Ambient Insight Comprehensive Report
I decided to critique the Ambient Insight Comprehensive Report, as I like seeing data which helps me understand the environment that I am looking at.
Thankfully for the purposes of this critique, the Ambient Insight document was just the introduction to the full report, which is over 80 pages in its entirety. The report breaks ventures down according to three faces of the Cube. Ambient Insight focuses on the types of markets, the offering, and the buyers. The scope of their research is limited and does not extend past the USA. As well, I don’t believe that they looked at a wide breadth in offerings and buyers, as the report seems to focus on larger institutional contexts. I found that the report used confusing or ambiguous terminology, where it was not immediately clear as to what they were referring to. Most of these terms were defined at the end of the report but I still felt that there was ambiguity.
The Ambient Insight report would be useful for venture capitalists that are investigating larger investments into the eLearning sector. They break down revenues across different levels of businesses, including suppliers, retailers and service providers. The report includes market forecasts and incorporates SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities and threats) analysis, which I believe is a valid tool in decision making processes. I get the feeling that their data may be reliable, although market reports can vary wildly in quality. For ventures and market opportunities that require larger amounts of seed money, access to this report would likely be very useful. For smaller ventures that require only modest working capital, the information in this report might be too “big picture.” It is not clear that the report would offer enough detail to apply to specific products, services, or niche markets.
I would be very interested to read this the Ambient Insight report again in the future, since knowing what the large scale institutional markets are doing will have a direct effect on other smaller scale ventures.
Posted in: Week 02: The Edtech Marketplace
bcourey 4:13 pm on September 15, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Perhaps this is an article we need to take a close look at when we are preparing for our assignments. You mention that the report woudl be useful for venture capitalists…an audience we need to tap into for this course!
Karen Jones 3:40 pm on September 16, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
After mulling over Assignment #1 and thinking of ways to approach this task, I had the exact same thought as you, Brenda. This report might be a good first look at the quantitative analysis of markets. I have to admit at this point am not really sure how to search for resources similar to this one that covers the venture I have in mind. Hopefully a closer analysis of this resource might lead to a clearer direction.
KJ
wongte 4:07 am on September 16, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Doug,
Great analysis of this article. You clearly demonstrate the pros and cons of this article. I also feel that it might be a good one to read to help us with our assignments. From what you write it seems it might give us more insight to what we have been reading on the blog this week. What do you think?