Billcutterz

Assess Barry Gross, the founder and President of Billcutterz.com? How has Gross performed as the President of the company as it progressed from new venture into its current growth phase?

Billcutterz.com was established in 2009 with the purpose of providing services to customers who wish to save money on utility bills. Gross had a great vision leading to an establishment that had unique services and no direct competition. Having a lot of experience with telephone sales in the past, Gross finds that it helps him with negotiating with utility providers.

One of Gross’s missions is to help customers save money. Gross has performed well as the President for the company. He enjoys giving detailed training to his staff and utilizes his sales and marketing skills as well as his great negotiation skills. After the company's initial start-up was successful, Billcutter.com had a gross profit margin of 64% in 2013.

Initially, Gross didn’t have a strategy plan for dealing with the high demand after media exposure. Gross originally neglected to incorporate a strategic plan for change and didn’t do a very good job leading the company. Gross mostly focused on low levels of operations when it came to the business. The company definitely wasn’t ready for such a large amount of growth. The cost of payroll increased to about 83% which in result made the company struggle with becoming more profitable. I think that Gross needs to focus more on changing his business strategy to be able to match that to the changes in the business. I also think that Gross needs to focus on being more of a leader.

2. Regarding Billcutterz.com’s current operation, what are its strengths and weaknesses? What resources, capabilities and core competencies greatly benefit the company? In what areas is the company potentially weak or requires managerial attention. What is your overall conclusion regarding Billcutterz.com’s current operation?

Billcutterz.com’s current operation possesses may strengths and weaknesses. Current operational strengths include a lack of competition, Barry Gross’s 30 plus years of experience in negotiation and telephone marketing and low fixed costs. Current operational weaknesses include inconsistent influx of customers, Gross’s training activities take up a significant amount of his time which could be better utilized growing the company.

Billcutterz.com’s resources include its incubator as well as exposure from media outlets. The incubator has created a huge fixed cost savings allowing Billcutterz.com to focus its budget on employee training, office supplies and computer software. Media outlets like Men’s Health, ABC Tonight, and Fox Business News were a huge contributing resource whose exposure resulted in tens of thousands of new enrollees. In fact, my research shows that by Febuary 2014; just two weeks after the Diane Sawyer and Fox Business News interviews, more than 30,000 new