Pandora Reflection

C-level Team,

About a week ago we met with a consulting firm to figure out how we are going to move forward. We have heard some very interesting ideas and now are faced with some tough choices.We are facing the idea of being conservative and wait to be acquired, or move aggressively in all areas to attract and IPO. 

When we were sitting and listening to the consultants they proposed two ideas that sparked an interest of mine. I liked the idea of an "Open Mic" channel that would generate revenue from independent artists that are not signed by major recording labels. The other idea is the "Sharing Community" where users can interact with Pandora and share with friends what they are listening to. This is a great way to keep the Pandora brand alive, however, this also seems short lived if not partnered with another online community that blogs.

I feel the consultants did a great job at allowing me to see additional value in Pandora. Providing new ideas that will enhance our brand as well as provide a revenue stream will keep the company moving forward with the times. With the implementation of the "Open Mic" and "Sharing Community" would be free advice and marketing from current users.

Let me know your thoughts!

Regards,
Tim Booker

Pandora Case Prep

Pandora Case Preparation

 

Problem

It all began in 1999 when Tim Westergren launched his company, then titled Savage Beast, as a music discovery engine to connect listeners with artists. The engine was dubbed as the Music Genome Project where it required that each song placed in the library be dissected, first, by analysts who spent approximately 20-30 minutes codifying as many as 400 different attributes to determine a song’s “musical DNA.” The DNA was used to match a song to its “musical neighbor”, where users could find similar songs that could create a particular mood. Initially this concept was sold to online and offline music stores. The Music Genome served as the back-end to online music experiences offered by America Online (AOL) and Barnes & Noble, in addition to powering kiosks in offline record stores like Tower Records, Best Buy, and Borders.

Due to the company’s economic situation, Westergren was forced to devise a plan to keep the company afloat and complete the music library to increase its value. In March 2004, Westergren was able to raise a Series B round, second round financing for a business by private equity investors or venture capitalists, led by Walden Venture Capital in San Francisco. During this process, Westergren and the board decided that it would be best to hire a new CEO. The new CEO, Joe Kennedy, proposed that that the company change its strategy to become a direct-to-consumer Internet radio service. It was then that Pandora.com was born. This provided a free, highly customized online radio station powered by the Music Genome.

In December of 2007 found himself facing a similar issue that he faced in 2004. Pandora.com user base has grown to 8 million, online hours were growing 50% year on year, and although cash-flow has not reached a positive level, trajectory reports indicate that it could reach a positive cash-flow in two years. Westergren was grappling with satisfying the interest of the investors while staying true to his own dreams for the company. The choices he is faced with are: 1) Taking a more conservative path by reducing the growth levers on SEM and general market spend, slow headcount growth, and raise minimal amount of new investment to reach an exit through possible acquisition? 2) Or, take an aggressive approach by topping out the SEM, hire aggressively, and take advantage of the first-mover advantage? This would lead to the company having the ability to raise a large round of financing to command a heavy valuation to lead to a prospective IPO.

Situation Assessment

When Pandora was founded, the company used its capability to provide back-end music recommendations to other companies. Shortly after the Series B closing, the company also shifted its strategy to focus its efforts on being a customizable Internet radio service. The service would give users the ability to make preferential choices on types of music or artist and then match those selections to songs in Pandora’s library and stream them to the user’s PC.

In September 2005 launched its highly-customizable online radio station and the following May Pandora had a user base of 6.5 million registered users. In March 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board increased royalty rates for Internet radio stations from $0.0117/hour to $.03/hour. Westegren believe that rates like this would “kill” Internet radio sites including Pandora.

Alternatives

Westergren was faced with two choices to decide from. His choices are:

1) Taking a more conservative path by reducing the growth levers on SEM and general market spend, slow headcount growth, and raise minimal amount of new investment to reach an exit through possible acquisition?

2) Or, take an aggressive approach by topping out the SEM, hire aggressively, and take advantage of the first-mover advantage? This would lead to the company having the ability to raise a large round of financing to command a heavy valuation to lead to a prospective IPO.

Recommendation

As the C-Level, I would consider option one as the path for Pandora. As we see, technology is beginning to grow as the years progress. With the music industry suffering from CD sales, having digital music will become more common than going to purchase a CD. Shifting towards the ability to offer users a download option would go completely against the business model that Pandora has established. I would not discount radio, although it is becoming a dying breed and listeners want more music versus talk radio. We need to be conservative with our decisions that would keep us afloat until we can potential sell to a reputable company that will utilize the music genome project in a capacity that Pandora may never reach. Taking an aggressive stance would move Westergren away from what he loves to do thus ultimately leading to a change in the business model to compete with competitors. Granted this could lead to an IPO, but this isn’t certain given how music is played and the source that it comes from. Therefore, a conservative stance would drive Pandora to a possible acquisition by another company to provide users a greater music experience.

Bombardier Reflection

Executive Team,

I understand about a week ago you met with some consultants about the third phase of the ERP. I also emailed over some suggestions of my own but after reading the minutes from the meeting I found some points about the presentation that I did not consider.

From the beginning I felt as though the presenting of a phased roll-out would suit the company a great deal. The suggestions provided by the consultants on focusing the attention to the core business functions first would be best while giving them the ability to access legacy systems for a limited period of time. Also making sure that the system is acceptable to end users is key where we would not spend a lot of time figuring out a workaround.

Another point from their presentation that I agree with is the training provided to the employees and how it is delivered. I believe that job specific training will help in the development of the employee over time with the new system. This would mean a total revamp of our training program for the employees that will benefit us in the end.

Lastly is the tone from the top. Obviously here we are doing well and should continue on our path. We need to let everyone know to accept the new system and we are here to answer questions and make sure that everyone is provided adequate training.

I hope we will use these best practices suggested by the consultants as this would help us maximize the benefit of implementing this ERP.

 

Regards,

TB

Bombardier Case

Bombardier Case Preparation

Problem

After implementing two installments of ERP previously, management is looking to improve the system and learn from prior mistakes in order to have a more successful third ERP implementation.

Following the first ERP implementation, the outcome was lower than expected, so management hired consultants for the second ERP implementation to explain best practices. Although the results were better than following the first implementation, they were not as successful as Bombardier had expected.

At this point, problems have been identified by management that they are attempting to address in order to maximize benefits of the ERP system. The limited success they have had in the past is costing the company in resources. Ultimately Bombardier would like to see its information sharing and data maintenance are kept in view so the information flow is according to the company’s expectations.

 

Situation Assessment

According to Frantz, Southerland and Johnson they compiled 16 best practices in which companies should use a guide in implementing the best practices for ERP systems. These are used to measure effectiveness and success of ERP implementation.

The context of this problem is that Bombardier Limited is a leading international manufacturer of aerospace and transportation products with its aerospace division reporting 48.2 billion 2007. In an increasingly competitive aerospace manufacturing industry, Bombardier recognized that it needed to transition its legacy information systems towards an ERP system. Although technically a success according to management due to its ability to reduce inventory by $1.2 billion without jeopardizing operations or productions, the first rollout of ERP at the Mirabel plant was extremely frustrating to users due to a large communication gap between the project team and employees and the mismanagement of user input and expectations by executives and the employees and the mismanagement of user input and expectations by executives and the project team. The second rollout was much smoother transition wise and employees were trained more adequately as a result of a clear vision and unified message from senior management as to what employee involvement and the priority placed on a company wide support of the new system’s implementation. This third foray into ERP deployment should build on the successes of Saint Laurent and improve on its failings by adhering to ERP best practices.

 

Plausible Alternatives

The alternative course of action would be to adopt the best-of-best practices that lead to a positive ERP implementation. I would recommend that Bombardier employ these best-of-best practices:

·         Executive management should endorse the ERP and remain active throughout implementation. The importance and relevance of the project will be reflected to employees as long as the “tone from the top” shows acceptance. Support from the employees is critical for the success of the ERP for all.

·         Assign a full-time Project Manager. With this practice you can ensure that focus and attention is given at a high priority. The dedicated employee would focus on the success of the rollout, gather feedback, and work to resolve issues.

·         Training for employees before and after implementation. The use of training throughout the implementation will ensure that the system is understood and business needs are met. This would mean an introduction to the new system and once implemented a more rigorous training class on the new system. This allows the users to become familiar with the system prior to classroom training. This was one of the major issues with the Mirabel plant. Employees at the plant felt a disconnect with the implementation process due to the training occurring at times prior to the event occurring. The result showed that the employees could not recall training exercises which caused the employees to feel “behind the pack” when the new system was launched. I would recommend that Bombardier keep 1 or 2 people to stay on for an extended period of time to provide additional support if need be.

·         Communication is key. Here Bombardier needs to be transparent with the flow of information to the users. This will establish a sense of trust between the business community and the project team.

Recommendation

I would suggest using all of these best practices listed in combination. Being mindful of the prior phases, Bombardier should reflect on those lessons. Bombardier should be able to establish a new foundation and strive for on-going communication and involvement to gain maximization of benefits.

Ubuntu Tech Tool

Dear IT Team,

I am writing to you to bring forth an OS that I was reviewing online. The name of the OS is called Ubuntu. I know we currently use Windows as our operating system but what caught my attention was the similarities between both OS in terms of productivity suites.

For starters this is an Linux based platform, open source OS where Ubuntu, which is backed by Canonical, has volunteers who help build and keep Ubuntu running with the most up to date productivity suites. To give a background on Canonical, it is a partnership with Ubuntu where Canonical is responsible for delivering six-monthly releases, as well as co-ordinating security, trouble-shooting and providing an online platform for community interaction. Canonical works closely with businesses and individuals alike. Canonical also develops bespoke systems, provides comprehensive support and all the training that’s necessary to get everybody up and running. With more than 500 employees in over 18 countries, the company continues expanding to support the millions of Ubuntu users around the world.

Now that you have a foundation of Ubuntu and it's partnership with Canonical lets dive straight in to the productivity suite and its compatibility with Microsoft Office. From what I have tested on my own and read, the Libreoffice suite opens and allows me to edit my word and excel files with ease. It's almost like a seamless transition between the two OS office suites.

Considering using the Ubuntu OS system in our organization would be far fetched. Granted there would be tremendous cost savings but there are some many unanswered questions as will the software we currently use work with the Linux platform. Also considering the many access databases we have organized to pull data from other sources, a major overhaul of our OS to this magnitude would be costly in the realm training, implementation, and possible restructuring of our databases. Considering these factors, I do not believe this will be the best decision for our organization at this time. The savings do not outweigh the cost of having this OS.

Feel free to test Ubuntu yourself and let me know your thoughts.

Regards,

Timothy Booker

iPad Case

Dear Newsbelkis,

I have researched the usage of Apple iPads for the Amrahp employees that are in the sales force. After speaking with the Head of IT, Sales Manager, and the VP of Finance, I compiled a list of concerns and gathered as much information I could find to present to you. The goal I believe that is trying to be accomplished is meeting the functional and technical requirements we have set.

The biggest concern that I found was the ability to safe guard our information. Apple has built these devices with standardized configurations that provide security. However, given the sensitive nature of the information we possess, we will need multiple layers of security. Some of the features we can utilize such as remote wipe if the device is stolen or lost, mobile device management, and digital certificates.

Since the device is primarily application based, appropriate apps must be either built or purchased to mirror what is used on the laptop. There are several third party vendors that are compatible with our Microsoft Office Suite or we can build our own app using Apple iOS Developer Enterprise Program tools. To gain access we will need to register each developer for the site and pay $299/year for the service. The good thing is we can build, test, and deploy the app using this tool. Here we can create an address book, calendar, task list, and much more specific to the user; sort of like an electronic briefcase.

I do not foresee this project being a burden on the company, however the initial costs and time to get the sales team established will be the biggest hurdle. Most of the information was readily accessible through www.apple.com/business. Check it out when you get a chance.

 

Regards,

Timothy Booker

ZARA Reflection

Dear Mr. Salgado and Mr. Sanchez,

Recently you met with Fast Solution Consultant in regards to our current POS system. I understand we were presented with three options, upgrading infrastructure and Operating System, Porting existing POS application to new OS, and Not changing existing system. When conducting my analysis I found that upgrading our current infrastructure and OS would prepare us for the changes in technology as well as provide us the accessibility needed to serve our customers. The cost is a bit expensive at first, but the initial costs will end and we will be left with our annual cost However, the benefit of us making this move will give us access to our inventory allowing us to find the right product for our customers. We are still keeping our boutique feel and structure but we are also enhancing our services to benefit our customers.

Hopefully the presentation from Fast Solution Consultants help solidify the recommendation that I made prior.


Regards,

Timothy Booker