As part of the FutureFounder Brazil program, I have been working on improving my critical thinking and developing my strategic skills. At first, one of our projects was to develop a company's strategic analysis for which I selected Ebanx.
This Brazilian startup was created in 2012 by Alphonse Voigt, Wagner Ruiz, and João Del Valle to fill the gap between global business and Latin American buyers, offering online payment methods without the need for an international credit card.
Conducting a strategic analysis
Our main goal in this project is to develop an analysis, so we can clearly visualize the business model and then define our objective. In order to achieve this, I used Steeple and Swot (check image below).
Ebanx end-customers are based in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The company has been working hard on trying to bring more international companies to sell to Latin America, to attract more customers.
Based on my research, Ebanx has a lot of potential to grow and attract more customers since:
70% of Latin Americans are online;
just 6% have cards enabled to do international transactions;
only 19% of Latin Americans own credit cards;
Latin America presented a 36.7% year-over-year growth in 2020;
Brazilian online card purchases grew over 35% in the first quarter of 2021.
However, Ebanx faces the problem of keeping customers activated on their platform, even though the company is a bridge between international business and Latino buyers, most customers do not maintain a direct relationship with the company, since there is no need to sign up on their platform to pay a bill.
Defining a strategic roadmap
Knowing these challenges that the company faces, I separate two most important objectives and key results to work on:
attract more customers
retain customers
Key results
Increased same-client transactions
30% of new users on the platform
In order to achieve these objectives, I did research on what could be the activities, metrics, and resources to help accomplish it.
Recommendations
Ebanx should try to look for more partnerships and continue to encourage companies to embrace Latin American buyers. To retain customers, I recommend investing capital in a marketing campaign that encourages customers to sign up on the platform, and Ebanx can use those clients' email addresses to send out newsletters and promotions to keep them up to date and active.
For me, the highlight of this project was learning how to break it down into steps and look deep into a startup business model. I did my research using the company’s online material, but it was rather challenging since not all information was available, especially for stakeholders.
Key Takeaways
Some of the steps I took to make my research complete was:
Finding all the information available online about the company.
Discovering what was the problem they are trying to solve.
Laying out important facts or information about the company’s finances
Analyzing my fellows' feedback to deliver more accurate research
For those who are going to start researching, I suggest doing so step by step so others can understand your work better.
Thank you for reading this post.
Diana Alves