Reference no: EM133600998

Case Study: Jenna Bradford and Maria Campo were juniors in a technical communication course that stressed innovation and entrepreneurship. One of their assignments was to design a technological solution to a common campus-related problem. Part of the project was to create an elevator pitch to sell that design to imaginary investors. The best pitches from each class would compete in a campus-wide elevator pitch competition. Maria knew right away what she wanted to do. Like many busy students, she liked to have food delivered to her wherever she was. Jimmy Johns was nice, and the pizza places delivered just about anywhere. But Maria thought drones would be a better way to deliver food on college campuses, especially smaller food items like burritos and sandwiches. Drones would be faster and cheaper than a delivery driver or a person riding a bike. Plus, getting food from a drone would be cool and offer the business a clear marketing advantage. Her partner, Jenna, liked the idea and added that a drone wouldn't even need to deliver to a specific address. It could deliver a burrito anywhere on campus by zeroing in on the location of the customer's mobile phone. The customer could order the food through a mobile app and set a delivery time and place. Then, the drone would find the customer at that time to deliver the food. The app would signal that the food was waiting outside, and the drone would hover until the customer came outside and signaled a safe place to land. So, they got to work on the "Burrito Drone" project. Maria drew up designs and specifications for a drone that could deliver a burrito and a drink. Jenna sketched out an interface for a mobile app that would allow students to put in their burrito order and pay for it online.

When they presented their concept to the class, their designs and elevator pitch were a hit. Then, later that semester, they won a second place in the campus-wide elevator pitch competition. The video from the competition was put on YouTube, where it was viewed several thousand times. Jenna and Maria received e-mails from people around the country who thought their idea was great. A month later, Tommy Fry, the director of marketing from a national burrito chain, called them to discuss using their idea. Jenna and Maria explained that the project was just a concept and that they couldn't really launch this drone-based burrito delivery service. Tommy said that was fine. He wanted them to "professionalize" their pitch for his company's CEO and the board of directors. Bringing in two college students to pitch the idea would be a great way to sell the concept, he said. If the company's CEO and board liked the idea, Tommy promised to buy the concept and maybe even hire Jenna and Maria as interns to help design and implement it. Jenna and Maria, however, hadn't thought through all the technological and ethical complications involved in their burrito drone concept. With your group, make a list of all the potential physical and ethical problems with the Burrito Drone concept.

Question: How do you think Jenna and Maria should address those problems when they pitch the idea to the CEO and board of directors? Also, do some Internet research to determine what steps Maria and Jenna should take to protect their idea from being stolen by someone else, perhaps even Tommy.