Imagine the following. You live in a small, rural village in Rwanda. Your eight-year-old child is a patient at your village hospital and needs a blood transfusion to survive. The hospital does not have the needed blood type; as a result, your doctor calls a hospital in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. The blood is put into a car to be driven to your village. The car moves through congested traffic trying to get out of the city—1 hour has passed.

The car travels 50 of the 65 miles to your village—but it is now two hours later. The car turns on to a rural dirt road for the final 15 miles and the going is rough—now three hours have gone by. Fortunately, the blood arrives in time to save your child, but they needed the blood much sooner. The time required to receive the blood could have resulted in your child’s death.

Now, imagine a new way this scenario could play out. Your child’s doctor uses a smartphone to send a message to a Zipline Distribution Center, which is 35 miles away. The request is marked Urgent and reads, “4 Units AB+ Red Blood Cells, Nyanza District Hospital.” A Zipline employee reads the message and orders the blood to be pulled from the firm’s inventory.

The blood is packaged and put into a Zip Box, which is loaded onto a Zipline drone. The drone is programmed to fly to your hospital and launches to complete the trip. It covers the distance in 35 minutes. When it reaches the hospital, the drone drops the Zip Box onto a designated landing area. Hospital personnel are waiting and rush the blood to your child’s doctor.

This process required a bit less than 45 minutes to complete. Your child receives the blood and their health improves quickly.....

Discussion Questions:

1.In this chapter, we noted that a true business opportunity is attractive, durable, timely, and anchored in a product or service that creates value for its buyer.
To what extent does Zipline’s service satisfy each of these criteria?
2.In the United States, what environmental trends are supporting the deployment of Zipline’s service? Do these environmental trends exist in other parts of the world as well? If so, in what countries or regions is this the case?

3.Currently, Zipline’s focus is on delivering medical supplies; additionally, the firm is experimenting with delivering consumer products in its pilot project with Walmart. Brainstorm at least two additional potential applications for Zipline’s service.
4.To what degree do you think Zipline will reach its goal of putting every human being on the planet within a 15- to 30-minute delivery window of any essential medical product they need? How long do you think it will take to reach this goal?