Big Wind Turbines

Big Wind Turbines

Michelle is a 21-year-old university graduate, with an ambitious plan to abandon her secure job at EZ Corp and to pursue her passion in the business of selling sustainable energy products. Michelle has created a unique and revolutionary new design for wind turbines that allows for optimal energy production in slow wind conditions. The performance of her wind turbine is far superior to that of the traditional wind turbine, but now it is up to Michelle to get this product out into its intended market and build awareness. During her first year Michelle launched the product in three Canadian Prairie provinces to 14,600 registered farms and 47,700 businesses. After carefully analyzing all aspects of Michelle’s business plan though, we have realized several major flaws that may limit, if not destroy all of Big Wind’s future success in the industry. We found that she lacked the necessary business skills to not only make important decisions, but also lacked the ability to critically analyze the predictions of a consultant. This inability to make and analyze decisions resulted in completely unreasonable predictions of potential market share, and inefficient planning and allocation of resources. On top of this we found she was not greatly differentiating her company from competitors in terms of its distribution methods, and thus would fail to secure strong, long-term relationships with customers. Finally, the fact that she had not yet secured a patent for her product made us quite worried for the security and longevity of her products success. We worried that without the proper legal protection, the product’s unique attributes could then easily be emulated and perhaps even advanced by competitors to destroy the value of Michelle’s product entirely. It is because of these oversights in her business model that we chose not to invest in Big Wind Turbines at this time; as you read on, you will see our arguments in greater detail.

A major issue throughout the whole wind energy industry is distribution. Currently 92% of the market is not being accessed, and this is simply because the consumers have a lack of knowledge of the products and in turn are not motivated to buy. Historically, there has been very little personal selling by major brands in the industry, and as a result consumers have been unable to create strong connections with brands and feel confident in such a large investment. Understanding your consumers is the first step to a successful business and distribution chain, and Michelle clearly lacks this knowledge. Michelle plans to sell her product through online services which not only neglects to address the fact that most farmers typically don’t flock to online sources for purchases, but it also fails to create the personal connection with customers that such a large purchase warrants. A high maintenance product such as a wind turbine requires consistent communication