Task 5. Case Study: LEYA

Instructions: read the case and answer the questions! Submit ONLY questions with your answers, do not submit whole case otherwise task will not be accepted!

LEYA is a fast growing mobile Internet education platform established in the end of 2015, focusing on offering English teaching using a shared economy business model. Children from the same neighbourhood form one class, and teachers provide on-site lecturing. In this way, it saves parents time and reduces cost.

The companys founders are an international team, including two founders who are foreigners, and talented co-workers from XiaoMi, IBM, and Oracle.

In their own words:

• We came together to do something meaningful for society. I believe that it is the value we share as a team that inspires everybody to make the effort. Hence, finding the people with similar values is vital.
• In the beginning, I was very clear of my business goal. This requires deep thinking before starting the business, for example, what do you want and how do you reach your goal. You have to think of the resources you need, and what kind of partners to help you achieve the goal. Setting the goal is the first step in recognizing the required resources. Since I started the business, based on such a role, together with my previous experience, I was very clear of our business goal and the indispensable resources to achieve the goal.
• LEYA connects teachers and students. We are an Internet firm, but we base our core competency on innovative organizational form.

Questions:

• Map the LEYA case onto the VRIO Framework
• What are the tangible and intangible resources that the company has?
• Do you think their resources are rare and valuable?
• What resources and capabilities are needed for Leya to achieve their competitive positions in the market?