Nature of the Opportunity Confronting - Case Study Example

?Case H Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 0 Nature of the Opportunity Confronting E Ink  3 2.0 Three-Stage Approach to Achieve Long Term Goal  4 3.0 How Much Money Should The Company Raise? From Whom? On What Terms? 6 Bibliography 7 1.0 Nature of the Opportunity Confronting E Ink  E Ink develops numerous opportunities by providing advanced ‘electronic ink technology’ over other existing ones. Large companies were interested in using the technology of E Ink in their operations as an initiative for technological development. The large area display market is considered as a building- block opportunity to them. As the products are right in line with the path to create electronic paper, it will build market driven mentality and attract customer loyalty. Flat panel displays also provided them to acquire huge scope in the market. As they had planned for publishing thus it was a wonderful opportunity to grow in the market of the US where large number of people invested in newspapers and electronic books. Thus, the company had enough opportunities to survive and increase competitive advantage over other existing competitors in the market. 2.0 Three-Stage Approach to Achieve Long Term Goal  The three stage approach of E Ink was to achieve their long term goals namely large area display, battery powered flat panel displays and radio paper. The company had planned to enter into a large area display market by focusing on single product for a single market along with single niche. It was technologically much advanced than other existing large area display technologies. E Ink was light in weight and its appearance was also highly advantageous than others. It had the capacity to incorporate an interface of wireless communication which includes embedded pager. This factor offered another improvement over others. The retailers as well as manufacturers were benefited from E Ink as they utilized in displaying intelligent information based on various factors such as demographics, sales trends along with time of day. In addition to quality product, they had also provided reasonable priced products. Flat panel display is accepted in the market for its multifarious uses. This could be used in computers, cellular phones and consumer electronics. For flat panel analysis, E Ink technology offered the best set of price as well as performance. It possessed ample benefits over Liquid Crystal Display because it performs extremely well on low temperature due to its broad range of temperature. In addition, it is light in weight, readable in sunlight, holds image without using of power drain and possesses broad viewing angle. For more improvement of technology, scientists combine E Ink with transistor backplane as it would be possible to change the high resolution images through the application of charge to the ink. Publishing radio paper was the final goal of E Ink as larger number of newspaper was sold in the US. This industry was considered as a matured business for E Ink. Their plan was to offer a single newspaper to the customers in which content were fully updated and the customers could be aware of all the news in a short period of time. In case of publishing of book, E Ink developed a single paper book for the customers which would be possible to update by means of wireless network through customized content. These are the approaches through which the company can achieve their goals in future. 3.0 How Much Money Should The Company Raise? From Whom? On What Terms? E Ink required certain amount of funds for improving their business. The improvement in large area displays of E Ink required $10 to $20 million. For flat panel displays, the company required extra $30 to $50 million. E Ink needed nearly $50 million to $100 million to properly maintain the publishing business. It was observed that the company needed $20 million in order to maintain progress over the subsequent five fiscal quarters from Newstime Publishing. The investor was attracted by E Ink and thus decided to finance them. Out of $15.8 million in bank the company had $9 million. After receiving the funds, the company finally had $29 million for investment in three sectors. Large area display may require $9 million; Flat panel display may require $10 million and for publishing $10 million may be needed. The venture investor retains the investment generally between three to seven years. The term was also based on the growth and progress of the company. The venture capitalist made assessment to the technical as well as financial feasibility of the E Ink company. They enquire the overall company’s MIS, bank services, assumption on which finance are based on, recent management accounts and others. Therefore, venture capitalist firm such as Atlas Venture can be approached in order to raise the fund. Bibliography President and Fellows of Harvard College. E Ink: Financing Growth Harvard Business School, 1999. Read More