About INFINIDAT

Discuss about the Critical Success Factors In Business Performance.

INFINIDAT a data company was established in 2011 by a pool of talented individuals with exceptional talents who focused on solving the customers ‘puzzle by helping them avoid exorbitant costs, performance, and operations (O’Brien, 2017).

INFINIDAT helps customers optimize the storage functionalities by helping their customers focus on making their businesses become competitive enterprises. In overcoming such problems, INFINIDAT has innovated and brought to the market InfiniBox, a storage avenue that is flash-optimized that outshines all other flash arrays in workloads in the global market and is simple in its application and has a 99.9% probability of availing all data.

The INFINIDAT InfiniBox™ is a product that defies data storage barriers as it eliminates trade-offs that arise in performance and scalability in business storage components due to the existence of exorbitant and media-centric designs. The InfiniBox is actual software that solves issues with the storage system presenting intelligence that can be defined as cutting-edge. This kind of architecture transforms the performance of systems beyond the scales necessary for digital innovations. Apart from offering products such as Infinibox, INFINIDAT also specializes in providing management techniques that administer storage and other applications. The company also enables the storage administrators to automate mundane and time involving tasks through the Host Power Tools platform.

INFINIDAT is a data company that provides solutions to the IT market. INFINIDAT provides expertise and technical help to enterprises that have IT departments in managing the storage problems such as data recovery. A third of INFINIDAT’s business involves serving cloud providers. However, Infinidat is planning to make product upgrades that will allow it to better serve clients’ cloud presence and other users such as data recovery.

The business model canvas classifies the processes and the internal operations of the enterprise into nine separate classes each identifying a block involved in the creation of a product or a service (Zott, Amit, & Massa, 2011). These classifications represent the four main components of a business and include customers, financial sustainability, and infrastructure. The nine classifications are explained in detail below.

A complete customer pie is composed of sections based on the way in which an enterprise’s products or services are tailored in addressing the specific demands in that particular segment (Pier?cieniak, 2016). In carrying out effective customer segmentation, an enterprise must first understand its customers regarding their existing and future needs. INFINIDAT understands the needs and preferences of its customers amidst rising challenges in managing data. The need regarding data management and recovery is an aspect of today’s IT businesses. Recently, the company launched Infinibox™ that has a petabyte scale enabling incorporated data protection. This comes to the customers’ rescue of data protection amidst rising of cybercrimes through stealing of data. INFINIDAT develops and adopts a niche market where the company aims at meeting specific needs of customers by providing storage appliances that suit the needs of INFINIDAT’s clients. INFINIDAT also has a segmented market as evidenced in the products it develops to meet the demands of different clients, for instance, the company has INFINIBOX F2000 and INFINIBOX F4000.

INFINIDAT’s Flagship Product: InfiniBox

An enterprise’s value proposition refers to the accumulation of products and services it avails to its esteemed clients (Štefan, & Richard, 2014). According to Osterwalder, such offerings and needs have to be crafted uniquely and be easily differentiated from those offered by competitors. INFINIDAT understands value proposition strategy well as it has developed its products and services such as Infinibox™ technology to solve the storage problems associated with data loss and damage.

Channel refers to the medium through which a company avails its value proposition to its customer niche. There are various mediums available to business, and the selection depends on the urgency and most efficient regarding cost. There are two main kinds of channels that is business owned channels such as the storefronts and distributors. A company can choose to use one or employ both. INFINIDAT uses the services of distributors in distributing its solutions in new markets. For instance, in 2017 ASBIS became the official distributor of INFINIDAT in distributing information technology products in the emerging markets in EMEA.

An enterprise must choose the kind of relationship it will have with its clients to develop financial success and sustainability (Lire, Eskelinen, Heinonen, Hansen, & Kajanus, 2014).. INFINIDAT employs self-service in relating to its clients where the company has a support portal customized with segments such as documentation link that contains information on InfiniBox installation manual. INFINIDAT also has a search engine on the support portal where the clients can search for all the content that pertains to the products or services offered by the company.

Revenue streams refer to the technique that a company employs in getting its clients to buy its commodities or services. A revenue stream can be generated in the following ways; Asset sale involves the company selling its right of owning the product to the customer. INFINIDAT exercises this method as it sells its products to customers directly or through its appointed distributors. INFINIDAT also charges the use of its patent rights through licensing.

Resources refer to the infrastructure that is primary in providing value to its clients. Resources can be classified as human, intellectual or physical. INFINIDAT has sufficient human resources regarding employees that are well qualified and talented in the provision of data products and solutions. The company also boasts of substantial financial resources that have enabled INFINIDAT to invest in research and product development leading to the production of world-class products that solve storage problems.

INFINIDAT’s Business Model Canvas

INFINIDAT needs to create efficient and aligned operations and mitigate itself against risks associated with any enterprise model; an enterprise has to establish and maintain partnerships with other relevant stakeholders. INFINIDAT allied with Mitch Diodato a veteran in the IT industry to address and identify issues affecting enterprise storage clients today.

Cost structure identifies the cost of running a business by a specific model.INFINIDAT enjoys economies of scale due to the massive production of the storage appliances. The company also enjoys economies of scope as INFINIDAT has invested in its core product the InfiniBox thus reducing costs associated with investing in the production of InfiniBox.

Understanding customer segments impacts on value propositions as the company can provide products that match the needs, tastes and preferences of the consumers. Strategic resources such as human resource can affect the cost structure of the business. For instance, INFINIDAT has a pool of talented staff that have dedicated themselves to innovating products thus enjoying economies of scope as the company invests in a product that generates a big portion of the company’s income. Partnerships are important in shaping and increasing its revenue streams. For instance, INFINIDAT pulled some strings by taking onboard Mitch Diodato to help increase sales from the North American region. The choice of a channel can also impact on the cost structure either positively or negatively by affecting the variable costs. INFINIDAT, for instance, chose to use distributors who are associated with lower costs, and the overall effect is that there will be low costs of production in both the long-run and short-run. Customer relationships determine the regular stream of revenues. Successful companies invest in building healthy relationships with their customers through dedicated personal assistance programs. INFINIDAT has only invested in self-service that is also good in ensuring a rapport with its clients.

Key success factors that the company has to get right.

INFINIDAT has to invest heavily in building healthy relationships with its customers to build a wide network of customers.

In today’s global business, firms have to keep on developing new products based on customers’ preferences and specification to remain relevant and competitive enough in the market (Aliyachandra & Frolick, 2013). The intense competition has forced some companies out of business (Žižlavský*, 2013). INFINIDAT has to keep innovating products if it is to be successful and remain relevant in IT business (Buh, Kovacic, & Stemberger, 2015).

INFINIDAT has to increase the range of its products so that it can mitigate itself from the risk of poor selling brands through product diversification. On the other hand, the company should differentiate its products from those of other competitors to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors.

Key Success Factors for INFINIDAT

Downside risk can be defined as the chance that an asset will fall in price. It can also be defined as the evaluation of a possible loss from the price decline. For INFINIDAT, the downside risk can arise from the fact that the company has invested heavily in the development of Infinibox technology. Businesses in technology-related businesses suffer the worst losses if the product becomes obsolete due to better products from rival firms. In this case, INFINIDAT’s InfiniBox would be out of the market making the company lose heavily bearing in mind the InfiniBox is the major product that seems to generate a substantial portion of company’s income.

INFINIDAT depends on distributors to supply its products to customers. However, it would be more profitable if the company could invest in having its stalls to distribute its products. This would see the firm identify itself with customers and the company will be able to interact with customers on a personal basis enabling the firm to understand the problems of clients first hand.

INFINIDAT has developed excellent products that are marketable and relevant in solving data related problems. However, the company has little geographical coverage regarding the market. It would thus be viable if the company franchised with other companies in the different nation to increase its presence and market in the global market.

Conclusion

A business model defines how an enterprise develops and captures value (Qastharin, 2016). Alexander Osterwalder developed the business model canvas as a graphical representation of new or existing business models that are employed by strategic managers (Verrue, 2014).The adoption of a relevant business model canvas by INFINIDAT is critical for ensuring stability and long-run success of the firm in future.

References

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O’Brien, K. J. (2017, October 3). Infinidat worth $1.6B after Goldman investment of $95M. Retrieved from Boston Business Journal: https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2017/10/03/infinidat-worth-1-6b-after-goldman-investment-of.html

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Žižlavský*, O. (2013). Past, Present and Future of the Innovation Process. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 5(1), 25-45.

Zott, C., Amit, R. H., & Massa, L. (2011). The Business Model: Recent Developments and Future Research. SSRN, 3(4), 24-56.