The shared goals and values for each of the businesses identifies the similarities and differences of the problems they aim to solve and their value proposition:

The strategy adopted by each business is a complete reflection of their goals and shared values, hence their strategy having an equivalent component for each of the identified core values:

The models used by both businesses make use of many skills, that are shared between them, to produce and raise awareness of the core software components. The differences in how the business strategies focus their delivery of learning solutions introduce two main differences in the skill sets used. With IXL Learning focusing on international high volume sales, their learning product has been made available in 11 languages and hence requires skills in language translation. In contrast, Nextpoint only sell tuition services to a local geographical area within the UK and so hence can avoid the effort and expenses of language translation, but requires teaching skills in order to provide the tuition services that are sold to their customers:

Despite both businesses being involved in the development of software that focuses on delivering solutions for learning math, the differences in their goals, values and strategy results in a completely different structure for their operations. With IXL Learning trading internationally, their organization structure has specific departments with people engaging job roles matching a specific skill set.

On the other hand, Nextpoint is a micro business that operates a highly agile structure that keeps overheads to a minimum through the use of outsourcing to key partners and engaging staff across multiple activities; in short, the Nextpoint structure could be operated as a very small team or even as an individual:

The styles of business engaged by both are vastly different due to the differences in their structure and strategy. With IXL Learning being a much larger organization consisting of fixed departments that require more overhead commitments, there is a higher requirement for operations to be formal and structured so that each department can run in harmony with each other for executing the business strategy and further developing the software within targeted release schedules and budget.

With Nextpoint being a much smaller business and not making money directly from the software development, the business is able to operate in a less formal fashion. Best practices are still adhered to for ensuring the quality of software code, but with significant differences in job roles combining skills from multiple domains when required:

Despite both businesses operating different software business models in ways that are often the opposite to each other, they both share a dependence on software systems that are central to their operations. The main differences are in the customer facing systems used by each business, with IXL providing a much wider range of topics to make their subscription options more relevant and appealing, while Nextpoint only provides content and features that are related to supporting their tuition programs:

With both businesses having a focus on using software technologies as a major part of delivering their education solutions, they share a strong emphasis for a large number of their staff and key partner collaborators to be involved in the production of the education learning content, whether this be through programming, design of graphics or concept design for software features. The key difference is in how staff of IXL Learning are hired for a very specific type of job, whereas Nextpoint as a small agile business will get staff and key partner collaborators in any area of the business that they have suitable skills to engage.