Management
CO8:” Evaluate new product forecasting utilizing structured judgment”
Forum Prompt:
For this Discussion Forum, begin by choosing a company that supplies a product line you respect and use. Start with a (very) brief definition of the company, the product offering, and what factors cause you to respect the product. Next, come up with a new product that you believe this company should consider offering. You may choose either a revolutionary or evolutionary product (look for the definitions of these in Chapter 10 of your textbook). Then, based on your learning in the chapter 10 of the textbook, describe the steps you would take to develop the framework for a demand model for the product.
ANSWER
SolarCity Corporation is based in San Mateo, California, United States of America. The company deals services revolving around solar energy. The company was founded in 2006 and by 2009, the installed solar panels the company had installed we generating 444 megawatts of energy. By 2013, the company was the leading company in a solar installation in the country in residential environments, the Solar Power World Magazine declared the company second in the country for overall solar energy installation and production. By 2014, the company was producing 6200 megawatts. The growth, however, was met by a production challenge that let to 22% jobs cut and eventually, a merger with Tesla Inc. and a diversification of it products from pure solar services to sustainable batteries and by 2017, the companies motive was to launch a battery factory most of which are plans that are still underway.
A lot of respect about SolarCity comes from the fact that the company is a champion for clean energy, something that the world desperately needs with global warming being imminent. However, the company should consider the introduction of a revolutionary product like solar-powered automobiles. The reason being that most of the pollution in terms of greenhouse emissions experienced globally is as a result of petroleum-powered automobiles. By merely being clean energy automobiles, a market for the product will develop as conservation cautious users opt for them for the sake of the environment. This will be met by a demand for very high functionality that will match up the solar vehicles with the initial diesel powers ones. Using the four key steps of new product forecasting, a query would find similar products such as the electric-powered automobiles, a filter would eliminate the electric-powered vehicle because electricity is not pure energy compared to solar, model extract statistical data from other almost similar products and forecast would use the extracted data to form the basis and foundation of the launch of the solar-powered automobile.
References
SolarCity Mission, Vision & Values. Retrieved on 14th July 2020 from https://www.comparably.com/companies/solarcity/mission
