PoF - PLENTY OF FISH
AGENDA
Group Members:
Haran Alagarajah
Justin Fallis
Abeer Mohammad
Krima Patel
Arifur Rahman
Anh Duc Tran
- Issues the company faces
- Recommendations
- Analysis
- SWOT Analysis
- Porter's Five Forces Model
- Competition
- Sustainability
- Environment/Capabilities
- Alternatives
- Implementation & Issues
- Conclusion
Internal Capabilities:
Current Strategy: Cost Leadership
- simple interface
- few employees
- few servers
Stakeholder's Preferences
Technological resources:
Human resources:
Frind and 1 support employee
- User experience most valuable capability
Ability to generate revenue via advertisements
Recommendations:
Frind:
- Low cost
- Efficient Server
- Application Familiarity
Users:
- Control
- More Moderation and better user experience
Advertisers:
- More users
- Greater exposure to their offering
External Environment:
ISSUES
Grow the Business:
- Scale-Out (i.e. addition of more smaller servers that divide tasks)
- Upgrade servers to SQL 2008
- Expand to global markets
-Saturated market
-Different avenues for generating revenues (i.e. advertisements)
-Loyal customer base
- Sustainability
- Competition
- Technological advancement
Implementation
Overview
- Buy additional servers
- Hire customer service personnel
- Specializing by local language
- Region-based advertisement opportunities
Conclusion of Porter's Model
Conclusion:
Markus Frind founded PlentyofFish.com in 2003
One-employee company
Their slogan: "100% free. Put away your credit card."
$10 million in revenue per year
Risks:
Where the industry stands:
Conclusion of SWOT Analysis
- Greater costs
- Potential technical problems
- Altering existing organizational structure
- Intense rivalry in industry
- Low barriers to entry in the market
- High switching costs for customers/users (buyers)
- Low switching costs for advertisers (suppliers)
- Availability of substitutes (i.e. Speed-dating and other matchmaking agencies one can go to in person)
Based on what we discussed, we recommended Global Expansion as a common solution to address existing issues.
Even though, there are elements of risks associated with this recommendation, we expect the company to reap long-term growth benefits.
Thank you for listening :)
- Many threats (i.e. Facebook)
- Opportunity to globally expand
- Would need additional servers/capacity
- Low operating cost & loyal customer base
Sell the Business
Pros:
Enjoy the revenue
Invest somewhere else
Start a new venture
Cons:
Losing viable business
Possibility of continued growth
Cost of updating business to make it sellable
Grow the Business
Alternatives:
Maintain Status Quo
Pros:
- Grow customer base
- Higher traffic and in turn, higher revenues via advertisements
Cons:
- Costs associated with upgrading and possibly adding additional servers
- Resources might not be readily available
- Pros:
- Continue to enjoy revenue with low cost
- Cons:
- Potential to lose market share (i.e. not sustainable)
- Sell the business & Exit the Market
- "Do nothing" - Maintain Status Quo
- Grow the Business:
- Scale-Up or Scale-Out
- Upgrade servers
- Global expansion
Scale-Up vs. Scale-Out
International Expansion
Upgrade Servers?
Pros:
- Greater market share; growth opportunities
- Greater revenues
Cons:
- More personnel required
- Costs & Reduced short term profit
- Failing to adapt to different markets
- Possibility of losing control depending on strategy used (i.e. Transnational)
Pros:
- Better, improved technology
- More efficient
- Better encryption (with SQL 2008)
Cons:
- Costs associated with switching
- Time to learn new system
- Possibility of downtime
Scale-Up: (Single, larger server)
- Pros:
- Less personnel required
- Simple to maintain and operate
- Cons:
- Regular upgrading of hardware
- Added costs
Scale-Out: (several smaller servers; divided tasks)
- Pros:
- Hardware upgrade not required
- Reduced risk of downtime
- Technology does not become obsolete (i.e. you would not be required to replace it every so often)
- Cons:
- Costly
- More employees required to manage
- Might take long to purchase additional equipment