.
  • Assess the financial viability of service models by calculating unit economics, operating leverage, and the cost of working capital cycles to determine the structural causes of unprofitability in scaling ventures.
  • Examine ethical dilemmas in customer relationships using the Akhil alias vignette to discuss the tension between gathering authentic feedback and maintaining professional integrity.
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Case Study: Melo Interiors: Preserving the Personal Touch vs. Scaling Up (English version) | Ivey Publishing