Lulu.Com Case

Key Issue

Lulu.com’s mission is to be the world’s largest and most profitable free marketplace for digital content. To this end, Lulu.com is concentrating on company growth. With limited resources, Lulu.com practically cannot pursue all its expansion alternatives and needs to limit its choice to the most profitable opportunity for the company in the short and long term.

Alternatives

1. Geographic expansion into Asia

2. Improve infrastructure of the Lulu community

3. Improve financial systems

4. Aggressively attack the online video market

5. Develop new products in POD

Best Alternative

Lulu.com’s best option is to focus on improving its current internal operations so it can support a larger organization in the future. Lulu.com must concentrate on enhancing its Lulu community and financial management tools before expanding into different locations and product lines. It’s essential that Lulu.com focus on first building a strong foundation that will place them in a more strategic position in the future. If Lulu.com’s core business isn’t well established, then the company won’t be ready to sustain future growth and innovation.

Lulu.com’s key to success is providing creators and consumers with a valuable marketplace. With limited resources, Lulu.com was able to help the large number of customers through the Lulu community. Instead of training and paying employees to help creators, the community allowed creators to connect with one another and created an efficient means for Lulu.com to provide customer service. The community also provided effective communication channels between Lulu.com and its customers, assisting the company in meeting the needs of consumers. With the rapid growth of the company, the Lulu community has become outdated, and needs to be modernized and maintained in order for Lulu.com to hold on to its competitive advantage. Lulu.com needs to be investing in the proper resources to maintain its current key businesses.

Lulu.com’s internal financial tools are out-of-date