Read the case study below, then answer the questions that follow.

ForWeb Software a micro company but a global business. Carolina Malheiro, CEIM BIC Madeira

ForWeb Software is a young Portuguese company that develops Web platforms for the international market. Since its beginning, when it had just one product on the market, it has grown steadily and currently has clients and users spread across 5 continents and approximately 500,000 visitors to its site each month (December 2018).

According to Andr Gonalves, ForWeb Software owner and CEO, the companys mission is creating user-centric Web applications with simplicity, robustness and speed as their main characteristics, which offer solutions to specific problems for some global market niches."

The entrepreneurs background

Andr Gonalves holds a degree in electrical and computer engineering from the College of Engineering in Oporto University. He has several years of experience in software development both in Portugal and in the international market with various companies. After 7 years of experience, he saw an opportunity to use his skills create something new that could be commercialized online and he decided to launch his own project QuestionForm.com

The project

The QuestionForm.com project emerged in 2011. At this time, the online software available for creating, publishing and analyzing surveys and forms was all payable and not at all user-friendly. So Andr Gonalves decided to create simpler software which would be free to use, and less complex. The tool developed facilitates the use of online surveys in a user-friendly environment. It allows users who are unfamiliar with the technology to easily build an online survey and then to both collect and analyze the data. With this tool, the consumer can design questionnaires and forms that can be inserted into websites or blogs or sent via email to facilitate data collection. Tracking responses is also possible in the web application itself, so that it is easy to know exactly

who responded to the survey. Moreover, the tool generates a complete report with statistics for each questionnaire or survey built, even in its free version.

Despite economic globalization, the increase in new technologies and internet usage and the growing competition, the ability of Andr Gonalves to upgrade the service allowed him to increase market share and attract users in various places throughout the world. The greatest proportion of visits to the website are from South America and the main users are from Argentina and Brazil, the website has also different users around the globe, thus the business born global.

Although the service was already provided in different languages, i.e., the questionnaire could be built in several languages according to the country of the user, the website and instructions were available only in two languages: English and Portuguese. This was a limitation to the service and was seen as its greatest weakness and contrary to the overall business strategy of operating in the world market.

It is appropriate to describe this company in terms of international entrepreneurship, i.e., a business that has gained significant competitive advantage from having selling opportunities in several countries. The main features of the business are its strong capacity for expanding business operations into other countries and the high-risk environment in which it has operated since its creation. The concept of market potential being limited by the physical boundaries of a country is increasingly outdated and unsuitable.

Questions

1. In the case, it clearly appears that Andr Gonalves is thinking of going global. However, one of the forms of entrepreneurship is franchising. In your opinion, is it better for Andr Gonalves to franchise QuestionForm.com or is it better to go for other forms of expanding? Discuss your choice. (Score: 25 marks)

2. If a franchisee decided to franchise QuestionForm.com, what benefits and drawbacks of buying this franchise could he/she expect? Explain your answer. (Score: 25 marks)

3. What are the Born Global companies? Can we talk about international entrepreneurship in these cases, and what is the role of the entrepreneur in achieving success in such projects? Discuss. (Score: 25 marks)

4. In your opinion, how can entrepreneurs benefit from this QuestionForm.com when designing their bootstrapping marketing strategy? Discuss. (Score: 25 marks)