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Analysing the market and the customer
Marketing chapter case study answer zipcar
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Based on Criteria’s of Evaluating Venture Opportunities there are several key indicators that shows that Zipcar is indeed a high potential venture. Below are the criteria in brief
1.0 Industry & Market
Market: The revolutionary concept certainly provides an alternative to public transport. Furthermore the car sharing concept is really useful for the public in a overcrowded city with limited parking & expensive parking fees. This is clearly not an untouched segment because there are other 2 competitors operating.
• Customer: The target customers are educated and internet savvy urban dwelling people.
• User Benefits: Non car owners will have the service at their disposal when ever they require thru reserving it on the web.
• Value added: All billings are done online and is hassle free. Users have access to utilization data. System is fully automated with wireless data sending and receiving.
• Product life: Product will be long life as annual market growth is expected to be 30%.
1.1 Market Structure
As I mentioned earlier, the market is not completely untapped, but the other competitors are concentrating in the metropolitan area. The whole US market is still available to be ventured into.
1.2 Market Size
The potential market size is huge, as forecasted, in 14 metropolitan cities it would be $200 million.
1.3 Growth Rate
The annual growth rate is expected to be 30 %.
1.4 Market Capacity
It’s at its fullest capacity, as only Portland & Seattle have similar services.
1.4 Market share attainable (Year 5)
It is capable of capturing 13.8% of the market share. It is not a market leader, but with continuous development & effort has the potential to be a market leader.
1.5 Cost Structure
ZipCar is a low cost provider. Ma...
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...nal Criteria
6.1 Goals and fit
The founders have potential success with moderate risk. The founders are also very passionate with their idea.
6.2 Upside / downside issues
ZipCar founders have invested their own money into the venture and have been seen taking salary cuts.
6.3 Desirability
The founders thrive under pressure working hard to locate funding for ZipCar.
7.0 Strategic Differentiation
7.1 Degree of fit
The venture has a revolutionary service concept that serves the purpose and customer needs.
7.2 Team
The founders have good fundamental in finance and management background.
7.3 Service management
7.4 Timing
7.5 Technology
7.6 Flexibility
7.7 Opportunity orientation
7.8 Pricing
7.9 Distribution channels
7.10 Room for error
Conclusion
Based on the criteria discussed above, ZipCar is a high potential venture with good returns.
Real Threat of New Entrants: Fed Ex, DHL, and TNT have capabilities in certain regions on par with UPS, but new entrants are unlikely to build such a globe-spanning infrastructure, then incur the expense of trying to steal share from these established networks.
It can be positive or negative. In the years to come, It’s hard to say what Zipcar members and their expecting customers should expect. Merging with Avis, Zipcar will have more advantage to grow even more rapidly because Avis years of establishment. The team and members should increase financially. “Zipcar will receive financial backing, the right to obtain more car stock, and a better movement of their service network. Avis will improve efficiency of process for rental technology and a rising brand (Kabak, B., (2013), para. 4).” Zipcar should go forward with their excellent transport rental services arrangement which include lower rates, gas and insurance that will always attract new customers. Zipcar unique and popular ways of helping people
Offering consumers access to an extensive inventory online along with warranties, service, financing, appraisals, and add the consumer’s ability to sell the car to the dealership is CarMax’s brand. CarMax needs to continue to leverage their competitive strengths while making sure they offer the best-priced cars to the very competitive used car buying consumer. While it may be attractive to CarMax to enter new car market, they risk losing the ability to conduct their business model as manufacturers have various rules and contract requirements to carry the Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Honda, or Toyota product lines. With this, they risk losing their brand recognition and identity with their consumers. Additionally, costs associated with buying an existing dealership with inventory and various licensing and franchising fees have the potential to drive up costs and therefore threaten their ability to price
Hertz operates its car rental business through various brands in 145 different countries. Hertz was named, for the thirteenth time, by Travel + Leisure readers as the Best Car Rental Agency (Hertz Annual Report, 2013). Hertz is one of the top companies in the car rental industry by obtaining 18.6% of the market share (IBISWorld, 2014). In addition to the leading position that Hertz has built within its industry, the focus was to add more value offerings while recreating the experience in car rentals across the globe. Hertz employs both growth and competitive strategies to sustain competitiveness.
The co-founder, Mark Butler, owes a major note to the other original partner, who Mark bought out. He has a mortgage on his 12-year-old house and no other significant investments. Mark’s personal references indicate that he is hard-working and watches his business very closely.
They have over 11,555 worldwide rental car locations and are at the point where they can cover their short-term liabilities with cash flow from their operations. Hertz’s adjusted earnings per share increased 77.1% meaning that their market value has increased. Their revenues increased by 34%, while they had a cumulative cost savings of $3 billion (Hertz Annual Report, 2013). This demonstrates that Hertz has the financial resources and the access to markets that they need. Hertz has successfully integrated their ExpressRent kiosks in more than 48 markets and their eReturn option for Hertz Gold loyalty program members, in which they have the ability to choose the Hertz ‘Fuel Purchase Value Option’ that lets them automatically buy a full tank at the start of the rental, so they can turn in the car with the gas at any level and not have to worry about filling up on the way to the
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.
The problem with Dell Inc. was the rapid growth within the company in their beginning stages.
The innovation has had the backing of the investors with a lofty market cap of $30 billion thereby translating into a significant innovation premium. This premium has helped the Company contest to the topmost of “Forbes Most Innovative Companies” ranking in 2005 and stays in that positon further maintaining position one for the year 2016 classification (Gregersen, 2016). Discussion Subthemes The subthemes are desirable electric vehicles and transforming Auto industry from ICE vehicles to electric vehicles. These two themes are relevant to the global connections. To begin with, the Tesla has produced desirable electric vehicles which go faster and further than any other electric vehicles (Gregersen, 2016). Moreover, these desirable electric vehicles (cars) safer than the internal combustions engine (ICE) vehicles. In this cases, the Tesla’s cars are relevant to the global connections because they are safe and go faster and further. This will facilitate the movement of people making them to connect faster and further. The second theme is also relevant to the global connections (Gregersen,
The key strategies and distinctive competencies that have led the company to success and its present position of a world leader in the Internet sales can be identified as follows.
STARTUP.com is the story of two best friends since a very young age coming up with an idea of basically paying traffic tickets and registering vehicles online! Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, a savvy business man who left his job at Goldman Sachs felt this idea would be the one that would fulfill his need of money for the rest of his life, and decided to do whatever he could to try and make this idea into a realization. He would later become in charge of all business aspects of the company and C.E.O. Tom Herman, the other half of this project was just in need of money and fast, for he had a daughter that he was unable to take care of. Tom would later become in charge of the technical aspect of the company and C.E.O. This product idea would soon attract a couple of other people to the point where they would even invest their own money just to see this happen. The product would later be named Govworks.com. ...
The company also benefits from e-mail in another way: employee contact and customer service. “We literally have no incoming calls—ever,” says Knapp. “Everything—99 percent of what we do—is handled via e-mail. People don’t want to call in. People don’t want to wait on hold. We have a one-hour e-mail policy, so our customers get an immediate response.
There are high entry costs to enter the market. The large industry competitors already have captured the market share.
potentially the next big startup. Innovation is expensive by default, however the returns are better off
Confronting the challenges of the future will often require the adoption of new business models. The majority of urban transport business models are at the growth or maturity stage. These models embrace technologies developed for both individual modes of transport and collective modes such as bus, tram and train.