Business Report on Uptake artificial intelligence

Question

Task: To be completed individually, you are required to prepare a business report that deconstructs an organisation's business model and identifies the critical success factors that make the business sustainable. Your analysis will demonstrate your critical thinking skills and your ability to professionally articulate your findings.
Before commencing, you must seek your lecturer's approval to undertake an analysis of the business you have chosen. The type of organisation that should be identified for study is one that is relatively new, innovative in how they operate, and have most likely been established in the last five years. To achieve a result that meets your study objectives, please ensure the business report addresses each of the assessment criteria detailed below and which is elaborated in the marking rubric.

Answer

1. Background of the business
Uptake is a software company that deals with industrial AI ("Uptake artificial intelligence"). The company was incorporated in the year 2014 and the headquarter of Uptake is located in Chicago including several offices in Riyadh, San Francisco, and other cities.

1.1. Operating Industry
Uptake applications are used in several industries like mining, agriculture, agriculture, and automobile. The industrial AI platform of Uptake leverages the technology of data science and transforms a huge amount of "untapped IoT" raw data across industries that result in improved quality of manufacturing and efficiency.

1.2. Market focus
Uptake artificial intelligenceprovides the contents that are "industry specific” and it includes the ASL ("Asset Strategy Library") that helps in detecting and preventing failures. Uptake is one of the leaders for factories and equipment that recast into the "digital era."

1.3. Services provided
The organization is a specialist in radar, compasses, and scouts that are powered by "asset-specific" data science bundles. Core products of the company include the applications related to "asset performance management" and having a platform that is fully managed.

2. Description of “Business Model Canvas” on the chosen business
The business model canvas that is developed by "Osterwalder and Pigneur" is chosen to describe the business model of Uptake. In addition to the definition of business models and their components, Osterwalder and Pigneur provided the visualization of the model(Qastharin, 2016). The business model canvas includes nine building blocks that are discussed below related to the current scenario:

List	Name of the blocks	Description
1	"Customer Segments"	The different organizations and people that Uptake aims to serve and reach
2	"Value Proposition"	The products and services offered by Uptake that creates a specific value for the "Customer Segment." These values are of two types. The qualitative value refers to the experience of the customers and design of the products whereas, the quantitative value indicates the service quality or the price of the product.
3	"Channels"	This is the communication procedure of Uptake to reach the "Customer segment" with delivering the "value proposition." The channels of Uptake artificial intelligence comprise the interface of the company with its consumers. Channels could be both direct and indirect.
4	"Customer Relationship"	This is the different types of relationship that Uptake established with the specific segments of customers(Qastharin, 2016).
5	"Revenue Streams"	This is the liquid cash that Uptake is generating from each of the "customer segments"
6	"Key Resources"	This is the most significant asset of the Uptake requires for the business model to work properly. Several resources provide the company to reach the target markets, maintaining "customer relationship" and generate revenue for profitability. These resources may be financial, physical, or intellectual. Moreover, the "key resources" could be acquired by Uptake from its key partners as well as could be owned or rented.
7	"Key Activities"	This is another significant block of this business model that Uptake artificial intelligenceshould have to focus on. These activities are the actions that are needed to maintain a relationship with "customer segments," offering a value proposition and reaching the target market.
8	"Key partnerships"	These are the partners and suppliers of Uptake that evaluate the business model for working properly(Nurhayat, 2020).
9	"Cost Structure"	This is the overall cost required to run the business model of Uptake.

Osterwalderand Pigneur Business Model Canvas

Figure 1: "Osterwalder and Pigneur Business Model Canvas" (Nurhayat, 2020)

3. Explanation of the interrelationships between the blocks of “Business Model Canvas”
Scholars considered that, the main function of a business model is to identify, create and capture value (Maassen, 2018). The nine blocks are interrelated to each other and create a structural value for the business. "Customer segment” provides the knowledge about the clients and organizations that are related directly to the "channel" and customer relationship of Uptake artificial intelligenceto meet the customer needs and expectation. Key resources and the value proposition evaluates the product quality and couples with the segment to serve a better product to more customers.

Key activities are directly related to the Value proportion and customer segments to increase the sales of the company. Moreover, the key partnership involves the suppliers and partners required to run the overall business and interrelated to other blocks that are mentioned. Finally, the cost structure and revenue block combine with all other seven blocks that operate the infrastructure of the business model.

4. How will you evaluate the “Critical Success factors”of Uptake artificial intelligence?
Uptake artificial intelligenceis an emerging organization with more than eight-hundred types of equipment and need to conceptualize the strategic development for success (Holotiuk & Beimborn, 2017). To evaluate the CSF ("Critical Success Factors") Uptake is required to maintain these procedures:

a. Strategic Focus-This factor focuses on the thoughts and feelings of the organization and highly influenced by the realities of the market. Strategic focus includes the vision and mission of the organization that is a significant factor for CSF. The vision of the organization must be prioritized and focused on the present and future days.

b. People-This factor includes the leaders, employees, and the staff of the Uptake organization. Managing talented employees is a critical factor for all organizations and also for Uptake. In the present scenario, talents could be defined as employees with higher potential with increased productivity(Naim & Lenka, 2017). The organization must focus on employee development programs to improve the talents of the employees for business growth.

c. Operations-This the work process according to which the company operates. It is the overall set of decisions that provides a shape to the organization in the long-term goal achievement processes(Kumar & Sharma, 2017). It also refers to the methods that Uptake is using to reach its business development objectives.

d. Marketing-This is one of the most significant components for CSF and could be improved by several marketing activities (Sisay, Frans, & Hans, 2017). Uptake must monitor the target markets to sustain the business advantages to increase the "customer segment" satisfaction level. To improve marketing, feedback from the customers is also an important factor that provides adequate ideas to the company to meet the needs of the customers and other organizations they are serving.

e. Assets and Finance-Uptake provide industry-specific content. To develop this factor, Uptake artificial intelligenceneeds to maintain "competitive pricing" that will attract more organizations and customers to purchase their products and services. For financial issues, sufficient cash flow is also an important element behind the CSF.

Factors that affect the “business model”
Innovation is a significant part of the strategic development of a company and Uptake needs to gain over the competitive advantage. It has been noticed that the organization has attracted sufficient customer segments but, considerable development is always required to take the organization to the next level (Tian, Zhang, Yu, & Cao, 2019). To provide increased satisfaction to the customers, segmentation is required by Uptake so that the organization could focus more on the development of the business strategies. It is important to analyze the market to improve the business.

The product variety is another factor that may affect the business model's "Value proposition." Due to the advancement and increased competitiveness in the technological industries and organizations, customers are having several alternate options from the competitors of Uptake artificial intelligence. Regarding this factor, maintaining the quality of the product is very important so that the customers must expect and receive the optimized product and services from Uptake that meet their expectations. Improving the channels for the Uptake organization provides adequate knowledge about to customers about their products and services.

Channel deficiency could affect the business model as the components of this phase include knowledge, purchase, delivery of the product, and post-sales support. The organization should choose its private or direct channels including marketers and experts to improve their business.

Relationships with customers could be referred to as a critical factor that might affect the business model. This factor includes customer support and assistance about the products and services. Scholars considered that to focus and improve relationships it is important to conquer and retain customers and finally, increase the sales of the business (Nurhayat, 2020). Moreover, "Key resources" is also another significant factor that might impact the business and the revenue of Uptake artificial intelligence.

5. Recommendations on the business for making future changes
I will recommend making some changes within the "Key activity block" if this was my business. These changes may improve the customer segment block and reach the target market more conveniently. By conducting a questionnaire survey for the customers, it would provide better feedback to know about the demand for future products and improving the existing products to increase customer and other organization's satisfaction. Moreover, analyzing this feedback from customers and other organizations, Uptake artificial intelligencecan improve its sales and generate more revenue in the future days.

6. Conclusion
The business report discusses the Uptake artificial intelligence. Ostwalder and Pigneur (2010) business model has been used in this report to deconstruct the business model and identifying the critical success factors to make the business sustainable. Moreover, the factors that may affect the business model and the recommendation of the author have been briefed related to the present scenario.