Your uncle George P. Burdell invites you to visit the manufacturing process and the widget factory he owns. Uncle George proudly boasts that they every step of their production process is managed to operate at maximum efficiency. All machines and employees are used at 100% utilization. You gasp in disappointment. You need to explain a few of things to your uncle. What do you need to explain to him? Explain in a couple of paragraphs.
Choose three companies in an industry that you are interested in (retail, healthcare, services, manufacturing, etc). Draw a product-process matrix and position these companies within the matrix. Briefly explain why you positioned the companies where you did. Note: Companies can’t be all in the same corner. Also, do not choose airlines, restaurants, or any other example we discussed in class.
Briefly discuss a few things companies in the industry you chose could do to move to the “bottom left” corner of the product-process matrix. If you think one of the companies is already in the bottom left corner, explain why.
In the first month of class we covered a few business model innovation tools. In particular, we discussed: focus, real options, resequencing, and modularity. For this question, either identify or propose a business model that uses three of these tools. You cannot use any example we discussed in class. Please address the following items:
1. Fill out the business model canvas for this business (feel free to reuse the company you chose for assignment 1 if you are using an existing company)
2. Explain why and how the three business model innovation tools apply to your chosen business model. What are the information risks or incentive alignment risks these tools are addressing? How is risk being reduced?
3. Briefly list a few costs associated with implementing each of these business model innovation tools. Also, list potential downsides, implementation challenges, or new risks associated with implementing these tools.
