2021-global strategy(man4720) case assignment 1 PDF

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Case assignment 1...

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Samantha Prokop February 8, 2021 MAN4702- 010, Joseph Patton

CASE ASSIGNMENT #1:

Include your name, date, class number and a title on all written work.

Submit to Canvas by the due date.

PART A – Freemium Pricing at Dropbox (reading is on Canvas)

Minimum answer length of 500 words total (your words, not counting the

assignment questions)

1. What product does Dropbox sell?

2. If you had to guess, what do you think are three of the company’s

high-level goals and objectives?

1.

2.

3.

3. Describe the strategy that Dropbox chose to use to get users and

revenue. What was this strategy?

4. What did the company hope to accomplish with this strategy? Why did

they choose it?

5. How much did the company charge for its products?

6. Was the Freemium Pricing Strategy successful? What were positive

results and negative results of this strategy?

7. Describe 2-3 different strategies can you think of that Dropbox could

have chosen, instead of Freemium Pricing?

1.

2.

3.

8. What was the strategy that Dropbox used for corporate/business

customers? How was it different from “Freemium Pricing”? Describe

this strategy and its results.

PART B – We Googled You (reading is on Canvas)

Minimum answer length of 500 words total (your words, not counting the

assignment questions)

1. What Hathaway Jones’ strategy/plan to improve its business results?

2. What is the question that the company needs to decide in this case?

3. If the company decides to hire Mimi Brewster, what will be the pros and

cons to this decision?

Pros

1.

2.

3.

Cons

1.

2.

3.

4. What decision do you recommend that the company make? Why?

5. If the company follows your advice, what are 3 action steps they must

take to implement this plan and turn the decision into reality? List 3.

1.

2.

3.

6. If the company decides to hire Mimi, what are some steps that they can

take to lower their risks and reduce the negatives, or make the negatives

go away? List 3.

1.

2.

3.

PART C – The Changing Recorded Music Industry

Minimum # of words for this part = 333 (not counting Professor’s words)

Read the articles on Canvas in the module about the music industry

1. What has been the effect of streaming and digital downloads on the

music industry?

2. How has it changed how recording labels make money?

3. How are artists now making money in the industry? How is this

different from earlier years, for example 20 years ago?

PART D – How Kodak Failed

Minimum # of words for this part = 333 (not counting Professor’s words)

Read the articles on Canvas about Kodak. Kodak was the world’s leading film

company for nearly 100 years and invented the digital camera in 1975. In

2012 it went bankrupt. Summarize the strategic failures that led Kodak to

fail as a company

Read the articles on Canvas in the module about the music industry

1. What has been the effect of streaming and digital downloads on the

music industry?

2. How has it changed how recording labels make money?

3. How are artists now making money in the industry? How is this

different from earlier years, for example 20 years ago?

PART D – How Kodak Failed

Minimum # of words for this part = 333 (not counting Professor’s words)

Read the articles on Canvas about Kodak. Kodak was the world’s leading film

company for nearly 100 years and invented the digital camera in 1975. In

2012 it went bankrupt. Summarize the strategic failures that led Kodak to

fail as a compan

Case Assignment #1 PART A- Freemium Pricing at Dropbox

(531 words)

1. Dropbox provides their customers with a remote-storage of files over the internet, also known as cloud storage. This enables the user to share files that can be accessed anywhere over the internet simply with a link, as well as synchronization and backups of your files. With 200 million users saving over a billion files a day, they are able to provide this service more conveniently than their competitors giving them an advantage. 2. If I had to guess, I believe that three of the companies high-level goals and objectives are to: 1. Dominate the file sharing market because companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft also provide the same service but, Dropbox must have a differentiating factor that sets it apart from the competition. 2. Give their customers the convenience of sharing files easily with a link because this sets them apart in the market and gives them a differentiated competitive advantage. 3. Provide the most available storage for their clients because compared to their competitors they have more than a billion files uploaded each day, and that will continue to grow therefore they must be able to keep up with the capacity that their customers are demanding for space for these files. 3. The strategy Dropbox used to get users and revenue was a “freemium” referral program as well as free trials of the service. Houston believed that it was a service people did not know they needed until they tried it and ads were not drawing the attention needed. By having customers who already use the service, refer others for free storage for both parties, this helped the gain 2.8 million users. 4. Dropbox chose to use the strategy of freemium referrals because they already had 4 million users and it was an opportunity for those who were already members to gain free storage space as well as give free storage space to new users. They hoped to accomplish an advantage in the market by introducing new users to Dropbox with a free incentive as well as give their members added value. 5. The prices of services ranged from free to $49 per year for someone using all 16MB of space, with the average “free” customer spending $1.32 per year 6. Freemium was in fact successful because this was a way to attract buyers to a “free” service that they would end up purchasing because it was convenient and they were already using it. 7. Three different strategies that Dropbox could have used instead of Freemium are: 1. First year or few months free trial option 2. Discounted pricing for a full year 3. Offering other rewards for referrals besides free storage. 8. The strategy used to gain corporate customers was to have individuals use the service in the workplace and enjoy it so much that they recommend it be used by their employers. This is what started the idea of “freemium” at dropbox. They felt their needed to be an incentive for users to enjoy and share as well as an incentive for people that were just starting to use the service. They then came out with “Dropbox for Business” which featured an unlimited amount of storage and special ways for administrators to

manage documents. It was a great success. PART B- We Googled You (500 words) 1. The plan to improve the business results of Hathaway Jones was to expand the location that was currently based in Philadelphia, all the way into China. It was believed that China’s market was fast growing and that it would be beneficial to Hathaway Jones to expand into that country. The clothing being sold to young people in the US proved to be out of the price range that they were willing to pay and with 144 shops and outlets in the US, the company needed to act fast. The company's image was also revamped as well as the product line. 2. The biggest question that the company faced was whether they should hire Mimi to help the company exceed into a luxury goods market, which in China was growing by 70% per year. The owner Fred set aside millions of dollars to open new stores in three of the largest cities in China because they were also China’s wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities. He needed to make the decision if Mimi was the best person to help do this job. 3. The pros and cons to hiring Mimi Brewster are as follows: Pros: - Mimi had insight into the Chinese fashion market because her mother was a fashion photographer - She knew the insides of confucianism within the chinese market and how to deal with it. - She planned to use chinese culture and archetype to draw attention Cons: - Mimi did not have as much experience as her mother who Fred knew - She did not have the connections but would be able to use her mother to make the connections needed - She was involved in multiple protests against China’s treatment of a dissident journalist and this information alone with her name were easily found on google 4. I recommend that the company does not hire Mimi because she has a past that can reflect badly on the brand when they expand to China. The articles about Mimi should be concerning Fred because he does not want to start off expanding his brand in China with a bad reputation due to an employee's past. These sorts of things do reflect on the company as they should be cautious of who they are hiring, just like how the HR director Victoria found out this information. 5. If the company were to follow my advice and not hire Mimi the actions they can take are 1. Get her side of the story 2. Explain why they cannot hire her 3. Thank her for the interest in the position and decline due to the reputation of the company. 6. If the company does decide to hire Mimi it is strongly suggested that they implement the following in order to keep their risks low as well as reduce the change of a bad reputation: 1. Make sure there is a contract that she will not be involved with any

protests. 2. Monitor the work she does very closely 3. Have her release a statement as to why she is no longer involved with actions such as in the past.

PART C- The Changing Recorded Music Industry (349 words) 1. The effect of the ability to stream and download music digitally has had a tremendous impact on the music industry in both a negative and positive way. Being able to easily stream and download music from many different electronic devices has been an amazing turn of events in the music industry and allows the convenience of doing so from the comfort of your home. More people are able to access this music and it gives the ability to always have music with you at the touch of a button. The negative effects however have almost completely demolished the way that music had previously been sold such as in record stores or on cds. It also allowed for people to download music illegally and without paying for the content they had. This was detrimental to the sale of music in stores but not the recording labels themselves or the artist. The ability to stream made it that much easier to get a hold of the type of music you want to listen to. 2. Record labels used to make their money off of how many records they sold. As in physical records that were made of vinyl and sold in a store, which are unfortunately now ancient artifacts it seems, but nonetheless these recording labels were still able to make money if not in an even better way. No recording labels are being paid for each purchase and stream of a song. Not only from people who pay for it but also those who don't have the ability to also put ads before the songs. 3. Artists now make money with every listen. Instead of having to sell a whole entire album on a record, people can now purchase single songs or stream single songs with an ad and regardless of the amount, the artist is still making profit. This type of music is more easily accessible and is convenient for the listener as well as the artist making money from the sales. The way the artists make their money is instant compared to having to sell records like 20 years ago. PART D- How Kodak Failed

(368 words)

Before the age of digital photography Kodak was a dominating force with the film camera industry. A Kodak engineer then invented the technology of the digital camera in 1975 and that is where their stance in the industry took a turn and not for the best. With Kodak not seeing how this invention could be detrimental to the brand that they had been building for so many years, this would eat at the companies built up success over time. The company planned that they would have about 10 years to transition from their film based brand into a digital camera company, but they did not act quickly enough. The strategic error was that Kodak did not seize the opportunity to control the digital camera market when the company's engineer first invented it. Instead of using the company's knowledge to adapt to the new technology and changing demand, they used digital technology to try to improve a new product instead of producing the new product. They were unprepared for the turn of the market and this ultimately led to their

decline as a company. Kodak created something called The Advantix system which allowed them to adapt a film camera to show digital previews, but the obsolescence of the product still having to have the photos printed on film which did not let the product become as successful as the fully digital camera would be. A series of CEOs tried for more than a decade to transition the Kodak company into the market of digital cameras and photography with many unsuccessful attempts. The digital camera killed the company because it was a large producer of the chemical-based film and paper and this is what fueled a majority of their sales, therefore making the company hard to transition to digital. There are four necessary capabilities a company must have that Kodak did not which are having an enterprise mindset that is open to change, thinking and acting holistically, being able to adapt the business design to changing conditions and making decisions interactively using a variety of methods. Kodak failed to use these strategies and ultimately their choice to not transition the company with the improving market and technology lead to bankruptcy....