Fonality is a business-class Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) service provider. Founded in 2003, the company's original goal was to provide VOIP home service, much like Vonage and Skype do today. In the process of setting up the office for the company, a quote was requested for a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) system. PBX systems are the standard for business-class phone systems. They allow for extensions, transfers, individual voicemail boxes, and the numerous other features found on business phone systems. Unfortunately, before Fonality, they came at a very steep price. Fonality was quoted $15,000 to have a 5 person phone system installed for the office. It was at this point that serendipity hit the founder. He realized that he could do VOIP-PBX systems for a fraction of the cost that others were doing it. Current pricing starts at a mere $595, a far cry from the $15,000 quoted to them at the upstart. In addition to this, in another cost cutting measure, the system was designed “to be as easy as hotmail.” This means the days of having to call and schedule a maintenance technician for system maintenance were over. Any manager is now capable of changing system settings without having to call Fonality. This move saved money for both the consumer and the company. This business model has proved to be incredibly successful. Fonality received its first round of venture capitalist funding in the first quarter of 2006. By the end of that year, the company had already become profitable. It has only gotten stronger since then, with 10% growth average growth monthly since then. In addition to that, the call volume had increased 400% a year, for the past three years. Due to this phenomenal growth, in 2007, the company received a second... ... middle of paper ... ...pany. One of the major problems in the marketplace today is that companies far too often do not listen to what consumers want, instead focusing on what they think consumers will need. This methodology has led to many unhappy customers. Fonality tries to target what consumers want and, as such, has been incredibly successful, even in a marketplace that before would have been considered very hard to break into. The real lesson here is innovation is necessary for business to survive. Fonality innovated everything from product offerings to its use open systems model to even its management team. By maintaing this level of innovation, the company has virtually unlimited ability to succeed. Where the company moves from here will be very interesting to see, but where ever it goes will most likely be beneficial to the company, given its top-notch track record.
Nevertheless, it must “defend” its current market share if not increase it, by maintaining premium quality and develop innovative products. The marketing mix strategies will effectively achieve targeted revenue and profitability in the near future.
In 2007, Harley Davidson was the world’s most profitable motorcycle company. They had just released great earnings and committed to achieve earnings per share growth of 11-17% for each of the next three years. Their CEO of 37 years, James Ziemer, knew this would be an extremely difficult task seeing Harley’s domestic market share recently top off at just under 50%. The domestic market was where Harley’s achieved the most growth over the past 20 years and with it leveling off, where was Harley going to get the 11-17% was the million dollar question.
Background One. Tel was launched by Jodee Rich and Brad Keeling in 1995 (Cook, 2001). At first, it looked to get the advantages from deregulation of the telecommunication industry by reselling other network’s capacity and making money through stock market speculation. Rich and Keeling tried to increase the company’s shares rather than profit the company (Cook, 2001). Initially, One.
WorldCom’s network could not directly connect to every possible phone and electronic device in the world. As a result, the company had to utilize third parties to carry some part of their calls. WorldCom would have to lease the facilities of the 3rd parties. These fees were referred to as “line costs.” Line costs accounted for about half of WorldCom’s total expenses. Taking this fact into account, managing line costs was important to WorldCom’s bottom line. WorldCom management met in quarterly line cost meetings. In these meetings management was pressed for line costs reduction ideas. As economic conditions worsened, the search for cost savings became more intense and Ebbers and Sullivan became agitated and raised their voices demanding improved margins” (Zekany, Braun and Warder 104).
The case study is about an interview, conducted to four venture capitalists from four of the most prominent VC Silicon Valley firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Menlo Ventures, Trinity Ventures and Alta Partners. These firms invest both in seed as well as in later-stage companies, which operate mostly in the information technology sector. However, each VC has developed different sector portfolio depending on the expertise of the venture capitalists, the partner network and other factors. Professor Mike Roberts and Lauren Barley a senior research associate, both from Harvard Business School, have made a series of seven questions to their interviewees to understand how they evaluate potential venture opportunities and what they look at in order to decide if they will fund them and in which way. The questions were dealing with how VC’s evaluate potential venture opportunities, how they conduct due diligence, what process id followed for the decision making, what financial analyses is performed, the role of risk in the evaluation and how they think of potential exit routes. These questions were asked individually and revealed several similarities as well as differences in the strategy and the criteria that are used for the evaluation.
You would not buy a home, car or other large purchases without researching what product offered you the most for your money. The same is true when investing in a company. Investors do avid research on multiple companies to find what company matches the investors' criteria. In this paper Team C will research both AT&T and Verizon's financial documents. Team C will compare selected ratios, cash flow and make recommendations how both companies can manage cash flow for the future.
Flayvid's coordinated marketing program, professional image, attention to detail, strategic vision and understanding of the client's needs sets the business apart from the competition.
This form of company relies heavily on accurate communication which has so far in this case proven effective. Who knows where the future will take this organization, but it seems to always be one step ahead of change.
... this and their marketing strategy will be key if they are to remain viable, grow and compete in the market.
Russel Y., Topper S., Akerman L., Oliveira J., Strydom Z.; 2013; Studying Business NSC Business Studies Grade 12; 2013 Edition; Paardekraal; Excom Publishers; 26/05/2014
Consumers desire timely, resourceful help at their fingertips. Plus, the cost of call centers can be expensive and difficult to manage.
The XYZ Corporation was established in 2004 and their main office is located in Vancouver, BC. The company’s main objective is to create new innovating technology for media devices, computers, and digital music players. They deal with the design, manufacturing and marketing of the products. XYZ Corporation has been providing Canadians with groundbreaking technology throughout the years and continues to create new technology to provide others with top-level technology. Although, recently their success rate has appeared to drop rapidly due to a number of factors that will be explored throughout this case study. Their main objective is to target the problems so that they can work towards having the issues resolved as quickly as possible. If they do not take any course of action, the state of the company may be in extreme danger. This case study is designed to explore the areas of the company and discover the problems blocking the XYZ Corporation from success.
Making a telephone call no longer should conjure up visions of operators connecting cables by hand or even of electrical signals causing relays to click into place and effect connections during dialing. The telephone system now is just a multilevel computer network with software switches in the network nodes to route calls get through much more quickly and reliably than they did in the past. A disadvantage is the potential for dramatic and widespread failures; for as has happened.
Never have I ever climbed a mountain peak. As a child, I imagined myself conducting expeditions in deep-frozen pathways, leading amateur explorers to the top of the world, and instructing rookies in surviving harsh blizzards. Even though slightly altered, my childhood dream has been achieved. I led a team of fellow classmates, in my Strategic Management course, to the success summit of a financial competition. Over the course of a semester, I and my teammates were supposed to create and manage a company of the IT industry, in a computer-simulated environment, along with other four rival teams. I dealt with strategy and financial matters of our virtual enterprise, while my colleagues were working on marketing and manufacturing. During the four months of the exercise, I have experienced finance from various aspects: capital budgeting, through selecting favorable investment for upcoming quarters; debt management, by assessing the necessary amount and efficiency of loans; profitability analysis and dividend policy, which had been used to compile the company’s general performance index. Working in a multinational team, which included an American, a Norwegian and a Moldovan, strengthen my negotiations skills, as well as flexibility and cooperation. But above all, this experience intensified my passion for finance. Of course, a pleasant bonus was the fact that, in the end, our company’s financial performance was six times the performance of second-best team.