Approach

We Seek-out Opportunity

Ursa Major takes a deliberately opportunistic approach to strategy development. In the turmoil created by disruptive innovation, we seek to discover opportunity. It’s almost always there.

Our basic approach to discovery begins by surveying our client’s business environment. We scan the overall domain from a “Google Earth” like satellite’s point of view. We observe where our client shows up in its domain relative to its known competition and other threats, obstacles and hazards. Regulatory barriers may obstruct its path, as well as technological gaps, encroaching new product substitutes and an entirely new class of competitive force.

We explore markets from a perspective that is unavailable to clients themselves. We observe the forest before examining the trees and sometimes discover opportunity in completely new fields. In a disciplined approach we examine external market forces before considering customer value proposition, competitive differentiation, strategic market positioning and business modeling. We help our clients identify and understand problems, recognize trends, evaluate opportunities, devise winning strategies and execute plans designed to drive profitable growth.

Industry Surveillance and Intelligence

Ursa Major Associates keeps a constant watchful eye out for industry transformational trends and hot spots. We make a conscious effort to observe where the postal – parcel – express logistics industry is going, watching carefully for competitive, regulatory, technological and customer-driven shifts in direction and power. Hence we are often aware of hazards and opportunities that we can readily apply to a specific client engagement. And, we can provide clients with regular industry intelligence updates. Trends that we pay particular attention to are:

Market developments

Changing competitive landscape, consolidation, mergers and acquisitions, failures

Value chain transformation

Integration, dis-integration, dis-intermediation

Disruptive innovation

E-substitution, print suppression, media transformation

Product commoditization

Margin deterioration, market erosion, differentiation

Product line evolution and invention

Hybrid mail products, variable data printing, distributed print, Web and cloud based printing, postal worksharing; presorting and dropshipping

Network re-alignments

First and last-mile delivery strategies, retail access, automated recepticles

E-commerce initiatives and issues

Cross border challenges, security, landed-cost calculation and integration

Parcel consolidation

Postal pricing strategy, network realignments, regionalization, software, cross-border issues

Mailing and shipping systems

Enterprise, SOHO, carrier, online postage, cloud applications

Tracking systems

Barcodes, mobile devices, QR codes, RFID