Case Study: The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Uber’s Founder Travis Kalanick

Travis Kalanick is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder of Uber Technologies Inc., a ride-hailing company that revolutionized the transportation industry. He was born on August 6, 1976, in Los Angeles, California. Kalanick grew up in a middle-class family and showed an early interest in entrepreneurship.

Kalanick attended the University of California, Los Angeles, but dropped out before completing his degree to pursue his entrepreneurial ventures. He co-founded his first startup, Scour, a peer-to-peer file-sharing company, in 1998. However, Scour faced significant legal challenges related to copyright infringement and was eventually forced to file for bankruptcy.

Kalanick went on to found several other startups, including Red Swoosh, a content delivery network, and Uber, which he co-founded in 2009 with Garrett Camp.… Read the rest

Effects of Leadership and Organizational Climate on Innovation

Now more than ever, companies are putting more attention to innovation that make their products and services more competitive, thereby enable them to survive and flourish in the changeable and challenging global environment. Innovation is seen as the first attempt to carry out a new creative idea, and translate it into practice. However, it isn’t easy; it’s a difficult and complex task. There are two primary factors influencing the success of innovation: technical resources (people, equipment, knowledge, money, etc.) and the abilities in the organisation to manage these resources to encourage innovations. However, the latter is the precondition which can place high premiums on innovation.… Read the rest

Case Study of Rolls Royce: Innovating for the Future

Rolls Royce is a market leader in propulsion and distributed energy systems for both the defense and civil aerospace markets. Their commercial markets cover nuclear, gas turbine, and diesel technologies to power everything from small planes and trains to entire cities. The aerospace applications for innovation are where Rolls Royce has made significant investments and reaped interesting rewards. On the defense side of their business, they have over 16,000 engines in service. In the civil aerospace side of their business, they provide engines to airlines, private business and engines for helicopters.

Major Changes in Industry

The nature of the aerospace industry has relatively high barriers to entry as the cost for entry is high and requires specific skills and expertise.… Read the rest

What is Strategic Innovation?

Innovative thinking can be applied to the strategic planning of an organization to create new opportunities and boost market performance. Strategic Innovation is the creation of growth strategies, new product categories, services, or business models that change the market and generate significant new value for consumers, customers, and the organization. Strategic Innovation takes the road less traveled – it challenges an organization to look beyond its established business boundaries and to create possibilities in an open-minded and creative environment. It has been seen that focusing on the short-term aspects typically yields short-term results, however, firms seeking to make significant breakthroughs identify both, big and innovative ideas.… Read the rest

Strategic Marketing Tools – Ansoff Matrix and BCG Matrix

Ansoff Product-Market Expansion Grid

A useful planning tool in respect of markets and products is the matrix developed by Igor Ansoff, who is regarded by some as the ‘Father of Strategic Management’. Fully titled the Ansoff Product-Market Growth Matrix, the tool was first published in Harvard Business Review, 1957, in Ansoff’s paper Strategies for Diversification.

The Ansoff Product-Market Expansion Grid or Ansoff Matrix helps to understand and assess marketing or business development strategy. Any business or part of a business can choose which strategy to employ, or which mix of strategic options to use.

This is a fundamentally simple and effective way of looking at strategic development options.… Read the rest

Case Study: Causes of the Recent Decline of Tesla

Tesla is a pioneering company that was founded in 2003 by a group of innovative and driven engineers. For years electric cars had a stigma for being worse than traditional gas-powered vehicles. The general public believed that a high-quality electric car could not exist. This is where Tesla stepped in, the firm quickly went to work crafting a high-end electric car and released the revolutionary Roadster sports car. The Roadster was considered a major feat because it could travel very far on a single charge unlike many other electric cars. The Roadster was a very physically attractive car that helped make the idea of riding around in an electric sports car seem like a sleek and cool thing.… Read the rest