Analysis of Lastminute

I suggested to include Lastminte.com as one of our example companies because it is a classic example of a dotcom company being a bubble, which burst completely in less than 3 months time.

Half a year ago, my friend had to book a plane ticket back to Hong Kong, 5 days before the peak season. She had searched for almost every travelling agent but could not find a suitable ticket within a reasonable price range. She then tried Lastminute.com and bought a ticket successfully through the company. Since then, I have been amazed by the services provided by this company.

I personally think that Lastminute.com was a company with great potential and many goals to achieve. The idea of running such a business is very creative and the two founders, Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox were the first people to set up such a business, exploring a new market. Its business was initially based mainly on travelling and holiday arrangements, which are planned in a limited of time. The company then expanded to sell other products, including audio products, gifts and many more. All this happened in just a year’s time and the company had also achieved a very promising and positive response from the public. The business was launched onto the stock market in March, when the general stock price of many dotcom companies was at its peak. Soon after it was launched, the dotcom bubble burst and Lastminute.com went down by more than 80%. The legend only lasted for less than 1 year.

In order to find out more about the services and product the company is provides, I went to the web-site and tried a few things. I sent an e-mail to the customer service, acquiring a booking for a flight ticket to Hong Kong. I also telephoned the customer service and left a message for my query. My query was handled in just a day when I received an e-mail answering my question and also a phone call from the company responding to the message, which I left. The operator telephoned me 2 days later to ask whether my problem has been solved or not. I also sent an e-mail to the company via the web-site asking for more information about the company. They replied in 2 days, attached an interim report and other financial reports, which are also available online.

Other Resources:

www.lastminute.com

www.marketguide.com

www.ft.com

www.moneyworld.com

Writing of the General Part

Apart from analysing an example of a dotcom company, I also helped Per and Alan develop the general part. As the co-ordinator for the general part, Per suggested that Alan and I focus on the dotcom market in the recent six months. We then searched the web and magazines for information during the Christmas holiday. Although we did not go in-depth for the history of previous bubble in the stock market, we found there were strong similarity between previous bubbles and the dotcom bubble. We then produced a report of a few pages based on our research. We also searched for suitable graphs on the Internet to support facts explained in the general part.   

I have attended all the meetings and learnt a lot during the group discussions and also with our managerial economic lecturer, Dr Syzmanski. The contribution to the development of the general part improved my fundamental understanding of the entire stock market. After all, this is an extremely intellectually rewarding experience.