As a distributor of educational digital products, RedShelf was founded on the objective of improving education through product innovation ("RedShelf Company Website," 2018). They provide a digital platform accessed by readers and publishers to share, distribute, and acquire eTextbooks, academic papers, and other digital documents ("Company Overview of RedShelf, Inc.," 2018; RedShelf Profile, 2018). Their primary markets are U.S. higher education institutions, campus bookstores, professors, and students. RedShelf has built its business model by collaborating with partners, publishers, institutional bookstores, higher educational learning management systems, and content creators. Noted strategic partners include Akedemos, a company that owns and operates online bookstores ("Company Overview of RedShelf, Inc.," 2018) and Nebraska Book Company, a leading provider of products and services to over 2,000 independent colleges ("RedShelf Company Website," 2018).

Greg Fenton Video Hear directly from the CEO

Founded in 2010, the RedShelf (known initially as Virdocs) was the creation of its two founders, Greg Fenton (CEO) and Tim Haitaian (CFO). Several years before, as students, they observed firsthand the spiraling upward costs in textbooks and the emergence of e-readers. They knew there had to be a solution that provided all the benefits of a printed book but leveraged digital printing's early growth. With the encouragement of their professors and initial potential investors, RedShelf was born in Chicago. By March 2018 had grown to more than 1 million users (readers) and offered over 500,000 digital titles ("RedShelf Company Website," 2018). Today they employ over 60 people in their Chicago and west coast locations ("RedShelf Company Website," 2018).

The following is a visual description of RedShelf's role in the emerging digital textbook industry:

Greg Fenton, the CEO, sees two major trends that will impact higher education learning over the next years.

"I believe there are two primary trends that will be changing how we learn over the next few years, the first being an increased focus on the collaborative classroom. We've already seen institutions testing the flipped classroom setup, and I believe we're going to continue moving in that direction. The integration of the student's voice into the classroom will be even more important than a singular professor.

The power of analytics and data in the classroom is the second trend I see morphing the way students learn. As we continue to advance the way we track, aggregate, and analyze data, we'll be able to determine not only how students are interacting with content but also how they're engaging with their peers and professors and how well they understand the information. This type of insight will allow universities and professors to adjust their teaching methods in real-time instead of measuring results at the end of the semester based solely on a graded output." Greg Fenton, CEO RedShelf

Greg Fenton has set a goal of achieving $1 million in profit within twelve months (remember our Marketing Math example). But he believes that RedShelf can double that profit ($2 million) by selling 1,000,000 textbooks or $75 million in revenue annually. Greg also knows that that lofty goal cannot be reached through organic sales and growth (just doing more of what they are doing today) and without rethinking RedShelf's business model, products, and marketing. He has turned to his CMO and Head of Product to provide him potential options to meet the goal. They are turning to you as marketing consultants to help them.

What decision is facing Greg Fenton and RedShelf? 5 points

What is RedShelf's current business model

Looking outside of RedShelf, what factors support RedShelf's goal? And are there factors that may pose a risk to meeting the goal?

Using the product-growth matrix you learned about in Chapter 3, explain the four different strategy options available to RedShelf.

Choose ONE of the strategies you identified above and provide a marketing or product recommendation. Provide enough detail so RedShelf can understand what you are recommending and why you believe it will help them meet their goal.

How would you implement your recommendation at RedShelf?