Assignment - Business Model Deconstruction
Learning Outcomes -
- Define and apply key concepts of innovation in commercial, digital, service, and social contexts.
- Demonstrate an understanding of and apply the stages of the innovation process, including learn how to forecast the success and market diffusion of your innovation using business model design logic.
- Identify and discuss the technical, financial and organisational constraints to innovation in markets that occur in real-life through the use of teamwork and brainstorming.
Prepare a business report that deconstructs an organisation's business model and identifies the critical success factors that make the business sustainable. Your analysis will demonstrate your critical thinking skills and your ability to professionally articulate your findings.
The type of organisation that should be identified for study is one that is relatively new, innovative in how they operate, and have most likely been established in the last five years.
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Answer - Title: Business Report: Deconstructing Success of Uptake
Executive summary
This report explores the Uptake business model using the nine component Business Model Canvas approach to identify the features that make Upwork a company which has exhibited tremendous potential and growth within a period of five years of its existence through development of innovative products and solutions that catered to the digital transformation needs of the core sector industries in the USA. This analysis relies on publically available information.
I. Introduction
Uptake is an Internet of Things (Rosencrance, Shea and Wigmore, 2019) startup established by Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky in 2014. The company renders industrial artificial intelligence and software services to major industries like mining, rail, energy, aviation, retail, and construction industries to helping these companies transform themselves digitally using open and purpose-made software. The core product of Uptake is an Asset Performance Management application and Asset Strategy Library (ASL). ASL is considered most significant in the market as it allows access to detailed information and direction on failure prevention. The aim of this company is the help organizations in industries like gas and construction cut their costs. The company has forged its biggest partnership with Caterpillar Inc. It is based in the US Chicago, Illinois. The value of the company stood at $2 billion in November 2017 with more than 300 employees (Chernova, 2017)
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II. Business model
Uptake sells predictive analytics software that accumulates and interprets sensor data for its customers. In March 2015, Caterpillar made a marginal investment in Uptake with a purpose to jointly develop systems that will help monitor nearly 3 million pieces of its equipment operating in the field and improve their use. This was followed by partnerships with companies like Progress Rail and strategic alliance with Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Energy. The company has entered into a contract with BHE Renewables and MidAmerican Energy Company as well.
A. Building blocks
Osterwalder & Pigneur's (2010) nine building blocks approach details Upwork's business model.
• Customer segments
Uptake primarily caters to companies belonging to significant industries such as agriculture, mining, rail, energy, oil& gas, aviation, retail, manufacturing, and construction. Recently, the US army has partnered with Uptake to increased its mission readiness.
• Key partners
Uptake has partnered with world-class solution providers that complement their technology stack. Their partners include Accenture, Kespry, Elements, FOGHORN, AWS, DarkTrace, Geotab, DTN, AccuWeather, Genscape, Mkicroland, and Jitterbit (Uptake website).
• Value proposition
i. To create a world that always works and people and machine complement each other to power the world.
ii. To solve the puzzle of turning complex data into real-world outcomes for better decision making.
• Key activities
The key activities of Uptake is to provide AI based Internet of Things Services. Major products are Asset Performance Management, Sales and Service Management, Process and Operations, and Asset Strategy Library.
• Channels
Uptake declared raising of $45 million on October 27, 2015, in venture capital with the primary lender being Great Point Ventures. The existing investors included New Enterprise Associates and Caterpillar. With all the investment included, Uptake's estimated valuation reached $1 billion, which made it the third "Unicorn" in the state of Illinois. Two years later, on February 1, 2017 investor Revolution Growth proposed that they would be supporting Uptake with $40 million as part of the Series C round. With the help of this firm which was started by Steve Case, Ted Leonsis and Donn Davis, Uptake's valuation increased to $2 billion. In November 2017, Uptake gathered $117 million from the Series D round, and its post-money valuation stood at $2.3 billion. This improved total worth of Uptake to over $250 million.
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• Revenue streams
The estimated annual revenue of Uptake is $5.15 million (Mitra, 2016).It opens up revenue channels through offering various innovative industrial solutions. However, the company does not disclose much details about its financials.
• Cost structure
Uptake does have a top-heavy cost structure with more engineers and programming experts working with it. The company invests heavily on research and development for product development and finding solutions to a different industrial problem which constitutes a considerable part of its cost structure.
• Key resources
Technology and highly skilled, knowledgeable and experienced personnel are its key resources.
• Customer relationships
Uptake maintains a high level corporate relationship with all its customers providing them will all possibly support and service timely and efficiently. The involvement of its CEO Brad Keywell in these core industries is an added advantage for the company to maintain its customer relationship. They have a team of customer care personnel who are educated and trained different handle issues that their customers may encounter. In case of the complicated problems, the engineers working in the company are the best persons to sort them out.
B. Interrelationships
Since Uptake is operating in an industry segment which is highly specialized, the interrelationship among the building blocks are the key to its growth. Uptake has managed to accumulate enough funds from the market to finance all its projects and offer better industrial solutions for its customers.
Its partnership will industry giants is a massive boost to its revenue and profit level. As a startup, the kind of support the company has mustered is something extraordinary. "Eliminating unplanned downtime is the aspiration of the industrial Internet. The benefit is not tens of millions of dollars; it's hundreds of millions of dollars of increased revenue and profitability," Brad Keywell, Uptake's CEO (MarketInsite, 2018).
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C. Critical success factors
The critical success factor of Uptake is the concepts like AI and IoT which are gaining their importance in all spheres of industries and government level (Porkodi and Velumoni, 2014). In their bid to transform themselves digitally, these companies are looking for custom made industrial solutions that will help to take their level of operation a few notches up. Uptake has provided them with the innovative solutions that these major industries were searching for. Their products go beyond asset reliability and availability, they streamline operations and enhance efficiency. Uptake has turned each of its customer companies into a digital organization with the help of their team who live and breathe data science.
D. Downside risks
Technology per se involves a lot of risk (Renn and Benighaus, 2013). Uptake deals with the extremely advanced level of technology and software which can cause a lot of damage if not managed with care and caution. The security risk is at the highest for companies like Upwork, who must ensure that all data and information are protected from being corrupted, hacked, theft and loss (Arman and Hodgson, 2006). Moreover, ensuring the privacy of the client's information is another challenge that the company faces. In addition to these, the software and technology sector is highly competitive and cutthroat. There is a constant pressure to keep oneself one step ahead of competitors. This pressure for performing with speed and accuracy is so paramount that it threatens quick employee burnout (Sone et al., 2015).
Cash-flow can be another risk that may threaten the company and its existence in the market. The requirement of continuous investment in research and development holds the risk of cost escalation which may not always be recovered from sales of products and services. New entrants in the industry also pose a threat to the company. Keeping oneself updated and maintaining a competitive advantage is challenging.
On a macroeconomic level, the status of the economy is also creating a risk for the company. Being a start-up, it needs a robust economy to support its existence and growth. It is difficult to fathom how the company will respond to any economic downturn (Watanabe et al., 2018).
E. Business model changes
For making Uptake even more competitive, I would venture out to serve not only the core industries but also secondary industries by providing them digital solutions meant to upgrade their operation and reduce their costs. This move will help the company increase its customer base and open newer avenues of revenue. The current business model of targeting high-end customers from the core industries may be effective in the short run when there is not much competition in the market, but as new firms will start entering the market lured by the high profitability, it may the company may face the severe challenge. Spreading itself to non-core industries will ensure that Uptake continues to hold its market position.
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III. Conclusion
With the increasing importance of AI and IoT, the demand for innovative industrial solutions related to automation will increase in the near future. These two concepts are about to change the way businesses used to operate. Foreseeing the trend, Uptake has prepared itself with innovative products that are working wonders for its existing clients. But its CEO Brad Keywell mentions that as an entrepreneur his role is to explore possibilities and develop new partnerships and form strategic collaborations. Following the vision the CEO, the company, must continue to engage itself with newer projects and make persistent efforts to create innovative products that different industries will find useful for increasing their productivity and profitability.
IV. Recommendations
- Uptake can consider outsourcing its processes to countries with comparatively cheap labor cost, to reduce its cost.
- The company can reach out to non-core sector industries with its applications, and digital solutions as non-core sector companies are also looking for a digital transformation to increase their competitive advantage. This area is relatively unexplored, and Uptake must make the pioneering move to capture this market segment and create new channels of revenue.
- The company must disclose more information about its financials to increase its transparency and showcase the potential investors the strength of the company which will lure them into investing. The disclosure of financials also will improve the image of the company among its existing clients and attract potential clients (Juric, 2014).
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