Case Scenario:
After you and Max give the presentation for the proposed prepaid cell phone application to the venture capitalists, you are asked the following question: The prepaid cell phone industry is growing right now, but eventually demand will level out and the industry will start to mature. How would the maturation of the industry worldwide impact your business strategy?
Scenario:
The demand for cell phones is growing rapidly throughout the world. This has resulted in the emergence and growth of many supporting business opportunities such as cell phone accessories, ring tones, integrated services, and pre-paid cell phones. Although the United States has a high propensity of usage, the industry for cell phones is global in nature with even higher usages reported in some European and Asian countries.
Max Fischer, a former high school classmate, has recently approached you with a business proposition. He just left his job as an engineer for Nokia in order to take advantage of the growing demand for cell phones by creating a new venture that focuses exclusively on pre-paid cell phones. Yet, although Max has an extensive technical background and networks on the manufacturing side, he is unsure of what strategic direction to take it. For instance, should he focus in on a specific niche or keep it more mainstream? What features should he add? What clientele should he market the prepaid cell phones to and how can he best reach them? How should he approach pricing? How can he best compete?
Given your background and management expertise that you have built from your MBA class work, Max would like to offer you a share of the ownership in exchange for helping develop and implement a strategic plan to get the new venture off the ground. This involves presenting the plan to a group of venture capitalists in order to obtain funding to launch the pre-paid cell phone venture.