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Subject:MarketingPrice:0 Bought3
1. You have been recently hired as product manager for a provider of solar energy home solutions.
Your company manufactures, sells, and installs integrated battery systems that: (a) produce electricity using solar panels installed on roofs; (b) stores this electricity in batteries for usage when not producing (e.g. night, cloudy days, winter etc.); (c) can use the battery stored power during outages; and (d) allows for electricity barter (i.e. sell to grid when overproducing and buy when
underproducing). Please come up with a key pointers that you can use to convince homeowners to adopt this new technology. Please consider both economic (i.e. perform TEV analysis) and non- economic (i.e. psychological value). Support as many of these pointers with facts as possible (you are expected to do some research). Use following facts for TEV calculations:
a. Home uses 850 kWHr per month. Electricity currently costs $0.10 per kWHr + $50/month fixed fees mandated by government for grid maintenance.
b. Assume a carbon neutral home with no need for electricity bartering. This will require 15kW solar panel costing $40,000 and batteries large enough to store electricity for a two days of use $22,000. These prices include installation.
c. For sake of simplicity assume uniform power consumption across the year. The system has an expected age of 25 years (for sake of simplicity assume no battery degradation). Also, assume that system required no maintenance (install and forget).
d. The US Federal Government currently offers a 30% rebate on the cost of this system.
Focus of this question Is your ability to conduct TEV analysis (value based pricing), understand product life cycles, and understand/convey customer value.
2. Microsoft is one of the largest and most important technology firms in the world. Its market domination can be assessed from the fact that it has remained as Top 10 most valuable company for more than 30 years. One of the reasons for this domination ts the ability to regularly expand its product offering to match the ever-changing market needs. In its lifespan, Microsoft has undertaken several product breadth and line expansions (i.e. increase product mix breadth). It has grown from
an OS company to now offering everything from OS to cloud computing services.
Please focus on the following expansions: Internet Explorer (1995), Xbox (2001), Azure (2008), Bing
(2009), Microsoft Stores (2009), Windows Phone (2010), Surface Tablet (2012), and MS Teams
(2017). For each of these: (a) identify strategic reasons for expansions; (b) evaluate the reasons for
their success or failure.
Focus of this question is your ability to analyze firm’s product portfolio and examine reasons why firms expand or contract the breadth of their product line and why these products succeed or fail.
You are expected to conduct extensive research and cite your sources. To optimize space, please use
a table format to answer this question.
Starbucks is arguably the market leader in specialty coffee houses and serves almost 100 million customers in the US. Its has created a welcoming environment—a “third space” which could easily
be construed as a Relationship-based competitive advantage. Watch the following WSJ report: The
Economics of Starbucks (https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=1-OJX1rwnl8) to learn about their
history and business model.
Below are five types of ‘typical’ Starbucks customer segments and their behavior w.r.t. Starbucks.
Identify CLV of each segment over a five years window. What is the total value of these customer
segments to Starbucks? How would you manage these customer segments to maximize their value
for Starbucks?
Focus of this question ts your ability to perform CLV calculations, total customer value analysis, and
AER strategies. The recommendation should consider the key issues faced by Starbucks as discussed
in the video.
Segment | Average Average | Key Aspect of Purchase | Retention | Weekly Acquisition
Type Spend Per | Visits Per | Behavior Rate Retention Cost (S$)
Visit ($) Week Cost ($)
1 Hot Drinks; Web/App | Je, 2.00 20.0% 200
Order Takeaway
2 Drinks + Baked Goods; | ang, 25.0% 350 | 15%
In-store Consumption
Iced Drinks; In Store
Multiple Drinks Per
Drinks + Packaged Food; 200 50.0% 300 | 10%
In-Store Consumption
Use discount rate of 8%
The Economics of Starbucks (WSJ Report)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-OJX1rwnlg
