NACSPACE

Abstract

NacSpace was a new technological startup business in Nacogdoches, Texas founded by its parent company Elliott Electric Supply. NacSpace specialized and was active in three key areas (arenas) of business: information technology, data security and storage, and shared workspace offerings. NacSpace launched in November of 2019 and by year two employed over seventy workers, serving both residential and commercial customers. The firm quickly maneuvered themselves into profitability as a business, and their competitive advantage lay largely in their positional advantage as the only information technology, and data storage and security business in Nacogdoches and the surrounding East Texas area.

Although NacSpace was new and was already experiencing some business success in terms of gaining clients (such as the historic Fredonia Hotel), they were also experiencing issues and challenges related to: a lack of local qualified labor, hiring people to Nacogdoches, losing qualified workers to larger cities such as Dallas, their service model, their pricing structure, and weighing whether to expand operations to the north Dallas, Texas area. NacSpace had some unique resources and capabilities that were valuable and rare, but as a business they faced some key questions: Could NacSpace navigate as a small, new business and solve some of these critical issues quickly so they could grow their profitability and service support staff effectively? Could they turn their valuable and rare resources and capabilities into ones that are also costly to imitate and well organized for the long haul? Most importantly and most pressing: should the company expand their operations to the north Dallas, Texas area and grow their service channels into new arenas (Dallas, Texas)? These questions faced NacSpace and would ultimately affect their trajectory as a business in the short term as they sought to be a sustainable enterprise.