Vision and Mission Statement
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation alias SpaceX is a private aerospace producer and space shipping Services Company based in Hawthorne, California, united states. SpaceX specializes in designing, manufacturing, and launching advanced rockets and spacecraft. It was founded in the year 2002 by Elon Musk aiming at revolutionizing space expertise. Musk was attempting to help cut down the costs of space transportation to alleviate immigration to mars ( Vozoff & Couluris, 2008) . The revolutionary technology is giving SpaceX an upper hand in modernizing rocket equipment with a wide range of uses including ejecting seats, launching vehicles for simulated satellites, as weapons, to launch fireworks, by a human during space flights and for space journeying.
The Mission of SpaceX is to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets .” SpaceX spells out its purpose as discovering new habitats for humans in different planets. While it’s Vision is “ to advance the future .” SpaceX focuses on advanced innovations and devising ways to enable human beings to live in other planets.
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Identify one challenge facing the leadership of the organization
Just like any other company, SpaceX has various challenges. One of the major challenges facing the corporation is the large capital required to finance the company’s operations (( Vozoff & Couluris, 2008) . The journey to Mars is quite expensive. Going to mars will require lots of monies for the entire operation while the company is just average, and thus, injections from outside will be required. Likewise, the company has other operations such as tracking miniature satellites to deal with as well, and all those require capital. The company needs extra money in terms of investment injections to cover its operations. The requirement of huge capital is an issue because it limits the operations of the company. The company can only do what it affords and therefore delaying the purpose of founding the company. Another reason as to why the above challenge is an issue is because it puts the company in a risky situation. SpaceX takes risks while choosing the project to fund since all the company’s returns and assets could be consumed but one project. The company needs to spread the burden of huge capital requirements.
Identify three strategies for overcoming the challenge based on contemporary leadership thought
To overcome the challenge of huge capital requirements, the company can adopt the following strategies; primarily, SpaceX should consider getting into partnerships more often ( Cahan, Marboe & Roedel, 2016) . In all kinds of business, partners play the role of sharing costs, losses, among other things. The corporation needs investment funding from either internal or external sources, and the partnering companies can coming in and invest in SpaceX and thus help raise the capital required to conquer the journey to Mars. There are several spacecraft companies which can play the role of joining SpaceX, and together they can fund the operations of finding more habitats for the human race.
The other strategy is borrowing (Weinzierl, 2018). To curb the shortages and to cover up the huge budget, SpaceX can borrow loans from banks or other lenders. The borrowed money will act as an injection to help even out and reduce the burden posed by the huge capital requirement by the company. The company can also choose to invest the borrowed money to create more revenue for the huge budgets at hand. Loans are also the perfect way of maintaining the company’s operating cash flows and generating extra finances to deal with miscellaneous expenses. With the unexpected expenses off the bench, the company can focus on the main projects.
The last strategy to deal with the massive capital requirement is through asset-based financing ( Vozoff & Couluris, 2008) . The company holds a couple of valuable assets which are indeed worth more than their operations. The company can borrow against such assets to raise the money to finance their operations instead of delaying their plans while they have valuable assets in terms of plants, machinery, equipment, among others. SpaceX has many spacecraft ranging from the big one to the small ones. All these can be used as a security to get finances to inject into the company’s operations. Asset-based financing is the most preferred method for long-term financing.
Identify which strategy you believe will be the most successful
Asset-based financing would be the most suitable strategy to use since unlike borrowing it is not entirely spending what you do not have. In this case, the company is getting extra funding at the expense of their assets. Also, asset-based financing is beneficial, especially to big companies ( Vozoff & Couluris, 2008) . SpaceX is a pioneer in space exploration, and its assets are worth a lot. This way, they can borrow finances matching their asset valuation; therefore; it can raise a generous amount of finance to invest in their operations. The bigger the company, the greater the funding it can acquire using its overall assets.
Identify the tools needed for success
Since its founding, SpaceX has made a couple of successful mission, but it has also failed. Among the tools that led to the success of the corporation include; passion, having faith in oneself, perseverance, and having a positive attitude ( Cahan, Marboe & Roedel, 2016) . Initially, before the establishment of SpaceX, Elon did not know anything about rockets and spacecraft, but he was passionate about space exploration, rockets, and spacecraft. His passion drove him to learn about space exploration, building, and launching of rockets and spacecraft, and generally the space technology. His focus was mainly on the human race and finding another planet safe for human inhabitation. All these were entirely out of passion rather than financial capabilities and intelligence.
Furthermore is having faith in oneself and believing in oneself. Elon was a dreamer who believed in himself even when others doubted his ambitions. He believed that his team would be able to build and launch rockets to explore the space. His dreams and ambitions led to the establishment of SpaceX a company he believed would succeed with good funding and hard work from the team players.
The other important tool for Elon’s success is perseverance. The first projects by SpaceX during the first days were not that successful. SpaceX did not gain its position in the industry overnight, but rather the perseverance led to the company perfecting its operations. The team realized their capabilities and the existence for the consumers of their services, which kept them going (Weinzierl, 2018). Eventually, SpaceX became the first private corporation to make successful space exploration and come back in one peace something unique to the government spacecraft and rockets.
The last tool is having a positive attitude towards what you do. A positive attitude is a key to achieving one's goals. Elon never doubted his ability to start a company which could build rockets and spacecraft that would help colonize mars. In as much as most people would have disregarded his ideas as thoughtless, he had a positive picture about it, and he kept raising and pumping finances into the project ( Vozoff & Couluris, 2008) . Elon was self-determined and stayed solid at running SpaceX. He did not give up or stop until he succeeded in building and running of the chief pioneers in space exploration.
In conclusion, achieving success is not about education, financial ability, or even experience but rather personal attributes such as patience, perseverance, self-determination, and so on. As discussed above, Elon’s personal traits are the top pillars of the success of SpaceX as opposed to experience, wealth, and intelligence. The founder of the SpaceX believed in himself, had self-determination, was passionate about rockets and space, exploration, and above all, he was patient and perseverant.
References
Cahan, B. B., Marboe, I., & Roedel, H. (2016). Outer Frontiers of Banking: Financing Space Explorers and Safeguarding Terrestrial Finance. New Space , 4 (4), 253-268.
Vozoff, M., & Couluris, J. (2008, September). SpaceX products-advancing the use of space. In AIAA SPACE 2008 conference & exposition (p. 7836).
Weinzierl, M. (2018). Space, the Final Economic Frontier. Journal of Economic Perspectives , 173-192.
