Abstract

The Waypoint case focuses primarily on the issue of assessing, addressing, and correcting a dysfunctional business model. In this particular situation, the company’s proposed solutions do not connect with the intended target market, and its value proposition has to then be re-evaluated. Correcting the business model also entails examining the company’s cost structure, evaluating strategy, and assessing relevant external factors. After the passing of its chairman and founder in 2011, the digital mapping company Waypoint Systems found itself in an unsettling situation - it was without leadership, without direction, and suffering from continuous financial losses. A new CEO steps in to find that Waypoint’s business model had been flawed from the beginning. While the company appeared to provide a unique solution for certain real estate needs, that proposition was failing to produce actual revenues. Faced with losses amounting to roughly $30,000 USD each month, the company needed to be turned around fast. Students are put in the position of the new CEO who has just recently assumed responsibility of an existing business with existing problems. They will have to utilize the given internal and external information to analyze the situation, identify the root cause of the problem, and come up with the best solution they can for Waypoint. The case has very much of an entrepreneurship leaning as well, since Waypoint is a small company, and, though it has been operating for six years, still faces many of the challenges a typical start-up might encounter, and has yet to see profitability. Because Waypoint is a Philippine-based company, the case also offers insight into the challenges and opportunities of doing business in a frontier market – particularly in the areas of real estate, the developing IT infrastructure, and the challenges of dealing with the local bureaucracy.

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