Introduction
Company Overview
Nam.R was founded in 2017 with the goal of contributing to the global warming battle. Through the collection of geolocated contextual data, the start-up developed a technological solution that aided in the management of building energy and environmental performance (“namR, contextual geolocated data producer”, n.d.). Grégory Labrousse, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of nam.R, invested in the company because he was enthusiastic about the shift to sustainable energy. nam.R had set out on an ambitious mission to use “open data” to fight against global warming. The initial stage was to create a 3D “digital twin” of each building in France in order to identify possible energy-saving solutions. It created a data analysis platform that allows businesses to understand better and execute policies targeted at reducing their environmental effect. nam.R used its data bank to include several characteristics, such as the number of floors in a building, an air conditioning unit on the roof, and the material, form, or slope of the roof. This set of criteria allowed nam.R to optimize the positioning of solar facilities on a building or district scale.
Industry Overview
This industry includes businesses that specialize in providing infrastructure for hosting and data processing. These businesses may specialize in Web hosting, streaming platforms, or application hosting, excluding software publishing, or offer clients general time-share mainframe facilities. Client data is processed and specialized reports generated or automated data processing and data entry services are provided (Werner, 2019). Manufacturers have invested in the automation of industrial activities in response to the fast-changing business environment and technological breakthroughs.Big data is also becoming one of the essential parts of the manufacturing industry since it is a key component of the fourth generation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. ERP software assists in transforming obsolete manufacturing facilities into highly automated and effective powerhouses (Hermawan, 2019). Because it has the power to engage the business, data, and people, big data technology is poised to usher in a new era in manufacturing. The manufacturing industry is projected to benefit from increased technical breakthroughs.
Determine your three strongest competitors and justify with full explanations why each is considered so. Then logically organize an argument to develop competitive advantage i.e., what is nam.R’s advantage? Use all four principles for identifying potential competitive moves.
The three strongest competitors of nam.R are Enigma, Verisk, and Orbital Insight, albeit the firm has a competitive edge over them. Enigma uses similar technology as nam.R and provides a platform for users to investigate data; it falls behind nam.R since the data offered on its platform is difficult to interpret for its users. Verisk, a rival of nam.R, only covers a small portion of America and collects data from connected data sources and calculates it manually. nam.R has an advantage over Verisk since it gives comprehensive nationwide data. Orbital Insight also collects the same data as nam.R hence considered a potential competitor.
Strengths and weaknesses: nam.R strength is in skilled employees who effectively use to company’s tools to collect and process data. The company refusing to grant its customers’ data exclusivity is a weakness.
Strength against weakness: nam.R should utilize its skilled employees to create innovative ideas for new products and services and to offer exceptional customer service.
Protect and neutralize vulnerabilities: nam.R must neutralize its weakness by offering its customers data exclusivity.
Develop strategies that cannot be easily imitated or copied: To overcome the problem of consumers not understanding the solution, nam.R should show and advertise smaller parts of the broader database platform under multiple names, each bearing its trademark capital “R”:
SWOT Analysis
The SWOT model is an analytical method for analyzing any company based on four parameters: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths
When nam.R was starting, it was financed by Grégory Labrousse, a co-founder. Financial support enabled the company to thrive by incorporating the required tools to carry out its operations. Based on technology, nam.R uses API to extract data, unlike some of its competitors. The acquisition of private data has been included in nam.R’s open data. Data acquisition has also included building contacts and collaborating with public and private institutions. For example, a connection with NASA enabled them to access and re-use NASA’s aerial photos.
Weaknesses
Being a startup, nam.R lacks enough financial ability to expand to other countries. Expansion requires enough capital to acquire the needed technology; setting up in other countries would also require additional employees for the company. nam.R, rather than starting with client demands, opted to develop a cutting-edge 3D digital model of most France before approaching customers. However, this made it more difficult for staff to comprehend the company’s goal, and a number of them departed, fearful that there would be no clients.
Opportunity
nam.R. saw the release of government data into the public realm to promote more openness as a huge opportunity. The release of data from other entities, such as Airbnb and insurance firms, supplemented this data. In 2019, there were more than 300 open data platforms in France and more than 3,000 worldwide, with 1.5 million datasets and high-resolution satellite photos spanning the whole country. Over half of the country had been geolocated, either by address or GPS coordinates.
Threats
While nam.R felt it was well ahead of the competition, it recognized three possible rivals: Enigma, Verisk, and Orbital insight. Furthermore, the Ile de France area was developing a smart services platform that combined public and private data sets to enhance people’s quality of life. Competitors may be a problem for a company. Some competition, for instance, might be territorial, in which one firm seeks to push other companies to shut by lowering its pricing or making offers that other businesses could not match.
Competitive Advantage
The visual model and data that nam.R developed lowered the cost and time of finding potential energy-saving initiatives, which is nam.R’s competitive edge. Data is sent directly to customized platforms or APIs, allowing new business models and other applications. The risk of leveraging massive amounts of open data to create a complete digital twin skeleton comprising all streets, spaces, and buildings in the area seemed to be paying off, as it drew consumers from both the public and commercial sectors.
Cost Advantage
Customers of nam.R were able to identify the data necessary in mid-2019. Pricing was easy to understand and based on the quality of the ordered and delivered data. nam.R delegated a quality price to every data point ranging from 1 to 5 euros, based on how difficult it was to collect the data. Customers that wanted to buy data multiplied the quality price by the amount needed and determined how they wanted to utilize it.
Life Cycle
According to the life cycle, nam.R is still in the introduction stage since it has not seen the high sales increase in the expansion stage. At this point, the company begins to pay more attention to entity management. The organization enlisted the help of highly qualified professionals to develop a vision for how open data may be utilized. nam.R set out from the start to construct repositories with as much information as possible to produce a complete 3D digital twin. According to the corporation, people would be astounded if they clicked and went further into a digital map since it would allow prospective consumers to imagine and picture how they might utilize the data.
Target Firm Analysis
nam.R works in sustainable development and actively promotes the use of renewable energy sources. The company’s first emphasis was on gathering data to enhance building energy efficiency. The company collects any photographs or information that may be beneficial, consistently referencing the data and integrating it into one massive database. nam.R, unlike its rivals, utilizes an API to extract data from databases and then double-check it. nam.R provides low-cost services, and the majority of its clients are in the public infrastructure, insurance, retail banking, and energy sectors.
The top four countries you recommend for actively targeting for business expansion (the first is France). By expansion you intend to be the company that secures the largest market share and highest profitability globally while promoting all tenets of sustainability as discussed in class Include your decision criteria and justification for using each and the ranking of the countries with a rating for each along each criterion with full explanation). This will require considerable research along various dimensions levels e.g., macroeconomic, political, legal (right of intellectual property etc.
The criteria included grading options for each element on a scale of 0 (poor) to 5 (excellent) and then giving weights to illustrate the relative significance of each item. The next step is to multiply each score by the factor’s weight to see how it affects the total selection. After that, sum the scores for each option. In this scenario, France’s highest score choice is the best option.
Target sectors besides energy
Besides the energy sector, the company will focus on healthcare, banking, and agriculture. This is because data science has shown to be successful in addressing a wide range of real-world issues, and it is increasingly being used across sectors to enable more intelligent and well-informed decision-making. There is a desire for intelligent devices that can learn human behavior and work habits as the usage of computers for day-to-day commercial and personal activities grows.
Key issue
There is a lack of knowledge on the equivalent data available in other countries, making it difficult for nam.R to expand its operations. Companies aiming to enter foreign markets face significant challenges for failing to understand other nations’ cultures and rules. Due to the geographical, cultural, and administrative hurdles that a firm may face in new foreign markets, it may incur losses.
Environmental analysis
Internal environment
VRIO Framework
The VRIO framework is characterized as a valuable tool for examining an organization’s internal environment. VRIO is an acronym standing for Value, Rarity, Inimitability, and Organization. VRIO represents four questions that need to be addressed about a resource or capacity to establish its competitive potential.
Value. This factor evaluates whether an organization’s resources can value its stakeholders, particularly its consumers. A significant input for producing the 3D picture of France was the geometry of the structures. To determine this, nam.R had to devise a shape-matching algorithm. It also defined data quality and ‘custom confidence indicator’ for every data point so that prospective consumers would understand to what degree they could trust the data. Unique technology or operational procedures may aid in providing goods and services that are regarded as valued by consumers. However, resources that cannot satisfy these requirements put the company at a competitive disadvantage, making it difficult for the company to stay in business in the long term. Competitors with more valued resources may rapidly outpace the firm. As a result, an organization’s ability to obtain or generate unique resources that distinguish it from other market participants is critical.
Rarity. The difficulty of acquiring a resource for an organization is determined by its rarity. In France, major organizations comprehend the data required to conduct their operations but frequently have trouble collecting, accessing, controlling, or understanding what they may do with external data. nam.R has a competitive edge over other organizations as it has conquered all the intricacy and the labor required to convert the data into an accessible and accurate manner. Access to rare resources may provide a company with a temporary competitive edge by providing distinctive value for its consumers. However, it should be observed that when more corporations obtain access to our source, its uniqueness fades, and the organizations become competitively equal. Firms with almost comparable resources provide constant value to clients; therefore, there are no distinguishing elements that may assist in differentiating one organization’s service from another.
Inimitability. No other company can duplicate or exploit unique resources owned by a particular company. These resources are unique to a company and serve as a constant source of competitive advantage. To tackle the difficulty of consumers not understanding its solution, nam.R showed and sold various parts of the larger database platform under multiple names, each component having its trademark capital “R”: For instance, “eneRgy” which is a section enabling the detection of energy savings on buildings, notably the roof and wall insulation. Brand name, logo, trademarks, goodwill, and other intangible assets cannot be duplicated by another company. Design and technology patents are examples of incomparable intellectual property. This parameter determines the cost of imitating a resource or the degree of inimitability. Certain resources are more expensive for a competitor to copy than others.
These resources, which are more difficult to copy, provide a source of distinction and competitive advantage. As a result, generating intellectual assets such as patentable product designs, memorable brand names, logos, and mascots is critical for a business to build unique resources. To produce resources that are difficult to duplicate, the corporation must spend extensively in R&D to develop new technologies and processes and get patent clearances.
Organization. Organizational resources alone do not provide a competitive advantage since they must be used. Having the proper resources to deliver value for stakeholders is not enough to ensure success unless the business puts them to good use for itself. nam.R captured any photographs and information which was valuable, referencing the material in a standard method and merging it in one enormous database. Through the extraction, the corporation gained many open-source materials accessible in France. The company uncovered a big pool of publicly available geolocalised information and satellite photos on buildings and roads, which individuals did not understand how to acquire and value. The correct company model, culture, operational procedures, and marketing techniques may maximize resources. In order to get the most out of its existing resources, the organization also needs the right market circumstances. A company must search for new methods to enhance its operational operations regularly. This may be accomplished by investing in employee training and development and implementing more efficient operational procedures such as lean manufacturing and the just-in-time strategy.
External environment
PESTLE Analysis
Political. The political climate can have a significant impact on a company’s business venture. It determines the home countries and the host country’s bilateral trade links. This is a key component in determining the success of businesses with worldwide operations. In the case of nam.R, France’s president pushed the release of official data into the public domain with the intention of creating more openness. This data was complemented by the release of data from other businesses, including Airbnb and insurance firms. The availability of this open data enables nam.R to execute its activities while maximizing the available resource freely. Firms may extend their company initiatives to other host countries with good bilateral relationships, promoting business development and income production. It also influences a region’s political stability, which significantly impacts local companies. Political stability refers to disagreements emerging from political events that might interrupt operations. As a result, while addressing the political environment, a firm may discuss bilateral commercial ties and regional political stability.
Economic. Because the cost of solar photovoltaic power has been falling so rapidly, there is a rising market for solar projects to decrease energy use. Solar energy is currently much cheaper than any power generated from fossil fuels in many parts of the globe. As a result, nam.R is looking for buildings suitable for solar panels. Furthermore, the visual model and data generated by nam.R lowered the cost and time associated with finding potential energy-saving initiatives. Data might be sent directly to bespoke platforms or APIs, allowing new business models and other applications. The risk of leveraging enormous amounts of open data to create a complete digital twin skeleton comprising all streets, spaces, and buildings in France is paying off since it has attracted public and commercial sector consumers.
Social. The social aspects influence consumer behavior and purchase decisions. Customers of nam.R chose the data they needed, and the price was based on the accuracy of the data bought and supplied, but it was uncomplicated. Each data point was given a quality price based on how difficult it was to collect the information. Customers that wanted to buy data had to multiply the quality-price by the amount needed and select how to utilize the data most effectively. It is important to recognize that various countries have diverse cultural origins that influence their lifestyles and buying habits.
Technology. The presence of technology has allowed nam.R to capture any images or information that might be useful, consistently referencing the data and combining it in one massive database. Technology has also aided in developing a vision for how open data can be used. From the beginning, nam.R set out to create repositories with as much data as possible to create a comprehensive 3D digital twin of France. When people click and dig a little deeper into a digital map, for example, to enter a building, they are taken aback. Thanks to this technology, potential customers can now imagine and visualize how they might use the data.
Legal. The legal considerations pertain to the business laws, which every corporation must comply with to avoid penalization. These business regulations are frequently established to safeguard the stakeholders’ interest and offer a fair playing field for all the market participants. Sudden changes in business regulations may dramatically influence the company’s activities, particularly in taxes and import and export charges. Different countries might have different business laws; hence for a globally functioning company endeavor, it is important to know business rules of the host country.
nam.R is governed by the French legislation on open public data, just like any other corporation. The statute for a “Digital Nation” and the law of July 17, 1978, which established citizens’ legal entitlement to administrative information, are the two laws that regulate open data in France. The legislation for a “Digital Nation,” announced on October 7, 2016, intends to increase the circulation of data and knowledge by releasing public and general interest data, establishing a “public data service,” and providing free access to public research. In order to encourage innovation and free re-use of public data, it supports open data as the default choice rather than the exception.
Environmental. The environmental element is concerned with the environment and eco-system and how they may affect the business operation. A precise GPS location connected with each data point was necessary to create the 3D display. Connecting geolocalized data to a specific building location, on the other hand, proved difficult. Because buildings have several faces, they may have multiple sets of GPS coordinates. On the other hand, a single GPS address might refer to several different structures. Differing data sources provided contradicting building information, making it more difficult to combine and perhaps resulting in different estimations of the same data. A building’s footprint was described using a set of GPS locations to get around these issues. nam.R had access to three-dimensional reconstructions of several French cities and two-dimensional aerial photos of France that depicted all the structures. However, since extracting structured information such as roof pitch from satellite photos proved difficult, nam.R created tools to automatically recognize, analyze, and universally format distinct characteristics from satellite photographs.
Sustainability Analysis
Organizational sustainability is often a critical component of a company’s survival or long-term presence in a market. The long-term viability of nam.R is dependent on several crucial organizational factors (Nawaz & Koç, 2019). One of these is the people or human resource component, which allows the business to accomplish its duties properly. The organization’s long-term viability relies heavily on the products and services provided by nam.R. Because goods and services attract consumers to a certain firm, the bigger the number of clients a firm has, the higher its income. If a company does not provide high-quality goods, programs, or services, it will inevitably influence its customers’ engagement, resulting in poor income.
nam.R employs competent individuals that guarantee that clients’ data requests are fulfilled in a timely and accurate manner. Most organizations and managers worldwide are concerned that if a company does not have the correct workers, its goods and services will not have the major effect that they are meant to have. This suggests that the long-term viability of a company’s goods, services, or activities is inextricably linked to the viability of its employees. Because it is important for a business to have a long-term personnel team, it should have a well-trained and monitored workforce, and workers who cannot produce on time should be replaced with individuals who can.
Financial Analysis
Financial analysis is used to identify financial stability, analyze economic trends, make long-term financial policy decisions, and evaluate firms to determine their profit, sustainability, and earning potential. Financial analysis is an important aspect of any commercial operation since it provides litigable insights into its future health and capabilities. This information allows firm management to gauge their performance in terms of industry expectations or growth, in addition to giving critical data to lenders and investors that might influence stock prices or interest rates.
Qualitative Analysis
The qualitative analysis relies on subjective judgment to assess a company’s worth or potential, relying on non-quantifiable data such as managerial skill, industry cycles, research and development strength, and labor relations. nam.R was formed by a group of people committed to creating unique, meaningful data and providing it via custom platforms. The company’s four co-founders are still actively involved in guaranteeing the company’s success (mashharawi, 2020). The company hired highly qualified experts to develop a vision for how open data may be utilized. Through its efforts and resources, the company converted the open data available publicly and made it meaningful to its customers.
Quantitative analysis
Before making an investment choice, quantitative financial analysis is utilized to understand a firm’s financial performance better. Statement of income, balance sheets, and cash flow statements are the three most essential financial statements that nam.R can utilize in quantitative analysis. The income statement summarizes a company’s performance regarding monetary gains or profitability over a certain period. Analysts utilize this report to forecast the company’s performance level and cash flow. The top line of this statement relates to a business’s raising revenue for a certain period, while the bottom line denotes net profit or loss.
. Based on the financial record of the fiscal year, which ended on 30th December 2020, the profit margin of nam.R was at 3.47%, while the operating margin was -8.10%. The return on assets was -4.00%, while the return on equity was 35.53%. The total revenue collected by the company in 2020 was $5.86M; the revenue per share for the same period was 11.64. Based on the balance sheet record, the total cash was $8.71M, with the total cash per share being 2.33 (“namR Société anonyme (ALNMR.PA) Stock Price, News, Quote & History – Yahoo Finance,” n.d.). The current ratio was 0.66, while the book per value ratio was 1.73. The figure below shows nam.R revenue for 2018 to 2020.
Competitive Advantage Pyramid
A competitive advantage pyramid is a design that helps a company to determine its competitive advantage from the viewpoint of certain customer groups. It defines what marketing messages would resonate and what variables, if correctly conveyed, would boost a firm’s perceived value for that target, and it provides recommendations for a firm’s marketing strategy by persona (König, 2017). Aggregated and distilled factor maps, which depict the most significant aspects across big groups of personas, may also provide insight into what multi-target communications are acceptable. Because nam.R collects data through API, it has a higher degree of technical proficiency than its competitors.
Recommendations
Sharing value with data producers and knowledge partners
Sharing value with other data producers and knowledge experts is not recommended. When a competing firm shares value, it benefits from increased brand value, especially among customers and staff, as well as gaining a competitive edge by fostering more inventive solutions to classic business difficulties or gaining access to new markets.
For nam.R to grow into a country such as Belgium, it must first examine the different sorts of customers in that market and their wants and expectations. A company that wants to make an impression on the global stage must ensure that its operations are tailored to the local business climate. International expansion aids a company in determining the best market strategy to use to make its operations more competitive in a foreign marketnam.R may potentially extend its business into a new country by forming a joint venture with another company located there. A joint venture will allow nam.R to give up a portion of its stock to another foreign company in order to obtain access to a lucrative international market profitable in the long run quickly.
By forming a strategic alliance, nam.R will work with a foreign-based company to share technical know-how or capital investments, allowing it to gain easy access to a specific foreign market. This strategy allows both companies to remain independent while pursuing common business goals to improve their market performance in a specific industry. As a result, nam.R will avoid various regulatory and market risks that may exist in a foreign country.
Implementations
To analyze the demands of consumers in overseas markets, nam.R should perform research that would help the company gauge client satisfaction. nam.R should choose its target audience and use survey methodology to deliver appropriate questions. The information gathered will allow nam.R to understand the market’s shortcomings and how it will meet the demands of its customers. For nam.R to enter a joint venture, it must first choose a joint venture partner. nam.R will be able to find and select a co-venturer that complements its company and can assist the firm in achieving its objectives if it has a well-defined business purpose. In addition, to begin a strategic partnership, nam.R should concentrate on collaborating rather than the business strategy. Individuals on both sides must work as if the same firm employed them in order for an alliance to succeed. Team members must understand how their counterparts work and make choices for this kind of teamwork to exist.
References
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mashharawi. (2020). The impact of programmed accounting analysis (PAA) for the financial statements on qualitative characteristics of useful financial information. SSRN Electronic Journal. Web.
namR Société anonyme (ALNMR.PA) Stock Price, News, Quote & History – Yahoo Finance. (n.d.). Finance.yahoo.com. Web.
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Werner, M. (2019). Parallel processing strategies for big geospatial data. Frontiers in big data, 2. Web.