Business Model Final Report; BRITEHUB

Collection
Design Strategy (MBA) | Design Division

Course
Spring 2016Business Models & StakeholderBrandt WilliamsDSMBA-618-03
Final project
Student(s)
Nick Oliviere-Brooks, Rumaisa Mughal, Rebecca Luoh, Maria Chercoles, Kaavya Krishnan
Description
The purpose of our 5-month long project with BriteHub has been to provide them with consulting advice in order to further develop, innovate, and clarify their business model.

BriteHub is a supply-chain management software company based in Oakland, California that aims to produce low barrier-to-entry solutions for domestic manufacturers. They are a small but promising startup with 4 full-time employees, led by the vision of CEO Dorian Ferlauto, a trained engineer whose goal is to expand and transform the company into a profitable multi-million dollar operation by 2019. BriteHub offers cloud-based software with a marketplace that helps pair vendors with manufacturers, customer relationship management, and project lifecycle management. Users are able to oversee their manufacturing projects and orders, from start to finish, from Request for Quote (RFQ) to Purchase Orders (PO) to final product delivery. Both manufacturers and product sellers are able to use the software to manage their day to day business. 

The purpose of our 5-month long project with BriteHub has been to provide them with consulting advice in order to further develop, innovate, and clarify their business model. Our team consists of five DMBA students from the California College of Arts: Maria Chercoles, Rumaisa Mughal, Nick Brooks, Kaavya Krishnan, and Rebecca Luoh. Before arriving at our final conclusions, our research has included several in-person and teleconference interviews with Dorian and her team in Oakland, customer questionnaires, secondary competitor research and analysis, two in-class presentations with critiques, and plenty of Post-It notes. 

When we began our research with BriteHub, we learned that they had recently made the decision to pivot their business from being solely a vendor/manufacturer matchmaking service towards being a complete lifecycle software solutions company. This shift will continue to require a significant overhaul of the business model. Many aspects of their existing business model had still been largely ignored thus far, especially with regards to delivering customer value. With millions of dollars in private investment riding on the success of their small team, BriteHub definitely has their work cut out for them in order to handle this pivot smoothly while effectively managing their day-to-day office work. 

In order to help BriteHub find success, our team has helped to reframe their plan of action.  We decided to provide Dorian and her team with four different business model canvases; the first canvas reflects the status quo of where BriteHub realistically is today, and the other three canvases provide Dorian and her team with aspirational visions of where the company could aim to position themselves in the upcoming years, while depicting distinct focuses on product innovation, customer relationship building, and infrastructure management. Additionally, along the way we collaborated with BriteHub to craft their first mission statement. It is our hope that these materials will deliver to BriteHub a clarified vision of their strategy and purpose while navigating this significant pivot in their value proposition. 

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