SpaceX: Group Assignment

Strategic Initiatives

From the onset, it would be prudent to note that SpaceX has accomplished a wide range of feats in the past. With this in mind, there would be need to highlight some of the companys most recent strategic initiatives. To begin with, the company has in recent times developed a reusable rocket that has the capability to be launched, landed, and reused for another mission. It is important to note that in the past, rockets have been designed to disintegrate or burn upon their reentry into the earths atmosphere. Johnson (2019) points out that with the said reusability capabilities, the company has in effect set the ground for routine missions to space at a cost that is a fraction of present costs. Secondly, yet another strategic initiative that SpaceX has engaged in recent times is Inspiration 4. In essence, this is a scheduled space flight by private citizens aboard the companys SpaceX Resilience capsule. The said flight, which intends to orbit earth, is scheduled to last for a total of three days. As SpaceX points out on its website, this is essentially the first ever all-commercial space shuttle flight to launch (SpaceX, 2021). In the past, such missions have been astronaut-exclusive undertakings. Third, SpaceX has also been able to develop the very first spacecraft which is privately-owned and capable of ferrying astronauts as well as cargo to the international space station. The spacecraft is christened the Dragon. The company points out that with its development of the Dragon, it has effectively returned Americas ability to fly NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station on American vehicles for the first time since 2011 (SpaceX, 2021).

Disruptive/Innovative Technologies

Keen assessment of SpeceXs future plans indicate that the company is keen on deploying disruptive technologies at some point into the future. Baltzan (2017) defines a disruptive technology as a new way of doing things disruptive technologies tend to open new markets and destroy old ones. It would be prudent t to note that as the author further points out, disruptive technologies usually come into the marketplace with little clout and slowly evolve until they at some point challenge (and replace) well-established entities. A good example in this case would be Sony which was able to continuously improve its technology and edged out established names in the industry. On the other hand, a good example of a future disruptive technology pioneered by SpaceX is the use of Starship to ferry people to any location on the planet in record time, i.e. in what has been speculated to be less than an hour. More specifically, in the words of Johnson (2019), the company has announced plans to use its massive Starship system to fly suborbital missions to routinely ferry passengers around the world in about half an hour. What this means is that a businessman could have breakfast in New York; lunch in Shanghai, China; a late evening meeting in Melbourne, Australia; and be back home in New York for dinner. To a large extent, this appears to be the kind of stuff that dreams are made of. This is more so the case given that we are used to the conventional kind of travel whereby the sheer distance between some locations effectively means that multiple hours are required to travel from one place...…is more so the case given that a business can use its website as the focal point of a cost-effective communications and marketing strategy (Baltzan, 2017). This has largely been the case for SpaceX, in which case the company has on its website dedicated sections on diverse undertakings, space vehicles, as well as updates on upcoming projects and missions.

It should, however, be noted that in conducting Ebusiness, SpaceX exposes itself to diverse hacking and intrusion risks. This is particularly a crucial concern owing to the fact that hackers could use vulnerabilities in the companys computer-mediated networks to gain access to confidential information of sabotage other crucial aspects of the companys business model. Secondly, it should also be noted that in some rare cases, the companys operations could be crippled by factors beyond its control as a consequence of reliance upon an Ebusiness model effectively limiting its interactions with certain stakeholders. Such factors could be inclusive of site crashes and internet disruption (i.e. due to damage of fiber optic cables under the sea).

Conclusion

In the final analysis, it should be noted that there is no question that SpaceX is a hugely innovative company. This is more so the case given that it has applied new technologies to solve longstanding challenges, i.e. as was the case with the development of a reusable rocket that has the capability to be launched, landed, and reused for another mission effectively bringing down costs in this realm. It is also clear that the company has been keen on deploying disruptive technologies. Some of the said technologies are inclusive of the Starship system. To a large extent, this makes it possible for the…