Business Strategy
Authors: Andrew Tse, Bill Nazzaro, Marc Biessy, Peter Manos, Ted Tabaka
The strategies for the 11 companies we visited are listed below: LifeLock, Microsoft, HERE, Joyus, Remind, Airbnb, Gogobot, Quotient Technologies, Google, Handshake, and LinkedIn
LifeLock wants to provide value and security for customers when it comes to their financial transactions. With access to a person’s credit report, they can monitor various regularly occurring bills to ensure that if there is an unusual amount at any time, they can alert the user to this.
Microsoft is a multi-discipline company that has a large selection of hardware and software. Their primary product or service focus is more on a cloud first approach. Where services such as Office 365 are providing businesses with tools to innovate their own great ideas. Other services such as Microsoft Azure, or the cloud server technology are opening doors and evolving of the web and computing interfaces. Other products such as Microsoft Delve, which is part of Office 365, that combines other products such as Microsoft SharePoint to deliver ideas and information.
HERE primarily provides large auto manufactures a centralized mapping technology to embed on onboard navigation systems. The company is owned by Audi, BMW, and Daimler. HERE still operates as an independent company, and works with other auto manufactures to develop mapping technology that meets their needs. Services such as Bing Maps use this technology to map the world around them. The product is the information and data that HERE maps has, and use that information to create a useable product. They are currently moving some of their B2B (Business 2 Business) to a B2C (Business to Consumer) offering, and by providing their mapping technology as a personal map and navigation application for Android and iOS.
Joyus provides its customers a huge selection of the best trending fashion, beauty and wellness products. The company also innovatively generates sales from video-commerce though not the way you would expect, in a new way not from ads but informational videos added to outside content and distributed by their partners.
The focus at Remind is on getting new teachers to sign up in order to get a bigger user base. Those users are then going to create their fame and help them to pass through schools, which would even push their teacher/professor base to even higher levels thanks to the schools that could require teachers/professors to become a remind user.
Airbnb wants their customers to feel at home, everywhere. By having travellers stay in the homes of hosts in cities throughout the world, they get an experience that is not matched by traditional hotels or hostels. The company also feels that its service puts wasted space to good use, improving the condition of the planet. When a large event occurs in a city, hotel space is at a premium. There is no reason to build space that is only needed on occasion, and is empty most of the time. There are also people with extra space that could be filled when capacity needs to be more elastic. Finally, they feel they are helping their hosts make ends meet in an economy that has left some people behind. They are working to improve the planet, in their own area, introducing people who need a place to stay with people who have room.
Gogobot’s growth strategy was mainly based on growth hacking. In order to achieve it, they used to send a message to friends of a person that signed up on Facebook telling that you joined Gogobot. This was the main way for them to get people to know about gogobot and by the same time to make them want to join the review platform.
Google delivers analytical insights to enable innovation. Whether it’s identifying acquisitions and investments, monetizing strategies for products, or developing partners in emerging markets such as Africa and India, Business Strategy Googlers anticipate opportunities and execute programs critical to Google’s short- and long-term growth.
Handshake knew from the start that they had a path to profitability. The career centers at universities that made up their first customers already had an annual budget to pay for systems. They knew from their experience that those systems had flaws. And they worked directly with their customers to solve their problems, so they could provide a better experience for students and staff. This has allowed them to make an impact quickly as they continue to add schools and recruiters to the platform.