Dropbox: It Just Works
Dropbox: “It Just Works”
(HBS 9-811-065)
Kunal Sharma
Advanced Entrepreneurship
March 11, 2013
100410018
Word Count: 854
Question 1 a) The reason that Dropbox is such a universal concept is because anyone in the world can be a buyer of Dropbox. It can be an individual trying to save and access their pictures on different platforms or it can be a multinational firm who uses the product as a “file collaboration” software within the firm. “The idea is to get people using it inside companies without IT’s permission. Once IT sees that Dropbox is in heavy demand and that it works reliably, we’ll get certified for use across the company.” (Pg3, P3, Dropbox: it just work’s, 2012). So basically the buyer can literally be anyone with a need for easy access to storage of data across multiple platforms. Usually in other industries the buyers would be a small group of people or companies for whom the product was specifically made and marketed for, as well as each industry tries to capture a part of the market share. Whereas in terms of Dropbox, as we can see that the buyers differ in a way that anyone can become one as the service is offered free of charge for users who do not wish to store too much data. Identifying buyers is one of the key steps of opportunity assessment. In order to see whether if a product or service will have sales depends on its buyers and if they exist or not, if a product or service is launched and there is not a real need for it then that product will not have sales. Therefore, to conduct an opportunity assessment the buyers must be identified in order to see the potential of a product or service in a limited market space as well as to see if it is worth approaching a certain buyer or not in terms of the return business to recover the costs for marketing to that buyer.
Question 2 a) In my opinion, Dropbox was an extremely attractive opportunity mainly because of the fact that there was nothing else like it on the market in terms of
(HBS 9-811-065)
Kunal Sharma
Advanced Entrepreneurship
March 11, 2013
100410018
Word Count: 854
Question 1 a) The reason that Dropbox is such a universal concept is because anyone in the world can be a buyer of Dropbox. It can be an individual trying to save and access their pictures on different platforms or it can be a multinational firm who uses the product as a “file collaboration” software within the firm. “The idea is to get people using it inside companies without IT’s permission. Once IT sees that Dropbox is in heavy demand and that it works reliably, we’ll get certified for use across the company.” (Pg3, P3, Dropbox: it just work’s, 2012). So basically the buyer can literally be anyone with a need for easy access to storage of data across multiple platforms. Usually in other industries the buyers would be a small group of people or companies for whom the product was specifically made and marketed for, as well as each industry tries to capture a part of the market share. Whereas in terms of Dropbox, as we can see that the buyers differ in a way that anyone can become one as the service is offered free of charge for users who do not wish to store too much data. Identifying buyers is one of the key steps of opportunity assessment. In order to see whether if a product or service will have sales depends on its buyers and if they exist or not, if a product or service is launched and there is not a real need for it then that product will not have sales. Therefore, to conduct an opportunity assessment the buyers must be identified in order to see the potential of a product or service in a limited market space as well as to see if it is worth approaching a certain buyer or not in terms of the return business to recover the costs for marketing to that buyer.
Question 2 a) In my opinion, Dropbox was an extremely attractive opportunity mainly because of the fact that there was nothing else like it on the market in terms of
References: 1. LAUREN BARLEY, MICHAEL PAO, THOMAS R. EISENMANN "Dropbox: It Just Works" Harvard Business School Case 9-811-065, January 2012. 2. 2, Joshua Gans | 11:37 AM November, and 2011. "Where Is Dropbox 's Power? - Joshua Gans - Harvard Business Review."HBR Blog Network - Harvard Business Review. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2013. <http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/11/where_is