E140A - Session 12

Summary

Guest

Geoffrey Moore

Geoffrey Moore is an author, co-founder and managing director at TCG Advisors, a venture partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, and founder of The Chasm Group. He is the author of Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game (with co-authors Tom Kippola and Paul Johnson), and Living on the Fault Line, each of which deals with a set of management or investor challenges posed by fast-changing, technology-enabled markets. He is a frequent contributor to business periodicals and a speaker at industry conferences.

Recognized as a leading business consultant to large companies facing formidable strategic challenges, Geoffrey works with established enterprises in his role of Managing Director of TCG Advisors. In this role, he divides his time between consulting on strategy and transformation challenges with senior executives and developing mental models to support the practice. Also recognized for his expertise in market development and business and investment strategies, as a Venture Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures he serves as an advisor to many of their portfolio companies by drawing upon best practices derived from his extensive background working with technology startups.

He holds a bachelor's degree in literature from Stanford University and a doctorate in literature from the University of Washington.

Required Readings (Policy on Required Readings.)

• Case: Documentum (Purchase online)
• Case Opening: Team #4
• Geoffrey Moore, Crossing the Chasm, HarperCollins, 1999 (Read Part I. Skim Part II.)

Study Questions (Policy on Study Questions.)

1. What do the "numbers" as provided in the case tell us? Please make sure to perform our customary V-I-E analysis as a start (Vision - Internal Assessment - External Assessment).
2. What did Documentum learn from its experience with the first two customers (Boeing and Syntex)?
3. What do you think of Jeff's decision to focus on vertical markets (in other words, what are the advantages and disadvantages versus the original strategy)? Which vertical market of the five should Documentum pick to focus on?
4. What are some implementation issues if the company does focus on "verticals" and how do you propose they overcome them?

Assignment

As Jeff Miller, I would have Documentum (accept / decline - choose only one of these) the $300K Marsh and McLennan deal because ...

Also, write a positioning statement for the vertical market in study question #3, filling in the following template from Crossing the Chasm (and also described in Byers, Dorf, and Nelson section 11.3):

Sentence #1
For (target customer segment) who (statement of the need or opportunity), the (product/service name) is a (product/service category) that (statement of benefit).
Sentence #2
Unlike (primary competitive alternative), our product (statement of primary differentiation).

Note: Only one submission is required from each team.