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Published by: Babson College
Originally published in: 2001
Version: 1 Feb 2001
Length: 31 pages
Data source: Field research

Abstract

Barry Bycoff considered the challenges that lay ahead. As Chief Executive Officer of Hingham, Massachusetts based Software Developers Company Inc (SDC), his task was to rescue the company from the threat of the Internet, a disruptive technology that was threatening the corporation and its core software catalogue business. The firm had enjoyed steady growth as a software reseller and catalogue outlet in the late 1980s when there were relatively few computer stores. But as retailers flooded the market, SDC?s catalogue sales were becoming a thing of the past. Margins were slim and increasingly tough to maintain. Bycoff?s predecessor had laid off 40 percent of the workforce before giving up his own post. After his first year, Bycoff had managed a fragile turnaround by buying another reseller and targeting a more specialised, but less competitive software market. But SDC?s real opportunity was the Internet. Web access was exploding, giving the company a chance to grab a piece of a mammoth new market. The problem was that the Internet was also SDC?s biggest threat. The web was leapfrogging over all of the company?s traditional distribution channels, giving customers a chance to shop around for the products they had bought from SDC in the past. Bycoff had an idea for an entirely new product that could save the company, but it would take all its resources to bring it about. If he implemented his plan, there would be nothing left of the old SDC. There was also one major shareholder who would be dead set against it. But what else could the company do? The Internet was coming. SDC had two choices: to change or to die. This case study is a series that traces the bumpy evolution of Software Developers Company, a traditional catalogue reseller, into Netegrity, an Internet security company. As a modern day odyssey for business, the story is best told in four parts as (A), (B), (C), and (D) cases.

About

Abstract

Barry Bycoff considered the challenges that lay ahead. As Chief Executive Officer of Hingham, Massachusetts based Software Developers Company Inc (SDC), his task was to rescue the company from the threat of the Internet, a disruptive technology that was threatening the corporation and its core software catalogue business. The firm had enjoyed steady growth as a software reseller and catalogue outlet in the late 1980s when there were relatively few computer stores. But as retailers flooded the market, SDC?s catalogue sales were becoming a thing of the past. Margins were slim and increasingly tough to maintain. Bycoff?s predecessor had laid off 40 percent of the workforce before giving up his own post. After his first year, Bycoff had managed a fragile turnaround by buying another reseller and targeting a more specialised, but less competitive software market. But SDC?s real opportunity was the Internet. Web access was exploding, giving the company a chance to grab a piece of a mammoth new market. The problem was that the Internet was also SDC?s biggest threat. The web was leapfrogging over all of the company?s traditional distribution channels, giving customers a chance to shop around for the products they had bought from SDC in the past. Bycoff had an idea for an entirely new product that could save the company, but it would take all its resources to bring it about. If he implemented his plan, there would be nothing left of the old SDC. There was also one major shareholder who would be dead set against it. But what else could the company do? The Internet was coming. SDC had two choices: to change or to die. This case study is a series that traces the bumpy evolution of Software Developers Company, a traditional catalogue reseller, into Netegrity, an Internet security company. As a modern day odyssey for business, the story is best told in four parts as (A), (B), (C), and (D) cases.

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