STUDENT Showcase
Business Case Study Projects
Fall 2022
Ferrari n.v.
by Donovan Econn, Tammy Kongboonma, Ethan Dilk,
Arek Halicki, and Lucia Shao
Case Study
Spring 2022
BeReal.
by Leon Hua, Kevin Maguire, Ethan O'Keefe, Ingrid Brast
The history books of the future will likely characterize the past decade as one where the prevalence of social media dominated our lives and revolutionized business, communication, and marketing. A major criticism of social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, however, is the amount of processing, editing, and filtering involved in each post or interaction, creating false images of the lives of others and setting unrealistic expectations for a consumer’s own life.
BeReal, then, is the antithesis of that aspect of social media. Without followers, filters,
or likes, BeReal has exploded in usage during the first part of 2022, garnering
exponential growth in popularity especially among younger audiences. Even despite
recent success, the company faces challenges unique to its industry, and it would be in
its best interest to address these issues.
Fall 2018
Blue Apron
by Aziz AlFulaij, Katy Arkell, Kiet Duong, Sam Cloyd, & Wei-Yun Hu
Blue Apron, once the dominant player in the burgeoning meal-kit industry, has experienced a significant downturn over the past few years. Although online food and beverage sales as a whole are expected to grow in the future, sales are decreasing and we are losing market share to competitors like HelloFresh. Existing competitors are gaining strength and new companies are constantly entering the market.
While almost every business experiences difficulties at some point in their life, we are concerned about the facts contained in this report, especially because these trends are projected to continue into the future. We take pride in providing healthy, restaurant-quality meals that can be conveniently prepared in our customers' homes. However, we realize that the only way we can continue to cater to our customers is if we address the problems at hand.
READ MORE HERE
Spring 2018
Fitbit
by Renee Jhu, Raghav Kumar, Jeff Lee, Ankit Shah, Anna Shan
In the past decade, wearable health and fitness technology has greatly increased in popularity, with over 50 million sales in 2015 alone. From 2007 to 2010, Fitbit remained the clear leader in wearable health and fitness technology, but in recent years it has failed to maintain such status with new competition and a shifting market toward smartwatches.
Fitbit is unlike smartwatches because top-of-the-line smartwatches like Apple Watch allow you to read and respond to texts, use a whole host of wrist-based apps, track your heart activity, set reminders, and much more. Fitbit products, while able to track multiple measures such as heart rate, steps, sleep quality, and more, do not have the full range of capabilities that smartwatches do. In this regard, Fitbit has failed to expand and build an ecosystem for its users to integrate the watch with other devices.
Fall 2016
Samsung
by Aram Angelo, Andrea Blitzstein, Catherine Boyer, Cassidy Gale
This report examines Samsung’s history, its competitive advantages, and its most important division: consumer electronics. The report also addresses Samsung’s success and recent failures. The purpose of this report is to provide an in-depth view of Samsung’s consumer electronics division—particularly its main portable electronic, smartphones. Through the information provided, one can assess the effectiveness of the company and evaluate its current predicament with its exploding Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.
Samsung is one of the most valuable global brands. Since 2011, the company has been popular with its various series of flagship phones. One of them includes the Galaxy Note smartphone line. While a majority of Samsung’s products are successful, the company isn’t flawless. For example, Apple, Samsung’s biggest competitor, has sued Samsung for copying its ideas. As well, Samsung’s latest iteration of the Galaxy Note phone, gained the title of the shortest-lived smartphone on the market. Although the intent behind an early launch was to enable first mover advantage, the story unfolded otherwise. Sadly, an unforeseen catastrophe--the phone’s battery explodes--has occurred.
Spring 2016
Airbnb
by Amanda Gray, Shiyue He, Ivanka Hu, Riyani Surya, Ada Xie, and Minghui Xu
Airbnb is a travel website and app for people to list, find, and rent places to live for a short or long period of time. It was found in 2007 in San Francisco, California. The company currently has over 2 million listings across 34,000 cities and 190 countries. Airbnb’s business model focuses on hospitality as a supplier of a “home away from home”. It allows homeowners to list their available spaces for travelers who can interact and learn from local hosts.
Airbnb has been developing at a rapid speed during the past few years. This growth can be attributed to Airbnb’s value as a more affordable alternative to hotel stays with a wide offering of apartments, homes, and even boats. The site also offers a well-designed user-friendly online reservation system for the travelers. The wide use of social media allows homeowners and guests to post pictures and personal experiences on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram attracting more people to use Airbnb. However, Airbnb is currently facing challenges that it must overcome in order to continue to this rapid growth.
SONY Playstation Vue
by Shawn Luo, Micah Rosenberg, Steve Sacia, Jonathan Tannenbaum, Quang Truong
Sony’s PlayStation division launched PlayStation Vue in 2015 to select major cities and then nationwide on March 14, 2016. PlayStation Vue is an internet television service meant to compete with traditional cable television providers by allowing subscribers to choose one of several channel packages to stream live on their television through one of a selection of inexpensive wireless television devices such as Google Chromecast or Amazon Fire TV. This is a different direction for Sony. Understanding that the cable TV industry is in trouble and observing the success of internet streaming companies Netflix and Hulu, Sony decided that its video game division, PlayStation, would offer a streaming program.
In order to understand the opportunities and challenges facing PlayStation Vue as it grows in its infancy on the market, we must examine why it came to be in the first place, provide a basic analysis of how it intends to compete, and then consider issues the product will face. The purpose of this report is to understand the causes and effects of change in the cable television industry, examine PlayStation Vue as a disruptive product catalyzing that change, and consider some questions about the challenges, opportunities, and uncertainties PlayStation Vue faces as it competes against massive, established cable television businesses.
Facebook: Internet Expansion in the Developing World
by Samantha Miller, Sulekha Ramayya, Mary Ramzy, Amy Wang
On February 8, 2016, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, received unsettling news. India’s telecom regulator made the decision to restrict programs providing free access to data, citing net neutrality violations. Facebook, the behemoth social network that has had meteoric success, also has a program called Internet.org. This program encompasses multiple initiatives that aim to expand global reach and access to the Internet1 . Free Basics, one such initiative, was severely restricted as a result of India’s ruling.
This news was so upsetting that Marc Andreessen, billionaire venture capitalist and member of Facebook’s Board of Directors, insensitively tweeted “Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?”2 . He implied that by banning Facebook’s efforts, India was taking a step back and that the nation could benefit from colonialism, be that from a foreign nation or a multinational corporation. Although Zuckerberg openly condemned Andreessen for his words, the challenge of portraying Facebook as a company interested in social good as opposed to colonialism is significant.
Fall 2014
All About Marijuana
by Sarah Sun, Lizette Jimenez, Sean Merrill, Jordan Ahn, Colin McGuire
This case examines the detrimental environmental and economic impacts of unregulated, illegal marijuana cultivation in California, evaluates the potential environmental, economic and medical benefits of marijuana legalization, and discusses possible strategies for California’s regulation of marijuana cultivation in the event that marijuana is legalized in 2016. Given that Colorado has recently legalized the use and regulation of marijuana in Ammendemnt 64 of November 2012, the state will serve as a model for state-regulated marijuana cultivation.