Case Statement:
Your client is a founder and CEO of a visa facilitation company. Centre governments around the world require details for travel, currently facing a decline as international travel is down because of covid-19. You have been hired to give suitable suggestion to turn around the situation.
C: Could you elaborate on the business model of our client?
I: The client has offices setup in the source country so applicants who have to travel to a particular country can schedule their appointments online. After the appointments are given, candidates visit the centre in the home country. Client then collects information and sends it out to the destination country. Once they receive the visa they send it to the applicant.
C: Sure, and I would want to understand what are the sources of revenue for client you like how exactly do they charge the client?
I: The charges are different for each customer depending upon the country to which they are travelling. There are several routes over the world and the charges differ depending on the route.
C: So currently for our client the Total revenue = Revenue per customer * Number of customers. Since number of customers cannot be increased due to Covid, we can focus on revenue per customer to help our client meet the break even in the short term. Is that a correct assumption?
I: Yes. Go ahead.
C: I would like to look at the entire value chain for a client and the ways to increase revenue at each step. Will that be a fair strategy?
I: Yes.
C: We can have two solutions - internally and externally implemented at this stage for the short term. For internal, we can look to acquire customers from more profitable route. For external, we can look at value added services, corporate contracts and sponsorship. Do you want me to focus on anything particular here ?
I: Client can’t change their internal model. Users and governments directly pay and we get a service fee which has a cap. It cannot be changed. And we were servicing all possible routes right now. You can look into the external factors.
C: For corporate contracts, the client can cover all visas for a given company and provide end-to-end service for which they’ll get an extra fee from the company. Sponsorship in terms of advertising the sponsor in their brochures, offices and documents. Does this sound feasible?
I: Looks okay. But what can you do in the value-added services?
C: For that, we can provide assistance with foreign exchange, travel/ lodging/ boarding assistance, and tour packages for our current clients. This way, we will be a one stop solution for them. In these options, is it safe to assume that there won’t be a cap on the fees levied from services?
I: Yes this seems good. Now what can we do for the long term?
C: For the long term, they can improve the core business or focus on non-core businesses. Under core business they can do 3 things: Get more customers, increase revenue per customer and look for new routes. On the non-core side, they can look into new investments since they are in a good financial position. Is there anything I am missing, should focus on?
I: Look at the investment opportunities. Considering there is a pandemic happening, where should they invest? What changes would happen?
C: Owing to covid majority of the work has shifted online. Hence, the appointments which they conduct in person could be online too and the client can look into investing in that domain.
I: Correct. But what would be required to go online completely? What should they invest in?
C: They would need a good infrastructure for setup and processing. For the setup, they will need strong servers, networks and maybe IaaS. For processing they can invest into machine learning and AI algorithms. During the appointments they would have to process information and biometrics. So text recognition, image recognition and processing software could be acquired. They will have to ensure a robust cyber secure system.
I: Yes, that’s correct. We can end the case here.
Background Information:
Company –The company gathers biometrics and other information and put it in a dossier verified and send it to the embassy. It has 50 to 60 such companies around the world
Customers: Retail – Individuals and corporates
Products: Visa Services
Competitors: Other Visa companies, faring worse than the client here.
Timeline: Since onset of Covid-19
Location - Headquarters in Middle East and otherwise offices are all around the world
Case recommendations:
The case focuses on stating the recommendations rather than finding the root cause of the problem.
Mapping the customer journey and finding improvement areas at each stage is a good way to show the structured thinking in such a case.
Further the candidate has used various metrics like long term - short term, internal-external to have a MECE approach, which helps in delivering the case recommendation comprehensively.
