Amar Chitra Katha: Navigating Crisis Through Digital Transformation

This case begins with the strategic response of Amar Chitra Katha (ACK), a legacy children’s comic book publisher in India, to the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Facing disruption in the print business operations due to lockdowns all over the country, ACK, a print-heavy business, underwent a dramatic digital pivot to sustain operations and drive growth. The case offers a rich context to discuss digital transformation, business model transformation, monetization strategies, intellectual property management and the challenges facing content creators in the era of emerging technologies. It ends with a dilemma confronting the CEO of Amar Chitra Katha, Preeti Vyas, who is faced with technologies such as Generative AI (GenAI) and rising digital marketing costs. This case is ideal for sessions exploring how legacy brands navigate digital disruption, and exposes readers to the economics of content digitization and the challenges of managing Intellectual Property in the age of Gen AI for a legacy brand in a creative industry.