Question:
Answer:
Introduction
In this study we are going to look at three companies the QLC, a startup team that believes that millennials are looking to enjoy short-term career change opportunities without worrying about losing their current jobs. The QLC team provides a career and lifestyle portal to enable the millennial to test-drive their dream jobs. The Digify team on the other hand is a cloud-based secure filing sharing service provider that was established in 2013. The Vault Dragon is also an emerging player in the electronic health records market. All these three companies/teams enrolled into the JFDI 100 days accelerate programme and offered the millennial a chance to experiment on the best start-up. Evaluation of these three companies will be made to come up with one choice that is best recommended.
- a) Comparison and contrast of the three start-ups
- QLC Team
We shall compare and contrast the three companies in their opportunity identification and action planning process. The QLC is a career and lifestyle portal that was founded to enable the millennials change career opportunities to short-term jobs without the risk of losing the jobs they hold currently. QLC main purpose is to help the millennials who are professionals a chance to explore other career options or even give back to the social entity without them having to hold on to jobs just for the sake of reasons such as family (Leung 2015). The millennials are a generation that has a different mindset from the other previous generation and they are young probably in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties in well-paying jobs. Unlike the previous generation, the millennials are more likely to stay in jobs for years less than three and want to change jobs to explore other ventures. This has been a trend that has been noticed and 91 percent of these millennials are all doing it (PwC 2016). Deloitte did a survey in 2016 and found out that millennials would quit their current jobs and join a new organization in search of doing something different from what he was doing if given the chance. It surveys showed that one out of four millennials would take that bold step and 44 percent of them would move from their jobs by 2017. Only a small fraction of them stayed in their current jobs. Some even wanted to gain international experiences and venture into broader fields of work to advance their careers (McKinsey 2016). This QLC team provided and alternative to the professional millennials to take a chance of alternative career without feeling like it’s a risk. The millennials used this test-drive to be able to free themselves from their usual desk jobs into more fulfilling job opportunities. Most people stay on their jobs for fear of leaving as they would become financially insecure however; the QLC startup team offered a way out by coming up with an option for millennials to chase their dream jobs. The QLC team focused on the career dilemmas of the millennials and came up with a business model innovation that would work in the change of job opportunities for the millennials. The QLC team is also comprised of millennials who majorly emphasizes with the other millennials in their generation and are passionate in inspiring change. Fan and Yao who are the QLC founders ventured into business after quitting their jobs at Accenture which was a risky but bold move. The team offers short-term career change opportunities to other millennials in their business during their spare time and these opportunities last from four to six weeks duration. They also offered internship opportunities and where millennials got to gain work experience and a chance to sample other career opportunities without them leaving their current jobs. QLS team also supported its users being the millennials in allowing them access features that would enable them build their profile and in so doing to generate predictable recommendations that guarantees job opportunity search. It also provides its users with learning materials such as video materials and online readings that enable them upgrade in their skills on the job for their betterment. Mentorship from QLS sourced mentors are provided on a weekly basis to better their work and career (Fan 2016).
- Digify Team
The Digify team deals with sending emails that contain very confidential and sensitive information that are locked for security purposes. This inventive idea came about by Augustine Lim after having a dilemma in sending of an email that contained sensitive information and not knowing if the client will delete the email after reading as was the requirement. Emails carry information from one person to another and some of the information transferred are very sensitive. Digify enabled professionals to be able to send digital files that were attached to normal emails whereby the files are locked in a box and only the sender who has the key can unlock them. Digify was convenient as it would enable to secure information passed digitally safely and seamlessly. Having the sender have a key to the locked box containing sensitive information, would enable the documents, images, videos being sent by Digify to be protected, tracked and option of set to self -destruct. Digify was made to be available in both portable PCs as well as desktop computers. It was however very challenging to execute this technology and most times the founders were stuck on ways to find the market that would fit their product as well ways of increasing user adoption (Thomas 2016). The challenge of this technology to fit into the market made Lim to compel its use in industry sector as an essential and must have product. The competition of similar products in the market space was intense and this made Digify to burn cash on sales process so as to gain credibility of target market and customers. Digify is used by managers and executives as well as professionals who engaged in day to day business transactions using emails. Digify would ensure files sent were protected and reached the receiver in good time. The challenges of Digify were many as monitoring and enforcing of confidentiality of both parties; the sender of the email and the receiver was not easy especially if the parties involved were many and the information sent was large. Maintaining strict protection of the sensitive information in the emails was very difficult. Containing the ever-increasing hacking cases even in well ran organizations was a problem and even other business partners would potentially leak very sensitive information and the breach would take long to be noticed and rectified. Cases of data breach some with were very high profile such as the Snowden leak in 2014 and the Panama Papers debacle in 2016 made many other organizations to pay attention to securing their communication more vigilantly. Most corporations were forced to adapt the cloud services of securing data such as Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon Web so as to ensure that their customers’ data was well protected (Andras 2015). The growing awareness of personal data protection by consumers in relation to online applications has made security providers to introduce other new services for data protection to their consumers. Other applications in the mobile phones such as Snapchat and WhatsApp took up security measure such as automatically deleting videos after 24 hours as a way of ensuring information security. Digify offered this cloud security services and most companies spend a lot of money for data protection summing up to approximately USD 2 billion for next five years. That amount grew by 20% from USD 87 billion in 2015 to about USD 106 billion in 2016 all to ensure there is digital data protection and security. When Digify started, it was only meant to be a document management system within Singapore and therefore the model was not scalable beyond that area. The founders wanted the model to be international and therefore they made it be a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider so as to go beyond Singapore and be an international model. To enable Digify to be a SaaS provider, it had to develop cloud services application and that is what happened so as to ensure and guarantee protection of sensitive information passed day to day. More and more subscribers from other parts of the world like US, Europe and Asia joined Digify immediately it switched to SaaS model back in 2013 and this promised the self-destruction option of documents for security purposes. Digify also merged with other well-established cloud storage solutions like Google Drive and Dropbox and this attracted more subscribers as they were able to track the person viewing their files and what time and for how long (Stamford 2016).
- Vault Dragon
Vault Dragon was founded by Ching-Tse Tseng in 2013 and it was initially a secure storage solution with terms that were flexible for the consumers at home. However, over the years the business evolved and has become a scanning and storage solution for medical records for medical clinics mainly. In 2015, the business evolved from being a consumer at home solution to a medical record storage solution which was the main function and meal ticket of Vault Dragon whereby 59% of its revenues generated from. Vault Dragon made this shift from being consumer storage into a medical record storage solution as a way to develop their product as well as their service provision. The idea of Vault Dragon came into the mind of Tseng when he was a student at a university in Singapore. Having to pack whenever they had a long summer vacation and leaving school for home that was overseas-Taiwan proved to be a perennial problem for him. Packing his belongings in the dormitory bedroom was hectic as the facilities that he needed to store his belongings were either too big or too expensive or they were far from his dormitories. Too much hassle was involved especially since he did not even own a car and he also wanted to leave his belongings in a safe place. He found a niche in the market and he came up with a business idea but he did not work on it, got employed at PwC as a consultant after graduation. However, the nagging need of his business opportunity made him leave his employment and started Vault Dragon. Tseng did his research and found out that Singapore self-storage industry was growing at the rate of 45% every year and it was worth $78 million. Most of the growth was due to storage facilities such as SingPost which bought Lock+Store for $37 million in 2012 and CapitaLand with its four self-storage facilities that it acquired in 2013. This was a positive projection of the business in the country as it was very lucrative as per the look of things. Tseng figured out that the self-storage models used in Singapore were not satisfactory and he saw an opportunity to exploit that market even though it had other competition. Other competitors in the market offered self-storage space by the room contrary to what Vault Dragon offered (Waal-Montgomery 2015). Customers who did not need a big space to store their belongings embraced Vault Dragon as it suited their need. Vault Dragon offered an option of storing that was convenient and safe and minimized its customer’s headache of worrying about logistics and security. The deal of Vault Dragon and its customers were for the customer to buy the storage box from Vault Dragon and have it delivered to their home. The box had some specific dimensions to it 24×15.2×14 inches which the customer filled with their belongings. The customer would then choose to use Vault Dragon photo tagging services and then after filling and tagging the box, the customer instructs Vault Dragon to pick and store the box for them. Vault Dragon would offer to return the box for free to the customer’s home is so instructed. Vault Dragon mainly handled the logistics of delivery and helping of their customers in indexing their boxes. The self-storage providers on the other hand dealt with the management of the storage facility. They were an established profitable arrangement between the two when they worked together, therefore it was a win-win. Vault Dragon however faced a lot of competition in the market as well as other companies duplicating their business idea (Jones 2016). This however, did not make Vault Dragon to succumb to pressures of lowering its pricing but instead change strategies by offering quality customer service and experience and also service reliability.
- b) QLC evaluation and recommendation report.
I choose and recommend QLC as an international investment plan because it’s a career and lifestyle portal that was founded to enable the millennial change career opportunities to short-term jobs without the risk of losing the jobs they hold currently. The millennials are a generation that has a different mindset from the other previous generation and they are young probably in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties in well-paying jobs. The millennial are risk takers and they are not afraid to venture into new career opportunities given the chance. Millennials are energetic and they use that energy to be productive at work and therefore the economy is increased. According to researches done, millennials have set a trend that has been noticed and 91 percent of these millennials are all taking a leap in venturing to new jobs that are satisfactory to their needs. Deloitte did a survey in 2016 and found out that millennials would quit their current jobs and join a new organization in search of doing something different from what he was doing if given the chance. It surveys showed that one out of four millennials would take that bold step and 44 percent of them would move from their jobs by 2017. Only a small fraction of them stayed in their current jobs. Some even wanted to gain international experiences and venture into broader fields of work to advance their careers. The millennial used this test-drive to be able to free themselves from their usual desk jobs into more fulfilling job opportunities. Most people stay on their jobs for fear of leaving as they would become financially insecure however; the QLC startup team offered a way out by coming up with an option for millennials to chase their dream jobs. The QLC team focused on the career dilemmas of the millennials and came up with a business model innovation that would work in the change of job opportunities for the millennials. The QLC team is also comprised of millennials who majorly emphasizes with the other millennials in their generation and are passionate in inspiring change. The founders of the QLC are also millennials and therefore I would recommend this startup as my choice because of the drive it will get in ensuring their productivity. QLS team also supported its users being the millennials in allowing them access features that would enable them build their profile and in so doing to generate predictable recommendations that guarantees job opportunity search. It also provides its users with learning materials such as video materials and online readings that enable them upgrade in their skills on the job for their betterment. Mentorship from QLS sourced mentors are provided on a weekly basis to better their work and career.
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