iNTEGRATED CASE STUDY ASSIGNMENT 2 BAZAART STUDENT NAME: MOHAIMINUL KHAN SUBMITTED TO: ZOEB UR RAHMAN ID: 12MOFMOF0616 LONDON SCHOOL OF COMMERCE  BAZAART is an mobile application that helps users to edit pictures and create photo collages. It started its journey in 2014 and due to limited funds, the owners had to use Growth Hacking techniques which ultimately turned out to be great for them (Martin, 2014). The target market of Bazaart were inexperienced teens who used their mobile phones to click pictures and edit them rather than professionals. The owners were desperate to gain higher success but their inability to gather external finance created various problems (Mann, 2012). The company had already sold out 9% of its equity in return for $25000 from a startup. The Israeli tech industry were known to attract potential US investors and Israel had a strong bonding with US considering trade but US investors were reluctant to invest in BAZAART as it had no proceeding in the US market and lack of information on how applications extracted money (Cellan-Jones, 2014). The application market was filled with strong and existing competitors such as Snapseed and Pixlr Express which made it quite difficult for Bazaart to sustain in the market (Otto. 2013). Throughout the presentation the problems faced by Bazaart will be taken into account critically. Then an analysis will be taken out on the case of Bazaart and solutions will be provided on how the challenges could be tackled (Efrati, 2013). Bazaart is an application that enabled its users to edit photos and create photo collages, it was available only to IOS users. The core strength of the application relied on two elements its Canvas Engine and Language Translation (Gramham, 2014). The Canvas Engine of Bazaart enabled its users to not only edit photos but also to Upload the photos on any social media platform in high resolution which other apps were struggling to do. The idea of including Language translation in the app turned out to be great for the Bazaart team (Casanova, 2013). The app caught fire on the Russian app market after its translation in the Russian language. Some of the Bazaart team members were native Russian speakers which enabled Bazaart to gain language translation free of cost (Holiday, 2013). The main weakness of the Bazaart team was their inability to attain external finance. This problem led to many other problems such as usage of tradition marketing techniques, motivation issues along the Bazaart team. Furthermore, lack of finance restricted Bazaart’s growth in the application market (Brooke, 2013). The most vital challenge for Bazaart was to acquire external finance and gain growth. The US investors were reluctant to invest in Bazaart as it did not have any proceedings in the US market (Cellan-Jones, 2014). The Bazaart team had great potential but lacked certain skills as it was their first time as entrepreneurs. The application market was filled with strong and existing competitors like Snapseed and Pixlr Express. Bazaart’s sustainability was under threat as it was just a startup with lower number of downloads and active users compared to its competitors (Golander, 2014). Bazaart has been facing difficulties regarding fund raising, there are many ways through which startups like Bazaart can look to attain external finance. Crowd Funding - Bazaart can use Crowdfunding as a means of gaining external finance, this would mean gaining attention of potential investor group to invest in the app. App Contests - Recently considering the vast changes in technology over time many app contests are being held, Bazaart can participate in those contests and gain access to external source of finance and also gain interests of users (Eskandari et.al, 2015). Angel Investor – If Bazaart can gain attention of potential angel investors it would be easier for them to attain external finance. Equity Selling – This is a very good source of acquiring finance for Bazaart. If they are able to convince investors to buy their shares in return for finance their financial problems could be solved. Bazaart is free for users and the amount of return gained from the application is quite low. This might be demotivating factor for the Bazaart team (Seither, 2015). McGregor’s Theory X & Y – Theory Y can be carried out along the Bazaart team to motivate them. The management structure of Bazaart is flat and using theory Y will enhance the decision-making process as all the members are involved. The idea would be to appreciate the efforts of the members so they are motivated to work harder (Arslan & Staub, 2013). Due to lack of finance Bazaart is excluded from the use of Traditional marketing techniques that are costly. Bazaart needs to find out ways to market their application to a broader community. Integrated Marketing Communication Model – Bazaart can use networking as a means of marketing their application. Family, relatives and friends play a vital role in Network marketing. The most appropriate Instrument for Bazaart would be through public relation and online marketing. Bazaart can also target relationship marketing which will enable them to retain existing users through greater service, this will eventually lead to greater users of the application (Wayne et.al, 2010). Bazaart was desperate to convert their early success into superior success, however due to lack of finance their growth was restricted. Ansoff Matrix – Bazaart can make use of the market development strategy and look to enter the US application market in order to develop a new market for their application. This will also enable them to attract potential US investors who were reluctant to invest in the app before (Gianos, 2013). Bazaart faced intense competition from strong and existing competitors like Snapseed which raised questions on their sustainability. Blue Ocean Strategy – Bazaart can use the blue ocean strategy and redefine the users of the application industry in order to gain competitive advantage. Bazaart can create alliance with fashion shops and attract fashion addicts to use the application that is currently use by photo editors only (Denning, 2017). VRIO Analysis – The VRIO analysis identifies the core resources of Bazaart as the Canvas Engine and language translation. The analysis proves that Bazaart has a temporary competitive advantage over its competitors. However, technology changes rapidly and Bazaart needs to find new opportunities for maintaining their competitive advantage (Pesic, 2013). From the case it can be stated that Bazaart team is encountering various problems regarding the Management, Marketing and specially growth. The proposed solutions to the Bazaart team would be to: Bazaart is currently free for users due to which the returns from the application is very low. This might cause the team members to become demotivated. Bazaart should implement in app advertising to earn higher revenues (Hill, 2017). Many application users have said that they do not mind random advertisements popping in the app as long as the application is free to use. Bazaart’s application of in app advertisement will not effect their users, furthermore the inclusion of the strategy will motivate the team members to put in more effort in the business process as greater revenues will be attained (Bussgang & Preble, 2014). Various reports provide evidence that the android platform consists of potential application users. Currently Bazaart is only available to IOS users, which restricts it to gain access to greater groups in the android app market. Bazaart should design their application for the android app market to gain attention of higher potential users. Throughout the application of this strategy Bazaart will be able to increase its downloads, active users and greater appreciation (Vaughan-Nichols, 2017). Bazaart can redefine the user base of the application industry, to turn their Red Ocean Blue. Bazaart should try to create strategic alliance with fashion shops and market their products on their platform this will attract potential fashion addict to download Bazaart. Furthermore, this strategy will allow Bazaart to gain potential support from the company with which the alliance is created. Bazaart will also be able to gain higher users and will act as a source of marketing for the application (Takalani, 2015).