Put together a business canvas for E-ink. (Refer to your Business Model Generation reading!)
2. What is E Ink’s unfair advantage (i.e. what does it have that acts as a barrier to entry for its competitors)?
E Ink had built strong partnerships with investors and experts that enabled them to propel their products in the market through adequate funding. By the time other companies were trying to explore various types of display technologies, E Ink had already established collaborations with world-class investors (Yoffie and Mack 1). Essentially, the business required large amounts of capital to tackle the financial demand of the venture. For instance, to successfully build a technical display solution, technical, cost, and tradeoffs in power issues would be encountered along the way. However, E Ink was able to address such problems as it has an array of collaborations that eased business.
The company received the first round of financing in 1999 and acted immediately on protecting their intellectual property. Various partners that contributed to this unfair advantage that presented a barrier for the competitors to enter the market include Bell Labs, Avery Dennison, Xerox, Seagate, 3M, and Raychem (Yoffie and Mack 3). Other investors from which E-Ink raised a significant amount of capital included Applied Technology, Atlas Ventures, Motorola, Hearst Corporation, Interpublic Group of Companies, and Creavis GmbH.
3. What did E Ink do right? What did it do wrong? What might they have done differently?
E ink did various things in the right way, which promised success for their business. The company identified a niche market early enough and acted aggressively to protect their intellectual property. Additionally, the firm partnered with reliable companies that provided financial support and expertise in the venture. Moreover, E Ink continued to identify opportunities for business and sought ways to meet the various needs. The company had a clear vision of what they intended to do once they rolled out their product. E Ink attempted to deliver the innovative electronic display that had similar attributes as paper (Yoffie and Mack 1). The intention was to manufacture products that were flexible, reflective, and with high contrast. However, the advantage over paper would be that the goods would be updatable, display video and color, and demand low power. Nevertheless, the company encountered some challenges because of the things that they did wrong.
E Ink did not have a defined business model and lacked market focus. The incidence is seen in the way the company had various services and products at one given time. As a new technology firm, E Ink would become a materials supplier, licensing company, products supplier and a subassembly supplier (Yoffie and Mack 1). The company had attempted the four approaches before settling on selling the electronic ink that was used as a display component. The lack of market focus and a defined business model resulted in a waste of time, skill, and money.
E Ink could have done various things differently to avoid the wastage. First, the firm could have identified the need they wanted to meet and develop a single product for that purpose. In this case, a business model was essential as it would have acted as a tool that allowed them to focus on a particular market. Also, the company would have used the resources they had to develop and grow a single product as opposed to diversifying in the initial stages.
4. Assuming the company gets the money it needs to stay alive, what do you do as CEO? Which markets would you attack? Which sort of business model would you adopt (it may help to look at the BMG reading to answer this question)?
As the CEO of the company, the markets that would be worth attacking is the matrix displays as this segment continued to provide the most promising revenues compared to graphical displays and electronic publishing. However, to have success in the business, a viable business model would be appropriate.
Works Cited
Osterwalder, Alexander, and Yves Pigneur. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
Yoffie, David B., and B. J. Mack. "E Ink in 2005." Harvard Business School Case, 2005, pp. 1-24.
