MNG91002 Entrepreneurship and Marketing

A person with strong sense of self is certainly bound to make a successful entrepreneur as it gives the thought that idea being pursued is correct and will be successful, in the case of main character of this story it is self-evident, that Nick is a person with very strong self-confidence, it is seen when he accepts the challenge of running a mile in six minutes and completes it with 40 seconds left.

Resilience is a key attribute to success, it is seen that Go-pro founder was lacking nothing in this area also; he called people across country to promote his product.

Vision is important to keep someone focused on the idea with which the person has started, it proved well in this case, Woodman wanted to give durable camera to the people who are engaged in different activities, but the vision was to give the memories of the moments spent in doing the activity that is the passion of person. (Kusmintarti, Thoyib, Ashar, & Maskie, 2014)

Innovation has always been the key factor in making the business success, as the idea which is new has possibilities of great success if it clicks to the people, first mover advantage is that one open field to run, and consumers always remember ‘first in its field’ or ‘at the most second’, this can be seen in case of Go-pro, it has the first move advantage and outnumbered Sony, being the first company to do so.

Entrepreneurship is a discipline and it can be learned

It is widely believed that entrepreneurs are born and not trained, but Peter Drucker suggested that it is no magic and nothing mysterious about it, also it has no relation with genes, but it is simple discipline which can be learnt, however, he also maintains that best definition of entrepreneur is ‘shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield’.

In my opinion it can be true partially, there are few traits which can a person learn during the course of becoming an entrepreneur, like sound judgement, this will come with experience, prioritising the goals, identification of crucial issues and effective people management etc. (Kusmintarti, Thoyib, Ashar, & Maskie, 2014) all this will come if someone have good knowledge, experience etc. However, in context of the given case, it is self- evident that the founder of Go-Pro, Nick Woodman, had innate skills which are required to be a successful business person, the passion he had to pursue things which he like doing is reflected in his trip to go for surfing in Indonesia, which ultimately helped in getting an idea for Go-pro. His belief in himself about delivering on commitment is another example of his confidence, the innovative mind he has which helped in designing the first Go- pro product. His dedication towards achieving the goals, the focus on finding the solution of issued faced, all these are the examples of entrepreneurial skillswhich can’t be learned or acquired through the medium of any training or experience, these are the skills which come in the person from within.

Part B

Competitive advantage from their marketing processes

Go pro turned out to be the pioneer in the market, it was the first company which came with a product such like this which can be used for the taking pictures in extreme action photography, the action cameras. It being the innovative product had the advantage of the entire market being open to it. (FITRIATI & HERMIATI, 2010) The first mover advantage always works in favour of the pioneers which Go pro is in its market segment. As the company is the Market Leader in its segment therefore they have the advantage in capturing the maximum market share, before the other players enter the market, be it the Challenger or follower. As it is very beautifully put in ‘Positioning’ by Al Ries & Jack Trout ’Be the first in your category or at the most be the second one’ if you are the third player create a new category. Positioning plays very important role, as the consumers always remember the first player of any product or at the most the second one, this can be better explained by a way of example of the person who first went to Moon, almost everybody will know Neil Armstrong but very few people remember the second person and almost nobody will ever remember the third person to do so.(Ries& Trout, 2000)Therefore, the positioning of the brand Go Pro will always be an advantage to the company over their competitors, as the customers will be always relates the action camera of any kind with Go Pro.

The market segmentation plays important part in defining the appropriate target segment, in the case of Go pro the target segment are the people who are active in the field of sports, adventure activities and even the people related to the entertainment industry, therefore it becomes easy for the company to decide the marketing strategy accordingly. This is another advantage of the company over competitors, as the customers will identify the brand of Go pro with the products related with adventure activities, however the other competitors like Sony are not solely identified with the product range action cameras by the customers.

Another strategy adopted by company was taking help of video marketing, the company went ahead with posting the videos of the its stuntman on YouTube, but the company’s decision to allow customers to post their own videos touched the right cord, it worked as brilliant customer engagement plan and built the loyalty for the company amongst the customers.

Future threats and recommended strategies to handle it

Looking at the future outlook of the company there is competition from several players, some of them established names like Sony or the players from same segment of action photography like iON, but apart from these players, ever changing dynamics of the market of the cameras is another threat, as the mobile phone market is increasing the requirement of the specialised camera is dipping. However, the mobile phone are complementing as of now to the Go pro, as the camera can be controlled by hand phone by just downloading an app and connecting the phone with camera, this also helps in posting the videos online in very user friendly manner, but all these advancements of technology can turn out to be positive and negative both, as other players can take advantages of the ever evolving technology, to arrest such threats it is recommended that Go Pro keeps on innovating the technology and products consistently, since it is the pioneer in the field of action cameras it has got the advantage of first mover, the brand loyalty it commands is immense but to continue it growing will require a non-stop innovation.

To increase their customer base it is suggested that the segmentation shall be looked upon, if only the adventure enthusiasts are using the camera, then company should think of roping in new demographical and behavioural segments, this will keep the products relevant to several target segment which will help in increasing the market share.(Nacar, 2015) In addition to the demography, geography also plays an important role in growth of the companies, it is advised that GO pro shall get internationally aggressive before the competition gets their products launched in new markets, the focus of the company shall be the developing markets where the population is coming up with the increased awareness and inclination towards adventure sports etc. (Goyat, 2011)

The company is reaping the advantages of the brilliant social media campaign, it has built a strong brand loyalty by the customer engagement done wonderfully, however it should also increase its presence on the online market segment in addition with increasing the retail store presence, company shall also get involve with business partners from several other fields, it is advisable to work in the direction of framing new business strategies with companies related to fields other than adventure sports and other action packed activities, this will give demographical advantage to the company in adding new customers, making the brand more visible will help in the long run.("GoPro - Annual Report", 2016)

Another business threat that could be detrimental to company could be dependence on the small number of retailers and distributors, half of the company’s top line is made of sales done by top ten customer of the company, which indicates a major concentration risk,("GoPro - Annual Report", 2016) if any of the large customer faces issues in terms of sales then it will become a difficult situation for Go pro due to over dependence on less number of customers, the only way out of reducing this risk is to diversify, it is very critical to reduce the dependence on the particular set of customers, this can be achieved by the increasing the retails space and most importantly online presence for sale.

Conclusion

On the basis of the above case study it can be safely inferred that entrepreneurship is that aspect of life which requires a person to demonstrate the qualities like confidence, determination, innovation, never backing down attitude etc.all these attributes are present in the Mr Nick Woodman the founder of Go pro, which helped him in building an organisation which is responsible for the providing action camera to the people those who wants to capture the moments filled with adventure. Also, the company is market leader in its segment with outnumbering a company like Sony in the sales of its similar segment. It has built a base of loyal customers by the intelligent use of social media. However, there are few issues which need to be addressed like, dependence on few customers, limited presence in terms of demography and geography. As the competition in the segment is increasing it becomes important for the company to keep innovating in order to remain relevant in its segment, the changes happening in the technological world is making every company vulnerable in reference with its relevance to changing world.

References: -

• FITRIATI, R. & HERMIATI, T. (2010). Entrepreneurial Skills and Characteristics Analysis on the Graduates of the Department of Administrative Sciences, FISIP Universitas Indonesia. Journal Of Administrative Sciences & Organization, 17(3), 262-275.
• GoPro - Annual Report. (2016). gopro.com. Retrieved 15 May 2016, from http://investor.gopro.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1500435-15-7&cik=
• Goyat, S. (2011). The basis of market segmentation: a critical review of literature. European Journal Of Business And Management, 3(9).
• Kusmintarti, A., Thoyib, A., Ashar, K., &Maskie, G. (2014). The Relationships among Entrepreneurial Characteristics, Entrepreneurial Attitude, and Entrepreneurial Intention. IOSR Journal Of Business And Management, 16(6), 25-32. http://dx.doi.org/10.9790/487x-16622532
• Nacar, R. (2015). Assessing international market segmentation approaches: related literature at a glance and suggesstions for global companies. Pressacademia, 2(4), 337-337. http://dx.doi.org/10.17261/pressacademia.2015414467
• Ries, A. & Trout, J. (2000). Positioning. New York, N.W.: McGraw-Hill.
• Tagraf, H. & Akin, E. (2009). RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE BUSINESS OWNER: AN ANALYSIS OF SME’S IN KONYA. Serbian Journal Of Management, 4(2), 239-257.