Two business partners were considering adding product lines to their international custom software business in Toronto, Canada. From 2009, Myplanet had grown ever more focused, in turn yielding an increase in average project size to US$1 million and a staff that grew from six to 100. Until they created RelayRobin, a system that was similar in capability to Skype, the two partners had achieved their remarkable growth almost exclusively through custom projects for large, well-known U.S. clients. In seeking the next major growth markets, they identified communication services – in particular, the telecommunications industry – as a prime opportunity. Targeting telecom carriers had produced disappointing results, so Myplanet instead opted to turn to original equipment manufacturers. The early results were encouraging.
The founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Teksavvy Solutions Inc. has achieved sales of $18 million in just more than 10 years as an Internet service provider (ISP) across Canada but he must decide whether to distribute his service via cable carriers, telecom carriers or both, or even integrate forward into laying fiber-optic cable in homes and businesses himself. If he invests in last mile connections to homes, he will need a great deal more funds and he will need a healthy uptake by the new customers, most of whom would be located in smaller cities and towns. The added investment for this option would require him to look seriously at bringing in a venture capital company for major investment but he would have to sell it some equity and live under its covenants and guidance until some type of liquidity event would buy out the venture funder.
In 2007, the marketing director for Cineplex Entertainment is trying to decide whether or not to proceed with a loyalty program that would provide incentives for customers to see more movies and events, and spend more on concessions. An important by-product would be the collection of detailed customer buying data. She has crafted four possible combinations of rewards and received proposals from three suppliers with experience in managing customer data banks. She must decide the structure and richness of the program, the supplier, the likely response rate to determine financial feasibility, and whether to launch regionally or nationally.
Shanghai COS Software Ltd. designs and develops smart card operating systems. The company's marketing manager must decide the best basis for segmenting the burgeoning market for smart cards for wireless devices in China. She has excellent data on this duopoly market, the segments and their buying criteria. In fact, she already has received significant orders for low-end cards from each of the two large customers. However, she and the senior management team must decide on a market positioning for this young high-tech start up. She must select one of the two major customers whose size, structure and procedures are quite different. She must also decide whether the company should market low margin/high volume or high margin/low volume products. Both products seem to have a very short life expectancy in the face of rapidly changing customer expectations. The investors in the company want it to achieve profitability fairly quickly and still adopt sustainable positioning in the marketplace.
In February 2007, Loblaw Companies Limited (Loblaw) was far and away the dominant food retailer in Canada with a market share of 35 per cent across its various retailing formats. As part of its long term retailing strategy and in a bid to reduce the impact of Wal-Mart Canada's entry into food retailing, in 2004 Loblaw began to build new The Real Canadian Superstores in Ontario and position them as blockers that resembled Wal-Mart's U.S. combination food and general merchandise superstores. It overhauled its entire logistical system to improve its cost structure and it brought in new senior executives in 2006. Unfortunately, The Real Canadian Superstores appeared to be disappointing some customers, retail analysts, industry experts and even former Loblaw executives. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart entered the retail food market in 2006 with distinctive emphasis on fresh produce and deli offerings on top of its low prices and wide assortment. The question for Loblaw's executive team was whether or not to make any strategic changes, and, if so, in what direction.
Eat2Eat.com was an Internet-based restaurant reservation service covering a dozen cities in the Asia Pacific region. It was the principal business of Singapore-based Eat2Eat Pte Ltd. It was launched in 2000 by an entrepreneur and former investment banker with US$1 million of his own capital. He quickly established the capabilities and business model, but after five years, the registered user base remained relatively small at about 12,000. He thought the next step for the company was to expand that user base and hoped that the company could change the way people made plans to eat out. Resources - specifically, time and money - were limited, so any promotional efforts would have to be innovative and efficient. The case focuses on entrepreneurial marketing with sub-themes of financing and small enterprise management. It is a story of an entrepreneur who had an idea and enough money to launch it, but then struggles to achieve adequate scale.
This is a supplement to Infinet Communications Inc. (A), product 9B06A006. It highlights what the company did in hiring and organizing employees, and new systems that better tracked its project work.
Two business partners must decide whether or not the accept an order for a large website project from a telecom just after they had accepted an even larger order from a key pharmaceutical company. Not only will the telecom order fall outside their pharmaceutical industry boundaries, it may require doubling the number of employees from 45 to 90 in this early stage entrepreneurial company. Serving the large pharmaceutical company could jeopardize the larger order and the company's reputation, to say nothing of the company's cozy 'family' culture. The supplement Infinet Communications Inc. (B), product #9B06A007, looks at the havoc that rapid expansion and subsequent shrinking wreaks on the employees. In the supplement Infinet Communications Inc. (C), product #9B06A008, describes what the company did in hiring and organizing employees and new systems that better tracked its project work.
Two business partners must decide whether or not accept an order for a large website project just after they had accepted an even larger order from key pharmaceutical company. This supplement to Infinet Communications Inc. (A), product 9B06A006, looks at what the rapid expansion and subsequent shrinking wreaks on the employees. Students are asked to make recommendations about ways to build a more flexible workforce.
A partner in an early stage entrepreneurial company wants to revolutionize the way pharmaceutical companies communicate with medical doctors. He created eRep, an online site for a doctor to interact with a pharmaceutical company's sales representatives. Unfortunately, after two years of trying to entice a key pharmaceutical company to support the development of an eRep working prototype, he has not been able to find such a co-developer with $1 million. Sales executives expressed interest in the concept, but seemingly no one wants to be the first mover. How should he overcome these obstacles and launch this product?
For many years two entrepreneurs have run a successful chefs school in combination with Ontario's apprenticeship program, their two private restaurants and the support of a few generous patrons. However, as they approached eventual retirement, they had no successors in sight and no teaching building apart from their restaurants. A professional fund-raising firm said that the various interested parties might raise $600,000 to help fund a teaching building but the total need of $2 million would be out of reach. The entrepreneurs were looking for a marketing and fund raising campaign to raise $2 million.
A social entrepreneur undertakes to launch a bank with charitable status itself that could provide financial services to up to 161,000 charities. He has quietly arranged support from major for-profit banks and government officials. The day before his press conference to tell all stakeholders about this new bank, he is still struggling with the key words to describe the bank so that it conveys it purposes, but offends as few stakeholders as possible. Students must evaluate his proposed three key words and propose other descriptors.
A venture fund has approached an entrepreneur to sell one of its poorly performing holdings, or if there is no reasonable sale opportunity, turn the company around. He finds no acceptable offers for the company. He searches to find more information on how buyers purchase and use the product, which is a software system for police and courts to lay charges and manage them across the court process. The case illustrates the leverage available from understanding customer budgeting and buying processes, and fitting the service to meet the mind of the customer.
The publisher of an 18-month old, controlled-circulation weekly newspaper, The Londoner, is contemplating the addition of a web-based searchable data base of classified ads for used cars. It would seem to add value to the readership but it does appeal to readers well beyond the original trading area for the weekly, and it also offers some new timing issues for a weekly paper to create a feature with large weekend readership. The issue is whether or not the publisher should add this auto classified feature section and if so, how to market it to the greatest advantage. This case may be used with The Londoner (A), product 9B05A007).
An engineer for Wind to Energy has led the creation of the North American division of a German start-up company that designs wind-energy electric power generation units - wind turbines. The engineer and his fellow engineers have licensed the technology to a small-share assembler of wind turbines and are about to receive their first payment from this firm. As they look ahead, they see opportunities for revenue in possibly supplying spare parts to wind farms, or even operating their own wind farm. The challenge is to focus this start-up company.
Two partners have converted an abandoned bingo hall into a 40,000 square foot self-storage unit. It appears to be filling up quickly. The father wants to build four or five similar self-storage units each year in the surrounding cities and towns, by converting former factories and supermarkets into self-storage units. The partners want to build one unit each year in order to retain a larger ownership stake and a smaller debt component. In either situation, there are pricing and feasibility issues that must be considered.
The new chief executive office of a struggling dotcom is faced with high costs and slow revenue generation - sufficient to have burned $Cdn20 million, and profitability was not yet in sight. Fortunately, his venture cap company was still willing to advance funds and he believed that he could nail down some elephant deals to save the enterprise. He had the option of chasing smaller deals for immediate cash. In what priority should he attack his strategic issues, and in particular, what size and type of selling opportunities should he pursue.
Two brothers have developed Williams Coffee Pub into a 44-unit, quick service restaurant franchise in Southwestern Ontario. Williams Coffee Pub has a very broad positioning with different segments frequenting it in different parts of the day. The brothers have hired a new chief executive officer and they are about to hand significant operational and strategic control to this new executive and the new board of directors. The broad positioning is an issue and the future communications campaign is also an issue.
Elixir Technology is a small software development company based in Singapore that develops data analysis and report generation software and provides technical training and consulting services. By May 2003, it had successfully sold this software to corporate clients in Singapore, China and Japan, following a very adaptive marketing strategy in each market. Now the managing director is contemplating entering the Middle East but must choose an entry strategy quickly to capitalize on the current window of opportunity. Available entry choices include direct entry, or several partnership options.
The managing director of a fundraising organization has recently taken on the project of raising money for charity by managing the third edition of a calendar. He had guidance from the founder of the original calendar project that raised funds for the fire fighters in New York. He focused his energies on creating high quality calendars but they were still not printed as the due date drew near and he was encountering a number of obstacles. He was beginning to feel a bit let down, but he still had to decide how to market the calendars for maximum effect. This is a supplement to Wgirl, Wboy Calendars (A) and (B), products, 9B02A018 and 9B02A019.