TKS Session 7: Sun Power Case
In this session, we did some work in analyzing case studies and how to pull tangible information from them. Case studies are ways to document problems that companies go through and the solutions they considered and eventually chose to implement to combat their problems. They allow people to review those case studies and whether the company succeeded in the end based on the solution they took, and we can then analyze what might have happened if the company chose to take a different direction in combating their problem. We can use case studies to learn from the mistakes of other companies and get better at problem analysis and reading different trends. So, we focused on reading over a case study for a company and then doing some activities to analyze the case study and pull insights from it.
Before we dove into the case study, we did the MotW, which exceeded expectations. The idea of this mindset is to try and purposely, constantly exceed the expectations that were set, whether it was for the job you’re doing, a project you’re working on, a competition, etc. The idea is that if you constantly exceed the expectations that are set for you, you’re going to stand out from the crowd because you just did more compared to everyone else. But also, it shows more credibility for you and helps prove what you are capable of, which can set you up for more success. Sometimes, it is better to just exceed expectations for the sake of “pleasing” someone if you want to get something out of them, like a specific favour or a promotion, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing to exceed expectations for that reason. But, you should also want to exceed expectations if you feel that you can do better than the standard, and that’s something that you want to do, because either way, the hard work you put in will have some benefit for you, rather directly or through developing a good reputation for yourself.
After looking into the mindset, we then got into the case study. The case study was for the company SunPower, pulled from MIT. The task was to dedicate 20 minutes to reading over and understanding the case study, then we would come back and go through some of the activities based on what we learned. Because we only had 20 minutes to prep for the case study, and we hadn’t gotten to look at it beforehand, we were able to use tools like ChatGPT and plug the case study into it to pull data, insights, and an overview of the study. Normally, you would get the case study beforehand and would have to read/interpret it without external tools, but you would have the time to do that because case studies are generally long to read through and analyze. This case study was roughly 25 pages, so for the 20 minutes we had, it was beneficial to skim it, go through the figures at the end, and use AI to help pull insights and summarize.
This case study was about how SunPower, a solar energy company, was facing a scaling issue due to material and manufacturing complexity and challenges. SunPower was developing these special solar cells that differed from anything else in the market, so they had an edge in product development and effectiveness that could put them on top in the space. But there were a few obstacles that were making it challenging to scale and produce at a large capacity. The main ones we identified included:
Silicon accessibility: Silicon was a material they were using in their solar cells. But the way they were creating silicon in the lab was very lengthy and complicated, making it hard to scale the manufacturing process quickly. But, there was also a global silicon shortage at the time, which made it difficult to receive silicon from somewhere else and have access to it quickly.
Solar cells manufacturing process: SunPower came out of academic research in labs, so turning from researchers in academia to entrepreneurs made scaling the company more difficult. The overall manufacturing process of the entire solar cell was a very complicated process that was done in a lab. They would have to figure out a way to make the process faster and scalable, especially coming out of a research lab.
Solar cells cost: Because the solar cells SunPower was developing had better efficiency and results compared to the ones currently on the market, they would need to consider having to place a premium charge on their product to make up for the development costs and the advantage of efficiency their solar cells were providing. Upping the price would close off the markets SunPower was selling to. But, if they weren’t taking advantage of pricing their solar cells to be more expensive in exchange for the efficiency levels they were providing, then they might be losing out on money and wouldn’t be able to scale further or sustain the company.
Once we identified what the main obstacles were in the problem they were facing in scaling their solar cell manufacturing and accessibility in the market, we came back and did our first activity, which was a SWOT analysis of the specific SunPower case we were reading. A SWOT analysis is basically where you pull different insights from whatever you’re analyzing and categorize them as either:
Strength
Weakness
Opportunity
Threat
This would allow you to get a better view of each of the characteristics of the company in full view, and see what stands out the most and try to zero in on how best to solve the problem. Here is what our SWOT analysis of SunPower looked like in the end:
An image of the SWOT analysis we did based off the SunPower case study.
What we did first was evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of SunPower for the specific problem they were facing. Once we determined those, then we could start coming up with the opportunities/threats they were facing in this problem to try and get a better sense of what they could have done and why they chose the solution they did.
The second activity we did as a group in regards to the case study was a competitor analysis. This sort of relates to some of the stuff we put down in our SWOT analysis, because we did talk about how some companies were beneficial/threatening to the success of SunPower, so through this competitor analysis, we looked at how strong their competitors were, and what they were able to do that SunPower was struggling to do at the time. This gives us better insight into the market for solar energy at the time and how SunPower could fit into that market. What we were seeing was that SunPower was having trouble reaching a level of manufacturing power that these other companies were at, and that, because SunPower had better solar cells, their premium pricing could make them a worse option compared to other options in the market in terms of economic accessibility. Also, these companies were already so big, and SunPower was coming out of academic research; they were going to have to find a way to stand out while still being able to sustain their company.
In the end, SunPower ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2024, so this case study, even though it’s old, is still relevant to read through because you can then look at other options they could have taken and try to see if there was a way they could have avoided going bankrupt or been more successful.
That was the end of this session. We might have follow-up “socials” throughout the week to meet to discuss more about the case study and have some discussions around it because of how interested everyone was in analyzing it. Next session is about cancer detection, which always interests me, so I’m especially looking forward to that. We are also continuing to try and make progress in our focuses/personal projects in prep for demo day at the end of this year, so a lot of our time is going into that. But, I’m overall just excited to keep building in my space and make progress while learning some cool stuff in sessions!
