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Product Case - Microsoft Acquisition

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
Screenshot 2022-12-10 at 4.47.28 PM.png
Microsoft Office
Persona
Fear
Anxieties
Hopes
Dreams
1
Seamless Sharing
Deals or Ideas do not get across in near real time causing missed business opportunities
Someone who is concerned about seamlessly sharing with a large remote team
Fully integrated fully remote team able to work from anywhere in the world
2
On the Go Sally
Unable to manage housework and work with complete flexibility
Convenience of accessing their documents from anywhere and on any device
Fully integrated set of productivity and colloboration tools to create, update, share deliverables
3
Organized Eddie
Hard to search and locate documents, data and information on time
Always have all their information and data organized so that they can find it easily
Easy to use service that allows him to find what he is looking for
4
Privacy Pam
Sensitive business and personal data is hacked/leaked that comprises business
She is concerned about security of her personal and professional information
Guarantee of security of her data
There are no rows in this table
Screenshot 2022-12-10 at 5.37.19 PM.png
Microsoft Azure cloud
Persona
Fears
Hopes
Dreams
Examples/data
1
Heavy Computators
Causing delays and failures due to existing system not computing the data
Concerned about heavy computations on their systems
Integrate with large servers owned by someone else and access them to compute whenever needed
Working with heavy computations Eg: Aircraft/ Missile systems/ Space systems - NASA
2
Product Builders
Writing new algorithms/ collecting data may need many resources and may not be effective
Hoping to use other ML/AI Alogrithms/ data in their products
Large set of pre-defined algorithms/data sets which are easy to access and easy to integrate with their system
Eg: Computer vision products - Dash cam, autonomous vehicle products
3
Data securers
Fear of someone stealing the data or accessing the data may result in privacy concerns with their users
Worried about security of the data stored on their systems
Secure servers where data is end to end encrypted and someone else is fully responsible
Eg: Military/ high secure privacy data
4
Remote accessors
Fear of missing data/tools needed for running their machines
Worried about connectivity to the servers where there is no internet
Cloud connectivity/cloud access which works even without internet
Eg: Remote ships, Forest IoT devices
5
Fast retrievers
Waiting time may lead to disasters/ thefts or loss of customers/ customers data
Always have their computation ready or receive data with in seconds
Guaranteed connectivity with super fast computation
Eg: IoT security cameras, Airport baggage items detection
There are no rows in this table
Customer Journey Map - Azure Cloud
Persona
Onboarding
Pricing
Setup experience
Usage experience
1
Heavy Computators
Specific needs of memory usage and processing power addressed
Monthly payment for memory used provided instead of pay as you go
Required data centers and data are allocated based on the company/customer needs. Provided API’ s to connect to their system
Easy access and fast computation whenever triggered
2
Product Builders
Access to required model/ data sets
Pay as you go instead of one time
Access to APIs and easy to connect from the system
Easy to edit and change based on the need and system requirements. All the data accessed in order to run the system
3
Data Securers
Memory, processing, and required connections are addressed. Full end-to-end encryption with extra security based on government or normal needs
Pay for the required model and pay as you go for extra uses
Easy API connection with end-to-end encryption with 2-factor auth provided for the pipeline
Access the data only through some permitted systems and IP's which are secure
There are no rows in this table
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
Road Map - Azure Cloud
NOW
NEXT
LATER
1
Personalized recommendation of products based on use
Data center availability at the closest location
2
Personalised payment options based on use
Edit/ modify connections/data
3
Providing with required data sets/ models
Two Factor Auth
4
End to end encryption
There are no rows in this table
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
Reach → Product Manager
Impact → Product Manager
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
Name
Goals
Signals
Metrics
1
Happiness
2
Engagement
3
Adoption
4
Retention
5
Task Success
Lower number of failure in setting up secure and large computing tasks
Tracking time to completion
95% of compute requests completing within 100ms + 97% of requests complete within 500ms and best effort for the rest
There are no rows in this table
Note: Defining success metrics allows you to establish which product is able to best satisfy customer needs
Acquisition Candidates
Name
TAM (# of new users x price)
Company #1
Company #2
Score
1
Privacy Pam
Details of approach to gurantee data security
Details of approach to guranteeing data security
2
Remote Accessors
Connectivity time and computation without connectivity
Connectivity time and computation without connectivity
3
Fast Retrievers
Time taken to receive data and complete computation
Time taken to receive data and complete computation
4
Seamless Sharing
Feature that allows fully remote team to work seamlessly
Feature that allows fully remote team to work seamlessly
5
Heavy Computators
Reduce failures when I run heavy/large computations on my system
Improve time taken to run large computations on my system
Reduce failures when I run heavy/large computations on my system
Improve time taken to run large computations on my system
6
Product Builders
Reduce the time required when writing new AI/ML algorithms
Reduce the time required when collecting data sets for the a
Reduce the time required when writing new AI/ML algorithms
Reduce the time required when collecting data sets for the a
7
Data Securers
Improve security when storing privacy/confidential data
Reduce number of hacks to steal my confidential data
Improve security when storing privacy/confidential data
Reduce number of hacks to steal my confidential data
8
Total
There are no rows in this table
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