Strategic Portfolio Analysis: A New Market Opportunity for eAppeals LLC

Diplomarbeit von Alexander Tange

Zusammenfassung:

Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde zum grössten Teil in den USA erstellt. Der Autor hatte über einen Studentenaustausch und ein Praktikum in Miami/USA einen Kontakt zu einem Start-Up-Unternehmen aufgebaut, mit dem zusammen er schliesslich seine Diplomarbeit erarbeitete. Unterstützt wurde er dabei massgeblich von Frau Prof. Dr. Nickerson von der Barry University in Miami, einer Partneruniversität der GSO FH Nürnberg, zu der intensivste Beziehungen bestehen.

Das Ziel der Arbeit bestand darin, aufbauend auf das erfolgreiche Business Modell der Firma eAppeals LLC neue Geschäftsfelder in Europa zu identifizieren und zu bewerten. Dazu war es erforderlich, Erfolgsgrundlagen der Firma in den USA zu untersuchen, die Übertragbarkeit der spezifischen Lösungen auf anderen Anwendungen zu überprüfen und schliesslich neue Märkte zu finden und zu vergleichen. Der Verfasser benutzte zu letzterem eine spezifische Methode, nämlich die sog. „Strategische Portfolio Analyse“.

Die Struktur der Arbeit ist sehr gut: nach Einführung gibt der Autor einen Überblick über relevante Literaturansätze zum Thema „Business Plan“ (Kap. 2). Anschliessend entwickelt er in Kap. 3 die zugrunde liegende Idee (Kap.3), beschreibt die Firma (Kap. 4) und entwirft dann die methodische Vorgehensweise (Kap. 5).

Die Haupteile der Arbeit sind sodann die Marktanalyse bzw. die Suche nach neuen strategischen Geschäftsfeldern (Kap. 6) und schliesslich die Strategische Portfolio Methode (Kap. 7).

Die Arbeit überzeugt insgesamt durch ihre kreative und auch gründliche Vorgehensweise. Der Verfasser hat sich insbesondere in den empirischen Teilen tief in die anspruchsvolle Materie hineingearbeitet. Juristische, technische und organisatorische Aspekte werden detailliert untersucht. Die Marktanalyse stützt sich auf eine sehr gute Datenbasis mit aktuellsten Zahlen.

Besonders gelungen ist der Teil der Strategischen Portfolioanalyse, in dem der Autor auf ein 8-köpfiges Experten-Team zurückgreift. Diese Experten mit verschiedensten beruflichen Hintergründen bilden eine starke Kompetenz-Gruppe, die durchaus das Know-how und die Erfahrung hat, die gefundenen Märkte zu bewerten.

Es ist zu hoffen, dass die gefundenen Ergebnisse zu einer Realisierung führen. Eine gute Grundlage für den Markteinstieg wurde jedenfalls mit dieser Diplomarbeit gelegt.

Abstract:

Establishing something new, working towards a vision and following a path of independence and uniqueness all describe the benefits of entrepreneurship. That and other thoughts have driven the author to study International Business at the Georg-Simon-Ohm University of Applied Sciences. That programme not only allowed him to spend two semesters in the United States of America but also to gather invaluable economic insight during two internship semesters. That was exactly when the author was the first time exposed to an entrepreneurial environment as he completed a five-month internship at an US start-up company called eAppeals LLC. Working at a start-up company meant being exposed to a young company culture, meeting real entrepreneurs and working in small teams. But also, start-up experiences meant starting each business process from scratch, working long hours and being exposed to uncertainty. This experience contributes to continue following a career path which eventually will lead to a new venture creation.

Consequently, this thesis encounters a lot of entrepreneurial thinking and is trying to identify a new business opportunity, the prerequisite for building a new business. This thesis promotes entrepreneurial thinking by discussing business plan theory. It furthermore invites creativity and welcomes any new thoughts, while aiming at the identification of a business opportunity and examining its feasibility. The author is inspired by the entrepreneurial action he has experienced at eAppeals and is curious about establishing a new opportunity in order to create own new entrepreneurial action. And that is at the same time the motivation behind this thesis.

Table of Contents:

Table of Contents:

Text Sample:

Chapter 2.3.3, Discussion of the Business Plan Essentials:

The four independent factors for a new venture by William A. Sahlman:

In the section 2.2.2 „The Business Plan Content – The Essentials” the author presented the four independent factors critical to every new venture creation, which are, according to William A. Sahlman, the keys to success within every business plan framework. Within his business plan framework the venture’s management team is skillful and experienced in regard to the opportunity. Having worked together in the past would perfectly match investors’ requirements. The opportunity has a popular and lasting business model, which has the potential to outperform its competitors. A solid market position provides plenty of alternatives for future growth and is unique to the venture and its people. Also, there are plenty of options to harvest or even to exit the business. The context is supportive in light of the regulatory and macroeconomic environment. The management team knows the risks as well as how to prevent difficult events. Thus, superior businesses have excellent answers to questions regarding the management team, the opportunity, the context and the risk and reward. In Figure 2, the author summarized the relationship of the four independent factors of new ventures as presented by William A. Sahlman.

Figure 2 illustrates that the four factors that represent the essentials of a business plan after William A. Sahlman, individually and as a system, create an environment in which new ventures are born and compete. Initially, this figure is reminiscent of Porter’s famous diamond in a different constellation. As Porter’s diamond addresses the question: „Why does a nation achieve international success in a particular industry?”4, here the appropriate questions is: „Why does a new venture achieve sustainable success in a particular industry?” The word „nation” is replaced by „new venture” as we are talking about entrepreneurship and the word „international” is replaced by „sustainable” to express the new venture’s goal more precisely. As it can be seen the core questions only differ in a minimal way. Now the question arises, whether Sahlman’s theory represents Porter’s Diamond in a different context? If so, Sahlman’s four independent factors should somehow match with the four determinants of Porter’s Diamond which are: factor conditions, demand conditions, related and supporting industries and firm strategy, structure and rivalry. By looking at the factor conditions, Porter counts skilled labor as one, and thus, it easily can be matched with Sahlman’s factor, the management team. However, it is questionable whether matching the management team only with the factor conditions is sufficient, as there are other factor conditions such as capital or infrastructure. A next match would have to be found for the opportunity within Sahlman’s theory. No one less than Porter himself already looked at this question as he tried to integrate the role of chance in his model.

„Invention and entrepreneurship are the heart of national advantage. […] a visionary or inventor might be located in any nation, which means that the birth of a world class industry can take place anywhere. […] the determinants become important in developing an industry but its initial formation is a chance event”.

Thus, Porter defines entrepreneurial activity as a chance event, which possibly could be matched with Sahlman’s factor the opportunity. Now, as Sahlman’s opportunity and Porter’s chance event are identical, how does Porter’s diamond reflect the opportunity respectively the chance event? Porter says that: „ Chance events play their role partly by altering the conditions in the „diamond”. Thus, chance respectively opportunity cannot be matched with any determinants of the diamond, but rather influence each of its determinants, and therefore it has to be seen as an external determinant within the diamond. For example, a new invention can make production more efficient (factor condition), and therefore lowers prices (demand conditions), lowers margins of competitors (related and supporting industries) and finally have impact on the firms strategy, structure and rivalry.

According to Porter, the nation with the most favorable „diamond” will be the one that exploits the opportunity most effectively. It seems to be correct that the opportunity can be turned into competitive advantage by a skilled management team; however, that is not in line with Porter’s diamond as we failed to match Sahlmon’s factors with Porter’s determinants of the diamond. This is justified by recalling that Sahlmon’s theory makes business plans more effective, but not businesses themselves. The question „Why does a new venture achieve sustainable success in a particular industry?” obviously depends on different determinants than the ones of Porter’s diamond. In this context the already mentioned pioneer of entrepreneurial education, Jeffry A. Timmons, provides an interesting theory, the Timmons Model of the Entrepreneurial Process.