The reflection of the - Case Study Example

Case Reflection Case Reflection It is interesting that the article s how Kamen looks up to Albert Einstein more than to Edison. The latter shares a lot in common with Kamen, in being both a passionate inventor as well as an entrepreneur, though Kamen obviously has had more early success. With the Segway there is the same concern as with Edison that after all that inventor energy may not always be in touch with the pulse of the market. On the other hand, the article notes too that with some things, like the Internet, there is no way to know whether the market and the general consumers know what they want, until they have it.

This is one of the dilemmas facing Kamen and Segway entering into the market, and what the early investors in Credit Suisse and Perkins were also facing, investing close to $37 million each and for that getting only about seven percent of total equity. That meant they were valuing Segway very highly, while allowing Kamen to hold majority shares of the firm. It was an educated gamble and entails a lot of risk. The risk mitigation measures, such as the undertaking of formal and rigorous market research, were essentially not present in this case.

The investors, and Kamen, had to go on faith that Kamen’s intuitions are correct. One can argue that from the perspective of the market, there are many other unknowns too that make the Segway venture more complicated. There are the laws on the use of the Segway in public streets and the way they are to be regulated or not that add to the uncertainty of the success of the product. Moreover, there are unknowns too with regard to whether there are going to be oppositions from vested interests who may be adversely affected by the success of the Segway, including the traditional car manufacturers, and even the oil companies, whose sales and profits will be affected by the success of the new machine.

One can expect that these vested interests will not take the introduction of the Segway and the threat to their livelihoods sitting down. Of course if the threat is real they have the motivation to block its success, by lobbying for the Segway’s regulation for instance, and making it difficult for the Segway to gain access to roads. These and other vested interests will surely put up a fight. Then too, as the article notes, it is not clear at that point whether the market will warm up to the new vehicle, given that the American love affair with automobiles is deeply entrenched in the culture and is part of the American psyche, immortalized in art, in popular culture, in the movies, and in music.

There is in other words a large mass of forces in the market, among consumers, among potential competitors, and in the culture of America that seem to wait in the wings ready to derail the success of the Segway. Kamen is an excellent inventor, but one can also see that he seemed detached from the concerns of the real world, and seems to have lacked at that point a proper appreciation of the interconnectedness of these various factors. For instance, the suppliers of parts for the Segway, such as the tire supplier, also makes tires for Segway competitors, namely the mainstream car manufacturers.

These suppliers are expected to hedge their bets to protect their own interests. Elsewhere the other shortcomings of Kamen in terms of understanding the competitive, political, social, cultural and even the business aspects of the Segway launch are in evidence, for instance in the way outsiders looking in have seen the initial top management choices for the new firm as being subpar for the work that is to be done. In other words the article in a way acts as a kind of warning to entrepreneurs to be mindful of these environmental factors when considering to launch new products.

The article also carries a message for entrepreneurs to ground themselves to the external realities out of which they operate (“Machine of Dreams”). Works Cited“Machine of Dreams”. Vanity Fair. May 2002.