個案資料

Campusutra was a leading information and partially transactional portal operating in India that helped aspiring higher education students select appropriate educational institutions. It was founded in 2011 and initially focused on supporting a student's choice of management education. It added support for engineering schools. It was known for offering distilled and unbiased objective information about offerings, fee structure, peer-level engagement, and placement opportunities, and potential students remained loyal to the portal. Later, a friend advised the founder to make a strategic alliance with an EdTech company to monetize the intangible value it had created. The founder's dilemma was whether to pursue such an opportunity and risk diluting its mission.

The case can be taught to undergraduate and postgraduate business administration students in service management, operations management/strategy, and strategic management courses. It is helpful if students are familiar with industry analysis, cross-functional approaches to addressing service concepts and growth issues, startups in the technology space, customer value, and strategic alliances for realizing the value of intangible assets. The case would be appropriate for discussing strategic orientation in niche startup service businesses. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:<ul><li>Understand the service concept and map the core of the service offered by a firm.</li><li>Analyze the competitive position of a niche firm and evaluate its future growth.</li><li>Describe the industry position and evaluate the adjacent space for positioning a firm.</li><li>Evaluate the strategic alliance strategy for partially monetizing the value of an intangible asset.</li><li>Understand the dilemma of an entrepreneur in a startup business.</li></ul>

• Strategic alliance
• Information portal
• Startup funding
• Multiple based valuation