Pinterest Business Model Canvas

This online scrapbook/ idea pin up board has really taken off in the past few years.  This site allows users to post ideas and "pin" others posted ideas for later use.  Users can search for different topics including weddings or cooking and pull up hundreds of creative ideas posted by others.  According to an article found on cnbc.com (http://www.cnbc.com/id/100546966) Pinterest recently rolled out a new feature of Pinterest Web Analytics that raised $200M from investors.  It is said that they are now worth $2.5B.  Even though Pinterest does not charge for its service to users they are making money through investments.  Pinterest has minimal fixed costs.  This new feature of tracking web anayltics is a step in the direction of charging for advertisements.  It was reported that they has 30 million unique visitors in January of 2013 making them the 38th most view website in the US.

The Canvas that I put together is showing that they have very few fixed costs and currently very little revenue potential.  If they are to start charging for advertisement this canvas will surely change.  They have the potential to make a lot of money off of business advertisements with as much traffic as they get.

Week of July 1st.

Completed Items:  Required reading
	•	"Introduction," in The Numerati, pp. 1-16.  Big Data and You: People Still Matter Demystifying Big Data: How Retailers Can Use Information to Drive Sales
Required viewing
AdditionalMaterial	•	Brief History of the Internet You Tube video ·         Report: The World's Most Valuable Brands. Who's Most Engaged?

Business Model Canvas Assignment

One of the main topics for this week is Big Data. The article Demystifying Big Data  really help me realize the enormous amounts of data that companies have to deal with.  The graphic with all the examples of data was pretty overwhelming.  Retailers need focus on how they plan to use this data being collected.  The smartphone has really drove this increase in data.  One of the biggest improvements that retailers will focus on in the future is using the data for personalizing marketing communications.  I also thought that it was interesting in this article that the goals for using big data were conflicting in where retailers plan focus and then where they plan to deploy their first projects.

The Numerati was also an interesting read.  I'm sure it will make most people paranoid reading this.  It is an interesting topic, especially with the news a few weeks go about the government obtaining phone records for everyone.  Also this past spring the Obama administration announced a $200M project that involved six Federal departments and agencies that promise to greatly improve the tools and techniques needed to access, organize, and glean discoveries from huge volumes of digital data.  What will they use these new tools for?

Business Model Canvas - UTC Aerospace Systems - Electric Systems

The Business Model Canvas I did was for the company I currently work for, UTC Aerospace Systems (UTAS) Electric Systems.  UTAS is a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation and Electric Systems is a business unit of UTAS.  UTAS is an aerospace company that has market share in both commercial and military aerospace.  They are a major supplier to large aerospace original equipment manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus.  The Key Partners I selected were Raw Material Suppliers, Supplier Designed Equipment Suppliers, and Contract/Labor Agencies.  Each of these partners are key to the business's success.  The Key Activities are Engineering, System Integration,  Hardware/Line Replaceable Unit Design, and Software Design.  For revenue streams I decided for simplicity reasons to focus just on hardware.  It is hard to quantify revenue for development/engineering for this canvas so the revenue is understated a little bit.  The cost structure is complex and difficult to estimate as far as amounts go, but I took a shot.  The costs include Company Funded Engineering, Development Hardware, Overhead, and Raw Material.  When it comes to customer segment market sizes I tried to estimate aircraft produced yearly in both military and commercial segments.  The military segment has significantly less aircraft manufactured yearly which means the variable costs that affect that segment tend to be lower.  This canvas only allows you to account for fixed costs.  Based on the information provided, the UTAS business model is very profitable.  Like I mentioned earlier this is a very rough model due to so many complex issues and unforeseen costs.  UTAS holds a strong position when it comes to market share and this is a strong contributor to the high profitability.  This is primarily due to the limited number of suppliers of aerospace electrical systems.  Overall the Business Model Canvas for UTAS Electric Systems shows a good outlook for the company.