Walnut Venture Associates
RBS Group is a complete accounting application solution provider targeting its products to software companies. Their product, SOFTRAX, provides software companies with a full-package of solutions spanning in financials, sales & marketing, customer support and software operations. Robert O’Connor, RBS’s founder and CEO was seeking a $2 million second round venture capital financing to support their regional sales offices growth and recruit personnel in sales, implementation & customer support. Though RBS is still a young company, it indicates to position itself in a unique niche market within a solid market. They have seasoned management team and have allied with several key clients and partnerships.
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Although early adoption of two regional offices in late 1997 contributed to seven new customers and $600,000 in revenue, further sales team expansion doesn’t necessarily to lead a great incremental growth. In addition, four additional offices are located in New York, Chicago, the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic States, which don’t cluster the pockets of concentration in the software market. The second issue is related to challenges along with modified business model. RBS originally devoted their time and spirit into business advisory and updating existing platforms and currently, means to expand their value-add service in the future. Though their alternative product offering value-add Web Order to SOFTWAX’s web application has been successful, other future value-added products may not meet the demand from customers. This aggressive strategy in value-add service area along with geographical expansion into an international market increases future risk exposure for persistent growth. Last issue is related to the fierce competition in the industry. Although RBS leads a unique business model in the market, it operates in a highly congested replacement market for internal systems. Some individual commercial product provider in financials, sales & marketing, and customer support can expand their business line upwards
Contrary to the situation at E-Z RP, there is no linkage of customer service representatives to development teams. For instance, CRSs are often the last to gain access about new information or new products. In terms of the organization of customer service, E-Z RP uses a specialized call center where customer service representatives deal with a single product. At Datatronics, the call center is centralized and CRSs deal with all products. E-Z RP uses the second tier support while Datatronics uses a minimal second-tier support. In terms of the training of CSRs, Datatronics only provides minimal on-the-job training while E-Z RP provides extensive training. Datatronics hires employees with basic customer service ability while E-Z RP recruits employees based on customer service skills, business knowledge, and communication ability. The performance metric at E-Z RP is the level of customer satisfaction, while the metric at Datatronics is the time on call or between calls. Although Matt does not intend to reproduce E-Z RP’s customer service system at Datatronics, these are the key issues that he ought to consider in making recommendations for changes at Datatronics.
They should also see if Softrax offers a software solution which is truly different, and better than the competition. Can a larger company like Oracle create a similar product and outrun Softrax? RBS definitely looks in good financial shape, and if further research does not contradict the given information, they should be a promising venture to invest in. Perhaps Walnut will negotiate the terms of the investment to reduce the amount to $1 million. RBS would then either have to seek for different investors, or reduce their expansion plans accordingly. Planning the investment in order to exit after three years (2000) should be relatively safe and profitable.
The Rose Company is building a new plant to reduce cost, improve the quality of products, and maintain competitive leadership by gaining a slight production advantage. The main obstacles to be overcome are the commissioning of a new plant, new methods and process, and administrative reporting issues. As the newly hired General Plant Manager, I plan to resolve these issues by insisting that all plant communications flow through me, instituting training for plant personnel and setting operational expectations.
Grove Street Advisors (“GSA”) is a leading fund-of-funds, focused on investing in “low risk” top-tier private equity funds that are not excessively large nor highly levered. GSA is faced with a number of strategic alternatives to help catalyze the firm’s next stage of growth. We propose that GSA expand globally and continue to build expertise in relatively underserved global PE markets such as China and India to help meet its objectives of satisfying customer needs, enhancing its international reputation, staying responsive to trends in private equity, and ultimately maximizing profitability.
When a certain point is reached regarding a company’s success, a set of different opportunities arise and partnerships may unfold. However, with every possible strategy available, risks and benefits also come into play; without discarding any of them beforehand, every option is a strong candidate until a final decision is made. In this case study we will analyze the current business strategy pertaining
RBC’s strategy of pleasing everyone, by fitting in with their needs or expectations is not sustainable over the long-run. Sustainable competitive advantage happens once a firm has awestruck a strong market niche in which a differentiated set of products and services serve a select client sector grater. RBC’s strategy of serving all niches cannot be successful in the long-run. RBC is providing a range of products or services in one place by leveraging its acquisitions to become a totally integrated financial
Technology and Information Systems- the Company will continue to expand its e-commerce business in the future. Its e-commerce sales today gross over one billion. Its plan is to focus on continued profitability with online sales. Part of the plan included a full assessment of the online business to analyze the main areas of functionality and online improvements. It will also continue its Omni channel capabilities, which includes shipping to store and in-store pickup exclusively during the holidays. Due to the rapid growth of mobility, over 50% of its e-commerce sales
* From the firings, we can see that management does not share Arnell’s plans for massive changes.
Mayfield charged a budget-based management fee to appeal to potential LPs. Because industry practice was traditionally a 2/20 based fee, Mayfield had a competitive advantage against other VCs as the budget-based fee was attractive because:
1. Consider Dunlap’s statement on page 3 of the case: “Stakeholders! Every time I hear the word, I ask how much did they pay for their stake? There is only one constituency I am concerned about and that is the shareholder primacy? Do you agree or disagree with Dunlap’s view of shareholder primacy? Explain
With limited budget to spend for upgrade, BAL had to consider a more rational way to improve current system. In addition, regarding the company size, there wouldn’t be economy of scale at
In response to a loss of clientele to competitor firms, Ken Winston (C&B’s Boston Sales Office Director) assembled the five most successful salespeople into a Key Accounts Team (KAT). Having previously enjoyed the autonomy of selling a diverse array of products to their own clients, these five ‘Generalists’ would now ‘Specialize’ only in one specific
When TRO has enough accounts to be profitable in those geographical areas, Steve wants to move to Denver, and end in California. Using data from the case, it shows that California, Michigan, and Ohio are ranked top 10 in sales for optical goods stores. The advantage TRO has on his competitors are it is recognized leader in the industry, and has been selected Transition Lab of the Year and honored by the Optical Lab Association as one of the top 25 labs in the country. Based on geographical distribution of optical good stores, Steve’s plans for growth do make sense. He is aiming growth in profitable states. On the other hand, Steve’s plans should include states that are actually closer to him, and that are, as well, ranked in the top 10 in sales such as New-York, and Illinois.
Rosewood Hotels and Resorts is a private hotel management company established in 1979 by the Caroline Rose Hunt Trust Estate. It is a well known company in the luxury hotels market which owns 17 iconic properties in 7 different countries (http://www.rosewoodhotels.com/en/the_company/). The first hotel was The Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas; afterwards the company expanded its “collection of unique properties” all over the world by converting and repositioning existing sites and by building up brand new luxury hotels. The distinctive feature of this collection is the so called “A sense of Place”. In fact in a Rosewood hotel every single
*Integrate all areas of sales support and get rid of the industry centered structure of proposal support. BPS has relied on the unique industry-centric organization of their sales support and salespeople for competitive advantage. Customer surveys to gauge how much they actually value the industry niche approach could be useful in determining what effect any