Wikispeed Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Wikispeed Case Solution

Introduction

This case illustrates the managerial and entrepreneurial practices performed by the company,Wikispeed, which works efficiently to reduce cost,labor and production cost. This case also emphasizes on the use of disruptive technology and the reluctance of big companies to adapt to new technologies. In 2008,Joe Justice saw the announcement for the progressive Insurance X prize,  a $10 million prize aimed at the (im) possibility to build 100 miles per gallon (mpg) car to road-legal safety specification. Joe,with his wife, used the grad savings to enter the competition. Initially, Joe started working alone and posted the work through free platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, WordPress in which he depicted his learning and the outcomes. This strategy of working on economies of scope proved to be successful as many bloggers and people around the world joined Joe in his endeavor to tackle the challenge. After 3 months of diligently working,Wikispeed was formed. It had 44 members in four countries and had a functioning prototype which was registered in the X prize competition. In 2010, Wikispeed team came 10th in the mainstream class,outrunning more than one hundred cars from well-funded companies and universities around the world. With this huge success and publicity by media and bloggers, the team wiki speed was invited to showcase their concept car at Detroit auto show, the largest motor show and was given the place next to Ford and Chevrolet. Wikispeed was contracted by more than a hundred people who were interested in joining the team as well ordering the prototype. By 013, more than five hundred people had joined wikispeed which increased the reputation and make wiki speed sell 9 prototypes. The company also focused on the use of effective software's to make hardware. Wikispeed used agile technique, which it believed,wasa competitive advantage toitas it could change anything at any step without incurring additional cost. They used the scrum management style in the organization which was helpful in improving efficiency, decreasing backlogs and reducing the dependency of workflow.

1-      Product development Process

Wikispeed was founded on the basic principles of adaptability, flexibility and transformation to other innovative shape, which is why the company chose the management through scrum. Scrum is a process in which there are 3 things, the product owner, scrum master and the team members. Mostly the teams were made of 7 to 10 members. This process enabled Wikispeed to make its processes highly independent, cost saving and flexible which could be changed at any point of time according to the need of the customers or change in technology. The same concept of adaptability and flexibly was incorporated in the produced development process of the company. The foundation of the idea of adaptability was that many big companies employed high price machinery and equipments which wereset to perform certain tasks, regardless if the technology changes or if the-demand of the customers changes, the company will not deploy that machine until and unless the machine offsets the buying price,which, in turn, will negatively affect the competitive advantage and profitability of the company. Leaning from these scenarios,Wikispeed focused to work on molecularity which isthe degree to which system components can be recreated or rejoined to perform the certain task..................

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