Page 13 - SCS May 2018 - Day 1 Suggested Solutions

SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

New technologies
Mitigation
Continued investment in this is the main mitigation both to maintain the competitive advantage
and to retain the staff to help develop the technologies.

Copyright piracy
Mitigation
Again continued investment to stay up to date with technological advancements is vital here. Also
the current policy of not allowing content to be downloaded appears to help prevent piracy of
Couchweb content. It would be harder to copy the file if it was not on the user’s device in the first
place.

Litigation
Mitigation
Couchweb look to have a strong legal team, with Jen Kramer as one of the founders & director of
legal services, at the head of this team. She has a background in contract law and copyrights,
making it easier for the company to plan strategically around legal documents providing a good
control against any legal issues.

Looking at some of the other risks identified in exercise 2:

Attracting and retaining subscribers
Mitigation
There are two key mitigations for this. One is keeping a low price to attract subscribers and the
other is content, the founders have always agreed that it is content that sells the subscriptions.

Fixed costs
Mitigation
As the contracts are long – usually a period of between 5 and 10 years - thy will have set fees to
pay over this period, the main mitigation is continuing to attract and maintain subscribers through
the low price and quality content.

International operations
Mitigation
Careful consideration of appropriate countries, they may well avoid certain countries if the
infrastructure (for example: fast internet) is not available or if there any political issues that make
that country unattractive.

Change in tastes
Mitigation
Analysis of user preferences, viewing habits will help Couchweb to keep the content they offer
appropriate to any changes in tastes.

Data protection
Mitigation
The key to mitigating this will be investment in up to date IT system and compliance with
legislation.

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