If Microsoft had to acquire one company, what would it be, and why?
01 Outcome
The outcome of this analysis is focused on how to extend Microsoft’s Vision which is “To help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.”
02 Available Opportunities & Validation
The decision tree framework (depicted below) allows you to map the available opportunities. The opportunities are identified by the creating a set of personas for each major line of business.
Please describe the primary research (customer interview) that you intend to do both qualitative and quantitative that supports the opportunity that you have selected.
03 Alternatives and Assumptions
By focusing on a select few major businesses, this analysis seeks to identify acquisition opportunities that can help Microsoft remain relevant and drive further success.
While other factors—such as team fit and technology strength—are integral considerations in the decision-making process, they are not explicitly accounted for here.
04 Roadmap
The product roadmap describes the set of problems that will be taken up Now, Next and Later and what will be integrated or built. 05 Success Metrics
Describe the success metrics for your Roadmap (defined above)
06 What we are not doing?
Finally, describe any area that you are not going to pursue an acquisition for example a regulated industry or countries or regions that may be banned.
Personas
Develop personas for different lines of business at Microsoft
Customer Journey Map - Azure Cloud
0 Note: A Customer Journey map allows you to evaluate the candidate company product in greater details
Inputs to a Roadmap
Customer Delight → Jobs to be done (table above) Metric Movers → Adoption (Features that will drive more adoption early?) Customer Requests → Customer Support, Twitter Technical Debt → Infrastructure work that needs to be done Note: Building a roadmap allows you to evaluate which is the most urgent company to acquire
Describe how did you go about doing product discovery? Built a beta product or set of clickable mocks and find potential users/customers and get feedback Find at least 3-5 customers and get feedback and synthesize it How do you decide what and what not to build? Follow the RICE framework which stands for Reach, Impact, Confidence and Effort Prioritization Framework → RICE Confidence → PM / Program Manager / Engineering Manager Effort → Program Manager / Engineering Manager / Engineer What is your approach on taking feedback from customers? Get both qualitative feedback in terms of demo’s where you record meetings, take notes Ask them to try the product for free for a number of days, measure engagement using analytics. Product Metrics - Azure Cloud
0 Note: Defining success metrics allows you to establish which product is able to best satisfy customer needs
TAM (# of new users x price)