BA 317 Blog

Job Overview from Microsoft Careers:

“The Surface marketing team is looking for an expert to lead the end-to-end launch process for Surface devices. If you have a proven track record in product marketing, business planning, product management, operations and/or finance this is a unique opportunity to lead and develop the end-to-end launch process for Surface at a critical and exciting time.”

Qualifications:

• Proven ability collaborate effectively with partner organizations and teams
• Strong analytical and structured thinking skills with the ability understand and find solutions for multi-dimensional problems
• Demonstrated ability to disambiguate challenging and complex problems with cross-group dependencies and identify growth opportunities
• The ideal candidate will have 5+ years of experience post BA/S in finance and/or strategy, business planning, product management, consulting and/or operations; MBA preferred

A key concept of Microsoft brand’s culture is their aspiration for innovation, customer satisfaction, and exercising risk. It is essential that they exhibit these qualities in order to stay up to par with their competitors, considering this day and age of technology. A main goal of theirs is the idea of diversity in their products, their aim to set themselves apart when it comes to creating products similar to that of other brands. In comparison, while Apple wants to be “much better”, Microsoft latches onto innovation in order to draw in customers. As a whole, their culture is exceptionally committed, because their customer retention means a great deal to them.

Their culture appears to be consistent with their brand to a degree, for they obtain strong success in some realms but are weaker in others. For example, in looking at their tablet products, their ratings are comparable with that of competitors but are still not quite as successful, for their ratings just a notch below that of Apple. Plus the content of the written ratings are still lesser for these same tablets. The tablets themselves function just fine, but the visual display and accessibility layouts of them are not as strongly favored when it comes to tablets. In regards to this specific job, which involves marketing Surface products for Microsoft, the employee ratings are considerably high; however, the product that is being marketed isn’t the most sturdy when competing with products in the same market.

Road Map to Microsoft employment:

-obtain BA in finance
-potentially obtain MBA, but not necessary
-obtain internship at Russell Investments
-obtain finance job at Russell Investments and remain there for the next 4 years
-apply for Microsoft job considering that all technical qualifications are met

Danville, California is a fairly well-off area and definitely appeals to the more luxurious of lifestyles. All along Hartz Avenue there are a myriad of shops, restaurants, and other services that appeal to people who are looking to add additional outings to their day. The town of Danville has recently built a new building complex right in the heart of this Downtown area, and conveniently by places like Starbucks and Lunardi’s Grocery Store, which would serve as a prime location for a health spa. This is the West side of Danville and is in which case located by many families who utilize the many businesses in the downtown area, from Crossfit and barre3 to dog accessory shops. Overall, a health spa would be incredibly appealing to the people living here and is in an exceptionally accessible location. Being that this is truly the central area of town, the amount of traffic that runs through here is extensive and involves people who are searching for these types of businesses. There are businesses that have been here for the past 10+ years that converted themselves into greater businesses over time, for example The Daily Method exercise location became Barre3. Within the families that love here, most jobs have income upwards of six figures, therefore they would be able to afford a health spa.

As well as, in addition to the details about the people of this area, the data uncovered in consumer leads make this all the more a favorable location.  In regards to the town of Danville, there are two areas which serve as potential locations for certain shops and businesses, one of which has the zip code of 94506 and the other, the location of our health spa, being 94526.  There are 2,026 more consumer leads in our designated area of Danville, thus making it a far more promising and appealing location for the general public in this vicinity.

In regards to where the health spa would be specifically located, Hartz Avenue would prove to be a prime location, as displayed in the above image. As I previously touched on, Hartz Ave is home to various other businesses, which as a result generates quite a bit of both foot traffic and automobile traffic.  It is also just the main street of Downtown Danville, for there is a large clock tower in the middle of it and town parades are orchestrated along it.  For these reasons this area again would prove to be much more beneficial for the Health Spa than the area of Danville that I previously compared it to.  That other area lacks any form of a street where traffic will pass by the stores, and simply has a tucked away collection of stores that have been known to come and go.  Hartz Ave is a more open location and is just closer in proximity to its customers overall.