Introduction;
Drop box is a magnificent tool of present times devised by Drew Houstan a 27 year old co-founder and CEO of the company. The program was the result of an episode of frustration of Houstan in which he forgets his USB on an itinerary. He designed a complete programme from that journey and onwards. The tool is much appreciated for its outstanding features of file sync, file sharing, easy accessibility from mobile and web, and online backup with complete security and privacy. The company was established in the year 2007 and launched to the public on September 2008. Within a year of the commencement, the company became a favorite of casual and professional network without any formal marketing. The initial marketing of the programme was from Y combinatory that supported the inauguration in $15,000 which was a hard challenge to be met. However, the strategy onwards was clear and concise. The service was delivered via Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) cloud storage platform that refrain the requirement of infrastructure. The Beta Testing phase was developed for limited users with a free 2 GB drop box, without any premium service. The strategy onwards expanded the client base and users demand with the support of guerrilla marketing. The efficient strategy earned a fortune and image to the company. By the end of 2009 the company offered a 50 GB Drop box for $9.99 a month or $99 a year; a 100 GB option for $19.99 per month/$199 per year. Meanwhile, the 2GB account was free for users on board.
Analysis;
offerings of storage devices completely transformed the market response. In such a scenario Houston was confident for the survival of Drop box with the intention of securing some revenue from the users, as an obvious understanding of consumer that storage costs money. The outstanding services of Drop box in reference to the huge storage space, accessibility across firewalls were the competitive advantage of the system. In addition, real time synchronisation of changes between local drop box set up and file on a drop box server along with other connected devices without any system freeze were the other remarkable features of the system which Houstan narrated as "Engineered Drop box services".
The achievement of success of Drop box marks a series of efforts and strategically moves that led the company to its present state. In the process, the services of a number of product managers were induced to develop a road map for the aspired targets and objectives. Unfortunately, the initial hiring earned no good for the company but added to the frustration due to fragile performance. The marketing efforts were then twisted towards paying services that were eventually not beneficial for the company. Experimentation services to reduce acquisition cost per paying customer were provided which proved equally critical to the success of the company. Soon after the addition of another analytic engineer intended to track conversion with matrices. Prominent cost cutting options were unleashed under the investigation of the team.
The struggle of the team earned great reward for the company in terms of constant growth in global market share with a mature product that serves the requirement of corporate and casual users.
Recommendation;
Evident is the fact that the modifications of the product have earned great value to the company. However, to keep the pace with sustainable development, strong customer support services are essential to maintain the global market share and company image. Pertaining to the programme feature of built in synchronisation via a mobile application programming interface (API) and preinstallation on devices of PC, Android and smart phones. Evident is the fact that the company have altered new heights of success within a short period of time. Moreover, the one for all solution strategy have also been prevailed by multiple device appropriate product. Even though the company has sufficient options to gain online space, yet effective strategy for cleaning dead / waste data should be developed to keep the system in its
best shape for optimum performance. Furthermore, such an action will provide to explore better options for a restore wiz. A restore buzz that can help in the recovery of lost files can be a competitive edge or feature that drags Drop box ahead of the competitors. Likewise, partnership with small scale or medium scale organization working online such as EBay, Amazon, Elance, People per Hour and Guru will support the company to gain further global market share to excel in the industry.
