Icontact Company Case Study

iContact

iContact is a company created to help small businesses compete with larger corporations. By helping these smaller companies market themselves on a global scale, with very low overhead. This is done by company newsletters and mass-emails, via the internet, replacing direct-mail, and advertising. Aaron and Ryan are two outstanding examples of entrepreneurs that have become successful by finding a need in a service oriented field and fulfilling it for prospective customers. They understood that to become successful there was a large amount of risk and that the amount of time invested cost money.

The types of stakeholder environments involved with iContact would consist of technology, competitive and global. The most important environment would be technology and the uses for their business. Computers and the internet would be how they marketed to potential clients, and created the service to future or existing clients. A further emphasis is on the idea of maintaining a competitive environment at work, this would be accomplished by empowering employees to want to achieve superior service to clients. As well as having the brightest, most energetic and diverse work force would allow their company to reach a multitude of ethnic and geographical backgrounds. However, it was especially refreshing to see a corporation that values their employees as more than just "clock punchers". These two individuals seem to genuinely care about their employees and have incorporated a large number of work place initiatives to ensure a healthy work environment. Also an emphasis on having fun while at work is a standard at iContact, which in today's economy is becoming more and more a novel thought.

Aaron and Ryan knew starting a company with a minimal amount of capital would be very challenging. But they had a good business plan, a service that would create opportunities for small businesses to market themselves, and a sensible return on investment. Also, knowing that would enable them to grow the company they needed to raise investment capital so all profits were redistributed back into the company. However, understanding their stakeholders is considerably the most advantageous thing that Aaron and Ryan could have done starting their business. What most impresses me about these two entrepreneurs is the will to move forward and continue to grow.

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