EcoTrail Digital Receipt Expense Management Solution

EcoTrail Digital Receipt Expense
Management Solution
CA550 Practicum
MSc in Electronic Commerce
DCU 2011-2012
The EcoTrail Team:
Meadhbh Cleary
Donald Cummins
Patrick Greene
Craig Martin
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Declaration
We, the undersigned, declare that the project material, which we now submit, is our
own work. We hereby certify that this material, which we submit for assessment on the
programme of study leading to the award of M.Sc. in Electronic Commerce is entirely
our own work and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent
that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of our work. We also
certify that I have read, understand and am in compliance with the DCU Guidelines on
Best Practice in Research Ethics.
Meadhbh Cleary
MECB
57526873
Donald Cummins
MECB
57409168
Craig Martin
MECB
11212326
Patrick Greene
MECB
11210761
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_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
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Acknowledgements
We would like to start by thanking our advisors Mr. Brian Stone, Dr. Regina Connolly
and Dr. Claire Gubbins for the knowledge and advice shared with us since April. We
appreciated the time taken out of their busy schedule to give us opinions,
encouragement and advice on our Practicum.
Secondly we would like to thank all who contributed to the MECB programme
throughout the year, in particular Dr. Cathal Gurrin for his structuring of the Practicum
module. It was clear to us that a lot of time and effort was put in and we hope that you
are somewhat pleased on the conclusion of the course for class of 2012.
A special mention must also go to Dr. Alan Smeaton who provided us with a valuable
insight into his experience of expense management at Dublin City University.
Finally we would like to thank our families who have supported us throughout the year,
through the most challenging, but without a doubt the most rewarding year of our lives.
Thank you all very much,
Meadhbh, Patrick, Craig & Donald
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Table of Contents
Section A: Business Plan
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY……………………………………………………………………………………….12
2. OVERVIEW OF ECOTRAIL
2.1 The Concept……………………………………………………………………………………………16
2.2 Why is the idea novel………………………………………………………………………….......17
2.3 Motivation behind the idea………………………………………………………………………18
3. CORPORATE BACKGROUND
3.1 Corporate Structure and Funding…………………………………………………………….19
3.2 Corporate structure and shareholder……………………………………………………….19
3.3 Directors and Employees…………………………………………………………………………19
3.4 Company Set-Up………………………………………………………………………………………20
3.5 Management Team…………………………………………………………………………………..21
3.5.1 Donald Cummins – Chairman & CIO………………………………….21
3.5.2 Meadhbh Cleary – I.T. Security & Risk Manager…………………22
3.5.3 Patrick Greene – CFO……………………………………………………….23
3.5.4 Craig Martin – Sales and Marketing Director…………………….23
4. MARKET ANALYSIS
4.1 Target Market………………………………………………………………………………………….24
4.2 Market Opportunity…………………………………………………………………………………27
4.3 Market Trends…………………………………………………………………………………………28
4.3.1 Smart phones…………………………………………………………………..28
4.3.2 NFC Payments…………………………………………………………………31
4.3.3 NFC Enabled Phones………………………………………………………..31
4.3.4 NFC and Point of Sale ………………………………………………………32
4.4 Value of the Market………………………………………………………………………………….33
4.4.1 NFC……………………………………………………………………………....33
4.4.2 Mobile…………………………………………………………………………..34
4.4.3 Mobile Apps………………………………………………………………….34
4.4.4 Expense Management……………………………………………………35
4.4.5 Market Value Summary…………………………………………………37
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4.5 Overview of Third party market……………………………………………………………….37
4.6 Primary Market Research
4.6.1 Qualitative Research……………………………………………………….38
4.6.2 Quantitative Research……………………………………………………..40
5. INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
5.1 Porters 5 forces………………………………………………………………………………………42
5.2 PESTEL Analysis………………………………………………………………………………………43
5.3 SWOT Analysis………………………………………………………………………………………...46
6. COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
6.1 Direct competition…………………………………………………………………………………..47
6.2 Indirect competition………………………………………………………………………………..53
6.3 Emerging competitors……………………………………………………………………………..56
6.4 Competitor product offering comparison…………………………………………………58
7. BUSINESS MODEL
7.1 Mission Statement……………………………………………………………………………………59
7.2 Vision……………………………………………………………………………………………..............59
7.3 Values……………………………………………………………………………………………………..59
7.4 Business Model Structure…………………………………………………………………………59
7.4.1 Customer segments………………………………………………………….60
7.4.2 Value Proposition…………………………………………………………….60
7.4.3 Channels………………………………………………………………………….61
7.4.4 Customer Relationships…………………………………………………...62
7.4.5 Revenue streams……………………………………………………………..63
7.4.6 Key Resources…………………………………………………………………64
7.4.7 Key Activities…………………………………………………………………..65
7.4.8 Key Partnerships…………………………………………………………….66
7.4.9 Cost Structure…………………………………………………………………68
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8. LIMITATION OF CURRENT SYSTEM V’S ECOTRAIL ADOPTION BENEFITS
8.1 Explanation of current manual expense process………………………………………..68
8.2 Explanation of EcoTrail process and adoption benefits……………………………...70
8.3 Cost Benefit Analysis………………………………………………………………………………..72
8.3.1 Large Enterprise Cost Benefit Analysis………………………………………..72
8.3.2 SME Cost Benefit Analysis…………………………………….…………………….75
8.3.3 Third Party Cost Benefit Analysis…………………………….………………….78
9. MARKETING OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGY
9.1 Marketing Mission…………………………………………………………………………………..82
9.2 Market Drivers………………………………………………………………………………………..82
9.3 Unique Selling Proposition………………………………………………………………………83
9.4 4Ps of Marketing
9.4.1 Product…………………………………………………………………………..83
9.4.2 Price……………………………………………………………………………….83
9.4.3 Place………………………………………………………………………………84
9.4.4 Promotion………………………………………………………………………85
9.5 EcoTrail’s Image……………………………………………………………………………………..85
9.5.1 EcoTrail Poster Campaign……………………………………………….86
9.6 Target Message and Activities…………………………………………………………………87
9.7 Marketing Channels………………………………………………………………………………..87
9.7.1 Online……………………………………………………………………………87
9.7.2 Search Engine Optimisation…………………………………………….88
9.7.3 Pay-Per-Click…………………………………………………………………88
9.7.4 Social Media…………………………………………………………………..89
9.7.5 Radio advertising…………………………………………………………..90
9.7.6 Email Marketing……………………………………………………………..91
9.7.7 Trade Shows & Events……………………………………………………91
9.8 Marketing Organization and Implementation…………………………………………..92
10. SALES STRATEGY
10.1 Sales Message……………………………………………………………………………………….93
10.2 Who will sell? ……………………………………………………………………………………….94
10.3 How will EcoTrail recruit and train sales force? ……………………………………..95
10.4 Sales Procedure…………………………………………………………………………………….95
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11. WHY ECO?
11.1 Impact of Paper Receipts………………………………………………………………………..97
11.2 Case Study of Wal-Mart………………………………………………………………………….98
12. ENVIRONMENTAL MITIGATION STRATEGY AND ETHICS
12.1 EcoTrail as a Green Business………………………………………………………………….99
12.2 Environmental Action Plan for EcoTrail………………………………………………..101
12.3 Environmental Awareness and Communication…………………………………….102
12.3.1 European Eco Label……………………………………………………..102
12.3.2 EcoTrail Green Office Checklist……………………………………..103
13. ETHICS AND PRIVACY
13.1 Ethical Issue………………………………………………………………………………………...104
13.2 Privacy Disclosures and Policies…………………………………………………………...104
13.2.1 EcoTrail Privacy Policy………………………………………………...105
13.3 Legal Issues…………………………………………………………………………………………107
14. LEGAL REQUIREMENTS
14.1 Register Business Name………………………………………………………………………108
14.2 Company Registration………………………………………………………………………….109
14.3 Compliance with Online Business Policies…………………………………………….110
14.4 Digital Receipt Requirements……………………………………………………………….112
14.5 Statutory Employer Compliance…………………………………………………………...112
14.6 Tax Compliance…………………………………………………………………………………..113
14.7 Patent………………………………………………………………..………………………………..113
15. FINANCIAL FORECAST
15.1 Assumptions……………………………..…………………………………………………………117
15.2 Business Strategy and its Financial Implications……………………………..…….118
15.3 Key Costs of the Project……………………………..…………………………………………118
15.4 Cost of Sales……………………………..………………………………………………………….119
15.5 Running Costs……………………………..………………………………………………………121
15.6 Selling and General Administration……………………………..……………………….124
15.7 Funding Requirements……………………………..…………………………………………125
15.8 Sales Forecast ……………………………..………………………………………………………128
15.8.1 Expected Financial Projections…………………………………….129
15.8.2 Sales Units Breakdown………………………………………………..130
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15.9 Exit Strategy……………………………..…………………………………………………………136
15.10 ‘Expected’ Income Statement, Balance Sheet & Cash flow…………………….136
15.10.1 Expected Income Statement……………………………………….137
15.10.2 Expected Balance Sheet……………………………………………...138
15.10.3 Expected Cash Flow Statement…………………………………...139
16. SECURITY
16.1 Security Concerns…………………………………………………..……………………………140
16.2 Data Integrity………………………………………………………………………………………141
16.3 Data Confidentiality……………………………………………………………………………..143
16.4 Data Authentication………………………………………………………………..……………144
17. RISK ASSESSMENT
17.1 Business Risk………………………………………………………………..……………………..146
17.2 Technology Risk………………………………………………………………..…………………149
17.3 Finance Risk………………………………………………………………..………………………150
18. COMMERCIAL TIMELINE………………………………………………………………..………………151
19. FUTURE EXPANSION………………………………………………………………..……………………..152
Section B: Technology Plan
1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………….……..………………..156
2. NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION
2.1 What is NFC? ………………………………………………………………..……………………….156
2.2 How NFC works………………………………………………………………..……………………157
2.3 Compliance Standards for NFC……………………………………………………………….157
2.4 Strengths and Weaknesses of NFC…………………………………………………………..158
2.4.1 How to Overcome NFC Weaknesses………………………………..158
2.5 NFC Comparison with Alternative Technologies……………………………………..159
3. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
3.1 Obtaining a Digital Receipt: User Perspective………………………………………….161
3.2 What does an EcoTrail Digital Receipt look like? …………………………………….164
3.3 Accessing Digital Receipt Content: User perspective………………………………..166
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3.4 Posting Digital Receipt for Approval: User and Approver ………………………..167
3.4.1 User Perspective………………………………………………….………...167
3.4.2 Approver Perspective………………………………………………….…168
3.4.3 Middleware………………………………………………….………………..168
4. SOFTWARE HOSTING AT POINT OF SALE……………………………………………..………….169
5. NFC READER AT POINT OF SALE………………………………………………………………………170
6. TECHNOLOGIES USED……………………………………….…………………………………………..….171
7. HOSTING REQUIREMENTS……………………………………………………………..……………….171
8. ECOTRAIL MOBILE APPLICATION……………………………………………………………..…….173
8.1 Functional Specification……………………………………………………………..………….173
8.2 Design Considerations……………………………………………………………..……………181
8.2.1 Elements of Design…………………………………..……………………182
8.2.2 Design Guidelines…………………………………………..……………..184
8.3 Usability……………………………………………………………..…………………………………189
8.3.1 Smart phone Constraints…………………………………..……………190
9. ECOTRAIL WEBSITE……………………………………………………………..………………………….194
9.1 Functional Specification……………………………………………………………..…………194
9.1.1 User Dashboard……………………………………………………………195
9.1.2 Corporate Dashboard…………………………………..………………198
9.2 Design Considerations……………………………………………………………..……………201
9.2.1 Elements of Design……………………………………………………….201
9.2.2 Competitor website Evaluation……………………………………..205
9.2.3 Layout……………………………………………………………………….…206
9.2.4 Aesthetics………………………………………….…………………………208
9.2.5 Imagery……………………………………………………………………….209
9.3 Website Hierarchy……………………………………………………………………….………210
9.4 Wireframes……………………………………………………………………….…………….......211
9.5 System User Testing……………………………………………………………………….……212
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10. MYSQL DATABASE
10.1 Why MySQL? ……………………………………………………………………….……………...213
10.2 Technical Specifications ……………………………………………….……………………..214
10.3 Database Specification…………………………………………………………………………214
10.4 MySQL Database Screenshots……………………………………………….………………220
10.5 Back-End and Front-End Interaction: PHP…………………………………………….222
10.6 Database Testing……………………………………………………………………….…………225
11. TECHNICAL DIARY………………………..………………………………………………….…………….226
12. TECHNICAL DELIVERABLE TIMELINE……………………………………………….…………...230
Section C
APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….…231
BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………………….………………285
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Section A
Business Plan
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1. Executive Summary
Vision
EcoTrail aims to revolutionise the Corporate Expense Management industry by
instilling its green initiative of paper reduction and streamlining the expense to
reimbursement cycle through the use of digital receipts.
Product Overview
EcoTrail’s Expense Management System offers a complete solution from the point of
incurring business expenses to the point of approving that expense for reimbursement.
It does this by automating the process beyond anything the expense management
market has seen before using Near Field Communication (NFC) Technology and digital
receipts. Other expense management systems on the market require a great deal of
manual input with users having to personally populate an expense report, attach the
corresponding paper receipts to the report, and have their companies finance
department check through these reports before approval. EcoTrail’s unique solution
allows users to eliminate this process using an NFC enabled smart phone, smart phone
application, website with user accounts and point of sale NFC readers. A user can simply
beam a digital receipt to their smartphone at the point of sale by pressing the phone
against the point of sale NFC reader. This enters a digital representation of the expense
incurred into EcoTrail’s Expense Management System. The user checks that the receipt
is correct on their smartphone application before posting it for approval to their
EcoTrail account. This automatically generates an expense report with the details of the
receipt. The company’s financial department has their own dashboard on the EcoTrail
website and can access the digital receipts and expense reports allowing them to track
and approve expenses for reimbursement at their leisure. Not only does EcoTrail’s
solution reduce manual labour in the expense management cycle to a minimum; it
eliminates paper from the entire process acting as an environmentally conscious
solution to expense management.
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Market Overview
EcoTrail will be marketed to small, medium and large enterprises which process
significant expense reports. Market entry will be in Ireland, followed by the U.K. and U.S.
The elimination of paper at the point of sale and the subsequent organisation of the
digital receipts into your mobile application is the competitive advantage EcoTrail hold
over its competitors by taking advantage of developments in NFC technology. Therefore
the success of EcoTrail is dependent on NFC technology incorporated in the
smartphone. Our research shows that the NFC smartphone market will approach 300
million devices in 2014 where 1/5 phones will be NFC enabled. NFC-ready Point of Sale
terminals grew strongly in 2011, with annual shipments doubling to an approx 2.5
million units worldwide and the number is due to grow at a rate of 50%. What all of this
means, is that 53% of all terminals will be NFC-ready.
Overall, the total market value for EcoTrail’s concept consists of four specific areas:
 NFC Market – worth $111billion
 Mobile Market – worth $1trillion
 Mobile App Market – worth $10billionn
 Expense Management Market – worth $1.33 billion
For EcoTrail’s actual market size, with initial entry into the Irish, British and American
markets, the number of Small/Medium business and Large Enterprises give an
indication of our potential client base in which to market to. This is illustrated in the
table below:
Region
SME’s
Large Enterprises
Ireland
17,365
445
UK
173,405
36,795
USA
1,159,448
129,280
Total
1,350,218
1,666,520
Overall, the market forecast for growth of technology for EcoTrail: smart phones, NFC
and NFC terminals is strong and stable. The market value for these is vast and expected
to increase.
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Staffing
The company was founded by four Master’s students from Dublin City University each
with a different background and expertise. EcoTrail intends to grow from 5 employees
(4 founders plus 1 Software Developer) in year one to 10 employees in year five, driven
by business expansion and a larger customer base. This is outlined in the table below:
Technical Overview
The underlying technology upon which EcoTrail depends is Near Field Communication
(NFC). NFC is a form of short range contactless communication which allows a user to
wave a smart phone over a NFC compatible device to send information without needing
to touch the devices together. The strengths of the technology in particular the minimal
interaction required by the user and its wide spread adoption in the smart phone
market makes it a suitable fit for EcoTrail’s digital receipt expense management
solution. The core technical components for EcoTrail’s product offering consist of a fully
functioning website interface, Mobile application suitable for the Android, iOS, and
Blackberry platform, MySQL database to store customer details and digital receipt data
and EcoTrails software application that is hosted at the point of sale terminal to
transmit a digital version of a receipt to a smart phone using NFC Technology.
Funding Requirements
Initial funding will be provided by the four Directors of the company of €5,000 each
amounting to €20,000 and external financial support is expected to be secured from a
Bank of Ireland Bank Loan of €300,000. EcoTrail will also try to source funding through
a variety of grants, including the Dublin Enterprise Board Priming Start-up with the
additional hope of securing Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) fund by
year 5.
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Projected Financial Illustrations
The following table represents the core financial data which has been sourced from a
detailed set of financial statements documented in Appendix 11 on page 264. Years 1 – 2
will be when EcoTrail’s software will be developed and trialled in the market, therefore
there will be no income earned and we will incur a net loss. In Years 3-5 the projected
revenues are based on sale revenues targeting both SME’s and Large Companies. Based
on these indicative financial projections, EcoTrail will begin making a profit by year end
2015.
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2. Overview of EcoTrail
2.1 The Concept
The EcoTrail Expense Management System offers corporations an innovative and
unique solution to managing the business and travel expenses of employees. While
competing systems require a significant degree of manual input on the part of the
employee and the expense approval department, EcoTrail uses Near Field
Communication (NFC) technology and digital receipts to streamline the system beyond
anything the market has seen before.
Currently, employees must manually file expense reports that must be accompanied by
a physical paper receipt for each individual expense that is incurred. The expense
approval department must validate these reports, cross checking each individual
physical receipt against the expense claim which can take up a considerable amount of
time.
EcoTrail aims to revolutionise the way in which companies deal with the management
of business and travel expenses of employees by minimising the time and cost involved
in the end to end cycle. Using a smart phone application, NFC enabled smart phone and
NFC enabled Point of Sale hardware a company’s employees can beam a digital receipt
to their phones from the point of sale terminal which represents the expenses they
incur. These digital receipts can then be uploaded in real time to the EcoTrail Corporate
Expense Management System seamlessly for approval and eventual reimbursement.
The process is streamlined for both the employee and the expense approval department
as EcoTrail automatically pre-populates expense reports with digital receipt
information and these are sent directly from the employee’s phone to the expense
approver’s desktop. Employees will have their own dashboard style profile on the
EcoTrail website which records their expense information and is synced with their
phone. This information will be available to company expense approvers via their
dashboard and they have the final say on whether an expense is appropriate for
reimbursement.
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Implementing EcoTrail’s Expense Management System will significantly reduce the
number of hours that employees and expense approvers spend filing and processing
expenses, save companies money by reducing the cost of processing expense reports
and facilitate more accurate tracking and monitoring of company business and travel
expenditure (Concur Whitepapers, 2012).
EcoTrail’s Expense Management system will also allow for easy access, storage and
categorisation of expenses. Employee’s will be able to sort digital receipts by expense
types such as “Accommodation” and “Food” and will also be able to group expenses by
‘Trip’. This will allow for greater accuracy in producing financial reports based on
expenses allowing corporations to keep track of their budgets and spend in each
category.
Furthermore, the EcoTrail Expense Management System is an environmentally friendly
initiative as it promotes the use of digital receipts over traditional paper receipts. It is
estimated that 9 million trees are cut down a year to produce paper receipts (Fornes,
2010). Digital receipts can reduce a company’s carbon footprint by up to 66% (Total
Retail Control, 2011), not only saving them money but allowing them to publicise the
fact that they are a green company.
2.2 Why it is a Novel idea?
EcoTrail’s Solution is a unique concept in the field of Corporate Expense Management as
it is applying an emerging transmission technology into an existing industry to solve
real business problems in the form of expense management. While competitors offer
systems that involve taking pictures of receipts and having to file them with traditional
expense reports, EcoTrail offers a system that is as simple as pressing a phone against
an NFC transceiver at the point of sale to obtain a digital receipt which in turn
automatically generates expense reports. NFC is a relatively new technology in terms of
its utilisation around the world up until this point. However, it is predicted that by 2015
NFC will be an abundant technology and EcoTrail’s research conducted to date supports
this. No Corporate Expense Management System on the market uses NFC technology
coupled with digital receipts and pre-populating expense reports; and no systems are as
automated as EcoTrail. Digital receipts will transform the way the world stores and
processes expense data, making it ubiquitous, personalised and easily accessible.
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2.3 Motivation behind the Idea
The EcoTrail Expense Management System was inspired by a number of factors. Having
worked in the corporate world the team was well aware of the pain staking process
involved in claiming business and travel expenses. The team identified that the main
reason this process is protracted and unpleasant is due to the paperwork involved.
Having identified a problem the team set about exploring avenues to deliver a solution
using available technology in a new way. A member of the team suggested digital
receipts as a way in which the process could be made more efficient. This year the team
gained insight into the world of technology and e-commerce. The emergence of the
Google Wallet caught the eye of some members of the team especially its use of NFC
Technology. The Google Wallet is showing how smartphones are becoming the wallets
of the future on which people like to store information. After conducting research into
NFC the team discovered that it was an emerging technology hotly tipped to play a
major role in the evolution of payments. The team identified that this technology could
be used to transmit digital receipts in the same way that it facilitates touch and go
payments for the Google Wallet. The team set out to devise an automated expense
management system that takes the manual labour out of filing for expenses and
EcoTrail’s Expense Management System is the result of this.
The team also identified that the adoption of digital receipts by the public sector in the
retail industry would drastically cut down on the amount of paper used to make
receipts, saving not only the environment but also saving major costs for the retailers
providing the receipts to customers. However, we felt that the EcoTrail Corporate
Expense Management System was a more tangible product with which we had a clear
and defined value proposition to sell to companies and generate revenue. We hope to
enter the public sector in the future if EcoTrail is successful and make a case for this
industry in our Further Expansion section on page 152.
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3. Corporate Background
3.1 Corporate Structure and Funding
EcoTrail will be registered as a limited company in Ireland and will operate from offices
based in the City Centre of Dublin. The company will be funded by grants from local
authorities including the Dublin Enterprise Board and Enterprise Ireland as well as by
loans taken out in the company’s name. Each of the founding members will invest some
personal finance into the company.
3.2 Corporate Structure and Shareholder
There will be an initial 100 shares issued to the founding members of EcoTrail. The
breakdown of these shares will be as follows:
Name
Shareholding
Don Cummins
25%
Craig Martin
25%
Meadhbh Cleary
25%
Patrick Greene
25%
3.3 Directors and Employees
Board of Directors - There will be four directors sitting on the board of EcoTrail.

Don Cummins – Director and Chairman

Meadhbh Cleary – Director and Company Secretary

Craig Martin – Director

Patrick Greene – Director
The following table gives a detailed account of the employees that EcoTrail expects to
employ during Years 1 – 5. These assumptions are explained in further detail in the
financial section of the report on page 125.
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3.4
Company Set-Up
EcoTrail have decided to establish its company and develop its system in Ireland for the
following reasons:

Grant Aid – home grown Irish start-ups are entitled to a number of financial grants
to aid their company.

Workforce – Ireland has a well-educated and skilled workforce especially in the
areas of IT and Software Development. Setting up the business in Ireland will give
EcoTrail access to a wealth of IT graduates and software engineers that can help
develop and shape the company and its systems.

Corporation Tax – Ireland has a 12.5% corporation tax that is designed to
encourage new start-ups, foreign direct investment and employment (Jobs
Initiative, 2011).

Action Plans for Jobs 2012 – This refers to documents released by the Government
outlining ways in which they will support indigenous business as well as the jobs
that they will create (Irish Government, 2012). This initiative will help small
companies win big contracts through its Procuring Innovation initiative. The
initiative is also providing tax credits for SME’s research and development costs and
aims to build an indigenous engine for growth to drive up the export market share
of Irish companies.
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3.5 Management Team
EcoTrail is comprised of a management team of four business oriented graduates with
industry experience gained from previous employment as well as excellent academic
achievements to date.
CIO
CFO
Marketing
Manager
IT Security
Manager
3.5.1 Donald Cummins – Chairman and Chief Information Officer
Don (23) holds a 2nd class honours Bachelor of Business Studies
Degree with a specialism in eCommerce and Msc. in eCommerce from
Dublin City University. Don will act as both the Chairman and CIO for
EcoTrail leveraging his business and professional background to lead
the board. Don has previously worked for eBay as part of their
Continuous Improvement Division and has an insight into how a
large eCommerce based MNE operates and grows. Don will also use
his technical understanding and background in eCommerce to ensure
that the appropriate emphasis is being put on the company’s
technical deliverables and processes.
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Duties include:

Ensuring effective operation of the Board and its committees in conformity with
the highest standards of corporate governance.

Ensuring effective communication with shareholders, host governments and
other relevant constituencies and that the views of these groups are understood
by the Board.

Setting the agenda, style and tone of Board discussions to promote constructive
debate and effective decision-making.

Recruiting and managing IT skills, expertise and people
3.5.2 Meadhbh Cleary - IT Security and Risk Manager
Meadhbh (23) holds a 1st class honours Bachelor of Business
Studies Degree with a specialism in E-commerce and Msc. in Ecommerce from Dublin City University. Meadhbh will act in a
supporting role for the technical deliverables of the project
having achieved first class honours in Java Programming,
Networks and Internets and Web Design during her time at
Dublin City University. Meadhbh will also lead the team in
identifying system security risks and proposing mitigation
strategies. Her role related knowledge comprises of a 1 year
internship with Deutsche Bank in the Security and Fraud
payment Department, Foundation Level certificate for PRINCE2
Project Management as well as certification with Google Analytics.
Duties include:

Conducting security and risk audits and preparing a suitable business continuity
plan

Liasing with Sofware Development team and providing direction to ensure a high
standard

Constant evalaution of the corporate expense management industry in terms of
market risks and emerging trends
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3.5.3 Patrick Greene - Chief Financial Officer
Patrick (23) holds a MSc in E-commerce from Dublin City
University. He graduated from National University of Galway
in 2010 with a 2nd Class Honours degree in Commerce and
German.
Since
then
Patrick
has
gained
accounting
experience working as a Financial Analyst in EMC². Patrick
will lead the sales team leveraging his 3 years of experience
in retail selling. Patrick’s experience also includes live digital
marketing campaigns and various media related roles.
Duties include:

Administering all financial aspects of the company

Preparing the management accounts and statutory returns

Actively engaging with potential clients as a sales agent
3.5.4 Craig Martin - Sales and Marketing Director
Craig (23) holds a 1st class honours Bachelor of Science Degree
in Marketing, Innovation & Technology and a Msc. in
Electronic Commerce from Dublin City University. Craig will
act as the head of marketing communications for EcoTrail.
Craig will also lead the team in conducting market research
and be responsible for implementing marketing activities and
engaging with clients online. He has previously worked in
Enterprise Ireland in the Grants Payable and Client Service
departments. Other qualifications include a Foundation Level
certificate for PRINCE2 Project Management as well as
certification with Google Analytics and Adwords.
Duties include:

Online Communications and brand message

Industry & Competitor Analysis

Physical Marketing Campaigns

Customer Account Management & Service
23
4. Market Analysis
4.1 Target Market
EcoTrail’s target market consists of Corporations in need of a new expense management
system or an upgrade to a more automated system. The Specific users of EcoTrail will be
travelling business/salespeople who incur expenses.
We have broken down this market into the following segments:

Small Enterprises - employ 1 - 49

Medium Enterprises – employ 50 -249

Large Enterprises and Composite Organisations – employ 250+

Corporate Expense Industries
EcoTrail will be focusing its efforts on gaining a strong foothold in a small number of
markets initially with plans for expansion based on the success of the company. The
markets that EcoTrail is looking to enter initially are Ireland, the United Kingdom and
United States.
The success of EcoTrail’s Expense Management System is dependent on the adoption of
NFC technology and NFC enabled smart phones. Therefore it is important to identify the
current trends in the adoption of these technologies. Below is an overview of the rate of
smartphone penetration in Europe.
(Source Our Mobile Planet 2012)
24
Ireland
Ireland is host to 13 of the top 15 global pharmaceutical companies, 7 of the world’s top
10 information and communications technology companies and 15 of the world’s top 25
medical technology companies, highlighting its position as one of the most MNE
dependent economies in the world (Enterprise Ireland, 2010). Ireland’s population is
currently 4.59 Million (CSO, 2011). Today 88% are aged below 65 years of age. That
88% equates to approximately 4.05 million people under the age of 65. Today Ireland
now has greater than 40% smartphone penetration and growing (Google, 2012).
UK
The United Kingdom's population in 2011 surpassed 62 million with about 8.615
million in the capital of London, which remains the largest city in Europe (The
Parliament, 2010). As of 2012 the UK has greater than 50% smartphone penetration.
(Google, 2012).
Kantar World-panel claim 48.9% of the British population has a smartphone.
Smartphone ownership nearly doubled in the UK between February 2010 and August
2011 to 46%, according to figures from Ofcom, underlining how rapidly demand for
expensive phones with internet access is growing (Financial Times, 2011).
UK & Ireland Smartphone Penetration:
(Source Our Mobile Planet 2012)
25
USA
The population of the USA is 313,847,465 with 66.8% aged 15-64 years (CIA, 2012). In
America society 48% of the population have smartphone devices with that number
expected to increase to 75% as soon as 2015 (Nielson, 2012).
USA Smartphone penetration by Age and Income:
77% of 18-24 year olds earning less than €15,000 have smartphones, 80% of the 25 34 year olds earning €15,000 – €35,000 have smartphones and 75% of 45-54 year olds
earning €50,000- €75,000 have smartphones (Nielson, 2012).
26
4.2 Market Opportunity
Ecotrail’s competitive advantage lies in the automation of the expense management
process from the point of sale to the approval phase and in the reduction of paper
receipts used and the subsequent cost of providing those receipts. This process depends
heavily on NFC POS hardware and NFC enabled smartphones. Here are some statistics
depicting the future of these technologies:

85% of all new point of sale terminals shipped in 2016 will be NFC-enabled as
discovered during our interview with Robert Doherty from AIB Merchant Services.

The NFC smartphone market will approach 300 million devices in 2014, with nearly
15 billion NFC tickets delivered to mobile devices worldwide, compared to just two
billion in 2011 (Juniper, 2011)

Crone Consulting estimates that in the US there are currently 150,000 merchant
locations enabled for NFC payments today (Bloomberg Business Week, 2011 )

According to Barclaycard, there are currently 40,000 stores in the UK equipped to
handle

mobile
contactless
transactions
(NFC
News,
2011).
Verifone announced (March 3rd 2011) that NFC will be included in all new POS
terminals from that date forward. (NFC World, 2011)
27
4.3 Market Trends
As mentioned previously, EcoTrail relies on the trend of smart phones considering its
primary product offering involves using a smart phone as an expense management tool
to collect and organise digital receipts. The following section details the market trends
impacting EcoTrail:
4.3.1 Smart phones
IDC (2012) released the figure of 144.9 million smartphones sold worldwide in Q1
2012. Gartner (2012) estimate sales of smartphones in the same period (Q1) at 144.4
million. Estimated total Smartphone sales across 2011 were 472 million or 31% of
mobile communication device sales. This compares with figures for 2010 from the same
company of 297 million smartphones or 19% of the 1.6 billion mobile phones sold that
year. This shows an annual sales increase of 58% during this time.
Gartner (2012) also offer a market growth estimate for the smartphone market by
manufacturer and operating software. The next two years will see almost 50% growth
of the smartphone market.
(Gartner 2012 via Smartof.com)
28
Business Insider (2012) also conform to this estimated growth scale.
Business Insider (2012) shows that smartphone user behaviour indicates a growing
comfort using smartphones for everyday purposes. The diagram below shows an
increase across each of the categories in 2011 compared to 2012.
29

Gartner (2012) estimate Smartphone sales will almost double from 2012 to 2015

JPMorgan (2011) predict that 657 million smart phones will leave stores in 2012.

IDC (2012) expect 2012 smart phone sales to reach 686 million, and predict they
will rise to 982 million in 2015, just below Gartner’s estimate.

IMS (2012) Research expects smart phones to reach 1 billion in annual sales in
2016 (half the mobile device market).

In 2011, there were 835 million smart phone users, 5.6 billion feature phone
users (Mary Meeker, Kleiner Perkins, Morgan Stanley Research via Business
Insider 2012)

Global internet usage will more than double by 2015, and most of these users
will be mobile (Boston Consulting Group, Mary Meeker, Kleiner Perkins, Morgan
Stanley Research, Berg Insight via Business Insider 2012)

In 2012, the U.S. saw a 55% increase in smart phone subscriptions to make for
98 million smart phone subscribers, representing nearly 42% of all U.S. mobile
users. (comScore, 012)

In the U.S. alone, there were more than 400 smart phone devices on the market
at the end of 2011 (comScore, 2012)
2012
2015
630 Million
1.1 Billion
30
4.3.2 NFC Payments
NFC payments started off slow, but Juniper Research believes that they will reach $74
billion by 2015 and will exceed $180 billion globally by 2017. The leading regions of
North America, Western Europe and Far East & China will contribute 90% of this
market value as smart phones with NFC payment technology become standard (Juniper
Research, 2012). Results also found that more than 1 in 4 Mobile Users in the US and
Western Europe will pay in-store using NFC by 2017. This shows the growing
familiarity of users with NFC technology which is what EcoTrail relies on for success.
2017
2015
$74 Billion
$180 Billion
4.3.3 NFC Enabled Phones
Hugo Barra, the director of Android product management, revealed that Google is now
shipping 1 million NFC-enabled Android devices every week. “400 million Android
devices have now been activated, with activations currently flying in at a rate of 1
million per day. This means that phones with NFC built in represent nearly 15% of all
new Android devices” (Empson, 2012).

The Yankee Group (2011) estimate that there will be 7 million NFC-enabled
phones in 2011 growing to 203 million in 2015.

Juniper Research (2011) predicts that almost 300 million or 1 in 5 smart phones
worldwide will be NFC-enabled by 2014.

Frost & Sullivan (2011): 863 million units or 53% of new handsets will be NFCenabled in 2015. The total payment value for NFC globally will exceed €110
billion in 2015.

NFC Chip Makers predict there will be at least 40-50 million NFC phones on the
market by 2011, based on orders for NFC chip sets (NFC Times, Oct, 2010).
2011
2015
7 Million
863 Million
31
4.3.4 NFC and Point of Sale
Juniper (2011) contends that NFC is increasingly being used for the payment of goods
in-store and claims that it is already over triple the expectation for 2011. Additionally,
the market research firm says that the use of mobile devices as an alternative to credit
cards and paper tickets is one of the fastest growing segments of the mobile commerce
market.
Point of Sale devices are changing rapidly in response to this trend with 2000 POS
systems having evolved into hubs for business management, operations, and analysis.
The past decade has seen the rise of POS enhancements such as touch screen interfaces,
self-checkout stations, and payment kiosks. This gives the EcoTrail team confidence that
NFC enabled software can be seamlessly added and accepted by POS devices and their
operators. TechNavio also released a report predicting that the global NFC point of sale
terminal market will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17% from
2011 to 2015, during this time the EcoTrail system will be beta testing and preparing
for launch.
Overall, the market for NFC-ready POS terminals grew significantly in 2011, with annual
shipments doubling to an estimated 2.5 million units worldwide. A total of 3.9m NFCready POS terminals were installed globally by the end of 2011 and that number is due
to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 49.4% to reach 43.4m units in
2017. What all of this means, is that 53% of all terminals will be NFC-ready (Berg
Insight, 2012). The penetration rate of NFC POS hardware is projected to be highest in
North America where an estimated 86% of terminals will be NFC-ready by 2017. In
Europe, Berg predicts the rate will hit 78% but take-up will be slower in the rest of the
world, only reaching 38% (Finextra 2012).
2011
2017
3.9 Million
Million
43.4 Million
Million
49.4% CAGR
53% of ALL
Terminals
32
4.4 Value of the Market
The total market value for EcoTrail’s concept consists of four specific areas:
1) NFC Market
2) Mobile Market
3) Mobile App Market
4) Expense Management Market
4.4.1 NFC
As mentioned previously, NFC-enabled smart phones will reach 863m units in 2015. At
this time, the mobile phone market will represent more than 53% of the overall
technology market. Frost & Sullivan expects that the total payment value for NFC
globally will reach €111bn by 2015.
The NFC market also has the potential to create revenues for the entire NFC ecosystem.
Handset manufacturers, trusted service management system providers and marketing
and commercial NFC service providers all stand to benefit. “Many marketing companies
are already involved in the NFC ecosystem,” explained Frost & Sullivan global program
director Jean-Noël Georges. “This is a good signal because, in the past, marketing
companies were involved in new technology roll-outs only when the transition occurred
from purely trials to first commercial deployments.” (Frost & Sullivan, 2011)
863 mBn
€111
33
4.4.2 Mobile
The mobile telecoms industry passed the 1 Trillion dollar revenue level in 2009,
becoming the fastest-growing industry on the planet. Mobile is twice as big as the fixed
landline telecoms industry, twice as big as the global computer industry, four times as
big as global internet related business and three times as big as worldwide advertising.
There are only a handful of these truly giant industries on the planet such as
automobiles, garments food and banking (Forbes 2011).
$ 1 Tn
4.4.3 Mobile Apps
The smart phone application market sector is now worth 9 billion dollars, up 50%
from 2010 when it was worth 6 billion. Over 6 billion of app store income was from
‘enterprise’ and corporate business apps, not sold to consumers. The consumer ‘app
store’ type of smart phone application market also grew strongly and reached a value of
3 billion dollars in value (Forbes, 2012). Business Insider puts the value of the Mobile
App industry at $10 billion and growing at 100% per year according to Business Insider
(2012).
$10
$10 bn
Bn
IDC (2010) stated in 2010 that 300,000+ applications were downloaded 10.9 billion
times. IDC predicts that global downloads will reach 76.9 billion in 2014 and will be
worth US$35 billion. ABI Research (2011) predicted that there will be 29 billion apps
downloaded in 2011, up from 9 billion in 2010. This is positive information for EcoTrail
as a key aspect of its product offering is a corporate expense management mobile
application.
34
4.4.4 Expense Management
The Expense Management Market is expected to reach $1.333 Billion in 2014
according to SaaS Based Expense Management Market 2010-2014 report via Business
Wire (2011). The market is expected to see good growth with several big players
driving growth. Organisations have begun to realise the need for centralising expense
related management. Increasing needs to tap purchase relation information and
increasing compliances have been key drivers of this market.
CWT via Carlston (2011) estimates the addressable expense management market is at
approximately US$49 billion globally split into US$4 billion for expense management
systems and US$45 billion for outsourcing services which EcoTrail falls into. (See Figure
below) These figures refer to market potential as opposed to actual revenues realised
by providers.
$1
bn Bn
$1.33
(Source: CWT Travel Management Institute)
This market is likely to expand by 6-9% in North America and 5-8% in Europe in 201115, thanks to a combination of economic growth (hence greater expenditure) and
increased penetration (more systems in use in companies) as discussed below:
35
Economic growth
GDP should grow by 10.9% in Asia, 4.4% in North America and 3.4% in Europe annually
for
the
2011-15
periods
according
to
the
International
Monetary
Fund.
Correspondingly, business travel spend is expected to grow by 10.3%, 6% and 4.5%
annually in these three regions.
Increased penetration
There is plenty of room for growth, as expense management systems have penetrated
only a small corner of the market up until now, mainly with larger corporations. The
estimated penetration rates in companies of more than 50 employees range from less
than 1% in Asia and 2% in Europe to 8-9% in North America (Carlson 2011)
Expense management tools are naturally seen as a way to reduce costs. And, according
to a report by McKinsey (2010), cost cutting is by far the top priority for organisations’
procurement (identified by 46% of survey respondents), well ahead of supplier
relationship management (18%) or gaining control of more spend areas (14%).
While the value of the overall market has been discussed above, it is important to
identify the size of EcoTrail’s target markets in Ireland, UK and USA. The number of
Small/Medium business and Large Enterprise (summarised below) gives an indication
of the size of EcoTrail’s potential client base. Further reference to our sales estimates
can be found in our financial section on page 129.
Region
SME
Large Enterprise
Ireland
17,365
445
UK
173,405
36,795
USA
1,159,448
129,280
Total
1,350,218
1,666,520
Sources: (CSO, 2012), (FSB, 2012), (Census Bureau, 2012)
36
4.4.5 Market Value Summary
4.5 Overview of Third Party Market
In order to implement the Ecotrail Expense Management System effectively, EcoTrail
depends on have third party industries to sign up and agree to use EcoTrail software at
their Point of Sale and offer digital receipts to corporate customers. The term Third
party refers to industries that corporate customers regularly incur expenses with such
as Hotel Chains and Car Rental stores. EcoTrail will form a partnership with these
industries in a mutually beneficial relationship. This partnership will allow EcoTrail to
provide corporate customers with the NFC digital receipts necessary for their system
and will endear the partnering industries to our corporate clients. The research
conducted into such partnerships is discussed in the primary market research section
which follows.
37
4.6 Primary Market Research
4.6.1 Qualitative Research
Objectives
Qualitative interviews were selected as a primary research technique. The common
research objectives for each interview were as follows:
1. Identify the characteristics of the current expense management system within the
industry and relevant organisation.
2. Identify any perceived issues or limitations that existed with their expense
management process.
3. Identify attitudes towards using EcoTrail expense management system and their
perceived willingness to adopt such a system.
4. Identify the level of understanding of mobile use by employees as a tool in expense
management.
The team compiled a list of possible interviewees that each team member knew
personally or through a business contact. It was agreed that each potential interviewee
must possess the following characteristics in order to be included as part of the target
sample:
o The participant must be experienced in using their company’s expense system
and/or
o The participant must have relevant technical knowledge related to EcoTrail
technical deliverables
o The participant must be considered to be part of the target user group
The following table summarises 5 interviewees, their position, company and the date
that the interview took place:
Interviewee
Robert Doherty
Cormac MacCartaigh
Brendan Gillen
Alan Smeaton
Theresa Ormsby
Position/Role
NFC and Expense Processor
Global Expense Officer
Head of DCU Finance Office
Expense System User - Core
Accounts Payable
38
Organisation
AIB MS
Google
DCU
DCU
Enterprise Ireland
Date
25/07/12
26/07/12
26/07/12
20/07/12
26/07/12
In terms of conducting market research into the third party industries upon which
EcoTrail depends on the following approach was taken. The industries identified
included Car Rental, Hotels, Petrol Stations, Restaurants, Transport and Retail as these
are the areas where business and travel expenses most commonly occur.
After
discovering this we went about inquiring how open companies from these industries
would be to forming a relationship with EcoTrail. The findings of this research are
detailed below:
Car Rental
Anthony McKenna, Local Manager for Enterprise Rent-A-Car (Swords Road) was
receptive to hearing the EcoTrail idea and how it could benefit his branch. “If it could
help establish business clients it’s obviously worth consideration”. Despite the positive
feedback, we were informed that any installation would have to be signed off with Head
Office and Anthony was reluctant to pitch the idea without EcoTrail being in an official
capacity. “Come back to me when this is up and running and can bring a tangible cost
cutting CRM software to management.”
Hotel
Raymond Bryne of Jury’s Hotel (Parnell Street) informed us that they do have corporate
relationships with businesses and have a corporate program for regular stays. When
told of how EcoTrail would act as a further incentive for corporations as well as acting
as having environmental benefits, he said he could “see no reason” why it could not be
implemented in each Jury’s Hotel where corporate bookings are taken “as long as it can
be used at each service in the hotel” – food etc.
Petrol Station & Retail
Tesco Clearwater Petrol Station (Finglas Road) was contacted in order to see the
feasibility of EcoTrail working there and in further branches. Donna Brown acting
Manager of the station informed us of the same upper level sign off as Anthony
(Enterprise Rent-A-Car). However we were able to discover that Tesco are actively
looking for a solution to install at both pump POS and terminal POS to reduce paper and
time waste. Lorraine Cahill (Floor Manager) of Tesco informed us that at peak capacity,
they have 24 tills open with receipt rolls for each till sometimes being changed every 90
minutes coming up to Christmas.
39
When told of how EcoTrail could potentially reduce paper waste and cost, she repeated
the same message as Donna, that Tesco are actively looking for retail solutions to cut
costs and could imagine a relationship being established. However, she could only see
EcoTrail as a consumer product for the company.
4.6.2 Quantitative Research
Objectives
The EcoTrail team used the quantitative questionnaire technique to define more specific
data relative to the four research objectives. As the questionnaire asked questions about
expense management systems, the expense user/ manager or relevant role was
targeted within each potential respondent company.
Methodology
The survey was administered electronically to potential participants. The management
team chose this method of quantitative research due its convenience and cost
effectiveness at gathering data from the target sample of over fifty respondents. Again
the management team used personal & business contacts to target companies. The
companies contacted included; Accenture, First Derivatives, AWAS, LinkedIn, Paddy
Power, eBay, Intel and Bank of Ireland.
The EcoTrail team consulted with quantitative expert Gerry Conyngham to gauge his
opinion on whether our survey was suitable for respondents. The team also used four
respondents for the pilot test of the survey. The participants reported back that they
had no difficulties in understanding the questions and felt the language and overall
presentation was excellent and easy to follow. The questionnaire used in the market can
be seen in Appendix 7 on page 249.
40
Findings
The response received from the questionnaire indicates that EcoTrails target market
has an increasing level of comfort in using a Smartphone device for the purpose of
Expense Management. Only 4 out of 54 respondents (7%) rated their level of comfort in
using a smart phone as an expense management tool as 1 out of 5 with 8 out of 54
respondents (15%) rated their level of comfort as 2 out of 5. However, 75% of
respondents rate their comfort using a smart phone as an expense management tool at
3 or above.
What is the most
important element when
using an expense
managment system?
What would you rate out
of 5 your level of comfort
using a smartphone as an
expense managment
tool?
25
20
No. of
15
Responde
10
nts
5
0
30
No. of 20
responde
10
nts
0
1
2
3
4
5
Rating out of 5
The research conducted also shows the elements of an expense management system
deemed most important by the target market. Results identify usability & efficiency as
the most important features which is what EcoTrail prides itself in offering. This is
highlighted in the graph above. Please see Appendix 8 on page 252 for a detailed
breakdown of the market research findings including graphs and statistics.
41
5. Industry Analysis
5.1 Porter’s Five Forces
Porters Five Forces model was used as a framework to assess the nature of competition,
long term profitability and overall attractiveness of the corporate expense management
industry in which EcoTrail will operate. The summary of the findings can be seen below:
Summary of Industry Analysis
From the analysis the industry under investigation in which the product would
potentially operate is considered to be attractive because although the industry has a
large threat of substitutes and moderate supplier bargaining power, these unattractive
forces are sufficiently offset by the opportunities posed by the weak bargaining power
of the customer, high barriers to entry and the moderate rivalry among competitors.
42
5.2 PESTLE Analysis
Such analysis gives an overview of the different macro environmental factors that
EcoTrail have to take into consideration for understanding market growth or decline,
business position, potential and direction for operations.
Political
We must look at the degree of intervention by the Governments where business travel
is conducted the most often and their willingness to adopt NFC technology as well as
their acceptance of digital receipts for VAT purpose. In China for example the
government is open to NFC mobile payments. Here China Mobile has recently developed
the first NFC device for mobile payments and it is set to go on sale shortly. In the U.S, a
mobile payment using NFC is accepted widely as a form of payment, while Europe is
slowly adopting the idea of mobile payments and digital receipts. In the UK contactless
payment is growing fast - contactless payments at convenience food retailers has grown
at 75% year on year and currently accounts for 60,000 transactions a month, making up
half of all card payments (Bardwell, 2012).
From our interview with Head of Global Operations at Google Cormac MacCarthaigh we
were informed that digital receipts are accepted in most countries for auditing purposes
excluding Germany and Japan. In Germany, digital receipts are only deemed acceptable
if they are scanned using an accredited German Scanning company. France is attempting
to become a market leader in NFC payments. There are NFC projects in seventeen cities
that have been shortlisted to get funding from a €20m pot made available by the French
government. “The cash is aimed at speeding up the rollout of commercial NFC services
in France as well as to help the country's NFC technology suppliers position themselves
as leaders in the world market”(Clark, 2012).
Economic
Ireland is expected to be the only peripheral economy in the euro currency bloc to
expand this year and it could see consumer spending grow in 2013 for the first time
since 2007(Reuters, 2012). The current Irish Government has been successful in cutting
its budget deficit, shrinking its banks and returning to modest economic growth.
43
The inflation rate in Ireland was recorded at 1.70% in June of 2012. Historically, from
1976 until 2012, Ireland’s Inflation Rate averaged 5.3000 % reaching an all-time high of
23.1500% in October of 1981 and a record low of -6.5600% in October of 2009
(Trading Economics, 2012). Reuters European Growth Forecast predicted that Ireland
will grow by .09% in 2012. This is favourable news for EcoTrail as a new start-up.
Furthermore, assistance in the development and implementation of Green Enterprise
initiatives is available from a number of agencies in Ireland, the four principal agencies
active in this area: the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, the Environmental
Protection Agency, Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. There are also many incentives
and awards for home-grown eco business such as the Chambers Ireland Corporate
Social Responsibility Awards run by Department of Environment, Community and Local
Government.
Social
Attitude to the Environment:
According to a survey carried out by Gallup (2012) about two-thirds of respondents
agree that they are more likely to work for and invest in companies that take steps to
minimise their impact on the environment. 94% of respondents somewhat or strongly
agree that it is important for companies to not just be profitable, but to be mindful of
their impact on the environment and society (Gallup Business Journal, 2012). People are
also becoming more environmentally friendly and are taking on a lifestyle which
embraces objectives, actions, and ideas that are good for the surrounding environment,
animal and plant life by trying to cut down on unnecessary waste of paper, food, plastic
and other resources. As well as that, more than three-quarters of respondents are more
likely to choose one brand over another because it is environmentally friendly, and are
more likely to choose a brand from a company that is taking steps to minimise its
impact on the environment (Gallup Business Journal, 2012). This indicates that
EcoTrail’s green image of eliminating paper receipts from the corporate industry will be
received well by society.
44
Attitude to Mobile:
Another social factor to consider is the usage of smart phones by employees. Nielsen's
quarterly survey of mobile user shows that while only 43% of cell phone users have a
Smartphone, that number grows to more than half for those 18 to 44. In the age bracket
of 25 to 34, that number is as high as 62%, where it was only 41 percent a year ago. The
18-to-25 and 35-to-44 demographics are both near 54 percent, but everyone else sits
significantly below that, especially those older than 65. All in all it's an upwards trend
will indicates a positive response from society in terms of smart phone usage which is
required for EcoTrail’s product offering.
Technological
U.K. firm Juniper Research predicts that the NFC retail payments market will exceed
$180 billion globally by 2017, a seven-fold increase over 2012. A new report from the
company forecasts that North America, Western Europe and the Far East and China will
account for 90% of the NFC market, resulting from the addition of NFC payment
technology to smart phones sold in these markets. (Business Models & Forecasts 20122017, 2012) This tells us that market acceleration, evidenced by the commitment of
more handset manufacturers to the technology and by the release of Google Wallet,
made 2011 a "watershed year for NFC" which indicates a promising adoption of NFC in
the future which is required by EcoTrail for success in the industry.
Environmental
As mentioned previously, customers often choose one brand over another because it is
environmentally friendly. Please see page 97 for a full breakdown of EcoTrail’s reasons
for going green and the environmental impact of our concept.
Legal
There is a different stance in countries regarding digital receipts. In Italy for example it
is illegal for the merchant not to give a receipt to the consumer, if they are found not to
give a receipt there is the threat of imprisonment. In Ireland, UK, USA, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand and Singapore softcopy digital receipts are widely accepted. Insight gained
from our interview with Cormac McCarthiagh, Global Expense Officer at Google, showed
the desire for companies to go digital with their expense management which is
favourable support for EcoTrail. Quote: “Ideally we want everything Digital”
45
5.3 SWOT Analysis
Currently EcoTrail’s strengths and opportunities outweigh the weaknesses as seen in
the diagram above; however, our weaknesses punctuate the need for more of the
following resources: time, research, expertise and funding. Ecotrail’s strategy is to
pursue a marketing strategy based on our strengths in the attempt to mitigate our
weaknesses.
46
6. Competitor Analysis
The following section provides an overview of the direct, indirect and emerging
competitors operating in the corporate expense management solution market. A profile
of each of the main competitors is provided and covers areas such as the features of
their product offering, the strengths & weaknesses of the company as well as how
EcoTrail can differentiate and achieve competitive advantage over the competitor in
question.
6.1 Direct Competition
Concur is a leading provider of integrated travel and
expense management solutions. The company was
founded in 1993 with the hope of automating and
streamlining the expense reporting process.
http://www.concur.com/
Features

Organise travel itineraries effectively as all information is in the one place

Book travel such as flights and rail within company policy using system

Integrated and compatibility with other systems such as HR & Finance

Credit card charges automatically imported into expense reports

Option to capture a picture of a receipt with smart phone and attach to expense
reports

Trend Analysis possible of expense reports
Strengths

Established global presence and brand name with over 15million users from
corporate clients in over 100 countries including; Google and AIB Merchant
Services.

Industry experience and in depth knowledge of market place

Strategic Partnership with Trip It to manage travel itineraries of users

Customer loyalty
47
Weaknesses

Requirement to manually capture an image of the paper receipt using a smart
phone camera at the point of sale which is inefficient.

Concur does not contribute to a greener environment as paper is wasted from
receipts having to be printed (in order to take a picture) to be attached to
expense reports

Feedback from our market research with Google Global Expense Chief Operating
Officer – Cormac Mac Carthaigh suggested the following weaknesses with
Concur: faults in the user interface and it is slow to change, it doesn’t allow for
monitoring of a certain segment of employees. For example: Google wanted to
monitor certain employees that have had discrepancies in the past.

Feedback from our meeting with Robert Doherty from AIB Merchant Services
about Concur highlighted the following weakness with the system: The system
does not always show complete flight listings and the customer service is
"rubbish".
How can EcoTrail Compete with Concur? The Concur expense management solution
still requires a paper receipt to be printed at the point of sale and the user has to
manually capture or upload a scanned copy of the receipt to the online system after the
purchase has been made. EcoTrail provides added value by eliminating the need for a
receipt to be printed in the first place thus contributing to a greener society as well as
reducing the time it takes to upload a copy of the receipt as proof of purchase. With
EcoTrail a digital receipt is automatically uploaded to the user’s online profile with the
swipe of the phone over the NFC Terminal. The user then has the option to post for
reimbursement approval ‘now’ or at a later time. This real time seamless touch and go
process allows EcoTrail to effectively compete with Concur.
Furthermore, to address the weaknesses with Concur highlighted during our research,
EcoTrail will have a user friendly and simple interface and the appropriate customer
service available as needed. In terms of monitoring certain employees, EcoTrail will
allow this through its unique automatic notification feature which notifies managers
when a budget is exceeded and specific unauthorised expenditure has occurred e.g.
alcohol itemised on the receipt. EcoTrail’s easy to use dashboard has a filter system to
allow managers to monitor certain employees as appropriate.
48
Oracle travel and expense management solution aims to
streamline and automate expense report approval and
management.
http://www.oracle.com
Features

Credit card import functionality

Flexible data query reporting

User friendly interface
Strengths

Established customer base

In depth industry experience

Compatibility with other Oracle systems
Weaknesses

Requirement to collect paper receipts at the point of sale and submit hardcopy as
proof of purchase in order to get reimbursed.
How EcoTrail can compete with Oracle? The Oracle travel and expense management
solution still requires a paper receipt to be printed at the point of sale and the user has
to collect such receipts in order to get reimbursed. EcoTrail provides added value by
eliminating the need for a receipt to be printed in the first place thus contributing to a
greener society. This real time seamless touch and go process allows EcoTrail to
effectively compete with Concur.
CoreExpense is an enterprise expense management
solution that aims to revolutionise the entire expense
process from claims to reimbursement.
http://www.corehr.com
Features

Employee status enquiry of outstanding claims

Ability to relate time/expenses to client/projects/deliverables

Detailed Expense Analysis – by employee, department and expense type
49
Strengths

Established customer base including clients such as the Department of Finance
and the Mental Health Commission Ireland

Over 25 years in depth knowledge of market place

Wide diversified product offering in areas such as corePension, corePayroll,
coreRoster and coreRecruitment.
Weaknesses

European client focus only

Physical paper copy of receipts are required to be submitted as proof of purchase

Complex user interface for expense claim entry as discovered during our market
research with DCU University lecturer Alan Smeaton who suggested that the
system is time consuming and complicated to use.

Additional feedback from our market research with Brendan Gillen Financial
Operator at DCU rated the CORE system 3.5 out of 5 because reporting and
receipting needs improvement
How can EcoTrail Compete with CoreExpense? The CoreExpense management
solution still requires paper receipts to be printed at the point of sale and the user has
to collect such receipts and submit them with an expense report as proof of purchase in
order to get reimbursed. EcoTrail provides added value by eliminating the need for a
receipt to be printed in the first place thus contributing to a greener society as well as
reducing the time it takes to upload a copy of the receipt as proof of purchase. With
EcoTrail a digital receipt is automatically uploaded to the user’s online profile with the
swipe of the phone over the NFC Terminal. The user then has the option to post for
reimbursement approval ‘now’ or at a later time. Furthermore, a conscious effort has
been made to ensure that EcoTrail has a user friendly dashboard to manage receipts in
order to overcome the complex user interface of CoreExpense. This real time seamless
touch and go process and easy to use interface will allow EcoTrail to effectively compete
with CoreExpense.
50
Transaction Tree is a green company that focuses on
eliminating the need for paper receipts in the retail
environment. The system replaces the antiquated ink
and paper receipt system with the option for retailers
to email customers the receipt as an alternative.
http://www.transactiontree.com/
Strengths

Low Cost as there is no hardware device required at the point of sale

Environmentally Friendly and Green company

Personal email obtained from customer allowing for the potential to target email
advertising after the sale has been made.
Weaknesses

Small client base and currently only available in the USA

Transaction Tree is not a complete solution to manage corporate expenses as
there is no process for reimbursement. The service only provides the user with a
digital version of a receipt. An additional system would be required by the client
company to review, approve and reimburse expenses.
How can EcoTrail compete with Transaction Tree? EcoTrail can match Transaction
Tree in terms of its environmentally friendly aspect as it is primarily focused on
reducing the waste of paper associated with paper receipts. In terms of competing with
Transaction Tree, EcoTrail provides a 360 degree solution to the problem of managing
corporate expenses from the point the expense is incurred to the point of
reimbursement while Transaction Tree only focus on a sub element of this time
consuming process (paper receipt collection).
51
Expensify is an online and mobile expense reporting
solution that aims to take the hassle out of reimbursements
for employees.
https://www.expensify.com/
Features

Import expenses from credit card statement into expense reports

Automatic receipt scanning to obtain the merchant, date and amount of an
expense and pre-populate expense report

Analytical reporting of expense budgets and breakdown of expense type and
expenditure per person

Mileage calculator
Strengths

Existing customer base

Compatibility and seamless integration with other accounting software packages
such as Quickbooks

Low cost - Free to use for individuals and only $5 / submitter / month to
approve expense reports as a company
Weaknesses

Requirement to manually capture an image of the paper receipt using a smart
phone camera at the point of sale which is inefficient.

Expensify does not contribute to a greener environment as paper is wasted from
receipts having to be printed (in order to take a picture) to be attached to
expense reports
How can EcoTrail compete with Expensify? The Expensify expense management
solution still requires a paper receipt to be printed at the point of sale and the user has
to manually capture or upload a scanned copy of the receipt to the online system after
the purchase has been made. As mentioned previously, EcoTrail provides added value
by eliminating the need for a receipt to be printed in the first place thus contributing to
a greener society as well as reducing the time it takes to upload a copy of the receipt as
proof of purchase.
52
This real time seamless touch and go process allows EcoTrail to effectively compete
with Expensify. Furthermore, EcoTrail’s automatic notification of budget exceeding and
unauthorised expenses provides greater insight into employee expenditure in
comparison to Expensify’s simple analytics and reporting tools.
6.2 Indirect Competition
Lemon is a mobile application that aims to serve as a
digital wallet. The primary function of Lemon is to
organize and store credit cards, receipts, coupons
allowing you to access what you need more
conveniently.
http://lemon.com/
Features
 Allows you to take a picture using a smart phone of credit cards, receipts and
coupons and store in the digital wallet (smart phone)

Track spending

Highlights money-saving offers from favourite retailers
Strengths

Free service for basic functionality and low fee for Lemon Pro account

Mobile application widely available

Existing client base
Weaknesses
 Requirement to manually capture an image of the paper receipt using a smart
phone camera which is inefficient.

Lemon does not contribute to a greener environment as paper is wasted from
receipts and coupon having to be printed (in order to take a picture) to be later
organised.
53
How can EcoTrail Compete with Lemon? Lemon does not provide a complete solution
to manage corporate expenses as there is no process for monitoring and
reimbursement. The service is primarily focused on the wider consumer market
particularly personal finance tracking rather than the corporate sector. It only provides
a digital copy of a receipt when the user captures an image of the receipt using their
smart phone. An additional system would be required by the client company to review,
approve and reimburse expenses. This gap in the service offering will allow EcoTrail to
stand out in the market and provide added value to the user by eliminating the need for
an image of the receipt to be manually captured with a smart phone.
Shoeboxed is an online receipt and business card
management system. Shoeboxed aims to eliminate the
need for paper clutter by scanning and filing paper
receipts on the user’s behalf. A user can post receipts to
Shoeboxed or alternatively take a picture of receipts and
https://www.shoeboxed.com/
send them to Shoeboxed for data entry and filing on their
online account.
Features

Categorised and searchable receipt and business card data

Personal online account

Human verified data entry

Pre populated expense accounts

Compatible with other software such as Quickbook, Microsoft Outlook and
Microsoft Excel
Strengths

Existing client base of over 500,000 customers

30 day free trial to encourage customer adoption

Experienced workforce
54
Weaknesses

Shoeboxed does not contribute to a greener environment as paper is wasted
from receipts and business cards having to be printed in the first place to be later
organised using this service.

Human processing is required on the side of Shoebox to manually enter receipt
data that is sent for archiving.
How can EcoTrail compete with ShoeBoxed? EcoTrail can compete in terms of its
cycle time from the point the receipt is received at the point of sale to the point the
receipt is in a digital format ready for expense processing. With EcoTrail, receipts are
posted to a user’s online account in real time therefore speeding up the reimbursement
process. In contrast, receipts have to be sent by mail to Shoeboxed and data entered and
uploaded manually. Therefore a customer using Shoeboxed as an expense managed
system would incur a significantly longer waiting process.
TripIt is a travel itinerary software package that
aims to take the hassle out of travelling by turning all
flight, hotel and rental car confirmation emails into a
simple travel itinerary by just hitting forward.
http://www.tripit.com/
Features

Electronic personalised itinerary for employees

Instant visibility of office travel expenditure per employee/department

Access to all travel plans in one place

Instant access to the location of employee on an international scale through
company calendar
Strengths

Strategic Partnership with Concur to manage corporate expenses of users

International subscription available

Free service for basic functionality and low fee for TripIt Pro account with 30 day
free trial
55

In depth market experience

Existing customer base stemming from Concur strategic partnership
Weaknesses

TripIt is not a complete solution to managing corporate expenses as there is no
process for reimbursement. The service only provides the user with a simple
itinerary and only through Concur are expenses even considered.
How can EcoTrail compete with TripIt? In terms of competing with TripIt, EcoTrail
provides a 360 degree solution to the problem of managing corporate expenses from
the point the expense is incurred to the point of reimbursement while TripIt only focus
on a sub element of this time consuming process (travel planning and e-ticket collection
via email). Furthermore, EcoTrail provides greater insight into company travel
expenditure through detailed expense reporting and automatic notifications when
budget is exceeded or unauthorised purchase has been made using Optical Character
Recognition (OCR).
6.3 Emerging Competitors
‘Proximiant’ is a digital receipt solution that uses near
field communication technology to transmit a digital
receipt from the point of sale to your smart phone to
store in a secure location. It aims to eliminate the need
for paper receipts in the retail environment.
http://www.proximiant.com/
Features

Searchable digital receipts that can be accessed anywhere.

Personalised deals offered to the one you purchased i.e. coupons and
advertisements which can be redeemed directly from your phone

Reminder function which alerts you when you are near a store or the return
policy is due to expire

Built in feedback mechanism to rate each business with stars
56
Strengths

Beta Trials conducted in San Francisco in April 2012 to establish customer base

Environmentally Green initiative

NFC tags available for non-NFC enabled phones to help encourage wide spread
adoption
Weaknesses

USA Focus only

Retail customer focus only
How EcoTrail can compete with Proximiant?
EcoTrail and Proximinat are similar in terms of the green initiative behind the business
idea as well as the NFC technology used to create and transmit a digital receipt to a
user’s smart phone. However EcoTrail has differentiated itself by initially focusing on
the corporate sector where the greatest potential for revenue lies rather than the retail
sector.
EcoTrail aims to compete with Proximiant by establishing a strong presence with digital
receipts in the corporate sector and later offering a digital receipt service to the general
retail customer environment starting in Europe. The motive to pursue this strategy is
based on the assumption that once converted to the digital receipt way of thinking as
part of their job EcoTrail corporate customers will consider adopting EcoTrail’s digital
receipt service on an individual level to manage their personal receipts in this way due
to the hassle free nature of its use. This is discussed in the Future Expansion section of
the report on page 152.
Having this phased approach to implementation will allow EcoTrail to compete
effectively with Proximiant because minor obstacles can be addressed and overcome
successfully rather than progress halting completely if a full rollout in the corporate and
retail sector was to take place. In terms of accommodating non-NFC enabled smart
phone users to compete with Proximiant, NFC tags will be provided by EcoTrail to
customers to attach to their smart phone similar to Proximiant as well as the option for
EcoTrail customers to take a picture of a paper receipt using their smart phone and
upload it to their online profile as normal.
57
6.4 Competitor Product Offering Comparison
Feature
EcoTrail
Concur
Oracle CORE Transaction Lemon ShoeBoxed Trip It
Tree
X
X

X
X
X
Digital receipt captured at the point of sale

X
Online claim submission



Capture receipt image with camera on smart


X
Compatibility with other systems



Automatically populate expense reports



Trend analysis of travel expenditure



Automatic notifications of budget exceeded

X
X
Automatic notification of unauthorised

X
Easy to navigate dashboard

Real Time Status of expense reimbursement
Mobile application
Proximiant

X
X
X
X
X
X



X
X




X
X


X
X


X

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X
X





X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X


X
X
X




Manual data entry
X
X

X
X

X
X
Travel Itineraries
X

X
X
X
X
X

X
Book Travel i.e. Flights
X

X
X
X
X
X

X
X
X
X

X

X
phone

X

expenditure

Mileage calculator
Future
X
X
Feedback mechanism to rate a business
Future
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

Money saving offers from retailers e.g. coupons
Future
X
X
X
X

X
X

58

7. Business Model
7.1 Mission Statement
EcoTrail is passionately committed to providing digital expense management services
for companies and their employees. In a fast moving world we anticipate consumers’
need for speed and efficiency, deliver outstanding products and services that improve
people's lives.
7.2 Vision
EcoTrail aims to revolutionise the Corporate Expense Management industry by
instilling its green initiative of paper reduction and streamlining the expense to
reimbursement cycle through the use of digital receipts.
7.3 Values
Ecotrail is driven by our consumer focus, creativity, resourcefulness, and
entrepreneurial spirit. We are an inspired, diverse team who respect and value
everyone's contribution. We believe in environmental responsibility. Our integrity is
never compromised and we make a positive contribution to society. We constantly
strive to improve in everything we do. Guided by these values, we provide superior
service to our customers.
7.4 Business Model Structure
After analysing the expense management industry in terms of the market trends,
market drivers and market value EcoTrail has carefully constructed its business model
in order to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the industry. The following
section details the core elements of EcoTrail’s business model using Alex Osterwalder’s
Business Model Canvas as a framework.
59
7.4.1 Customer Segments
EcoTrail’s Expense Management system is aimed at any SME or Large Enterprise that
requires an expense management system to manage business and travel expenses more
efficiently. Our prime market is companies with staff that travel regularly but EcoTrail
can cater to any business that allows employees to incur expenses. While EcoTrail is
aiming to service these corporations on a global level the main markets that will be
focused on in the first 3-5 years of the company’s life cycle will be the UK and Irish
markets followed swiftly by the US market. These markets currently equate to a value of
€1.33 billion (Business Wire, 2011). The breakdown of these markets is in the table
below, while in-depth analysis is contained in the market analysis section of this report
on page 24.
Region
SME’s
Large Enterprises
Ireland
17,365
445
UK
173,405
36,795
USA
1,159,448
129,280
Total
1,350,218
1,666,520
Sources: (CSO, 2012), (FSB, 2012), (Census Bureau, 2012)
7.4.2 Value Proposition
EcoTrail’s Expense Management System offers an efficient, automated service that
significantly reduces the financial cost and time spent processing and claiming
expenses. Below is a list of the value proposition that EcoTrail offers its customers:
 Cost of processing individual expense reports reduced from €30 to €6
 Time required for expense reimbursement report reduced from 8.1 days to 4 days.
 Cost Efficiency from Automation
 Minimise Fraud and Manage Risk
 Increase Visibility into Spending
 Stay Flexible with Web Based Solutions
 Scalable and Ready for Growth and Change
60
7.4.3 Channels
Setting up a new business and reaching new customers is a long and strategic process.
EcoTrail’s approach to this process has been broken down into channel phases that can
be monitored and evaluated easily:
Awareness
To raise awareness of EcoTrail’s presence in the Corporate Expense Management
industry an aggressive marketing strategy will be undertaken which is detailed in the
marketing section on page 87. EcoTrail will also have a dedicated sales team which will
initially be made up of two experienced salesman. These salesmen will play a significant
role in raising awareness of EcoTrail’s expense management system as they will actively
get in contact with potential customers, explaining and demonstrating the adoption
benefits of EcoTrail and the limitations of the current systems in place.
The salesmen will also attend relevant conferences, both corporate and environmental,
giving talks on the system leveraging every available resource to raise awareness of
EcoTrail’s product and brand. A list of the relevant conferences identified can be seen
on page 91.
Evaluation
To help customers evaluate the Value Proposition of EcoTrail’s expense management
system companies will be given an extensive presentation and demonstration of the
product at their headquarters by one of our salesmen. Companies will also have access
to material on the EcoTrail website including videos and blogs explaining the benefits of
the system compared to competitors’ systems, while also having access to white papers
detailing successful past and current clients. Details of savings the company can make
by implementing EcoTrail’s system will be readily available and prominently advertised
with comments regarding EcoTrail’s user interface also promoted.
61
Purchase
EcoTrail will allow customers to buy its product in a number of ways. The EcoTrail
website will have an e-commerce platform that allows customers to purchase the
system online. Companies will also be able to place orders with our sales
representatives both in person and over the phone. EcoTrail’s preferred method of
payment is through its e-commerce platform but all major payment types will be
accepted.
Delivery
The delivery of EcoTrail’s expense management system involves a certain degree of set
up and training. While EcoTrail will have the capability to install the system remotely
using Instant House-call software, physical installation by a company representative is
also available on request. Training for the system will be delivered using WebEx
conferencing tools with customers having access to a wealth of training materials and
tutorials online at EcoTrail’s website.
After-Sales
Companies will be offered post-sale customer support in the form or EcoTrails help
desk and customer service team. EcoTrail will initially have one dedicated employee
answering any queries or questions that customers may have about the system and this
number will increase in line with EcoTrail’s expansion. EcoTrail will offer over the
phone support as well as remote access maintenance to desktops and systems using
“Instant House-call” remote software system allowing for instant resolution of issues
during weekly work hours of Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.
7.4.4 Customer Relationships
EcoTrail will adopt the role of a software provider that provides training and personal
assistance to its customers. As mentioned previously, EcoTrail will assist in the
implementation of its expense managements system and will offer WebX tutorials and
personal assistance for any user who is having issues with the system through remote
desktop access software, over the phone and through email. Customers will expect
EcoTrail to be on hand to solve any technical issues with the software and give advice
on how to optimise its features.
62
7.4.5 Revenue Streams
Product Usage Pricing:
EcoTrail will generate the majority of its revenue by charging customers based on the
terms and conditions of the price plans that they have adopted. In order to devise a fair
and competitive pricing plan EcoTrail conducted extensive research into the market
standards set by competitors in the expense management industry. EcoTrail has two
distinct pricing plans, one aimed at Large Enterprises and one aimed at SMEs.
Large Enterprises: The pricing plan aimed at Large Enterprises is volume dependant
and varies on how many expense reports a company will process. Currently, these
companies process a large volume of expense reports on a monthly basis which can cost
them upwards of €30 per report (Concur Whitepapers, 2012) while still requiring a
significant amount of manual labour in the process. EcoTrail aims to slash the financial
and labour costs by providing an efficient and convenient service. EcoTrail offers the
following pricing structure for Large Enterprises seen in the table below.
Market leaders Concur offer a fixed fee of €8 per expense report. EcoTrail is hoping to
improve on this by rewarding companies who process larger quantities of expense
reports with lower rates.
Volume of reports
Price per expense report
Between 0-500
€8
Between 500-1000
€6
Between 1000-2000
€5
SME: SMEs do not have the financial power of the Large Enterprises which means that
they have a smaller budget for implementing a system such as EcoTrail. In order to
cater for this EcoTrail offers its service to SME’s on a subscription fee basis charging the
company a monthly rate per employee using the system. This means that employees can
process as many expense reports as they wish on a monthly basis without incurring any
additional fees on top of their monthly rate. EcoTrail will charge SME’s €6 per month
per employee, €2 less than current market leader Concur in order to remain
competitive.
63
Implementation Fees:
EcoTrail will also charge customers a one-time implementation fee based on the size of
their organisation. This fee covers the installation costs of the system incurred by
EcoTrail which is broken down and discussed in detail in the finance section of this
report on page 118. As fewer costs are incurred when installing the system for SMEs the
cost of implementation will be lower. EcoTrail will be charging a fee of €6,000 for SMEs
and €30,000 for Large Enterprises.
Additional Revenue potential:
Advertising on the EcoTrail Website and Smartphone Application was discussed. While
this would net the company extra revenue it was determined from our primary research
that it would not be welcomed by our corporate clients. The interviewed users informed
EcoTrail that advertisements cause frustration for corporate clients when included in a
corporate system and would cheapen the brand in the eyes of professionals. For this
reason EcoTrail has opted not to advertise on the corporate site but do plan to advertise
on the public site included in the company’s future expansion into the public sector.
7.4.6 Key Resources
Financial
As mentioned previously the establishment of EcoTrail relies on the acquisition of funds
from a number of sources including local authority grants and bank loans. Based on
research conducted, here is a table depicting the funding EcoTrail expects to receive
from these sources. This is discussed in more detail in the finance section of this report
on page 125.
Source
Funding
Dublin Enterprise Board
€120,000.00
Enterprise Ireland
€150,000.00
Bank Loan
€300,000.00
Total
€570,000.00
64
Patents and Copyright
Acquiring a patent for EcoTrail’s software is essential as it is unique to the market.
Without patent protection competitors in the market would aim to follow quickly by
incorporating digital receipts into their systems. A patent ensures that this will not
happen for a period of ten years which the company feels is ample time to gain a
foothold in the market. Further details are included in the Legal section of the report on
page 113.
7.4.7 Key Activities
Development of EcoTrail Expense Management System
Before EcoTrail can bring its Expense Management System to market it must be
developed and tested by a team of experts. EcoTrail obtained three separate quotes
from software engineers regarding the development costs of the system in order to
conduct a triangulation and chose the most cost effective solution. A general consensus
from the research indicated that EcoTrail expect that the system will cost in the region
of €40,000. The functional requirements of the system are discussed in detail in the
technology section of the report on page 173.
Adoption of service by third parties
As mentioned previously, the success of EcoTrail’s system hinges on its adoption by
third party partners such as hotel chains and car rental companies. This adoption is a
vital component in setting up the infrastructure for EcoTrail’s services. Without
enlisting these third parties to host its service and offer digital receipts to corporate
customers EcoTrail will not have a portfolio of compliant businesses to pitch to
potential customers. Therefore enlisting third parties is paramount for the success and
growth of EcoTrail. In light of this EcoTrail will adopt an aggressive approach to
enlisting these third parties for the period 2013-2014 while the technical development
of EcoTrail’s system is under way.
65
Raising Awareness of the EcoTrail Brand
During the initial two year set up period of the business (2013-2014) it is important to
build the EcoTrail brand and identify potential future customers. EcoTrail will do this by
adopting an aggressive marketing campaign that will span across a number of mediums.
This plan is detailed in the marketing strategy section of the report on page 87. EcoTrail
has already identified a number of large enterprises interested in its Expense
Management System and have requested an update as to when the system goes live.
These companies include eBay, Vodafone and Paddy Power. Emails expressing interest
in EcoTrail can be seen in Appendix 4 page 244.
7.4.8 Key Partnerships
As mentioned previously, EcoTrail will need to establish a number of partnerships with
third parties in order to conduct business and bring its product to market:
Point of Sale Host Providers
EcoTrail’s expense management system relies on NFC technology to optimise the
efficiency of its service. In order to provide a Point of Sale (POS) Terminal with the
capability to send a digital receipt to a user’s smartphone an application will need to be
downloaded by that POS Terminal. EcoTrail aims to do this by partnering with POS Host
Providers that will allow EcoTrails digital receipt software application to be available
for download by the POS Terminals of third parties that have agreed to offer EcoTrail’s
digital receipt service.
EcoTrail have identified that there is a POS Host Provider market leader in each key
industry in which they aim to operate namely; hospitality, retail and transport industry.
This means that EcoTrail will have to establish multiple partnerships in order to ensure
wide scale adoption of digital receipts. For example “ServeBase” is the POS Host
Provider market leader in the hospitality industry. In order to have hotels ready to use
EcoTrail’s digital receipts application EcoTrail will need to partner with “ServeBase”
who will enable their associated hotels to download its application. Interaction and
further details of POS Host providers are discussed in the technology plan on page 169.
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Third Party Party Businesses
When EcoTrail acquires a new corporate client for its expense management system e.g.
Vodafone it analyses where that client’s employees incur most of their business and
travel expenses. After identifying the businesses associated with these expenses
EcoTrail must then approach these businesses with the prospect of downloading the
appropriate software in order to offer digital receipts to the client’s employees. These
businesses will be informed of the cost benefits of the system as well as how having this
system in place will endear them to their corporate customers. A detailed cost benefit
analysis of why a third party such as a hotel should offer digital receipts as part of
EcoTrail’s expense management system is provided on page 78.
Once these businesses are signed up to EcoTrail they will be added to the portfolio of
businesses that hosts our digital receipt service. During the development phase of the
EcoTrail system (2013-2014), EcoTrail plans to establish partnerships with a number of
businesses to add to its portfolio for its initial launch. EcoTrail will target chains of
businesses in order to optimise adoption rates. For example for the hospitality sector
EcoTrail will aim to have secured the Hilton Hotels Brand in its portfolio of partners
before the system launch in 2015.
Local Authorities
In order to gain funding and financial capital to establish the company and ensure it has
appropriate cash flow, EcoTrail must leverage potential partnerships with local
authorities. Organisations such as the Dublin Enterprise Board and Enterprise Ireland
offer grants and financial aid to Irish start-ups. Partnering with these organisations will
provide EcoTrail with the financial capital that it needs to bring its product to market
and start selling to companies. The funding possibilities available to EcoTrail are
discussed in detail in the fiancé section of the report on page 125.
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7.4.9 Cost Structure
EcoTrail is a value driven company that will invest the financial capital needed to
develop a system capable of providing a premium value proposition to its customers. A
detailed summary of the EcoTrail’s costs is included in the financial section of this
report on page 119.
8. Limitations of Current Systems V’s EcoTrail’s Adoption Benefits
The following section provides a process map detailing the current manual expense
management system used in the company First Derivatives. The limitations in terms of
the bottlenecks that occur in the process as well as the requirements for manual input
are highlighted. The insight into First Derivatives current process was obtained from an
interview with Catriona Hayes – IT Consultant who travels frequently as part of her job.
This process is then contrasted with the process map detailing the adoption benefits
available for First Derivatives should they chose to implement EcoTrail as their Expense
Management System.
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8.1 Explanation of current manual expense process
Step 1:
The consultant makes a purchase which qualifies as an expense under
First Derivatives company policy e.g. food on travel
Step 2:
The consultant pays for the purchase using cash/card as normal
Step 3:
Receive paper receipt as proof of purchase
Step 4:
The above mentioned paper receipt accumulating process is continued for
all purchases until the end of the trip
Step 5:
(a) Submit all paper receipts/photocopy of receipts to Accounts Payable
department for reimbursement
(b) If paper receipt is mislaid, the expense is incurred by the individual
not company
Transfer of responsibility to First Derivatives Accounts Payable Department
Step 6:
Accounts Payable manually sifts through employee receipts to check that
expense requests are valid
Step 7:
(a) If expense requests are valid, reimbursement is approved and amount
credited to employee account
(b) If not, Accounts Payable queries the mismatch with employee
Step 8:
Employee travel and expenses reimbursed after a tedious and time
consuming manual process
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8.2 Explanation of EcoTrail Process and Adoption benefits
Step 1:
The EcoTrail customer makes a purchase which qualifies as an expense
under First Derivatives company policy e.g. food on travel
Step 2:
The EcoTrail customer pays for the purchase using cash/card as normal
Step 3:
The EcoTrail customer holds their NFC enabled smart phone in close
proximity to the EcoTrail NFC reader device located at the till in order to
capture the receipt for the purchase.
Step 4:
The digital receipt is automatically filed based on the date of the receipt
under the relevant “trip” for future reference.
Note: If a date range has not been established for a “trip” in advance, the
EcoTrail customer will be prompted to “create a trip” now.
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Step 5:
(a) If the EcoTrail customer is happy to submit the receipt to the company
accounts payable department for reimbursement – they select “post
for approval now”
(b) If not, the above mentioned digital receipt accumulating process is
continued until the end of the trip and all receipts posted for approval
then
Transfer of responsibility to First Derivatives Accounts Payable Department
Step 6:
Accounts Payable employee checks that posted expense requests are valid
Step 7:
(c) If expense requests are valid, reimbursement is approved and amount
credited to employee account
(d) If not, Accounts Payable queries the mismatch with employee
Step 8:
Employee travel and expenses reimbursed hassle free as a result of
EcoTrail solution
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8.3 Cost Benefit Analysis
The following section outlines the costs (both tangible and intangible) incurred by a
company associated with manually processing expense reports and paper receipts for
employee reimbursement. This is then contrasted with the costs associated with
implementing EcoTrail and the potential benefits and cost savings to be gained are
highlighted. Published research conducted by Forrester on the Total Economic Impact
of Expense Management Market leader Concur is used as a framework to determine the
costs incurred by a company using a manual and paper based expense management
solution.
8.3.1 Large Enterprise Cost Benefit Analysis
Case: Cost of the manual paper based system to a Large Enterprise (assuming 250
employees in the organisation):
Processing Cost:
According to Forrester (2010) the total cost to process an expense report end to end
using a manual paper based system is $30 per report and the average volume of
expense reports for a large enterprise is 1500 per month.
This equates to $30* 1500 reports per month * 12 months in a year = $540,000
Total Processing Cost: $540,000 i.e. €439,363 (www.xe.com currency converter)
Storage Cost:
A paper based process requires employees to send paper copies of their receipts to a
central location within the organisation. The paper records are stored off-site for
compliance and audit reasons. According to Forrester (2010) such storage costs equates
to $22,500 annually.
Total Storage Cost: $22,500 i.e. €18,322 (www.xe.com currency converter)
Total Cost: €457,685 per year
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Case: Cost to implement EcoTrail plus 1 year usage to an Large Organisation
(assuming 250 employees in the organisation):
Monetary Cost:
Once off Implementation Cost including:

Web X Training

EcoTrail man hours involved in implementation – onsite or remote

The EcoTrail Software & Mobile Application itself

Customer Service Support
Total: €30000 to contest with Market Leader Concur who currently charge
$38,400 i.e. €31,260 (Forrester, 2010).
Usage Cost:
As mentioned previously the average volume of expense reports for an MNE is 1500 per
month. This is priced at €5 per expense report as per EcoTrails pricing table below:
Volume of reports
Price per expense report
Between 0-500
€8
Between 500-1000
€6
Between 1000-2000
€5
Based on this pricing schedule the total cost per month = €7500 which equates to
€7500*12 months = €90,000.
Total: €90,000 per year
Time Cost:
250 employees must be trained how to use the EcoTrail software and mobile
application. EcoTrail provides a WebX tutorial to assist with the smooth integration of
the system into the company culture.
The WebX tutorial is 30minutes in duration, therefore assuming each employee attends
training it would equate to 250* 30mins = 125 labour hours
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Total: 125 hours
Total cost to implement EcoTrail in an MNE plus 1 year usage: €120,000 and 125
labour hours
Benefit of EcoTrail to Large Enterprise
Monetary:
With EcoTrail, the automatic processing of expense reports results in the cost reduction
from $30 i.e. €24 per expense report to €5 per expense report.
Assuming 1500 expense reports per month as outlined above, this equates to a cost
saving of €439,363 - €90,000 = €349363
Cost saving on processing: €349,363
With EcoTrail, off-site storage costs are no longer required as paper receipts are
eliminated and digital receipts are hosted on EcoTrail’s server as part of its product
offering. This equates to a cost saving of €18,322
Cost saving on storage: €18,322
Total Cost Saving: €367,685 - €30,000 implementation fee = €337,685
Time:
The time required to process a single expense report is reduced from 8.1 days to 4 days
(Forrester, 2010).
Taking the above costs and benefits into consideration it is evident that implementing
EcoTrail’s solution is the most beneficial and cost effective strategy for a Large
Enterprise to manage its corporate expenses.
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8.3.2 SME Cost Benefit Analysis
Case: Cost of a manual paper based system to an SME (assuming 50 employees in
the SME):
Processing Cost:
Using the published average monthly volume of expense reports of an MNE (i.e. 1500)
and the processing cost of an expense report (i.e. €24 per expense report) as a guideline
the following calculation illustrates the total processing cost for a SME
Assumption: If 250 MNE employees generate 1500 expense report per month that
equates to 1500/250 = 6 expense reports per month for a single MNE employee.
Assuming SME employees travel less than MNE employees due to the global presence of
business being smaller thus 3 expense reports per month.
Applying this logic to an SME of 50 employees:
50 employees * 3 expense reports per month * €24 per expense report = €3,600 per
month. This equates to €3,600 * 12 months = €43,200 per year
Total Processing Cost = €43,200 per year
Storage Cost:
Using the published annual cost of off-site receipt storage for an MNE (i.e. €18,322) as a
guideline the following calculation illustrates the total storage cost for an SME.
Assumption: If 250 MNE employees generate 1500 expense report per month and
require €18,322 worth of storage space, an SME of 50 employees that generates 150
expense reports (50employees *3 expenses each per month) should require only 1/10
of the storage space (i.e. 150/1500 = 1/10).
Therefore the annual storage cost for an SME is €1,832 (i.e. €18,322 * 1/10)
Total Storage Cost: €1,832
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Total Cost: € 45,032 per year
Case: Cost to Implement EcoTrail plus 1 year usage to a SME (assuming 50
employees in the SME):
Monetary Cost:
Once off Implementation Cost including:

Web X Training

EcoTrail man hours involved in implementation – onsite or remote

The EcoTrail Software & Mobile Application itself

Customer Service Support
For a SME the implementation cost is based on the number of systems EcoTrails service
is required on. Assuming in this case 50 employees are active travellers and require the
system.
As per the implementation cost outlined above for an MNE (€30,000 for 250
employees) – this equates to €120 per person. Taking this figure as the benchmark the
cost of implementation for an SME with 50 employees is as follows:
50employees * €120 = €60,000
Total cost to implement is €6000
Usage:
The SME pricing schedule for EcoTrail is €6 per employee profile per month. Therefore
an SME with 50 employees would incur €3600 per year
Total Usage Cost: €3,600 per year
Time Cost:
50 employees must be trained how to use the EcoTrail software and mobile application.
EcoTrail provides a WebX tutorial to assist with the smooth integration of the system
into the company culture.
The WebX tutorial is 30minutes in duration, therefore assuming each employee attends
training it would equate to 50* 30mins = 25 labour hours
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Total: 25 hours
Total cost to implement EcoTrail in an SME: €9,600 and 25 labour hours
Benefit of EcoTrail to SME
Monetary:
With EcoTrail, the automatic processing of expense reports results in greater efficiency
in the company. Paper based system processing cost is €43,200 and the EcoTrail
processing cost is €3,600 which equates to a total cost saving of €43,200 - €3,600 =
€39,600.
Cost saving: €39,600
With EcoTrail, off-site storage costs are no longer required as paper receipts are
eliminated and digital receipts are hosted on EcoTrails server as part of its product
offering. This equates to a cost saving of €1,832
Cost saving on storage: €1,832
Total Cost Saving: €41,432 - €6,000 implementation fee = €35,432
Time:
The time required to process a single expense report is reduced from 8.1 days to 4 days
(Forrester, 2010).
Taking the above costs and benefits into consideration it is evident that implementing
EcoTrail’s solution is the most beneficial and cost effective strategy for an SME to
manage its corporate expenses.
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8.3.3 Third Party Cost Benefit Analysis
Why should a third party offer EcoTrail digital receipts to customers?
The key benefits for a third party e.g. Car Rental, Restaurant, Taxi to offer digital
receipts to corporate customers include:

The opportunity for company to make a connection with corporate customers by
easing their usually time consuming expense management responsibility by
providing them will a digital receipt which can be posted for reimbursement
immediately.

The company will be seen to be ‘green’ by offering an environmentally friendly
alternative for guests which will have a positive effect on reputation.

Cost savings associated with saving paper, ink and printer costs used for
traditional paper receipts.
The following section is a case study of the Carlton Hotel Dublin Airport and outlines the
costs (both tangible and intangible) incurred by a hotel associated with issuing paper
receipts upon check in and check out to corporate customers. This is then contrasted
with the costs associated with offering EcoTrail digital receipts at the point of sale and
the potential benefits and cost savings to be gained are highlighted.
Note: We have chosen to focus on the Carlton Hotel Dublin Airport which is one of the
leading conference hotels in Dublin to provide an indication of the cost saving potential
for a hotel with a large number of corporate guests. The insight detailed below was
obtained from our meeting with Guest Services Manager at the Carlton Hotel, Declan
Meagher.
Case: Cost of the current paper based system in The Carlton Hotel, Dublin Airport
Illustration:

100 hotel rooms in the complex

The average weekday (Mon – Thurs) occupancy is 80% of which 45% would be
corporate guests that are travelling as part of their job.

The average weekend (Fri – Sun) occupancy is slightly more at 90% however the
number of corporate guests would be less (35%) due to business usually being
conducted Monday to Friday.
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The above statistics equates to a minimum of 285 corporate guests per week, 1140 per
month and 13,680 per year.
On average it takes 8 minutes per check-in which is made up of the following tasks:

Get the guests name
0.5min

Assign them a room
0.5min

Obtain credit card to hold room
1 min

Provide guest with details of the Hotel e.g. breakfast time etc.
1 min

Print check-in receipt (2 pages)
3 min

Guest signature for the room
0.5min

Prepare room keys
1.5min
On average it takes 5 minutes per check out which is made up of the following tasks:

Charge the credit card on file
1.5 min

Print itemised receipt for corporate guest
3 min

Collect room keys
0.5min
Time Cost
3mins * 285 corporate guests per week = 14hours 15mins spent waiting for a paper
check-in receipt to print per week
3mins * 285 corporate guests per week = 14hours 15mins spent waiting for a paper
check-out receipt to print per week
This equates to a total of 28 hours and 30mins per week and 1482 hours per year
waiting for a paper receipt to be printed.
Total time Cost: 1482 hours
Monetary Cost

Check-in receipt consists of 2 printed A4 pages detailing the nightly rate, room
type and hotel policy.

Check-out receipt consists of 2 printed A4 pages specifying the total cost of the
stay with itemised detail.
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
This is a total of 4 A4 pages per guest equating to 54,720 A4 pages used for
corporate guests to check in and out per year.
Paper:
€4.70 per 500 sheets
(current price at Tesco)
The Carlton Hotel requires 109 refills of paper per year to accommodate its corporate
guests alone which equates to €4.70 * 109 refills = €514
Toner:
€290 (all colours) which will last 2000 pages
(current price at Printer Planet)
The Carlton Hotel requires 27 refills of toner per year to accommodate its corporate
guests alone which equates to €290*27 refills = €7830.
Ink:
€88 per 700 sheets
(current price at Printer Planet)
The Carlton Hotel requires 78 cartridges of ink per year to accommodate its corporate
guests only which equates to €88*78 refills = €6,864 per year.
Note: the cost of the printer unit has not been included in the cost benefit analysis as a
printer would still be required for non- corporate guests staying at the hotel
The total cost per year to The Carlton Hotel of printing a paper receipt for Corporate
Guests is
Total monetary cost: €15,208 per year
Total cost (time & monetary) incurred by hotel per year for paper based system:
€15,208 per year and 1482 hours
Case: Cost to implement and use EcoTrail for The Carlton Hotel, Dublin Airport
There is no implementation fee for a third party such as a hotel to implement EcoTrail’s
digital receipt solution. However the time cost of training the appropriate employees as
to how the solution works must be considered.
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Similar to the training scenario outlined above for the MNE, EcoTrail will provide a
WebX tutorial for hotel employees to show how the digital receipts service works.
Assuming that there are 5 alternating front desk staff members who must watch the
WebX tutorial which is 30mins in duration, this equates to 2.5 labour hours in total.
Assuming a front desk employee is on an average hourly wage of €10 per hour, this
equates to €25 which is the total cost to the hotel to offer EcoTral digital receipts to
corporate customers.
Total Cost: €25
Benefit of EcoTrail
With EcoTrail the paper, ink and toner costs outlined above will no longer be incurred
as receipts are provided digitally to corporate guests.
Cost Saving: €15,208
Furthermore, during peak time between 3pm -5pm (check-in) and 11am-1pm (checkout) the Carlton usually has two full time staff on hand during this period. However with
the adoption of EcoTrail, the efficiency of check-in and check-out time has been
significantly reduced as 3 minutes is no longer wasted waiting for the printer to print
the paper receipt. Therefore there is the potential for only one staff member to be
needed during peak time.
Cost Saving: €18,000 salary for a front desk representative
Total Cost saving: €33, 208 – €25 = 33,183
Additional benefits include the opportunity for the Hotel to make a connection with
corporate guests by easing their usually time consuming expense management
responsibility by providing them will a digital receipt which can be posted for
reimbursement immediately. Furthermore, the Hotel will be seen to be ‘green’ by
offering an environmentally friendly alternative for guests which will have a positive
effect on the Hotels reputation.
Taking the above costs and benefits into consideration it is evident that implementing
EcoTrail’s solution and offering corporate guests a digital version of a receipt is the
most beneficial and cost effective strategy for the Carlton Dublin Airport to pursue.
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9. Marketing Objectives and Strategy
The marketing plan outlines EcoTrail’s strategy and tactics for achieving our revenue
and market share goals. It summarises marketing research and analysis, to identify
opportunities and challenges, as well as providing a detailed tactical plan for how we
intend to achieve our targets, the estimated budget, and a timeline of deliverables.
9.1 Marketing Mission
EcoTrail’s mission is to generate solid return on investment by providing an innovative
mobile and web based technological solution for employees and businesses claiming
expenses.
Overall Goals

Brand Awareness

Demand Creation

Market Share

Repeat Business
9.2 Market Drivers
Primary and secondary research has identified three main factors that drive an
organisation to automate their expense management processes:
1. Compliance focus: The need to reduce the current risk levels posed by noncompliance with internal policies and external tax/government regulations for the
auditors.
2. Cost reduction: The competitive pressure to reduce processing and auditing costs
associated with expense reports as well as eliminating paper for retailers.
3. Employee productivity: One of the most attractive aspects of implementing
EcoTrails expense management system is the time and cost reductions. Once
instigated, the system can be updated in just a few minutes and completely removes
the possibility of any inaccuracies.
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9.3 Unique Selling Proposition
Our USP is the “thing” that sets us apart from our competition and provides a benefit to
the customer. It serves as our foundation of messages for our target audience. EcoTrail’s
unique selling point is centred on three core elements namely, Speed, Ease of Use and
Cost Savings in the expense management cycle. The following table depicts how
EcoTrail’s USP impacts the three key beneficiaries of the EcoTrail solution;
9.4 4Ps of Marketing
9.4.1 Product
EcoTrail offers an expense management solution to companies to view, track, manage
submit and reimburse expense reports. Benefits to the company include:

Cost Controls: Visibility into the goods and services that your employees buy and
use on the company’s (and customer’s) behalf. EcoTrail’s automated expense
management solutions allow companies to systematically view, track, and approve
expenses and ensure that they are in-line with company policies before they are
reimbursed.

Cash Management: Cash is the lifeblood of any business operation and
understanding net cash positions allows finance and management to sleep at night.
EcoTrail’s automated expense management solutions let managers see business
expense budgets in real-time.
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
Employee productivity and satisfaction: Despite people being every company’s
most valuable resource, modern business places extraordinary demands on its staff
from a time and energy perspective. EcoTrail’s automated expense management
solutions help employees complete expense reports in significantly less time than
manual methods and help ensure that companies can reimburse their staff more
quickly.

Workforce Mobility: Automated expense management solutions can be used to
educate and communicate company policies and processes with your remote
and/or travelling employees and ensure that mobile workers can promptly and
accurately complete and submit their expense reports.
9.4.2 Price
From our primary research we have found that prospective companies vary in
employee size and expense reports submitted. Therefore, as mentioned previously we
offer a number of pricing packages to suit the corporate client as seen below. Please see
Appendix 9 on page 258 for EcoTrail’s pricing brochure.
Implementation Fee
Usage Fee
Volume of reports
SME
Large Enterprise
€6000
€30,000
€6 per employee per month
Based on the volume of
expense reports processed
(see breakdown below)
Price per expense report
Between 0-500
€8
Between 500-1000
€6
Between 1000-2000
€5
9.4.3 Place
EcoTrail can remotely install the expense management system to corporate clients
therefore place is not of huge relevance in comparison to traditional bricks and clicks
companies.
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9.4.4 Promotion
We aim to promote EcoTrail’s product offering through various marketing mediums,
outlined in our marketing strategy section on page 88.
9.5 EcoTrail’s Image
As markets are becoming more competitive, and businesses have the same access to
technology and information for the most part, EcoTrail feel that image represents a key
area for us to differentiate ourselves from competitors. We want to be seen as; modern,
new and environmentally conscious. It is imperative that the image we portray
represents these things. The image we want to project will ultimately lead to our
customer’s perception. Accordingly, our customer’s perception of us will lead to our
reputation. Our promotional material and imagery is centred on the theme of
eliminating paper waste from the world for the following reasons:

It takes approximately 15 trees to produce 1 ton of paper, that means it takes
15,000 trees per month (180,000 trees per year), to provide customers with a
paper receipt. Furthermore, according to Green NFC (2012), 9,600,000 trees are
cut down every year to produce paper receipts. EcoTrail digital receipt expense
management solution will eliminate the need for paper and contribute to a greener
society.

According to the Environmental Working Group, 40% of receipts from business like
McDonalds, CVS, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, Safeway, are contaminated with
the dangerous chemical biphenyl A, aka BPA which has a number of side effects for
humans including diminished intellectual capacity and can set the stage for other
serious conditions, such as reproductive system cancer, obesity and diabetes
(Lunder, Andrews & Houlihan 2010). By eliminating the need for paper receipts,
EcoTrail can minimize the harmful effects of BPA associated with paper receipts.
To portray EcoTrail’s environmental image, we have developed the following ‘ecohero’s’ marketing posters that are shown to fight against environmental waste. The
tagline is “A different kind of green”. This poster campaign is one of many strategies
Ecotail will employ to secure new corporate clients and third party partners. A detailed
discussion of EcoTrails environmental action plan can be seen on page 99.
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9.5.1 Eco-Hero’s Poster Campaign
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9.6 Target Messages & Activities
Strategy
Emphasize full
automation and ecofriendly image
Tactics
Message - Automate &
Green
Channels - online/offline
Programs
Facebook, Twitter, Radio,
Video, Print Posters
9.7 Marketing Channels
9.7.1 Online
Potential clients are spending their time on online. As you can see from the figure below,
a huge proportion of EcoTrail’s target market is online; therefore it is imperative that
the company is seen to have not just a presence on these channels; but rather being a
frontrunner in engaging with our audience and communicating to them on both a
broader and focused scale depending on the platform.
Figure: Internet Users in the World by Geographic Regions: Source: Internet World Stats (2009)
87
A Regus report (2010) found that almost three quarters of firms worldwide are using
social networks for various networking functions with 40% of companies discovering
new customers through these channels.
Data from the Nielsen Company (2009) demonstrates that people are persisting to
spend more time on social networking and blog sites than ever before, with total
minutes rising 82% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 67% in
May 2009. 2009 also saw Twitter become one of the fastest-growing web brands
increasing 1,448% from 1.2 million unique visitors in May 2008 to 18.2 million in 2009.
9.7.2 Search Engine Optimisation
SEO is a long term strategy that EcoTrail see the importance of implementing. However,
search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there
are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a
business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search
engines stop sending visitors (Greenberg 2007). EcoTrail consider it wise business
practice for to unshackle ourselves from dependence on search engine traffic as Neilson
(2006) also advocates.
9.7.3 Pay-Per-Click
Burdon (2007) states that a successful Internet marketing campaign may depend upon
building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, setting up analytics programs
to enable site owners to measure results, and improving a site's conversion rate, along
with search engine optimisation.
With all of the founders having Pay-Per-Click campaign experience behind them,
EcoTrail again feel we have the necessary skills and capabilities to market effectively
online in-house.
Online Ad Example
Manage Your Expenses Online
Discover EcoTrail and save your
company thousands right now!
www.ecotrailreceipts.com
Digital Receipts On Your Phone
Beam your expenses and receipts
straight onto your iPhone!
www.ecotrailreceipts.com
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9.7.4 Social Media
Solis (2010) captures the essence of social media when he describes it as “the
democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into
publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism, one-to-many, to a many-to-many
model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers.”
Social Media encompasses various forms of user generated content (UGC) and the
compilation of websites and applications that allow people to communicate and share
information online (Scocco 2009). The following are all examples of social media of
which EcoTrail plans to identify the most beneficial platforms to market our concept:






Social Networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)
Blogs (Blogger, WordPress)
Social Bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon)
Video Sharing sites (YouTube)
Photo Sharing sites (Flickr, Photobucket)
Wiki’s (Wikipedia)
Social Media is all about listening to what your customers have to say about your brand.
Companies such as Domino’s have used feedback from social media to improve their
offerings (Saran 2010). For example, Domino’s found that customers were saying rather
uncomplimentary things about their pizzas on social networking sites. They took this
feedback on board and completely changed the ingredients of their pizzas to improve
their offerings for their customers (Bodnar 2010). In light of this effectiveness through
the use of social media, EcoTrail feel that we can employ the same use of social media to
see what is being said about the company and use any criticism or feedback
constructively to better the service offered thereby allowing us to better cater for our
users.
It was established that our website (www.ecotrailreceipts.com) as well our social media
channels will act as the company’s formal online marketing focal point. This is where
customers can get information about our concept, services, pricing and other
information/requests.
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Social Media in Action
The goal of EcoTrail’s social media campaign will be to educate the targeted market
about our corporate expense management solution and to build brand awareness. A
strong cohesive message will be used to remain consistent in our online brand presence.
The following screen shots show some of EcoTrail’s social media interaction on Twitter:
9.7.5 Radio Advertising
Radio advertising will be used in the aim to reach a larger audience, mainly
early/evening business commutes and increase brand impressions & awareness.
‘Newstalk’ radio station runs a competitive business to business package which meet
EcoTrail’s objectives.
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9.7.6 Email Marketing
Identifying client leads and sending mail merged letters to prospective clients, targeted
direct email marketing has the potential to be low risk/high reward and cost effective.
Mailchimp.com runs a pay-as-you-send email marketing service for non-frequent users
(such as EcoTrail). 25,000 emails can be sent and tracked for $250 which translates to
approximately €174 at less than 1cent per email. If EcoTrail were able to convert just
0.5% of sent emails, would mean over 100 sales. The most obvious advantage of this
campaign is that an exact return on investment can be tracked and has proven to be
high when done properly.
9.7.7 Trade Shows & Events
In terms of raising awareness of the product and a means to network with potential
partners it is advisable to attend trade fairs that have a specific focus on NFC technology
and expense management. Attending such exhibitions would provide an excellent
networking opportunity to meet senior decision-makers within the leading
organisations and secure potential licensing partners and customers. There are NFC
trade shows and events taking place throughout the year of which EcoTrail intend to
take advantage of to network and promote our concept.

‘NFC Congress’ (Austria, Sept)

‘Annual Mobile Financial Services Summit’ (France, Sept)

‘NFC Mobile Payments Now and Beyond’ (London, October)

‘Cartes America’ (Las Vegas, April)

‘Mobile Engagement in Retail’ (Denver,Sept)
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9.8 Marketing Organization and Implementation
Marketing Mix Task
Person/Dept
Responsible
Date(s) for
activity
Implications for
Org.
First Mover
Whole Company
Immediate
Commitment to
strategy and
company long term
Green Positioning
Whole Company
Immediate
Commitment to
ethical business
values
Radio Advertising
Marketing
Q2 2015
More Exposure
SEO/PPC
Marketing/Technical
Immediate /
Constant SE
monitoring for
changes
Q1 & Q3 2015
Social Media
Monitoring
Marketing
Immediate /
2015+
Brand Image and
interaction with
users
Email Campaign
Marketing
Q1 2015
Mass exposure –
Potential of ‘Spam’
Image if not done
correctly
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10. Sales Strategy
EcoTrail realises how valuable the sales process will be to achieve long term success.
Therefore it is imperative that we lay the foundations for how we plan to sell to our
corporate expense management solution to potential clients. We need to address the
following:
i.
Sales message
ii.
Who will sell?
iii.
How will we recruit and train our sales force?
iv.
Sales procedure
10.1 Sales Message
Through Personal Selling, ideally what EcoTrail want to do as part of the sales process is
to be able to uncover the prospect’s needs, understand their needs, and show them how
what EcoTrail are offering can help them revolutionise their expense management
process from end to end. EcoTrail plans to sell the benefits and value of our concept as
previously detailed in the business model. If we can show our prospect’s that EcoTrail’s
expense management solution’s value is greater than the price we're asking, we have
opened their minds to a potential sale.
A frequent theme from our qualitative research was the fear of change management and
the difficulty clients have in adopting new technology. We don’t want to affect our sales
figures because of fear. Adopting a new expense management system is considered a
significant investment by potential clients therefore EcoTrail plans to overcome this
obstacle – fear of change – by highlighting the benefits of system adoption and the WebX
training and customer support that is provided by EcoTrail to ensure a seamless
implementation.
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10.2 Who will sell?
The founders understand that everyone must share the responsibility to build
relationships and provide valuable sales information. Realising the constraints of a
small sales force early on for EcoTrail, the founders will take the added sales roles of the
following: 1) Customer Intelligence and 2) Business Development. Through these two
roles, we will lessen the load on our experienced Head of Sales and allow them to focus
on selling EcoTrail’s expense management solution with all the required information to
do so.
1. Customer Intelligence
-
Craig Martin
Meadhbh Cleary
2. Business Development
-
Patrick Greene
Donald Cummins
3. EcoTrail Sales Team
-
Sales 1
Sales 2
Roles
to identify potential EcoTrail clients. Determine all
relevant contact details.
Roles
to use customer intelligence info to determine needs
of client and build relationships
Roles
to follow on from Customer Intelligence and
Business Development and close sale
The following template is a sample Sales Call Log to be used by EcoTrail:
Date: ____/____/______
Name of Company: _________________________________________
Contact: ________________________________ Phone: __________________________________________________
Type of Call: [__] Customer [__] Prospect
Comments:
Purpose of Call:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Opening Conversation:
Sales Story:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Benefits to the Customer:
Objections:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Closing Conversation:_____________________ When to Follow Up Next: ____/____/______
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10.3 How will we recruit and train our sales force?
EcoTrail will interview and highlight excellent candidates for our sales team by
identifying the key traits we see as especially important to our sales force. Once part of
the team, one-on-one experience training will take place depending on staff’s
experience and target success.
Sample salesperson evaluation
Desire √
Commitment √
Responsibility X
Outlook and Planning √
Emotional Control √
Team Integration X
Individual Drive √
Enjoys Selling √
Money Motivated X
Strengths
Prospects Consistently
Gets to decision makers
Weakness
Prefers sales leads & info
Develops rapport
Stays Calm
Likes total control
Very High
Has Killers Instinct
Commission Orientated
10.4 Sales Procedure
During EcoTrail’s start-up phase (2013-2015), we will focus our efforts on prospecting
leads, gathering needs information for potential clients and building relationships
through our various marketing and networking efforts. We have broken down our sales
procedure into three initial phases:
Phase 1 – Customer Intelligence (ID potential EcoTrail clients and needs)
Phase 2 – Business Development (Narrow down and ID decision makers)
Phase 3 – Inside Sales (Use collected information to open discussion and pitch)
Once EcoTrail clients and inside decision makers have been identified the critical aspect
of the sales procedure commences. The EcoTrail idea is pitched to the client outlining
the cost benefit analysis associated with adoption making sure this is tailored to meet
the individual client’s needs.
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As EcoTrail aims to spend the time between 2013-2015 establishing third party
partnerships with hotel chains and car rental companies in order to build their portfolio
of businesses that offer digital receipts, it is expected that by the time the first sales
pitch is taking place EcoTrail will already have NFC digital receipt software
implemented in a number of areas. This will increase the level of trust and confidence a
potential client has in EcoTrail.
The next step in the sales process involves an element of consultancy, whereby EcoTrail
obtains a list of the top ten cities visited by the clients travelling employees. In response
to this list, EcoTrail identifies where it currently has digital receipt penetration on point
of sale devices and outlines when it hopes to have digital receipt penetration in the
remaining cities on the list. Obtaining a list from the client of the top ten cities visited
provides a valuable element of product tailoring which appeals to the client as well as
providing direction to EcoTrail in terms of prioritising the roll of digital receipt software
to the key areas.
As part of the sales procedure and implementation process, EcoTrail will consult with
the client on how to best plan for our expense management solution. Without the
proper visibility into business travel spend, small, mid and large-market organizations
are at risk of employees travelling outside of company policies, a factor which can
severely inflate expense costs. Also, limited spend visibility prohibits executives from
executing proper planning and budgeting for future financial forecasting. As our
expense management solution enters a new technical function to the organisation, the
client within this sector must leverage a series of required actions and strategies as
advised and consulted with by the EcoTrail team to fully drive value out of their expense
management processes. The following actions will spark an uptick in performance and
help align expense management benefits with the corporate goals of the greater
organization: (1) Preferred hospitalities (2) Relevant industry and corporate
partnerships (3) Overall Employee comfort with technology.
This information, combined with EcoTrail’s consultancy and strategic planning with the
client, will allow for the best possible implementation time, expense visibility and
solution training time.
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11. Why Eco?
11.1 Impact of Paper Receipts
In today’s technology-driven world, consumers and businesses alike are eagerly taking
advantage of digital technologies to save time, money, and cut down on the use of paper.
Digital Receipts and Expense Management from EcoTrail provide retailers and
businesses alike with the technology to easily give users digital receipts for their
purchases. EcoTrail delivers a range of benefits for third party partners such as hotels:
1. Helping to save the environment – Digital Receipts eliminate the waste of
resources and the carbon emissions caused by manufacturing receipt paper. By
participating with EcoTrail, third party partners can demonstrate a commitment to
environmental responsibility and attract members of the growing population of
environmentally-conscious consumers.
2. Saving Costs –EcoTrail offers the opportunity to decrease, and potentially
eliminate, the cost of buying receipt paper. According to allEtronic (2008), Thermal
Receipt Paper is used for receipts at the vast majority of retailers. As of 2005,
around 500,000 tons of Thermal Print Paper was sold in the US, and this demand
was projected to grow by about 3% each year. That would put the number at
approximately 600,000 tons of thermal receipt paper in 2008. Based on these
numbers, retailers are spending roughly $3.4 billion every year on thermal receipt
paper.
3. Corporate Social Responsibility - Making a strong move toward helping to save the
environment sends a positive message to customers and increases their affinity for
your brand. Being able to do so while reducing operational costs is what makes the
EcoTrail solution even more appealing.
The table to the right shows the environmental impact
of producing paper which EcoTrail is aiming to help
alleviate with its digital receipt expense management
solution. Furthermore, the Wal-Mart Case study below
shows the real life impact that a large retailer has on
the environment in terms of the paper consumption
used for paper receipts.
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11.2 Case Study of Wal-Mart
The average receipt given to a customer is about 10 inches long and is printed on a
Thermal Paper roll that is 2,760 inches long. That means one roll of paper would
provide 276 receipts. Applying this logic to Wal-Mart which serves customers more
than 200 million times per week at 10,130 retail units in 27 countries, it illustrates the
negative impact of paper receipts on the environment (Wal-Mart 2012). To provide that
many customers with receipts would require 724,637 cases of receipt paper per month.
From an environmental cost standpoint: One case of this paper weighs 32.6 pounds,
which means that the retailer is using well in excess of 1,000 tons of receipt paper every
month. Since it takes approximately 15 trees to produce 1 ton of paper, that means it
takes 15,000 trees per month (180,000 trees per year) not to mention the other natural
resources required, to provide customers with a paper receipt. Furthermore, according
to GreenNFC (2012), 9,600,000 trees are cut down every year to produce paper
receipts. Emits amount of co2 equal to 640,000 cars running 24/7 for an entire year
with 249,600,000 gallons of oil are used during paper receipt production.
For this reason, EcoTrail’s digital receipts expense management solution prides itself on
minimizing the environmental impact mentioned above to contribute to a greener
society as a whole. Furthermore, in light of EcoTrail’s overall environmentally friendly
business offering, it is vitally important that the company adheres to the best
environmental business practise it can. It will be a lot more difficult to liaise and deliver
a green offering to a client, if our own business does not adhere to best environmental
practice also. It is hoped that by striving to make our own business environmentally
friendly, we will also develop the knowledge and skills to enable all staff to
communicate on the same level as a sustainably aware society. The following section
proposes EcoTrail’s Environmental Mitigation Strategy.
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12. Environmental Mitigation Strategy & Ethics
12.1 EcoTrail as a green business
According to Sustainable Energy Ireland (2010), the process of managing energy is not
new. Energy should be regarded as a business cost similar to other business costs
including raw material and labour. The effort required to manage energy effectively will
vary between companies and depends on the company size, energy costs and energy
intensity (energy costs expressed as a percentage of total company costs). It is not
unreasonable for a company starting out in energy management to achieve a 20%
reduction or more in their energy bills by simple, good housekeeping measures alone
(Sustainable Energy Ireland 2010).
Ideally, to provide an integrated approach to business sustainability, EcoTrail are of the
strong belief that energy management be incorporated into our business.
When
commencing a structured approach to energy management, experience shows there is a
clear sequence of events that brings the best result. In the current climate of price
uncertainly and increasing environmental obligations, the management of resources to
provide increased profit margins and additional efficiency can only be of positive
benefit to businesses (Parish 2011).
When it becomes financially suitable i.e. when EcoTrail has broken even and projected
growth is steady, an energy manager will be appointed with responsibility for the
coordination of energy management activities. Depending on the size of the business,
this may or may not be a full-time, dedicated post. The energy manager should set up a
system to collect, analyse and report on energy consumption and costs. This can consist
of reading meters on a regular basis and the analysis of utility bills i.e. gas, fuel oil and
electricity.
The next step is to assess how, when and why energy is used in the organisation
through an energy review or audit. An energy audit establishes energy use patterns, the
potential for energy and cost savings, and can include recommendations for actions for
improving energy efficiency. The typical energy audit examines the use of the main
utilities including electricity, gas, oil and water.
99
“Undertaking an Industrial Energy Survey” http://www.actionenergy.org.uk/ provides a
useful starting point when a company is considering an energy audit. Most of the initial
work can be carried out in-house as it primarily involves collecting information on
current energy use and practices. Based on the findings and recommendations of the
energy audit, a prioritised action plan will be drawn up. Energy and cost savings longterm and the required investment will be listed for all items in the action plan.
Implement action plan
• Replace lighting with more energy efficient options
• Provide energy training for staff
• Ensure air conditioning units are turned off when not required
• Review and upgrade if required insulation
• Substitute high efficiency motors when replacement is required.
• Use ambient air for compressed air system intake. (Sustainable Energy Ireland
2010)
EcoTrail will use an energy performance index (EPI) to benchmark the company’s
performance over time. The EPI is a measure of a firm’s energy consumption per unit of
product output, expressed in a suitable way for a company – be it weight, volume or
monetary value. The company can then use this EPI to set targets and to monitor
progress on a regular basis.
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12.2 Environmental Action Plan for EcoTrail
Item Description of
Action
1
Develop, operate
and publish
environmental
policy
2
Review
environmental
legislation
relevant to
business
3
Establish
electricity and
water
consumption.
Establish KPI’s for
business
Target
Date
March
2013
Who is
Responsible
Team
Reason For
Action
Company
Policy
Environmental
Target
Establish policy
and make
available
April
2013
Team
Ensure Legal
compliance
Comply with all
regulations
March
2013
Finance
Establish KPI’s
for the business
from 2013
4
March
2013
Facilities
Allow business
to monitor
utility costs
and
benchmark
environmental
performance
Reduce water
consumption,
reduce water
costs
April
2013
Facilities
Reduce
electricity
consumption,
reduce CO2
emissions,
reduce energy
costs and
maintenance
Reduce
electricity and
energy
consumed by
50% from 2013
5
Measure and
reduce water flow
of the taps and
flush of WC to
meet best practice
Review efficiency
of light fitting in
premises; replace
inefficient
tungsten lamps
with LED or
fluorescents
where possible
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Reduce water
consumption by
30% from 2013
12.3 Environmental Awareness and Communication
The aim of running a green business, as well as the measures taken, will be clearly
communicated to all the stakeholders, clients and general public at an early stage. It not
only presents an excellent PR opportunity, but also communicates ‘EcoTrails’
environmental goals externally and can act as an incentive for actually achieving them.
There are a number of ways environmental information can be communicated –
website, social media, information included with invitations and promotional materials,
press releases, and so on. At a meeting or event, it is important for EcoTrail to have the
infrastructure in place for facilitating environmentally friendly actions, e.g. recycling
bins easily available, information displayed regarding public transport, etc. Staff at the
venue should be trained in environmental management and well informed about the
measures taken to reduce the environmental impact of the event.
Typical no-cost and low cost measures
•
Improve labelling of light switches combined with a staff awareness and
motivation campaign
•
Annual cleaning of light fittings
•
Replace lamps and bulbs with more efficient equivalents
•
Compare consumption and costs against equivalent periods in previous years
•
Ensure time switches are set for the correct occupancy pattern
•
Repair or upgrade insulation on boilers and associated pipe work
•
Review electricity tariff and supplier options (Sustainable Energy Ireland
2010)
12.3.1 European ECO LABEL
The European Ecolabel is a voluntary scheme, established in 1992 to encourage
businesses to market products and services that are kinder to the environment.
Products and services awarded the Ecolabel carry the flower logo, allowing consumers including public and private purchasers - to identify them easily. The flower logo helps;
manufacturers, retailers and service providers gain recognition for good standards,
while helping purchasers to make reliable choices.
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In light of EcoTrails image as an environmentally friendly company, the Ecolabel
represents a chance to enforce that image in the aim of further differentiating ourselves
from our non-green competitors.
Advantages of the EU Ecolabel
Four good reasons for Ecotrail to join the EU Ecolabel include the following:
1. The EU Ecolabel reinforces the trust of clients;
2. The EU Ecolabel makes the difference within a field of competitors;
3. The EU Ecolabel – marketing tool – projects an image of corporate responsibility
among consumers and local authorities;
4. The EU Ecolabel simplifies relationships with suppliers. (EOC 2011)
Since the EU Ecolabel was established in 1992, the number of companies receiving the
label has increased year after year. At the end of 2010, more than 1,150 EU Ecolabel
licences were awarded, showing its increasing popularity.
12.3.2 EcoTrail Green Office Check List
EcoTrail Green Office Checklist
Yes/No
Encourage staff to reduce carbon footprint when travelling on business
Lighting – Use energy efficient bulbs and motion light sensors
Operate switch-off policy for lights and equipment.
Operate recycling policy for paper, glass, metals etc.
Re-use file folders and envelopes by replacing labels
Use recycled paper
Minimise paper use – print only when necessary
Environmental Policy established and in use
Environmental targets set annually and met
Business should document the environmental action plan
Business will be compliant with all environmental action and legislation
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13. Ethics and Privacy
In regards to EcoTrail, when it comes to privacy in the online arena there are two types
of issues that need to be considered: Legal and Ethical. Sockel, Chen & Falk (2008) state
that businesses need to understand privacy conditions and implications to ensure that
they are in compliance with legislation and not in breach of customers’ rights to privacy.
13.1 Ethical Issue
The ethical issues surrounding online privacy is concerned with the use and protection
of personal identifiable information (PII). Consumers have no control over the
secondary use of the personal information they provide during the course of a
transaction which is becoming a growing concern for the online community (Culnan
1995). While PII can be used in some case to benefit both the company and customer by
allowing semantic search and direct advertising with profile data often used to tailor
products specifically for their customers’ likes and needs; this information can also form
the basis for harmful and malicious attacks by hackers and cyber criminals. This can
lead to lead to identity theft, phishing, political sabotage, character annihilation,
spamming, and stalking. For this reason, EcoTrail have recognised the importance of
securing the personal information it obtains from corporate clients in terms of their
digital receipt data and user profiles. Details of the security infrastructure EcoTrail has
in place to protect customer data is discussed in detail on page 140.
13.2 Privacy Disclosures and Policies
Science Direct (2006) conducted a study that investigated the effect of privacy
disclosures on consumer trust. For this study, they define consumer trust as online
consumers’ belief that an e-store is engaged in fair information practices. The results
found that the presence of a privacy policy results in the consumer having more trust in
the store with the majority of customers finding short, straightforward polices clear and
easier to understand. For this reason, EcoTrail have included a privacy policy as part of
the website which can be seen below. This has been devised by consulting the industry
standard through market leader Concur (2012).
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13.2.1 EcoTrail Privacy Policy:
“We collect information from you in various ways when you use our Sites. We collect
information you directly provide to us. For example, we collect your name, email address,
postal address, phone number, fax number, demographics, preference information and
other information you provide us on our Sites. We also collect credit card numbers if you
purchase services on our Sites or use services that reconcile your credit card charges. We
may also obtain information from other sources and combine that with information we
collect on our Sites.
When you visit our Sites, some information is automatically collected. For example, when
you visit our Sites, your computer's operating system, Internet Protocol (IP) address,
access times, browser type and language, and referring Web site addresses are logged
automatically. We also collect information about your usage and activity on our Sites.
We use personal information collected through our website for purposes described in this
Policy. For example, we may use your information to:

operate and improve our Sites and services;

respond to your comments and questions and provide customer service;

provide and deliver products and to send you related information, including
confirmations, invoices, technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support and
administrative messages;

store and process personal information in the UK, Ireland and other countries.
We do not share your personal information with third parties other than as follows:

in an aggregated form that does not directly identify you;

with your consent, for example, when you agree to our sharing your information
with other third parties for their own marketing uses subject to their privacy
policies;

with third party vendors, consultants and other service providers who are working
on our behalf and need access to your information to carry out their work for us;”

with third party websites, services and mobile applications you authorize to link to
your EcoTrail service as part of their service to you;

in connection with any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of
all or a portion of our business to another company.”
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In addition to this, privacy disclosures are growing in importance in relation to smart
phone applications. Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) Co-Chair Jules Polonestsky states
that, “app developers are starting to get the message that access to consumer data is a
privilege, not a right” (Tech Crunch, 2012). A study conducted by FPF shows the state of
mobile app privacy policies as of June 2012.
Many app developers are responding to increased pressure from regulators on this
issue. The percentage of free apps with a privacy policy doubled on the iOS App Store
since the last report in September 2011, going from 40% to 84%. The percentage of
paid apps with privacy policies on iOS increased by 4%, from 60% to 64%, and on the
Google Play platform, the percentage of free apps with a privacy policy actually started
high at 70%, and increased to 76%. The percentage of paid apps increased as well,
going from 30% to 48%.
An example of a current smart phone application’s short and
clear privacy policy can be seen to the right. EcoTrail aims to
launch a similar short notice on mobile privacy with their
Mobile application that will be accessible to the application
user at all times. The application will also have an obligatory
“Have you read the privacy policy” clarification screen for
first time users to alert them to its existence.
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13.3 Legal Issues
The legal issues surrounding privacy are concerned with the legislation currently in
place which could see a company face heavy fines if there is a security breach or
software glitch that leads to a leak of financial information or PII.
An example of a company whose reputation was severely damaged by such a breach is
T.J. Maxx. In this case a data breach allowed hackers to download over 45 million credit
and debit card numbers. While the financial cost of this breach is believed to stand at
the $8 Billion mark it also had a huge impact on online consumer trust, something that
EcoTrail have identified as vital to our concept given the nature of the information
involved in our service.
According to SailPoint co-founder Jackie Gilbert large scale data breaches are making
customers more cautious about conducting business online stating that data breaches
lead to hard-to-measure costs attributed to “the erosion of customer loyalty and decline
in brand perception (Tech Journal, 2011). In a study conducted by Harris Interactive
26% of Australians, 24 % of Britons and 16 %of Americans said they would no longer
do business with a company that exposed their information (Iron Mountain, 2010).
Therefore, safeguarding information is paramount for EcoTrail considering the
confidential digital receipt information stored.
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14. Legal Requirements
There are a number of legal requirements to adhere to when starting up a new business.
In order to establish EcoTrail as a new Irish start-up we aim to adhere to The
Registration of Business Names Act 1963– 2001. After consulting a number of start-up
companies regarding the best way to go about setting up as a new company we were
advised to visit www.cro.ie which is the website for the “Companies Registration Office”.
This site provides a step by step process for setting up a business equipped with all of
the information regarding company types and legal requirements. The process involved
is detailed below:
14.1 Register Business Name
Firstly, the availability of the “EcoTrail Receipts” business name has to be confirmed. As
of the 10th August 2012 the CRO directory of company and business names states that
this name is available. This name will be reserved by the company within the initial
week of set up. This will be done by registering the company name online with the
“Companies Online Registration Environment” (CORE) which can be done online on
their website. The cost of reserving this name is €25 and is necessary to receive a
“Reserved Name Certificate” from the CORE followed by a certificate of registration
from the CRO.
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14.2 Company Registration
As mentioned previously, EcoTrail will be registered as a private company limited by
shares under the Companies Act 1963. This was decided as each group member voted to
have the company as a separate legal entity distinct from those running it. This ensures
that the company is the appropriate person being sued in the event that debts are
incurred by the company which remain unpaid despite demand. To do this EcoTrail will
need to complete and submit the following forms according to the CRO:
Form A1
This discloses the company name, its registered office, details of directors and secretary,
their consent to acting as such, subscribers and details of their shares. It only ensures
that the Companies Act is being complied with and states the business that the company
is being formed to participate in. This involves stating the company’s NACE code which
describes its area of business. EcoTrail’s NACE Code is 72.20, Computing and related
activities; Software Consultancy and Supply.
Memorandum of Association
This document sets out the conditions upon which the company is granted
incorporation. It must contain provisions dealing with certain matters e.g. the name and
objects of the company and, if it is a company with limited liability, that fact must also
be stated. The memorandum must be in accordance with, or as near as circumstances
permit, to the appropriate table in the First Schedule to the Companies Act 1963. It must
be printed and divided into paragraphs and numbered consecutively (CRO, 2012).
Articles of Association
This document sets out the rules under which the company proposes to regulate its
affairs. Articles are required to be registered by a company limited by guarantee and
having a share capital or an unlimited company. Articles must be printed and divided
into paragraphs and numbered consecutively. A company limited by shares or a
guarantee company not having a share capital may register articles with the CRO. Model
form articles are set out in the First Schedule to the Companies Act 1963 (CRO, 2012).
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Regulations to be followed
The CRO require that private limited companies file the following:

Company Address – This must be a fixed address of premises. In the case of
EcoTrail this is our office space based in Dublin City Centre

List of Directors and Secretary –EcoTrail must appoint a secretary and a
minimum of two directors. The Secretary must also be a director of the company.

Annual AGM – this must be held within 18 months of the company’s formation
and at least once in the calendar year hence.

Annual return – EcoTrail must disclose details of the filed accounts at the AGM
and attach a copy of the accounts to the annual return to be filed with the
Company Registration Office. These accounts must give a true reflection of the
company’s financial affairs.
14.3 Compliance with Online Business Policies
As EcoTrail are providing a service that operates by providing an online service it is
important to investigate what legal aspects we need to cover to operate in the online
arena. The following section details EcoTrails legal requirements in the online arena:
Domain Name and Server Space
The first step in setting up an online business is acquiring a domain name and
subsequent service space. EcoTrail has done this by renting domain name and server
space from “Blacknight Solutions” an Irish based ICANN accredited domain registrar
and hosting company. This has enabled the company to reserve ecotrailreceipts.com as
its domain name at a cost of €58.90 per year in total based on domain name and server
hosting costs.
Electronic Commerce Act 2000
The Electronic Commerce Act ensures the legal recognition of electronic signatures,
electronic writing and electronic contracts so as to ensure that such electronic
communications would not be treated any differently under the law, than traditional
paper-based communications. In order to comply with this act each product and service
that EcoTrail are offering must be clearly defined with rigid terms and conditions that
both parties must agree to. All contracts that are conducted through online
correspondence will be finalised with an electronic signature from the customer.
110
Data Protection Act 1998
EcoTrail’s phone and web applications require the processing of private financial
information in order for EcoTrail’s expense Management System to work. Seeing as this
will lead to EcoTrail acquiring substantial personal information it is important to
comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. EcoTrail will essentially become data
controllers which will see the company have to register with the Data Protection
Commissioner annually to ensure transparency. Anyone holding personal data for other
purposes is legally obliged to comply with this Act. EcoTrail will adhere to the principles
of this act which are as follows: (Information Commissioners Office, 2012)
1. Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be
processed
(a) At
least
unless:
one
of
the
conditions
in
Schedule
2
is
met,
and
(b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3
is also met.
2. Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes,
and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or
those purposes.
3. Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the
purpose or purposes for which they are processed.
4. Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.
5. Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer
than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
6. Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects
under this Act.
7. Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against
unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or
destruction of, or damage to, personal data.
8. Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the
European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level
of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the
processing of personal data.
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Certificate of Quality
It would be in the EcoTrail’s best interest to register with an organisation that provides
a seal of approval for online companies who meet standards and regulations for Good
Practice online. Truste.com is one such site and is one which is used by many of
EcoTrail’s competitors to signify their level of quality and transparency.
14.4 Digital Receipt Requirements
Digital receipts, like paper receipts, must include the following categories to be deemed
a valid representation of the transaction.

Selling company’s name, address and telephone number

An itemised list of goods being sold including name of each item, unit price, the
number purchased and total for that line. This list needs to make clear to the
customer what is being paid for.

Total cost of all goods and services including tax.

Record of the method of payment.
EcoTrail have taken into consideration these requirements and a sample of an EcoTrail
digital receipt can be seen in the technology report on page 164.
14.5 Statutory Employer Compliance
As EcoTrail will be employing a number of individuals from the outset it is important to
identify the Acts that need to be complied with as an employer. A detailed breakdown of
EcoTrail staffing is discussed in the finance section on page 121. The necessary
legislation is listed below:

Employment Equality Act 1977 – governs discrimination based on gender or
marital status in relation to access to employment or unfair dismissal

National Minimum Wage Act 2000 – ensures that there is a minimum wage
that employers must pay their employees (€8.65 currently)

Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 and 2001 – requires
employers to provide employers with a statement of terms and conditions for
employment

Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 – 2001 – provides remedy to employees for unfair
dismissal on grounds of race, age, sexual orientation, pregnancy, trade union
membership, and religious or political opinion.
112

Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 – sets the maximum amount of hours
that should be worked in one week at 48, minimum rest breaks of 15 minutes
per 4.5 hours worked, 30 minutes rest breaks per 6 hours worked with
minimum of 4 weeks annual leave entitlement for full time workers

Health and Safety – The employer is responsible for safety in the workplace.
This law requires an employer to provide a safe working environment and
prevent risks to health and safety
14.6 Tax Compliance
In order to comply with Irish Tax Laws, EcoTrail will need to obtain a company number
from CRO and register with the Revenue Commissioner. EcoTrail will be eligible to pay
the following taxes:

Value Added Tax – this requires a company VAT number so that EcoTrail can
claim VAT back on purchases and expenses.

Corporation Tax – corporation Tax is payable on the company’s operating profit
after the cost of finance is subtracted. This tax rate is currently at 12.5% and is
payable annually.

PAYE/PRSI - PAYE is a deduction made on employees’ wages based on a number
of criteria. PRSI is a tax that must be paid by the employer and not the employee
and is payable in arrears based on the previous months total wage expense.
14.7 Patent
EcoTrail has considered the possibility of patenting the NFC digital receipt software
used to transfer a digital receipt from the Point of Sale Terminal to the user’s smart
phone application in order to exclude others from exploiting the opportunity. According
to the Irish Patent Office (2012), the following guidelines are provided to determine if
an idea is patentable.
113
“Novelty: An invention is considered new if it does not form part of the state of the art.”
How EcoTrail fulfils this guideline: The software developed by EcoTrail is not readily
available in the public domain. Although, Near Field Communication is available in the
public domain and used by EcoTrail as the platform to transfer the digital receipt, the
software extracting the digital receipt data from the Point of Sale Terminal and
transferring the digital receipt to the user’s smart phone itself is novel and not currently
available in the public domain.
“Inventive: An invention is considered as involving an inventive step if it is not obvious to
a person skilled in that area of technology, having regard to the state of the art.”
How EcoTrail fulfils this guideline: At present no existing corporate expense
management service provider offers digital receipts captured via a smart phone as part
of their product offering. A number of service providers offer users the option to take a
picture of a paper receipt and upload it for reimbursement. This is a side feature of
EcoTrail and an element the company does not wish to patent
“Industrial applicability: The invention must be capable of being made or used in some
kind of industry, including agriculture.”
How EcoTrail fulfils this guideline: EcoTrail’s digital receipt solution offers the
corporate expense management industry an automated alternative to managing paper
receipts for business expense reimbursement which results in substantial cost savings
for company. Furthermore, the potential cost savings for the retailer on paper coupled
with the environmental contribution made by EcoTrail to the forestry industry in saving
trees by providing digital receipts illustrates the company’s positive impact on Irish, UK
and USA Economy as a whole.
Based on the research conducted by EcoTrail to date the most applicable patent for its
technology solution is a short term patent. A short term patent will provide EcoTrail
with the exclusive rights to the technology for a maximum of 10 years which is sufficient
time for EcoTrail to gain a foothold in the market as intended.
114
The statutory fees associated with such a patent are €60 as a filing fee and €30 if a
patent is granted (Irish Pantent Office (2012). The process involved in applying for such
a patent takes 12 months and involves the completion of Form No. 1 ‘Request for the
Grant of a Patent’ as per the Patents Act 1992.
A final decision to submit an application for a patent will be made by January 2013 after
in depth discussions with the software developer involved with building the digital
receipt software required for the successful transmission of a digital receipt from the
point of sale terminal to a users smart phone.
115
15. Financial Forecast
We understand the importance of finance and sales for a start up company. In this
section we describe what estimated funds are required to set up EcoTrail as well as
costs the associated with running the business. Some of the costs and figures involved in
this reports are estimates and may change due to circumstance. To give an accurate
representation of the financial situation of the company we have estimated the best,
worst and expected case scenarios for the first 5 years of EcoTrail’s business cycle.
These scenarios differ in the following ways:
Best: NFC software is hosted externally to Point of Sale system meaning that providing
third parties with NFC readers is not necessary.
Expected: NFC software is hosted externally to Point of Sale system meaning that
providing third parties with NFC readers is not necessary
Worst: Deal with external host could not be reached, need to supply NFC readers to
third parties without NFC including the application software.
Appendices 11-15 (page 263) detail comprehensively the estimated financial position of
EcoTrail over the next five years. For the purposes of this section we will refer to the set
of accounts from the “Expected” scenario. The following are the assumptions made in
preparing these accounts.
When referring to calculations ‘W’ means working figure included in the accounts
provided.
Eg-
116
15.1 Assumptions

The financial forecast detailed in Appendix 11-15 is for illustration purposes only.
They are based on organic growth and losses are expected to be incurred in Year 1
and Year 2, but profits are expected from Year 3 onwards.

The accounts are prepared in line with accounting standards.

To start up, EcoTrail would need approximately €450,000 based on projected costs.
In order to progress the company needs to secure approximately €550,000 to
expand into the US market in Year 3.

The gross profit margin is roughly between 72% - 98% due to the nature of the
business. Net profit margin is between 22%-58%.

The owners of the company will work full time with paid salaries, the value of
which will be reviewed each year from January 2016 onwards.

The company will utilise Peter Brady of Ezewarm Ltd and Gerry McGowan of Lotus
Engineering as mentors to the business. They have agreed to provide insight into
developing market entry strategies and business models, as they have successfully
spearheaded Enterprise Ireland backed international projects in the past.

Depreciation has been calculated by the reducing balance method on a monthly
basis in order to show a true and fair statement of assets held on the balance sheet.
Computers & other IT Equipment are calculated at 20% depreciation per annum
while motor cars will also incur 20% depreciation per annum.
117
15.2 Business Strategy and its Financial Implications
Year 1: Extensive expenditure is required on the development of the business e.g.
software development. From a conversation with Bank of Ireland Corporate Investment
manager, Philip Greene “The Bank of Ireland are under pressure to support Irish Start
Ups by investing in them.” Instead of approaching Venture Capitalists we will apply for
a loan of €300,000, exclusively paying back interest for Year 1 and 2.
Year 2: EcoTrail software system will be developed and tested. At this point significant
investment into sales and marketing will be made towards the UK and Ireland.
Year 3: EcoTrail will begin selling its corporate expense management solution this year
generating an annual source of income.
Year 5+: The market entry strategy for the USA would be implemented. This is a highly
populated market with a high percentage of NFC mobile payments. This will see a
significant increase in the costs and revenue of EcoTrail. EcoTrail would be recognised
by Enterprise Ireland as a high potential start-up and secure further investment of
€150,000. It would also be expected for EcoTrail to use its own funding generated here
in addition, raising a total of €450,000 in the first 3 years.
15.3 Key Costs of the Project
Software & System Development: EcoTrail will outsource the development of the
system to external software developers. This includes the EcoTrail website, smartphone
application and backend systems. This will represent the bulk of EcoTrail’s costs in Year
1. Based on the advice from Software Engineer Tony Murphy of Cellusys Ltd, EcoTrail
will contract a team of 5 developers to manufacture the software over 4- 6 weeks at a
cost of €40-60k.
NFC Software Application Hosting: This will apply in the “Expected” case scenario and
will cost in the region of €104,000 for Europe and €208,000 when expanding into the
US (Detailed below).
118
Depreciation and Fixed Assets: Computers & other IT Equipment such as laptops for
each employee as well as company cars for employees in EcoTrail’s US branch when the
company expands into that market.
Office Space: EcoTrail will need office space to base their operations in and this will
cost in the region of €5,400 annually (DMGBC, 2012).
15.4 Cost of Sales
System Development
As mentioned above, EcoTrail have received quotes detailing that a team of 5
developers would take between 4 and 6 weeks to develop the system with an additional
2 weeks for human testing, documentation (e.g. User Guides, Technical Specifications,
System Guides, and Release Notes etc.) and bug fixing for approximately €30,000 to
€40,000. Please see Appendix 10 on page 259 for software quote from Cellusys.
EcoTrail will also invest in Instant House Call remote access software to assist their
clients remotely.
NFC Software Application Hosting Costs
In the “Expected” scenario EcoTrail will host its NFC software application externally to
Point of Sale (POS) Terminal for third party adoption. EcoTrail will have to pay a hosting
fee to the POS hosts. EcoTrail are aiming to partner with 4 hosts in Europe at a cost of
€26,000 per host per year. This results in a total annual hosting cost of €104,000 for
year 3 and 4 and €200,000 in Year 5 with the addition of 4 American hosts.
NFC Readers
“Worst Case” Scenario would be that NFC is not adopted widely and that EcoTrail must
issue hardware for the NFC app to work at point of sale. This would require issuing each
third party e.g. hotel a NFC reader which could be plugged in to the current POS
Terminal via a USB port. These readers have been priced at €80 and will be provided to
third party vendors free of charge.
119
With estimates for the companies “Worst Case” scenario, EcoTrail would sell its system
to 35 SMBs and 0 Large companies. The rollout strategy involves identifying each
client’s 5 most popular cities for travel. In these cities we identify which establishments
they incur most expenses with in the fields of Accommodation, Transport and Food and
distribute NFC readers to them. The breakdown of this strategy is provided below with
an example for a single company.
Illustration:
5
restaurants
5 airports
2 hotels
5 train
stations
2 rental car
companies
20 taxis
Vendors
5 Restaurants
2 Hotels
2 Rental car comps
1 Taxi Company (20 taxis)
1 Airport per city
1 Train station per city
Total
Number of
Destinations
5
5
5
5
5
5
Total vendors
25
10
10
100
5
5
155 NFC readers required for a single
company
Costs of Strategy: Year 3-5 ‘worst case’
Year 3: 155 Readers x €80 per unit = €12400 x 35 clients = €434,000 NFC reader cost
Year 4: 155 Readers x €80 per unit = €12400 x 54 clients = €669,600 NFC Reader cost
Year 5: 155 Readers x €80 per unit= €12400 x 63 clients = €781,200 NFC Reader cost
120
Domain Name and Server Hosting
This fee refers to the price of hosting EcoTrail’s overall system. For Years 1-2 EcoTrail
will avail of Blacknight’s hosting capabilities costing €59 annually as only a limited
amount of server space is required during system development. In Year 3 EcoTrail will
move to Amazon and avail of its cloud space hosting capabilities in line with its launch
for a cost of €5,000. Additional cloud space will be obtained in Years 4 and 5 to
accommodate the growth in EcoTrails client base at a cost of €10,000 and €15,000
respectively.
Cost of Sales Summary “Expected Case Scenario” Year 1
W2a - Y1 2013:
NFC System Development
Website Development
Server Hosting for System
Domain name registration p.a
Training costs
Total
€40000
€500
€50
€9
€9441
€46000
A detailed breakdown of EcoTrails Cost of Sales can be seen in Appendix 17 on page
269.
15.5 Running Costs
Consultancy
As a start-up consisting of four young College Graduates there are gaps in the team’s
experience. In light of this we have recognised that EcoTrail will need professional
assistance and guidance in the initial stages of its business cycle to succeed. To solve
this problem EcoTrail will enlist the services of consultants. The DCU Invent centre
provides a certain degree of consultancy expertise free of charge in the areas of
Accountancy, Branding, Business, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Law,
Management, Motivation, PR & Communications, Presentation Skills, Sales and Strategic
Marketing. Technology, Sales and Strategic Marketing are the areas that we plan to avail
of and pursue. These advisors are available to any DCU students or researchers.
Additional consultancy fees will be required in order to find suitable investors the cost
of which we estimate to be €10,000 annually.
121
Office Space
EcoTrail will initially consist of five people which will require minimum office space. We
will rent office space in the Dublin area. DMG Business Centre offer fully serviced offices
in Dublin including virtual office space, call answering service and a receptionist at a
cost of €450 per month or €5400 annually.
Rent expenses:
W8a
Office costs (450 *12)
Office rent
(DMG Buisness Centre)
5,400
W8b
5,900 Y3- Y5 - USA Office
5,400 Irish office
5,400
20,000
15,000
35,000
Labour Costs
The following table gives a detailed account of the employees that EcoTrail will have
during Years 1 – 5.
Employees by Function
Sales and Marketing
Technical/Developer
General/ Administrative
Corporate Executives
2013
2014
2015
4
2016
2
1
1
4
2017
4
1
1
4
1
1
1
4
4
Total
5
5
5
8
10
In Year 1 it is the intention of the owners to work as employees of the business along
with a software developer. Employees will then be hired to the different areas of the
business as it grows. Staff will be recruited when deemed necessary and assuming the
cash flow can support the additional expense. We propose that the company take on
interns and recent graduates with the intention of training them in the required skills
set. The proposed addition of labour is as follows:
In Years 1 and 2 EcoTrail will focus on developing its technical components namely the
Expense Management System which we plan to outsource. The four founding members
of the company will assume a number of roles as well as that of corporate executives.
For this reason the only additional member of staff will be a software engineer to
manage and assist in the development of EcoTrail’s systems. Once the system is
developed the engineer will become responsible for maintaining the system and
developing new features in the future.
122
In Year 3, EcoTrail plan to bring its service to market and will actively begin selling its
system and services to companies in the UK and Irish markets with two of the founding
members becoming full time salesmen. The other two members will run the business as
well as contributing to the sales team.
Two additional salesmen will be hired in Year 4 to acquire more customers. Year 5 will
see the hiring of 2 additional salesmen to operate exclusively in the US market as well as
the hiring of a DCU INTRA student for administrative work and tasks in order to deal
with an increasing workload. In order to make sure that all training needs are met the
cost of sales figure constitutes training costs for continuous personal development of
employees.
Explanation of Salaries
Year 1 & 2 (2013 -2014)
 4 Founders working on developing all aspects of the business.

Software engineer oversees all technical issues.
Founders Wages
Sr. Software Engineer
€17,500 x 4
Total Salaries
€70,000
€55,000
€125,000
Year 3 (2015)
There will be a reallocation of work roles with 2 founders acting as full time salesmen
while the other 2 founders will deal with the day to day running of business as well as
collaboratively doing the work of one salesperson.
Year 4 (2016): Increase of wages and addition employees

4 owners contributing to the work load of 3 salesperson: (2 owners acting as full
time salesmen)

2 additional salespeople required to enhance presence in UK and Irish market.

1 person hired to manage help desk (Not Sales related)

Total sales people: 5
123
Founders Wages
Sr. Software Engineer
2 Sales people
Intra Student at Help Desk
€30k x 4
20k*2 + commission
(11 Months)
Total Salaries
€120,000
€55000
€60000
€15,691
€250691
Year 5 (2017)

2 additional salespeople are required to break USA market on 20k each +
commission.
Founders Wages
Sr. Software Engineer
2 Sales people
2 Additional Sales people
Intra Student at Help Desk
Total Salaries
€30k x 4
20k*2 + commission
20k*2 + commission
(11 Months)
€120,000
€55000
€60000
€60000
€15,691
€300,000
15.6 Selling and General Administration
Company Registration
This will include:
 Registration of the company (online) and new business name – €25

New company A1 Form – €100

Stationary Costs - €245
Marketing
EcoTrail has allocated its marketing budget in the following way:
W7a - 2015/2016 Marketing: Irish and Uk market
Televison Advertising
45,000
Trade Shows
10,000
Online Advertising
20,000
Radio Advertising
15,000
90,000
W7b - 2017 Marketing: USA Market
Televison Advertising 45,000
Trade Shows
50,000
Online Advertising
50,000
Radio Advertising
15,000
160,000
124
2017 Marketing: Irish and Uk market
Televison Advertising
Trade Shows
10,000
Online Advertising
20,000
Radio Advertising
15,000
45,000
Research and Development
EcoTrail has allocated its Research and Development budget in the following way:
W5a- 2013
W5b-2104
W5c-2017
Field Research: Forrestor Report
4,100
Market Testing in businesses
10,000
USA Market
15000
Depreciation
EcoTrail estimates depreciation to occur in the following manner:
W6a -2013
Dep of Computers & other IT equipment
(€18750 * 20%)
W6b - 2016
Dep of Laptops (4000@ 20%)
Dep of Computers & other IT equipment
(€18750 * 20%)
3,750
3,750
800
3,750
4,550
Interest and loans
EcoTrail estimates interest and loan repayments to play out as follows:
W10 Interest and loan
300k *5.24% for 7 years
410,040
Years 1&2 interest only
15,720
1310 pm
Year 3-7 Monthly repayment capital +interest
60,000 6310 per month
Total Interest to pay
110,040
Note: A detailed breakdown of selling and general administration can be seen in
Appendix 18 on page 269.
15.7 Funding Requirements
EcoTrail is filing to be a private limited company with the Companies Registration
Office. Once approved, EcoTrail will trade as the name ‘EcoTrail’. In Year 1 the company
needs to raise €450,000 in order to successfully bring the EcoTrail Expense
Management Service to the market in 2015.
125
This will be sourced in three ways; investments by the owners, grants from Dublin
County Enterprise Board and Enterprise Ireland, and a medium term bank loan of
€300,000 repayable over seven years. The interest rate secured is at a reduced 5.24%
new SME loan with Bank of Ireland. The repayments are fixed for Year 1 and 2 as paying
interest only totalling €1310 per month. The company does not anticipate needing
venture capitalist investors in the first three years of trading.
Dublin County Enterprise Board Priming Fund Grant:
The Dublin Enterprise Board has access to an Enterprise Fund which is designed to help
start-up businesses. The County & City Enterprise Board offers a Priming Grant and
a Feasibility/Innovation Grant to new start-ups to help provide financial assistance in
the area of developing prototypes, consultancy costs and marketing costs. The Priming
fund is for new businesses trading less than 18 months, after this we may apply for
business development funding. EcoTrail will be required to pay back 33% of this grant
once the company is established and trading healthily. The grants that EcoTrail will be
entitled to are as follows:
1. Up to 50% of capital cost up to €75000
2. Up to €7500 per job up to 10 jobs
3. Upto 50% of the cost of preparing a feasibility study/business plan (MAX €6,350)
Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start Up:
In Year 5 we expect EcoTrail to have 10 employees. This will entitle EcoTrail to apply
for the High Potential Start-up grant from Enterprise Ireland who aim to support
companies demonstrating strong export potential as the company is aiming to expand
into North America in that year. If accepted the HPSU grant will provide EcoTrail with
€150,000 of extra capital.
Bank loan:
In Year 1 we will apply for a €300,000 loan from Bank of Ireland. After an interview
with Bank of Ireland Corporate Investment manager Philip Greene we were informed
that we would likely receive the loan for the requested amount. In this interview he
showed us a survey published by the Department of Finance that showed the overall
demand for credit from SMEs remains low.
126
However, Bank of Ireland noted increased numbers of SMEs seeking credit facilities, up
2% from 6 months ago to 38%. The majority of credit requests are for working capital
and cash flow requirements and not for growth or expansion purposes. Approximately
half of all SMEs surveyed indicated that they believed the banks are not lending.
However, findings show that this belief is primarily based on reports in the media or
statements from business representative groups.
Only 20% stated it was from personal experience. 67% of the bank loans were
approved, 5% were partially approved and 28% of applications received by banks were
declined. BoI's average approval rate is 80% of all formal applications received.
Investment from four founding members:
For the development of EcoTrail, each of the members will be able to contribute up to
€5,000, which will come from personal savings, friends and relatives. This can be done
in a form of personal loans to the firm resulting in the issuing of shares to the founders.
Other Options available:
Other sources of funding are the Seed and Early Stage Fund available from the Bank of
Ireland and the Kernel Capital Venture Fund. They offer funding to start-ups with a
focus on those that have patents or patent-pending technologies in the areas of
technology, technology services, clean technology, green technology, multimedia,
wireless and financial services sectors or food. This grant provides start-ups with
€100,000 up to €5 million in investment opportunities
Realistic Timeline of how funding will be used
127
15.8 Sales Forecast
When researching the sales forecast for Ireland and the UK we targeted cities that
would be in countries where companies would be likely to conduct business and
therefore have agreements with vendors (Table 1). This strategy was also applied for
researching the USA market (Table 2).
Table 1:
Dublin
Limerick
London
Cork
Belfast
Edinburgh
Galway
Liverpool
Manchester
New York
Boston
Florida
Chicago
California
San Francisco
Table 2:
As mentioned previously EcoTrail has two pricing packages as follows:
1. SME package - €6 per employee profile per month with €6000 set up costs.
2. Large Company package – based on the volume of expense reports processed by
EcoTrail as seen in the chart below plus €30,000 set up costs.
Volume of reports
Between 0-500
Between 500-1000
Between 1000-2000
Price per expense report
€8
€6
€5
128
15.8.1 Expected Financial Projections: Year 3-5 (2015-2018)
The graph below shows the expected revenue generated from subscription fees
obtained from clients (i.e. monthly rate per employee for SME’s & per volume of
expense reports for Large Company as outlined above).
Total Subscriptions:
€1,000,000
€781,200
€800,000
Year 3
€600,000
€437,400
Year 4
€400,000
€200,000
Year 5
€176,400
€Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
The graph below shows the expected revenue generated from subscription fees plus
implementation fees obtained from clients.
Total Subscriptions and Implementation Costs
2500000
€1,995,000
2000000
1500000
Year 3
€1,201,800
Year 4
1000000
500000
Year 5
€494,400
0
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Note: The breakdown and workings of the figures illustrated in the graphs are detailed
below.
129
15.8.2 Sales Units Breakdown
Note: The following section details the expected sales units for EcoTrail from years 3-5.
No sales are made in years 1-2 as EcoTrail is focusing its attention on software
development therefore not considered in this section.
Sales Units Year 3 (UK & Ireland Focus)
 Total sales people: 3
 2 full time founders working at sales while the 2 other founders collaboratively
conduct sales approximate to another sales person.
In order to accurately gauge how many potential clients EcoTrail has the potential to
secure, the work loads of one sales person has been calculated and attributed to each
salesperson on the EcoTrail team. This is seen in the chart below:
Projection of the workload of 1 salesperson:
Potential clients
contact per hour
Hours per day
Potential clients
per day
Days spent on
making sales per
week
Clients
contacted per
week by 1 sales
man
4
8
32
4*
128
(Note: * we chose not to say 5 days making sales here to give time to meet with the clients
to secure the deal)
Therefore 128 potential clients per week * 3 salespeople working for EcoTrail = 384
potential clients contacted per week altogether.
Projections:
1. Assuming of the 384 potential clients that 5% show interest in EcoTrail and
become a successful lead:384*5% = 19.2 potential clients per week
2. Assuming of that 5% who have shown interest only 5% of the clients adopt
EcoTrail expense management solution:
Note: we have used 5% success rate based on insight gained from Colm Cleary
experienced salesman for Irish Start up ‘Text me a Drink’. Colm operates in a similar
sales process as EcoTrail in terms of converting clients to adopt technology as part of
their business.
130
Therefore based on these assumptions: 19.2 * 5% = 0.96 companies adopt per week
which equals 49 new clients at the end of year 3 (0.96*52 weeks = 49)
 Of the 49 clients we intend to have 1 large company and 48 SME’s.
 (According to the European commission: an SME has less than 50 employees.
Therefore our sales figures are based on an average of this figure i.e. 25 employees.
The revenue generated from these clients is seen below:
Revenue from SME:
 48 companies * 25employees per company * 72 (i.e. €6 per employee profile per
month = 6*12 =72) = €86,400.
 A one off payment of €6000 is paid by each SME firm.
 48 companies *€6000 = €288,000.
Revenue from 1 Large company:
According to Concur a composite firm generates on average 1500 expense reports per
month. We have based our sales structure on this assumption.
 1500 falls into the expense report volume bracket of 1000 to 2000 which is €5
per expense report as per EcoTrails pricing strategy detailed above.
Therefore:
 1500 expense reports per month * €5 per report = €7,500 per month
 €7500 * 12 months in year = €90,000
 A one off payment of €30,000 is paid by each large firm
 1 Large Company * €30,000 = €30,000
131
Total Revenue Year 3 (Wa)
Sales Units Year 4 (UK Ireland Focus)
 Total Sales people: 5
Revenue generated from the 3 sales people at same rate as Year 3:
49 new companies (1 large and 48 SME) will be contacted by 3 sales people again.
The additional 2 sales people will generate the following revenue for EcoTrail:
Assuming the same work assumptions i.e. how many companies that can be contacted
per week per salesperson as before (128 potential clients per salesperson) the
additional 2 sales people will generate the following revenue for EcoTrail:
 128 potential clients per week * 2 sales people = 256 potential clients per week
 Assuming only 5% show interest 256 * 5% = 12.8 potential clients
 Of that 5% only 5% of those actually adopt EcoTrail expense management
solution:
 12.8 * 5% = 0.64 potential clients per week which equals to 33 new clients at the
end of year 4. (0.64*52 weeks = 33)
 Of those 33 clients we intend to have 3 large companies and 30 SME’s
Altogether in Year 4 EcoTrail will secure 78 new SME’s and 4 Large Companies. The
revenue generated from this is seen in the table below. Note: Existing revenue from
existing client subscriptions is also included:
132
Total Revenue Year 4 (Wb)
Sales Units Year 5 (USA Focus)
 Total Salespeople working = 7
The allocation of work will change in year 5 as follows:
 4 sales people will target USA (2 existing salespeople and 2 additional)
 3 sales people still focus on UK Ireland Europe
Revenue generated from the 3 sales people still focusing on UK & Ireland Market
Assuming the same success rate as year 3 and year 4 = 49 new EcoTrail customers will
be secured by Year 3 end. However, of that 49 we intend to secure 3 large companies
and 46 SME’s. (Why? Our brand is built and we have a reputation in the market)
Revenue generated from the 4 sales people focusing on USA market:
The allocation of work for the 4 sales people breaking USA will be as follows:
 3 salespeople targeting only large companies
 1 sales person targeting only USA SME’s
(Why? We have an established client portfolio from UK & Ireland to show proof of concept
to potential US Large companies. Plus the revenue generated from securing a deal with 1
large company is much higher than a pay off from a group of SME’s)
133
 Assuming same workload per employees as before = 128 potential companies
contacted per week: 128 * 4 salespeople = 512 potential clients contacted per
week.
 Assuming of that 512 potential client that only 3%* show interest: 512 * 3% =
15.36 potential customers per week. And of that 3% only another 3% of those
interested actually adopt EcoTrail expense management solution: 15.36*3% =
0.46 adopted customers per week which equals 23 new US customers per year
(i.e. 0.46* 52weeks = 23 new EcoTrail USA customers)
(Note*: We reduced the success rate from 5% to 3% as the USA is a new market and we
wanted to be realistic)
Of the 23 new companies we intend to secure 4 large companies and 19 SME’s
(Why so many large? Because 3 of our salespeople are purely focusing on securing large
companies)
Altogether between the European and US market in Year 5 EcoTrail will secure 65 new
SME’s and 7 Large Companies. The revenue generated from this is seen in the table
below. Existing revenue from existing client subscriptions is also included:
134
Total Revenue Year 5 (Wc)
Gross Margin
The gross margin ranges from 72%-98% at any given time during 2015-2108. The
Company anticipates that over a longer term gross margin will improve as brand
becomes more prevalent in the market place and we can scale back on marketing costs.
135
15.9 Exit Strategy
The following exit strategy is available to investors of EcoTrail. The terms below have
been agreed to by all vested parties:

Any shareholder may sell their shares to any party but must offer first refusal of
their shares to their fellow shareholders.

If another company, in the field of expense management or otherwise, wishes to
buy EcoTrail Ltd there must be a majority decision among the shareholders to sell
the company outright. All shareholders could exit at this point with a potential
profit.

If EcoTrail is unsuccessful or files for Bankruptcy then the company would be
forced to sell the software rights and brand of EcoTrail.
15.10 ‘Expected’ Income Statement, Balance Sheet & Cash flow
The following section provides an in depth breakdown of EcoTrail’s finances. ‘Best Case’
scenario and ‘Worst Case’ scenario can be seen in Appendix 11 and 14 respectively.
136
15.10.1 Expected Income Statement
Development
Development
Ireland & UK
Ireland & UK
Ireland,UK, USA
Expected Income Statement for Ecotrailreceipts Ltd for the period 2013 - 2018
2013
2014
Sales
Cost of Sales
2015
494,400
Wa
W2a
Gross Profit
-
46,000
46,000
W2b
-
59,000
59,000
W2c
-
Gross Profit percentage
136,590
357,810
72%
2016
1,201,800
Wb
W2d
-
141,590
1,060,210
96%
2017
1,995,000
Wc
W2e
-
242,590
1,752,410
98%
Operating Expenses
Consultancy fees
Selling and General Administration
Research and Development
Depreciation
Marketing
Rent of Office
Staff salaries
W3
w11
W5a
W6a
W7a
W8a
W9
10,000
370
10,000
3,750
Other Income
Dublin Enterprise Board Grant
Enterprise Ireland
125,000
294,150
-
203,150
63,660
633,669
1,056,610
63,660
13
633,669
53
150,000
1,206,610
60
10,000
3,750
5,400
125,000
154,520
Total Overheads
Operating Income/(Loss)
5,400
125,000
144,150
10,000
60,000
5,900
4,550
90,000
5,400
250,691
426,541
W5b
-
W3
200,520
4,100
60,000
5,900
3,750
90,000
5,400
W6b
Net Profit/Loss
W10
-
93,520
-
203,150
-
15,720
-
15,720
-
109,240
-
218,870
47,953
-
109,240
-
218,870
5,994
41,959
8%
Tax on Profit/Loss
Net Income/(Loss) for year
W8b
107,000
Net profit percentage
Interest expense
10,000
120,000
15,000
800
205,000
45,000
300,000
695,800
137
-
-
15,720
-
15,720
-
15,720
618,002
1,190,951
77,250
540,752
45%
148,869
1,042,082
52%
15.10.2 Expected Balance Sheet
Balance Sheet of Ecotrailreceipts for the period 2013 - 2018
Tagible Fixed Assets
Computers & other IT Equipment
Intangible fixed assets
software 5 times sales cost incurred in gettin up running
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
15000
11250
7500
6950
2400
100,000
Current Assets
Cash at Bank
Trade Debtors- 3 mnths
Accruals
195,760
41200
Total Assets
Current Liabilities
Bank Overdraft
Trade Creditors
Interest Due
Other expenses due
non current liabilities
Bank Loan
Total Liabilities
210,760
1,000,000
312135
100,150
41266
838,364
166250
137967
11,250
148,700
19,360
74,864
300,000
300,000
300,000
319,360
240000
314,864
180000
180,000
120000
120,000
-308,110
-166,151
1,280,501
2,024,981
20000
227,151
100,000
-107151
20000
313,600
1,000,000
1,333,600
20000
1,364,433
1,000,000
2,384,433
Total Assets - Total Liabilities
-
89,240
Financed By:
Paid up capital
Retained Earnings/(Loss) carried forward
Revaluation Reserve
Total Equity
-
20,000
109,240
-
20,000
269,110
-
89,240
-
249,110
138
-
1,460,501
1,000,000
2,144,981
15.10.3 Expected Cash flow Statement
Expected CashFlow statement of Ecotrailreceipts
Operating activity
Net Income/(Loss) for year
2013
Increase/(Debtors) in Trade Creditors
Decrease/(Increase) in Trade Debtors
Net working capital
Interest Due
Tax paid
Net cash inflow/(outflow) from operating activities
Net cash inflow/(outflow) for the year
Cash balance at start of year
Cash balance at end of year
2016
2017
109,559
3,750
-
151,469
3,750
106,734
3,750
506,031
4,550
1,148,807
4,550
-
105,809
-
147,719
110,484
510,581
1,153,357
-
3,930
101,879
Financing activites
Owners' cash investment
Grants received
Bank loan
Repayment of bank loan
Net cash inflow/(outflow) from finance activities
Investing activities
Purchase of Motor cars
Purchase of Laptops
Net cash inflow/(outflow) from investing activities
2015
-
Depreciation
Net cash inflow/(outflow) from operating activity
2014
3,930
-
143,789
-
-
123,600
123,600
3,930
-
9,186
-
-
-
176,850
176,850
3,930
530,432
-
-
958,987
20,000
107,000
300,000
427,000
-
198,300
198,300
3,930
150,000
-
-
18,750
18,750
-
-
-
306,371 0
306,371
139
-
143,789
306,371
162,582
60,000
60,000
-
-
-
69,186 162,582
93396
-
60,000
60,000
-
470,432
93,396
563,828
60,000
90,000
-
1,048,987
563,828
1,612,815
16. Security
16.1 Security Concerns
Security is becoming increasingly important to businesses operating online. It is critical
for EcoTrail to take the steps necessary to protect against hackers who have the
potential to steal vital information and undermine EcoTrail’s core product offering of a
secure and efficient corporate expense management solution. There are three key
stages of the EcoTrail corporate expense management solution that require different
levels of security. The following diagram illustrates the levels in place to protect
EcoTrail’s most important asset – customers’ personal and digital receipt information.
There are three core data security concerns facing EcoTrail which can be categorised
into three distinct areas as outlined by Adams & Lloyd (1999);
Data Integrity
Data Confidentiality
Data Authentication
This assurance to the entity that the data has not been
altered intentionally or unintentionally
This is the assurance to the entity that no one can read a
piece of data except the receiver explicitly intended
This is assurance to one entity that the other is who they
claim to be
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16.2 Data Integrity
The integrity of the data collected by EcoTrail is vulnerable to external attack at the
following points in the data flow process:
Data in transit
Issue: At the point of sale when the digital receipt is being transferred from the
point of sale terminal to the user’s smart phone. The data in transit is susceptible to
manipulation by eavesdropping and man in the middle attacks which compromises the
integrity of the digital receipt data.
Solution: EcoTrail has chosen to use near field communication which is a close
proximity technology (max range 20cm) which makes it difficult for eavesdropping to
take place. Furthermore the data in transit is encrypted from the point of sale terminal
to the smart phone meaning that even if eavesdropping did occur no personal data
would be compromised and the integrity of the data would be maintained. A detailed
discussion of further reasons why NFC was chosen over competing technologies such as
Bluetooth and Wifi is discussed on page 159.
Data in Storage
Issue: Once the digital receipt has been transferred from the point of sale to the
user’s smart phone the digital receipt data is in storage on the EcoTrails backend
database. This is a required process in order to provide the user access to their digital
receipts from their online profile. The data in storage is susceptible to an SQL injection
attack which compromises the data integrity and confidentiality as a successful SQL
injection has the ability to read and modify sensitive data from the database.
Solution: Ecotrail has designed its backend database in such a way that the SQL
code is separated from the user’s personal data, input data is constrained and there is
restricted permissions on account access thus minimising the threat of a successful SQL
injection (Meir, 2005). Furthermore, all personal details such as passwords, credit card
details are encrypted to minimise the impact on business operations of such an SQL
injection attack occurring.
141
The continuity of business is of critical importance in the ecommerce sector particularly
for EcoTrail which relies on the availability of its online profiles allowing user access to
their digital receipts. The primary USP of EcoTrail’s corporate expense management
solution is efficiency and ease of use therefore EcoTrails backend database is backed-up
on a secure server to ensure the smooth running of business operations should an
attack take place. MySQL provides high-performance backup and restore capability. The
importance of minimising business interruption is discussed in more detail in the Risk
Assessment section of the report on page 146.
The above scenarios outline how an external attacker may try to compromise the
integrity of the data EcoTrail has in transit and in storage e.g. credit card details. The
below scenario outlines how EcoTrail can combat (using digital watermarking) users
attempting to compromise the integrity of the digital receipt data collected.
Digital Watermarking
Digital watermarking describes methods and technologies that hide information in
digital data (AlpVision, 2012). There are two types of digital watermark as outlined by
Lin et al (2000) namely robust and fragile. Robust watermarks are designed to resist
attempts to remove or destroy the watermark whereas fragile watermarks are designed
to be easily destroyed if the watermarked image is manipulated which is ideal for image
authentication applications where the objective is to determine if a watermarked image
has been tampered with or modified (Lin et al, 2000). For the purpose of EcoTrail,
fragile watermarks are the most applicable to help ensure the data integrity of the
digital receipts submitted by users for expense reimbursement. The following three
images illustrate the application of digital watermarking on a sample restaurant receipt.
Receipt
1 : This is the original digital receipt obtained at the point of sale at the
restaurant using EcoTrails service. The total cost of the meal was $1033.42
Receipt
2 : This image has been tampered with and a small but significant
modification has been made. The total cost figure has been changed from $1033.42 to
$1303.42 ($270 in excess).
Receipt
3 : This shows the image after running the digital watermark detection as
part of the Ecotrail Solution. Areas that have been modified are clearly highlighted in
red.
142
A tampered receipt such as the one highlighted above would be identified by the
EcoTrail system and brought to the attention of the perpetrating employees company
for investigation. It would be flagged automatically by the system once the user posts
the receipt for reimbursement approval. At this point it would be up to the company to
reprimand the individual attempting to claim false expenses.
16.3 Data Confidentiality
Similar to the data integrity issues outlined above, data confidentiality has the potential
to be breached while data is in transit and in storage.
Encryption will be used for the receipt data in storage in the database such as
credit card details and log in passwords as well as during the digital receipt transfer
process from the point of sale to the user’s smart phone. This will help maintain the data
confidentiality.
143
Secure Socket Layer protocol will also be used by EcoTrail for the protection of
data in transit. The main objectives of SSL are as follows as outlined by Onyszko (2004):

To authenticate the client and server to each other

To protect date from interception

To be readable only by the intended recipient
16.4 Data Authentication
Secure Authenticated Log In
Two issues were raised with the EcoTrail expense management solution during the
market research process concerning the security threat posed by losing your smart
phone.
Can a perpetrator access your digital receipts if you lose your smart phone?
No, each user’s online profile is protected by a username and password log in
which is secured by SSL as outlined above. If your phone fell into the wrong hands, a
perpetrator would have to know your unique password and username in order to gain
authenticated access to your EcoTrail online profile containing your personal receipt
data.
If you lose your smart phone do you lose your digital receipts collected to date?
Receipts are stored remotely on EcoTrail’s SQL server not on the smart phone
itself allowing the user to access their digital receipt data through their online profile as
required. Storing the data on the cloud will ensure that the latest version of the
database is always available to the user. Furthermore, this SQL database is backed up to
ensure business continuity in the case of server disruptions.
GPS Location Stamp
Data origin identification will be used as a means of authenticating a digital receipt in
terms of where it was obtained e.g. on a business trip in Munich or Sydney etc.
According to Charlesworth (2010) Nokia’s engineers suggested that more than half of
all mobiles in use were GPS-enabled in 2010 and this trend has progressed. GPS was the
function du jour, but has now become de rigueur (Charlesworth, 2010).
144
Based on the trend of GPS and wide spread availability of the technology in smart
phones it is a valuable authenticating security feature for EcoTrail. After making a
purchase a user’s GPS location is registered at the point of sale and assigned to the
digital receipt obtained. Note: if unable to register the GPS location in store due to poor
connection the GPS location will be obtained the next available opportunity e.g. outside
the store.
Having the GPS location assigned to a digital receipt will help reduce the opportunity for
an individual to submit adhoc digital receipts claiming they are from a business trip in
Germany when in fact they are personal expenses e.g. Starbucks coffee Dublin. The GPS
location assigned to the digital receipt will prove otherwise. If the accounts payable
department is concerned with the incoming receipts of a particular employee, the GPS
location of the digital receipts can be obtained and see if they match the GPS
coordinates of the store/restaurant in question or at minimum the surrounding area.
145
17. Risk Assessment
“Businesses with fewer than 20 employees have only a 37% chance of surviving four years
and only a 9% chance of surviving 10 years” (Lloyd, 2004).
Considering the rapidly changing environment in which EcoTrail operates and taking
the above mentioned statistic into consideration, EcoTrail has actively conducted a risk
assessment to identify the threats to which it is exposed. EcoTrail has chosen to follow a
pragmatic risk management plan as outlined by Carlson (2009) in order mitigate the
risks identified. The pragmatic risk management plan requires the following:
Each risk identified is categorised in relation to its type e.g. business risk, technology
risk or finance risk. The likelihood of the risk occurring is determined and the impact of
this on business operations is evaluated. Finally mitigation tactics are developed in
order to prevent such a risk from occurring.
17.1 Business Risk
Management Expertise
Risk level
Medium
The four founders of EcoTrail all come from a business background with
limited technical experience. Due to the technically advanced features of the
Impact
website, mobile application and overall corporate expense management
system the necessary skills must be sourced externally which will come at a
significant cost.
In order to accommodate the technical costs involved in the business all
founders will only take a small salary of €17,500 at the start with a slight
increase in the first three years of business in order to buffer the cost of
Mitigation
strategy
outsourcing the technical aspects of the business. This is discussed in more
detail in the finance section of the report on page 121. Furthermore, all
founders will utilise their existing skills to their fullest potential and contribute
to the design and functional specification of the system in order provide
direction and reduce the duration of the system design phase.
146
Emerging Competition
Risk Level
Medium
EcoTrail will constantly be under threat from emerging competitors who will
Impact
attempt to offer new and innovative corporate expense management solutions
in an attempt to gain market share.
A significant advantage can be gained from being the first mover however, in
Mitigation
strategy
order for EcoTrail to maintain its position it will have to constantly review its
product offering and offer customers the most cost effective and efficient
solution to managing corporate expenses. In order to remain competitive
EcoTrail plans to expand its expense management solution into the retail sector
to accommodate regular retail customers and allow them to collect digital
receipts and manage their finances using the EcoTrail app. This is discussed in
detail on page 152.
Industry trend with NFC Enabled Smart phones
Risk Level
Low
If the industry trend of NFC enabled smart phones does not take off as
Impact
anticipated this would have a significant impact on EcoTrail’s corporate
expense management solution as it relies on NFC technology
In order to avoid becoming solely dependent on NFC enabled smart phones
EcoTrail has provided alternative options for customers with non NFC enabled
Mitigation
strategy
smart phones to use namely; EcoTrail NFC tags and ‘Take a Picture of receipt’
function. These are discussed in detail in the technology section of the report
on page 163.
147
External Party Dependence
Risk Level
Medium
In order to achieve full scale adoption of EcoTrail’s service the business
requires the cooperation of third parties such as Hotel chains and Car rental
Impact
companies to agree to implement the digital receipt software at the point of
sale. Without third party cooperation the success of EcoTrail is at risk.
To combat this issue EcoTrail will have to carefully outline the benefits of
implementing the digital receipt software at the point of sale. Highlighting the
cost savings on paper, the efficiency of dealing with customers and the
opportunity to make a connection with corporate customers who are highly
Mitigation
strategy
lucrative business will help gain the cooperation of third parties. A detailed cost
benefit analysis of implementing EcoTrail at the point of sale can be seen on
page 78 which clearly indicates the benefits of implementing EcoTrail.
Unforeseen Event e.g. Disaster
Risk Level
Low
According to the Insurance Information Institute, 15% to 40% of businesses
typically fail following a natural disaster and 7 out of 10 small businesses never
recover from a disaster (Fox Business, 2012). Taking these statistics into
Impact
consideration and the technical and infrastructure requirements needed to
ensure the smooth business operations of EcoTrail, a natural disaster poses a
significant threat to the long term success of the company.
In order to overcome this risk EcoTrail will have a Business Continuity Plan
Mitigation
strategy
(BCP) that will improve the company’s chances of continuing operations during
or after a significant disaster. EcoTrail’s BCP will detail the key internal
personnel that the company cannot function without, the most high profile
clients contact details and specifics of the location that EcoTrail will conduct
business at while the office in Dublin City Centre is unavailable.
148
17.2 Technology Risk
Server Downtime
Risk Level
High
As EcoTrail’s service offering is centred on providing real time
processing and access to digital receipts the impact of server
downtime would have serious implications for the company.
Impact
Customers would be frustrated if access to their digital receipts was
restricted thus extending the time they are ‘out of pocket’ in terms of
reimbursement for travel expenses. This will not only affect future
sales but also company reputation.
In order to combat this issue EcoTrail will have a backup of all data
Mitigation
strategy
collected so that the company is not adversely affected by server
downtime. This back up feature is offered by Blacknights Minimus
package and therefore one of the key reasons why EcoTrail chose
Blacknight as a hosting company.
Data Breach
Risk Level
Medium
EcoTrail online presence makes it highly susceptible to a data breach.
Impact
The loss or manipulation of data such like that stored in EcoTrails
backend database would have serious implications for the company in
terms of reputation damage and customer trust. It is imperative for
EcoTrail client data to be secure at all times.
In order to mitigate such a risk EcoTrail will have to backup the
critical data that it stores on behalf of customers as mentioned above
to ensure the smooth running of business operations. Furthermore,
Mitigation
strategy
the security measures currently in place to prevent a data breach from
occurring such as encryption and SSL are also of critical importance.
Having a back up of data and such tight security in place will allow the
company to maintain their strong reputation and uphold their
competitive position.
149
17.3 Finance Risk
Funding
Risk Level
Medium
Failure to secure the appropriate funding to put towards the business
Impact
start-up will dramatically inhibit the progress of EcoTrail.
In order to minimize this risk, EcoTrail will apply for as much funding
Mitigation
strategy
as possible including grants from Enterprise Ireland where relevant.
This is discussed in detail in the finance section page 125.
Furthermore, the four founders of the company will also contribute
€5000 in order to minimize the dependency on external funding.
Profitability
Risk Level
Medium
As with all start-up companies it is expected that EcoTrail will not
Impact
turn a profit for the first year of business. However, in order to pursue
our market strategy of expanding to USA by Year 3 EcoTrail must have
generated adequate profitability to fund the expansion.
To ensure appropriate profitability significant investment will be
Mitigation
strategy
made in marketing and sales in order to establish a loyal customer
base and raise brand awareness. This will lead to new business thus
generating additional revenue to contribute to profitability.
150
18. Commercial Timeline
151
19. Future Expansion
As has been detailed previously, EcoTrail’s expansion consisted of 3 phases:
-
Phase 1 – Ireland
-
Phase 2 – United Kingdom
-
Phase 3 – U.S.A.
Phase 4 locations will be under review monthly with the aid of continued primary and
secondary market research which we have timetabled and budgeted for. Phase 4
markets currently under consideration include: France, Spain, Canada, China, Poland,
Holland and others. EcoTrail understand the language and cultural changes and barriers
associated with foreign market entry and realise that skilled staff will have to be taken
on board along with the necessary consultancy to fully understand the challenge of
foreign market entry. As such, we have made note of the entry alternatives such as
franchising, licensing, joint ventures, partnerships etc. to aid in the roll out of phase 4.
All avenues will be considered and reviewed accordingly monthly between the team.
In terms of EcoTrail’s future expansion in terms of its product offering the following has
been considered to date:
EcoTrail’s future expansion plans rely on establishing a strong presence with digital
receipts and expense management in the corporate sector and later offering a digital
receipt service to the retail customer environment starting in existing markets. The
motive to pursue this strategy is based on the assumption that once EcoTrail establishes
its concept and services, increases its understanding of NFC technology and perfects its
app and mobile digital receipt offerings and functions; we can apply those learned skills
to a secondary target market – the general consumer.
As for the changes in the way consumers make and businesses take payments at the
point of sale, near-field communications (NFC) is the most highly touted upcoming
development. NFC will enable a shopper to wave a smart phone over a scanner instead
of swiping a credit or debit cards magnetic stripe through a card reader. Contactless
technology would enable stores to analyse consumer behaviour and easily access data
during a transaction that would help them entice customers with customised reward
programs and coupons.
152
EcoTrail expect to see our use of NFC digital receipt technology merge into the
consumer retail market and can hopefully use this opportunity to expand its offering
depending on the level of success we find in our initial 3 phases. We have already
established potential features we can incorporate into our concept in order to appeal to
the non-corporate sector.
Future Features
1. Digital Wallet
Getting started is as easy as snapping a photo of every credit card, debit card, loyalty
card, and receipt in your wallet using your smart phone. EcoTrail will extract the
important data and insert a digital version in an unlimited size digital wallet. Everything
is neatly labelled and easy to find.
2. Digital Coupons
o
Coupons can be saved to your personal inbox within the EcoTrail app
o
Redeem coupons directly from your phone by displaying the bar code
o
Share deals with friends via e-mail, SMS, and social networks
o
Set up a reminder based on time or location
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3. Budget Tracking Tool
Not only will EcoTrail offer users the benefit of digital receipts, but coupled with this
service EcoTrail will provide users with a budget tracking tool in order to manage
personal finances with ease. Features such as spending patterns and budget tracking
at your finger tips is the unique value add that EcoTrail’s future expansion iniative
will offer.
This line of expansion will allow EcoTrail time to make use of increasing NFC
infrastructure, increased consumer knowledge about the technology and functions of
evolving smartphone devices. EcoTrail would not be moving into an entirely new
industry, but merely extending its digital receipt service to a new audience who will
have migrated into a secondary target market for us.
This area for growth will require new partnerships with merchants which by then,
EcoTrail will have hoped to develop into strong relationships. Additionally, merchants
will have a strong incentive to adopt our concept when informed of the potential
benefits such as cost saving from the elimination of paper receipts and the contribution
to a greener society that follows suite. Additional benefits include:
Better marketing intelligence -By improving the understanding of customers’ buying
habits, merchants will be able to create more targeted marketing campaigns and craft
product and service offerings to increase customer engagement with them.
Greater Customer reach – EcoTrail allows merchants to reach customers directly with
offers and promotions by attaching coupons, surveys or other promotions to the digital
receipt, based on actual customer preferences and behavior.
The following diagram shows the future expansion:
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Section B
Technology Plan
155
1. Introduction
The purpose of the Technology Report is to provide a detailed specification of the
technical components required for EcoTrail from design to implementation including
functionality and usability.
The report begins with an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of Near Field
Communication (NFC) - the key technology used to transfer digital receipts from the
point of sale terminal to the user’s smart phone application, as well as detailing the
reasons why NFC was chosen over alternative technologies. Following on from this, a
detailed technical description of how the proposed EcoTrail system will work in terms
of the system architecture and infrastructure required is presented. Next the functional
specification and design considerations of EcoTrail’s mobile application, website and
backend database are documented with sample screen shots of user interfaces for
demonstrative purposes. To summarise the technical diary of the teams experience with
the EcoTrail system development and indication of the work schedule and deadlines set
in order to have a working skeleton prototype available for demonstration by August is
outlined. The technical deliverable schedule detailing proposed release dates for the key
technical components of the EcoTrail system concludes the Technology Report.
2. Near Field Communication Technology
2.1 What is NFC?
Near Field Communication (NFC) is a form of contactless communication which allows a
user to wave a smart phone over a NFC compatible device to send information without
needing to touch the devices together or go through multiple steps setting up a
connection (Near Field Communication, 2011). It is a short-range - less than 10
centimetres wireless connectivity technology that enables simple and safe two-way
interactions between electronic devices using electromagnetic radio fields (NFC Forum,
2012). It operates on the 13.56 MHz frequency, with data transfers of up to 424 kilobits
per second.
156
Devices using NFC may be ‘active’ or ‘passive’. A passive device, such as an NFC tag,
contains information that other devices can read but does not read any information
itself. An active device, such as a smart phone, can read information and exchange it
with other compatible phones or devices and could even alter the information on the
NFC tag if authorized to make such changes (Near Field Communication, 2011).
Devices have the ability to alter their state from active to passive depending on the
circumstance. The smart phone could act as a passive card in one instance, and as an
active reader in another. In the case of the EcoTrail digital receipt system, the point of
sale reader is the active device and the smart phone serves as the passive device.
2.2 How NFC works
NFC communication is triggered when two NFC-compatible devices are brought within
close proximity. An NFC reader emits a small electric current, which creates a magnetic
field that in turn bridges the physical space between the devices. That field is received
by a similar coil in the client device, where it is turned back into electrical impulses to
communicate data (Braue, 2011).
2.3 Compliance Standards for NFC
ISO 21481
ISO 21481 defines NFCIP-2, which specifies communications modes to minimise
interference with other contactless card devices (Braue, 2011).
ISO 14443
ISO/IEC 14443 defines the physical characteristics of PICCs, commonly known as
proximity cards (International Organisation for Standardization, 2008). This has three
variants, namely ISO 14443A, ISO 14443B and Felica. All NFC devices must comply with
the requirements of the relevant standard as outlined by the NFC forum. Currently, ISO
14443A is the most widely used contactless standard in the world (RFID Sources, 2012).
157
ISO 18092
ISO/IEC 18092 defines communication modes for the Near Field Communication
Interface. It also defines both the Active and the Passive communication modes of
NFCIP-1 to realize a communication network using Near Field Communication devices
for networked products and also for consumer equipment. It specifies the modulation
schemes, codings, transfer speeds and frame format of the RF interface, as well as
initialization schemes and conditions required for data collision control during
initialization (International organisation of Standardisation, 2004).
2.4 Strengths and Weaknesses of NFC
Strengths
Weaknesses
User initiates the process
Eavesdropping threats – unintended
recipients intercepting and reading data.
As NFC uses radio waves to communicate
and these propagate in the vicinity of the
Minimal interaction required
transceiver and not just to the wanted
receiver, it is possible for unwanted users
to pick up signals
Connection automatically established
Data Corruption – Rather than just
listening to the communications, the
attacker may try to disturb the
communications by sending data that may
Low interference due to short range
be invalid or blocking the channel so that
the legitimate data is corrupted. Data
manipulation is also possible
Low power energy consumption
Man in the middle attack – two parties
that want to talk to each other are tricked
into a three party conversation with an
attacker. The third party acts as a relay by
Peer to peer communication
using information received and modifying
it in order to achieve their aim.
Source (Radio Electronics, 2012) and (Allah, 2011)
2.4.1 How to Overcome NFC Weaknesses
Establishing a secure channel through encryption between two NFC devices is the best
approach to protect against eavesdropping, data modification and man-in-the-middle
attacks. According to Allah (2011), a standard key agreement protocol like DiffieHellmann based on RSA or Elliptic Curves could be used to establish a shared secret
between two devices.
158
The shared secret can then be used to derive a symmetric key, which is then used for
the secure channel providing confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of the
transmitted data (Allah, 2011).
Another threat for NFC not outlined above is the potential theft of the NFC device in
particular an NFC enabled smart phone. If someone steals or the owner loses an NFCenabled phone which is used for capturing digital receipts they could have access to
personal details and records of the individual.
In order to overcome this, password protected access to the mobile phone is required.
Furthermore, in order to protect an NFC enabled phone from the threat of viruses and
spyware, anti-virus software is recommended to overcome this issue.
2.5 NFC Comparison with Alternative Technologies
The most comparable technology that we have identified which has the potential to
fulfil EcoTrail’s technology requirements in the same way as NFC is Bluetooth. Unlike
NFC, Bluetooth focuses on radio transmissions instead of electromagnetic radio fields.
While NFC connections are instantaneous, making a Bluetooth connection takes several
seconds. In today’s market, device interfaces such as smart phones are anything but
intuitive and make it difficult to embrace the technology (e.g. scrolling through the
menu to select the specific Bluetooth device). NFC allows people to interact with their
environment without needing to navigate complicated menus or perform complex setup procedures - it is simply ‘touch and go’ (Philips, 2006).
One of the most important benefits of the NFC technology over Bluetooth is its low
energy consumption. NFC devices operate in a passive mode by default and there is no
need for battery when there is no NFC transaction in action. Furthermore, the larger
range of Bluetooth (up to 30m) makes it more susceptible to intentional or
unintentional interferences as well as eavesdropping because forming the connection is
highly visible for the user. Considering the importance of security and data privacy with
EcoTrail’s digital receipt system the threat posed by Bluetooth makes it an unsuitable
platform to adopt.
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The following table provides a summary comparison of NFC and other alternative
technologies including RFID, Infrared, Wi-fi and Bluetooth.
NFC
RFID
Bluetooth
Infrared
Wi-fi
Set up time
<0.1ms
<0.1ms
6sec
0.5sec
6+ sec
Range
Up to 10cm
Up to 3m
Up to 30m
Up to 5m
Up to 100m
Usability
Human Centric,
easy, intuitive
Pay, get access,
share
Item Centric
Data Centric
Data Centric
Item
tracking
Network for
data exchange
Network for
data exchange
Touch, Wave,
simply connect
Get
information
Configuration
Needed
Data
Centric
Control
and data
exchange
Easy
Low
Low
Moderate
Low
Low
Usage
Consumer
Experience
Cost
Configuration
Needed
Source (Ortiz 2008)
Based on this evaluation of alternative technologies we found NFC to be the most
suitable platform to build the EcoTrail Digital Receipt system. Such fast and easy
operations together with a high security level ensured by the limited communication
range of <10cm with a single point-to-point connection coupled with encryption, will
limit any interception possibilities and make the technology suitable for secure
communications like digital receipt transmission.
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3. System Architecture and Infrastructure
There are three core processes involved in the EcoTrail corporate expense management
system namely; obtaining a Digital Receipt, accessing Digital Receipt content and
posting a Digital Receipt for approval & reimbursement. The following diagrams
illustrate the overall architecture required for each process to give a clearer idea of the
key components in the process as well as the infrastructure needed to support the
EcoTrail System.
3.1 Obtaining a Digital Receipt: User Perspective
1
3
2
4
2
1
Point of Sale Terminal
The EcoTrail digital receipt software is made available on the Point of Sale (POS)
Terminals of our partnering retailers/hoteliers. This software is hosted externally from
the NFC enabled POS Terminal by a hosted based solution service provider (see page
169 for detailed discussion). This eliminates the need for a specific NFC reader device to
be implemented as originally intended. NFC industry expert Robert Doherty of AIB
Merchant Services recommended during our interview with him that a hosted based
NFC solution was the most cost effective strategy for EcoTrail to pursue considering the
growing trend of NFC enabled POS Terminals in the retail and hospitality industry.
According to Robert, by 2016 NFC enabled POS systems will be the industry standard to
accommodate the growth in mobile payments e.g. Google Wallet
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2
Smart Phone
When an EcoTrail customer makes a purchase the retailer offers them a digital receipt
instead of a traditional paper receipt. To obtain the digital receipt the EcoTrail customer
taps their NFC enabled smart phone against the NFC POS terminal which activates the
EcoTrail mobile application. The EcoTrail software application extracts and collates the
relevant data e.g. merchant name, date of purchase, itemised list and total amount etc.
using parsing and beams a digital receipt to the EcoTrail Mobile application on the
user’s smart phone through NFC.
For EcoTrail Customers that do not have an NFC Enabled smart phone the following
options are available:
(a) NFC Tags
An NFC Tag contains a small microchip and antenna which can store a small amount of
information for transfer to another NFC device. For the purpose of EcoTrail the NFC Tag
is in the form of a sticker to be attached to the back of the user’s mobile phone in order
to make the phone NFC enabled. NFC Tag stickers are distributed to customers on
request as part of the implementation process of the EcoTrail system. The tag works as
an ID, so the digital receipt is beamed to the user’s account after the NFC connection is
made. If the user’s phone has Internet connectivity at that moment, the digital receipt
will be immediately available in the EcoTrail mobile application otherwise it will be
available as soon as connectivity is available.
The illustration below shows an example of an EcoTrail NFC Tag:
Actual Size:
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(b) Capture Image of Receipt
EcoTrail customers also have the option to take a picture of a traditional paper receipt
using their smart phone camera and upload the image via EcoTrail’s mobile application.
This feature allows EcoTrail to effectively compete with market leader Concur (who
also offer this service). Furthermore, it accommodates customers during the transition
period which coincides with the growth of NFC enabled mobile phones.
At present the following mobile phones are NFC Enabled (see table below) and this
trend is expected to continue as according to Juniper (2011) the NFC enabled smart
phone market will approach 300 million devices by 2014. Furthermore, according to
Whitney (2012) early iPhone 5 prototypes reportedly support NFC capabilities.
Manufacturer
Model
Acer
BenQ
BlackBerry
BlackBerry
Casio
Casio
Google
HTC
HTC
Nokia
Nokia
LG
SAGEM
SAGEM
Samsung
Samsung
E320
T80
Bold 9900
Bold 9930
DT-X8
IT-1800
Nexus S
Incredible
Ruby
6131 NFC
C7
Optimus L5
My700X
Cosy phone
D500E
Galaxy S II
Source: (Braue, 2011)
Having alternative options such as the NFC tags and the ‘take a picture option’ allows
EcoTrail to overcome the challenge of waiting for full scale adoption of NFC before the
business could be a success and allows EcoTrail to gain an early foothold in the NFC
digital receipt market.
163
3.2 What does an EcoTrail Digital Receipt look like?
An EcoTrail digital receipt is not in a standardised format considering the diverse range
of industries concerned with corporate expense reimbursement such as retail,
hospitality, Car rental, transport and taxi etc. The below diagram is a sample EcoTrail
digital receipt for the retail sector.
The following diagrams outline the sample templates that will be used for digital
receipts in the Hospitality, Car Rental and Transport industry.
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3
Web Server
Once the digital receipt has been obtained using one of the methods outlined above it is
primarily stored on the user’s smart phone on a “Tiny Database” feature built into the
application. The digital receipt is stored exclusively on the phone until the user can avail
of internet access be it the phones packet data or a premises WiFi connection. Once a
web server connection can be made the digital receipt is immediately synced with the
user’s profile and EcoTrail’s secure backend database to allow the user access their
digital receipts as required. PHP is the language used to facilitate the communication
between the database and the web server.
4
Optical Character Recognition & Backend Database
Optical character recognition (OCR) is used at this point to extract the relevant data
fields from the digital receipt to store in the database as well as automatically
populating the expense report with the relevant data e.g. total amount of purchase. With
each digital receipt EcoTrail runs it through a machine learning system that identifies
and parses the different information within the receipt (Merchant name, date, item list,
total, etc.). Once the different elements of the receipt have been parsed, each element is
sent separately to the OCR system where the OCR is told what it is looking for (an
amount, a date, a merchant name, etc). Matrix matching is the most common technique
used in OCR and works by comparing what the OCR scanner sees as a character with a
library of character matrices or templates. In the case where an image matches one of
these prescribed matrices within a given level of similarity the computer labels that
image as the corresponding ASCII character (Data Identification, 2003).
This step concludes the process of obtaining and securely storing the digital receipt
from the user’s perspective.
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3.3 Accessing Digital Receipt content: User perspective
EcoTrail provides the end user with two mediums to access their digital receipt data via
their online user profile namely; a website and smart phone application. The design and
development of both mediums were conducted concurrently to ensure consistency and
ease of use. A detailed overview of the design considerations and functional
specification of the website and mobile application can be seen from page 173.
In order to retrieve the digital receipt data the following steps take place:
1.
Using HTTP protocol a request is sent to the web server asking for a specific
digital receipt file. The web server checks to see whether the requested material
is available and whether the client has the authorization to access it.
2.
If the material is available and allowable then the web server sends a request to
the MySQL database for the relevant data via a PHP request.
3&4. The requested data is retrieved by the backend database and returned via the
web server and displayed on the user device as requested.
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3.4 Posting Digital Receipt for Approval: User and Approver

The User’s perspective is shown with the Red arrows

The Approver’s perspective is shown with the Blue arrows
3.4.1 User Perspective
The user accesses and updates the digital receipt content in the same way as outlined in
the previous example using a combination of HTTP and PHP requests. When the user is
satisfied with a particular digital receipt (in terms of the items listed being appropriate
for expense reimbursement as per their company policy) the user posts the receipt for
reimbursement approval. This action triggers a real time notification to the Approver
that a new digital receipt has been submitted for reimbursement approval.
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3.4.2 Approver Perspective
The Approver accesses the digital receipt content of the individual employee using a
combination of HTTP and PHP requests. Digital receipts are cross checked with prepopulated expense reports and validated by the approver. Once the Approver is
satisfied with a particular digital receipt (in terms of its integrity and authenticity) the
Approver posts the expense for reimbursement.
This action signifies the final step in the EcoTrail expense management solution process.
From here the expense claim is integrated into the company’s existing expense
reimbursement payment solution. To ensure the seamless integration with the diverse
range of payment systems used by companies, the appropriate middleware is required.
3.4.3 Middleware
Insight from our interview with Senior Lecturer Claus Pahl from DCU School of
Computing suggested that the two most common middleware platforms are CORBA and
Microsoft.Net. XML is the language used to communicate between EcoTrail’s
middleware platform and the middleware platform of the individual company’s
payment solution. An XML request is sent from the EcoTrail system to the payment
solution system outlining the output (in this case a total amount figure that needs to be
reimbursed to an employee’s account) that will be used as an input to the payment
system. From this point the payment solution processes the expense claim figure and
reimburses the employee as usual thus completing the expense to reimbursement cycle.
168
4. Software Hosting at Point of Sale
As mentioned previously, EcoTrail’s software application that transfers the digital
receipt details from the point of sale terminal to the user’s smart phone is hosted
externally from the NFC enabled POS Terminal by hosted based solution service
providers who specialise per industry. The service providers that EcoTrail has
identified and approached in the key sectors in which we operate are as follows:
All hosted based solution service providers outlined the same procedure for hosting a
software application with them. As an example the following description outlines the
steps involved for EcoTrail’s software application to be hosted by ServeBase and
provided to the associated point of sale terminals in the hospitality industry:

EcoTrail pays the service provider an annual fee to host the application on their
server. The details of costs to do this can be seen in the finance section page 119.

Once the software application has been downloaded to the point of sale terminal
the hotel is ready to offer digital receipts to corporate customers.
A detailed list of the providers mentioned above that offer hosted based NFC solutions
for POS Terminals and an evaluation of the strengths of each provider can be seen in
Appendix 20 page 271.
169
5. Alternative: NFC Reader at Point of Sale
A slightly more expensive alternative to hosting EcoTrail’s software application
externally to the point of sale terminal involves the implementation of an NFC reader
which has EcoTrail’s software already integrated. In the event that the trend of NFC
enabled POS Terminals in the retail and hospitality industry does not take off as
intended and they are not the industry standard by 2016 as suggested by Robert
Doherty from AIB Merchant Services, EcoTrail has the option to overcome this issue by
implementing NFC readers.
The NFC readers are sourced from China and priced at €45 per unit (See quote in
Appendix 10 on page 259). According to EcoTrail’s software development consultation
with Tatsoft, the cost of integrating the EcoTrail digital receipt software into the NFC
reader would cost €35 per unit equating to a total cost of €80 per unit.
How it Works
The NFC reader is connected to the retailer’s point of sale terminal through a USB port.
Similar to the process outlined on page 161 about how the system works, to obtain the
digital receipt the EcoTrail customer taps their NFC enabled smart phone against the
NFC Reader which activates the EcoTrail mobile application. The EcoTrail software
application extracts and collates the relevant data e.g. merchant name, date of purchase,
itemised list and total amount etc. using parsing and beams a digital receipt to the
EcoTrail Mobile application on the user’s smart phone through NFC.
Note: Pursuing the NFC Reader alternative is considered in the financial section as the
‘worst case scenario’ considering the increase in costs associated with the roll out.
170
6. Technologies Used
The following diagram highlights the key technologies used in the EcoTrail corporate
expense management system. The technologies are divided into three categories
namely; client side, server side and backend technologies. Each technology is discussed
in detail in their relevant section later in the report.
7. Hosting Requirements
After careful evaluation of the service offerings of a diverse range of hosting companies
in terms of cost, data transfer, domain name availability, security features and
additional support we chose Blacknight Solutions. The hosting package most suitable
for EcoTrail’s requirements was the Minimus shared hosting package. The Shared
hosting by Blacknight offers an affordable solution for web hosting considering EcoTrail
does not have the budget for a dedicated server at the early stage of business.
Blacknight’s shared servers are fast, reliable and best suited to small business needs. A
detailed breakdown of the Blacknight Hosting package can be seen in Appendix 19 page
270. Blacknight is suitable for EcoTrail up until 2015 when EcoTrail launches in the UK
& Ireland market.
As EcoTrail expands its customer base additional server space will be required to
successfully accommodate the dramatic increase in users. It was recommended by Claus
Pahl Senior Lecturer of DCU computing School and Deputy Director of the Cloud
CORE Research Centre to consider moving to cloud computing at this point.
171
Cloud computing is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the
internet rather than a local server whereby shared resources are provided to users on
demand. Cloud computing has all the benefits of a dedicated server but without the high
cost. This will allow EcoTrail to effectively compete with market leader Concur.
There are a number of cloud providers in the market including Amazon Elastic Compute
Cloud as well as Cloud VPS from Blacknight. At this point in time, Amazon offers the
most cost effective cloud space package (as outlined in the finance section), however, as
the cloud computing aspect of server hosting is not be required until Year 3 a careful reevaluation will be conducted closer to the time to ensure EcoTrail secures the most
competitively priced server space.
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8. EcoTrail Android Mobile Application
8.1 Functional Specification
This section gives a detailed description of how the EcoTrail Android Mobile Application
works as well as providing a step by step guide of how to use the applications interface
to avail of its expense management features.
The application is called “ecotrailreceipts” and is a vital component in the functionality
of the company’s expense management system which uses digital receipts and NFC
enabled smart phones and tags. Once an NFC enabled smartphone has downloaded the
application the phone can then be used to receive and store digital receipts from an NFC
transceiver at the point of sale
The main function of the application is to easily manage expenses by providing the user
with a user friendly interface with which they can organise and categorise their
expenses before posting them for reimbursement. The application acts as the user’s
expense hub eliminating the need for manual input of expense information. With the
smart phone application, database and website EcoTrail provides the most automated
and efficient expense management system on the market. Below is a step by step guide
of how to use the application once the digital receipt has been beamed using NFC or
image capture technologies.
1
User Login Screen

Users enter their registered username and password to
gain access to their secure “ecotrailreceipts” account.

New users have the option to sign up for a new account
using the “Sign up” button. This will bring the user to the
EcoTrail Website where they can enter the relevant
details.

After successfully logging in by entering their details
and tapping the “Login” button, users will be brought to
the “Category Menu” screen.
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2
Category Menu

This screen allows the user access to the relevant
receipt categories that their expenses are sorted
into.

By simply tapping a category symbol such as
“Transport” the user is brought to a screen listing
their

receipts
stored
in
that
category.
This allows users to sort their expenses into
relevant categories to make browsing for receipts
easy as well as providing a detailed description for
the overall spend in a category on EcoTrail’s
corresponding website.
The diagram on the next page shows the subsequent screens of the categories that can
be accessed from the Category Menu Screen.
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4
3
5
6
7
8
175
3
Accommodation Screen

Tapping
the
“Accommodation”
button
on
the
Categories Menu screen brings the user to the
Accommodation
screen
which
shows
the
Accommodation related expenses that the user has
incurred i.e. hotel stays.

Each category screen contains details to describe the
expenses incurred and beamed by the user with “Date,
“Title”, “Total”, “Status” and an image of the receipt all
included.

To Access the image of the receipt for an expense users
must simply tap the receipt icon of the relevant expense.

Using the “Hilton Hotel” expense as an example we can
see above the image of that particular receipt.

The application has zoom functionality to enhance the
image of the receipt using pinch and spread gestures
designed for touch screen smart phones.

Each screen has actionable buttons available in the
bottom left of the screen. The “Home” button is always
present meaning that the user is never more than a click
away from the Categories Menu. The receipt image also
has actionable buttons that will bring the user back to the
previous screen ensuring easy reversal of actions.
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4
Transport Screen

Tapping the “Transport” button on the Categories Menu screen brings the
user to the Transport screen.

This screen shows the Transport related expenses incurred and beamed by the user
and relates to public transport costs such as flights, trains and taxis while also
including car rentals and fuel costs.
5
Food Screen

Tapping the “Food” button on the Categories Menu screen brings the user to the
Food screen.

This screen shows the Food related expenses incurred and beamed by the user and
relates to any appropriate restaurant bills or food and beverage items purchases by
the user.

Food items are deemed appropriate as per individual company policy. Items such
as alcohol may not be redeemable by the user. The approval/disapproval of items
takes place on the company’s accounts payable side of the EcoTrail website which is
explained in the functional specification of the EcoTrail website on page 198.
6
Miscellaneous screen

Tapping the “Miscellaneous” button on the Categories Menu screen brings the
user to the Miscellaneous screen.

This screen shows the expenses incurred and beamed by the user that do not fit
directly into the other predetermined categories.

The example that is used to illustrate the type of expenses that fit into the
miscellaneous category is “Conference Registration Fee”. This expense does not
fit into Accommodation, Transport or Food and is not an expense that would be
incurred often enough to warrant its own category.
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7
Trips Screen

This Category is a major component of the application as
it allows a user’s receipt to be automatically categorised
by business trip based on a specific date range set by the
user in advance allowing for greater efficiency in
grouping and processing expenses.

This is a feature that was suggested to us by a number of
industry experts such as Cormac Mac Carthaigh from
Google as well as users who incur expenses while
travelling on a regular basis such as Alan Smeaton.

It has been identified that current systems in place often
require back and forth communication between the
accounts payable department and user in order to
determine trip information. EcoTrail’s trip feature will
eliminated this time consuming task.

The process involved with trip categorisation begins
when an expense is incurred and the point of sale and the
receipt is beamed to the user’s phone. If the user incurs
the expense during a period where a date range for a
business trip has been set in advance the receipt
automatically files itself under the relevant trip with no
manual interaction required by the user.

If the user incurs the expense during a period where no
date range for a business trip has been created in advance
then the user is prompted with a message on screen (as
seen to the right). The user is presented with two options:
(a) Create a trip to associate the expense with
(b) Assign the expense to a category.
178
(a) Assigning the receipt to a category will bring the user to the Category Menu screen
where they can drag the expense to their desired category.
(b) If the user decides to create a new trip they will be brought to a screen that allows
them to enter their trip details including “Trip Title” and the date range of the trip.
Any expense incurred during that date range will be automatically associated with
that trip but can be reassigned easily.

Tapping the “Trips” button on the Categories Menu screen
brings the user to the Trips screen.

This screen allows the user to see what trips they have
been on as well as the expenses they have incurred and
beamed on those trips.

The user can access each trip’s expenses by tapping the trip
banner associated with the desired trip. For example,
tapping the “Client Meeting – London” banner will bring the
user to a screen depicting the related incurred and beamed
expenses (as seen on the right).

The requested trip screen includes a button that will bring
the user back to the “Trips” screen to allow for easy
reversal of actions.

The inclusion of click and drag functionality will afford
users easy transferral of expenses from trip to trip and
from category to category.
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8
All Receipts Screen

Tapping the “All Recipts” button on the Categories Menu screen brings the user to
the All Receipts screen.

This screen contains all of the receipts beamed by the user, categorising them
according to trip with unassigned receipts at the bottom of the list.

This gives the user access to all of their expenses at once and can act as a useful tool
to identify which expenses are not assigned to a trip.
Summary of Application’s Features and Functions

User friendly interface designed with heavy input from eventual users.

Automatic sync of expense information with website and database to ensure an
accurate user profile across all platforms. This facilitates the real time tracking of
expenses.

Ability to categorise expenses by trip allowing for accurate identification of
expenses in context.

Ability to categorise expense by expense type including Accommodation,
Transport, Food and Miscellaneous.

Post for reimbursement of expense at user’s request (does not have to happen
immediately).

Status of each expense in the reimbursement process colour coded for
identification at a glance. (Green – processed, Orange – Processing, Red –Query).

Users can forward email confirmation receipts to be included in the expense
management system for reimbursement.
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8.2 Design Considerations
The purpose of this section is to outline the design elements that EcoTrail have taken
into consideration when developing ecotrailreceipts smartphone application including
its layout, aesthetics, use of imagery, and usability. This section identifies the features
that EcoTrail have adopted in the application in order to improve interface usability as
well as highlighting the implementation issues encountered during the design process.
The application has been designed using MIT App Inventor Platform which is great tool
for first time app builders. Below are some screen shots of the interface of the MIT App
Inventor Platform. http://appinventor.mit.edu/
The design objective was to have an appealing and practical interface for users which
allows them to capture and categorise expense receipts in a seamless and intuitive
manner. We have justified our choice of layout, functionality and design with literature
throughout this section.
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8.2.1 Elements of Design
After conducting research into design phases and cycles the “User Centred Design” was
identified as the most relative technique to EcoTrail as having a user friendly interface
is one of the main features. Below is an outline of the technique as well as how EcoTrail
Receipts approached each phase.
1. User Requirement Analysis
Before planning the design of the application it was important to research the type of
features that EcoTrail’s target users would like to see in the application. The general
consensus of this research was that users would like an easy to learn user interface that
is laid out in an obvious manner to ensure ease of use and identification of relevant
information. Users also requested categories for expenses to be assigned to with the
ability to categorise expenses by trip a recurring request.
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2. Conceptual Design
This step involved drawing sketches of the potential screens and how they would link
together. This helped in providing the application designer with a detailed visual
description of the layout and features requested. This proved to be a successful tool in
the design of the application as the design had numerous changes to its initial design.
Below are two of the sketches involved in this stage of the process.
3. Design and Implementation
This phase involved the actual designing of the application. Using MIT App Inventor two
members of the team without any previous experience in designing applications went
about developing it. The user friendly interface of the App Inventor Platform saw the
group develop a functioning application ready for user testing. Please diagram below of
the App Inventor design interface:
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4. Usability Evaluation
This step involved a number of users from EcoTrail’s target market to sample the
application and provide feedback on the functionality of its features and interfaces. We
gathered this feedback through interviews we conducted with the users on the day and
it proved to be invaluable information. While users had mainly positive feelings towards
the application a few bugs were discovered and some minor suggestions were taken on
board allowing the team to modify the application with the user in mind.
5. Launch and Maintenance
We have yet to launch the application on the market for use as we have not developed
the business to the point where we are ready to implement the EcoTrail system. Once
EcoTrail is ready for market we will launch our application ensuring regular
maintenance on the system. Please see page 229 for EcoTrail’s proposed release
schedule for the technical deliverables.
8.2.2 Design Guidelines
When deigning the application it was also important to adhere to some general best
practices for application design. These 9 guidelines are listed below.
1. Consistency
Consistency is a key feature for our application. With a consistent design, users can
easily navigate the application with ease while consistent menus and functions
minimise the amount of time it takes to learn how to operate it. Examples of our
consistency can be seen within the “Categories Menu” (Screen1 below) and the layout of
the subsequent screens of those categories (Screen 2 below). The “Home” Key is ever
present in the bottom left corner of the screen which takes the user back to the
categories screen (Screen 1 below) which is a feature requested by users for easier
navigation.
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1
2
After conducting beta trials with potential users we came to the consensus that the
receipt list format seen above (Screen 2 above) was popular and implemented the
interface into all receipt categories. The culmination of which is the “All Receipts”
category which contains a comprehensive list of all receipts while maintaining a similar
look and feel.
The application also has consistent icons under the “Status” heading. The “Status” of the
receipt is represented by a coloured thermometer depicting the stage at which the
receipt is at in the reimbursement cycle (Screen 3 below). Users suggested the colours
Green, Orange and Red be used to identify the three possible status stages they could
represent mainly due to their association with traffic signals and what their colours
represent. Users can now identify with a glance what stage any expense is at (Green –
processed, Orange – Processing, Red –Query).
A consistent white background is used throughout the application to ensure that the
content of the application stands out and is not distorted by a loud background. This
accommodates reading efficiency for the user as per a study conducted by Snyder,
Decker, Lloyd et al (1990), the results shows that tested readers read faster when there
was dark text on a light background orientation. Furthermore, it was decided that the
number of colours used be restricted in order to allow customers to easily distinguish
content type.
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Green depicts the category that the receipt belongs too; grey depicts the title bar while
the white backgrounds depict the individual receipt information (Screen 3 below). All
buttons such as “Home” are grey so that their functionality is easily recognisable.
3
2. Simple and Natural Dialogue
We looked at the Gestalt Theory of restructuring when laying out the contents of the
application. Gestalt proposed that restructuring is an essential thinking process and that
there is a link between restructuring and search (Ohlsson 1984). This is the reason that
we grouped all receipt categories together and in a similar format. All category options
are grouped together in a list, so users can easily find them all in one place.
3. Speak the User’s Language
When deciding upon the expense categories to include in the application we conducted
research into the most common types of expenses incurred. This left us with a list of
expense types common to all business sectors. However, the name given to each
expense category varied greatly from business to business, for example, one company
called it “Accommodation” while another called it “Lodging”.
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To choose the best name for each category we surveyed a broad sample of potential
users to identify the terms they were most comfortable with from the list we had
amassed. The resulting list is our current categories screen (Screen 1) which has
received positive feedback from users.
4. Reduce user’s memory load
The consistent functionality of EcoTrail’s features reduces what the user has to
remember when using the mobile application. All of the buttons are coloured grey so
users know that clicking on the button will bring them to their desired screen. The
“Home” button (4) is present on every screen so that users are in no danger of getting
lost allowing them to experiment with the application freely. The “Receipt” icon (5) is
consistent with every expense and users know they simply need to click on the
corresponding icon to access an image of their receipt (Screen 6).
6
5. Provide informative feedback
Users can click on the thermometer that represents that particular expense claim’s
status which provides real time feedback. Clicking on the red thermometer produces
screen (7) which informs the user that there is an issue with that expense as seen
below. The user can call the number for instant feedback on the matter while the
accounts payable department investigates the issue.
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7
6. Good error messages
If a user incorrectly types their username or password then they are simply informed
that they are incorrect and asked to enter again. Also if an expense is entered without a
receipt image a “no receipt image attached” warning is displayed with the status of the
expense automatically assigned a red thermometer stating as such.
7. Prevent user-driven errors
We have tried to minimise user-driven errors by clearly naming all the screens of the
application with relevance to its content. The user is always aware of what screen they
are on as the green banner depicting this is always visible. The application will also have
a click and drag functionality that will enable users to manually assign and move
receipts to categories with ease.
8. Provide easy reversal of actions
The user is never more than a click away from the “Home” screen or the page they were
previously on. This ensures that users can focus on the task at hand rather than the
functionality of the application or the risk of becoming lost or making a mistake. With a
system that requires categorisation of its content it is vital that the receipts can be
moved with ease from category to category in order to ensure the most accurate
representation of the user’s expenses. This is the main reason for the inclusion of
EcoTrail’s click and drag functionality.
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Users will also be able to post receipts when deemed appropriate to the expense
management system ensuring that receipts are only posted to the database and expense
management process when the user wishes. Any action the user takes in the application
is easily reversible.
8.3 Usability
“In your pocket right now is the most powerful “remote control” that has ever existed. It is
no ordinary remote control. It can harness everything that all of the previous mass
media (television, radio, Internet, etc.) can do. People aren’t using them just for simple
entertainment or for phone calls. They have become the hub of our personal lives.”
(Todish, 2011)
According to Todish (2011), it is no longer about the evolving capabilities of the devices
we use but it is about how the user is changing. The user’s expectation of a great
experience is the new standard and it is up to developers to try and match these
expectations with their designs. UX Design (2011), have stressed the importance of the
first usage of the application, stating that a single failure will result in a non-returning
user, with the first 30-60 seconds of usage acting as the user’s decision point. Our
application is catered to the demographic of the population who have smart phones, the
majority of which have been touch screen enabled since 2010 (Canalys, 2010). It is
important to know what functionality these devices have as their features will
determine how its user perceives the experience of using the application. For this
reason our application is designed with touch screens in mind.
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8.3.1 Smart Phone Constraints
Smart phones have a number of constraints that need to be considered when designing
an application (UX Design, 2011). Below is a list of these constraints along with the
design strategy EcoTrail has taken to address these constraints:
Form Factor
Screen size is the characteristic that differs most from
each model of smart phone. Phone screens are a lot
smaller than PC or tablet screens and must be heavily
considered during the design phase of development.
Ribot (2011), presents the argument of Miniaturisation
vs. Mobilisation stating that “mobile is not about making
things smaller”. Instead it is about condensing what is
on screen, boiling the application down into its most
critical functions and content. It is also about laying out
these features strategically in order to maximise the
limited screen space available, for example, buttons
should go in the lower third of the screen where they
are most easily tappable. EcoTrail has adopted this
recommendation as can be seen in the diagram on the
right.
With this in mind we went about breaking the content of the application down into
small sections that flow logically from one screen to the next. The aim was to have each
screen contain as few features as possible, allowing the user to dictate exactly what they
saw on screen. Ribot (2011), states that “fewer options make for a simpler more effective
interface” and the design strives for that. This proved to be a big success as we received
positive feedback for the layout of the application during usability testing.
190
Input Methods
Input methods differ from PC to smart phones in many forms one of which are their
input mechanisms. Seeing as the majority of smart phones are now touch screens the
primary instrument of input for the user is their finger. This allows users to simply tap
buttons to activate their functions like a click of a traditional mouse would for a PC.
However, smart phones offer new features that are activated by touch screen specific
gestures. These gestures can add a sense of discovery and excitement to the user
experience. Below is a list of the most common touch screen gestures:
(UX Design, 2011)
It is important to understand that some of these gestures have developed into industry
standards that have an expected function for the user. For example, the “pinch” and
“spread” gestures are associated with controlling the zoom of the screen. Users expect
this to be the case with all touch screen devices and can become frustrated or confused
if it is not. In order to avoid this, the EcoTrail application was designed with these
features in mind. While all of the functions were not included the appropriate gestures
were assigned where possible. E.g. Buttons take one tap to perform their function while
users can zoom in on their receipt images by pinching and spreading the screen.
EcoTrail aims to include the “press” feature in the planned click and drag functionality
for the application. The aim is to keep the application utilitarian in nature as it is
focused at corporate clients who generally want to perform the task at hand quickly,
and may not necessarily have the time to learn new gestures.
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Technical Constraints
The technical limitations of the smart phone device can ruin the user experience. The
battery life of the phone is imperative as a dead phone allows for no functionality.
EcoTrail’s image capture technology will eliminate the frustration a user would have if
their phone died and they could not process the receipt as they can simply request a
traditional paper receipt and take a picture of it at a later time and upload it to their
user profile via their mobile application.
Another technical constraint is the memory of the phone itself. It would be a major
problem if customers did not have enough storage to hold their catalogue of receipts.
EcoTrail has addressed this issue with cloud and service space with Blacknight allowing
for seamless storage of user’s receipts as discussed previously.
Data Transfer and Pricing
Data transfer using mobile phone internet costs money. The transfer of large amounts of
data is not a problem for users who have a free data plan but while EcoTrail expect all
business men to have these plans due to their data intensive work lives; it is unfair to
make that assumption. For this reason we have given the user control over when and
which receipts are uploaded to EcoTrail’s expense management server. This will afford
the user the opportunity to find a free Wi-Fi zone to conduct the data transfer when
they wish. The application itself will have “Tiny Database” functionality which will allow
the user to store their receipts on their phone until they wish to process them.
Context
Due to the mobile nature of smart phones the context in which smart phones are used
varies greatly. For this reason it was important to investigate the contexts in which
EcoTrail’s target users would use the application. We identified that the application
would be used at point of sale meaning that users would be on the go and looking to
conclude their use of the application quickly as 59% of smart phone users consult their
device on the go (UX, 2011). Due to this fact the application is built for speed meaning
that it has an obvious design and streamlined functionality for receiving and
categorising receipts.
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Privacy and Security
Users are reluctant to allow applications to have access to their personal information if
they are not perceived to be secure. For this reason we have included a log in page on
the first screen of the application (as shown previously) that will only grant access to a
user with a registered log in name and password. This provides users with piece of
mind and acts as a barrier to unauthorised users. The log in screen also contains the
company’s logo so that users know exactly what they are logging in to.
Behaviours
This involves designing the application to behave in a way that the users expect which
will reduce the learning curve for operating it. This makes the user more comfortable
and encourages exploration. For this reason EcoTrail’s application is deliberately
obvious and predictable in its behaviour.
Archetypes
It is also important to design the application with specific devices in mind. This mainly
refers to the different operating systems available namely iOS and Android. Separate
applications need to be built for each system and this is what we plan to do.
EcoTrail decided to develop the application for Android first as it is the most abundant
operating system in the world with 48% market share and as such provide us with the
largest return on investment (Business Insider, 2012). However we understand that
32% of users have iOS operating system with the trends at the start of this year seeing
iPhone gaining market share. Building apps exclusively for Android alienates 32% of the
smart phone market which we feel would be a huge mistake which is why we plan to
roll out to iOS at the earliest opportunity. While only 12% of smart phone users are
Blackberry owners we are aware of the popularity of Blackberry among the business
community. For this reason we will also aim to roll out an application to the Blackberry
operating system at the earliest opportunity. Please see the diagram below to see the
latest operating system market share trends:
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(Business Insider, 2012)
9. EcoTrail Website
9.1 Functional Specification
This section gives a detailed description of how the EcoTrail Website works as well as
providing a step by step guide of how to use the user’s online profile to avail of its
expense management features.
Please find the website “ecotrailreceipts” at the following link:
http://www.ecotrailreceipts.com. The site has been developed using Adobe Dream
Weaver and Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML) coding. The website is named
“ecotrailreceipts” and is an interactive and informative site that facilitates the
purchasing of NFC transceivers and NFC tags as well as acting as the login page for our
clients digital receipts. There are also relevant external links to our associated social
media profiles such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google Plus.
The main function of the website is to providing users with a user friendly platform to
easily manage expenses through categorisation before posting them for reimbursement.
The website provides two dashboard style profiles; one for the user i.e. User Dashboard
and a corresponding profile for the expense approver i.e. Corporate Dashboard. Both
dashboards are discussed in detail below outlining the functions and features of each.
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9.1.1 User Dashboard
2
4
5
3
1
7
195
9.1.1 User Dashboard
1
User Categories
Similar to the mobile application functionality, the user profile offers the following
features:

Categorisation by trip automatically based on
date range set in advance or set at a later date

Categorisation
by
transport,
food
and
accommodation for ease of use. There is also the
option to create additional customised labels

The user has a running total of expense incurred
per trip & overall as a means of keeping within
their assigned budget (as seen on the right)

If the users Budget is exceeded, this is flagged in
the system as automatic notification
User Details
2
The user details are shown in the centre of the top header beside the EcoTrail logo. The
user details consist of:




3
The user name
Company Name
Company Department
Profile Picture
Expense Information
This consists of the information fields that will distinguish between different expenses
for the user. It consists of






Trip Name – Place & Dates (where relevant)
Date of expense
Title of expense – Example “Hilton Hotel”
Cost of expense
Status of Reimbursement
Receipt Image
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4
Approval Status
The status of each receipt in the reimbursement process is colour coded for ease of use
as detailed below:

Query (Red)

Pending (Orange)

Reimbursed (Green)
5
Receipt Image
The receipt icon gives the user the opportunity to look at their actual digitised receipt.
The Receipt Image has the following functions:

Option to add comment to receipt for unauthorised items on receipt i.e. personal
expense “do not reimburse me” (Shown)

Option to share receipt with multiple parties through email e.g. split bill at dinner –
and want to forward receipt to others who require proof of purchase for their
company

Option to highlight your purchases that
require reimbursement on a given
receipt e.g. split bill at dinner –
highlight the food you ate rather than
trying to claim reimbursement for
entire bill (Shown on right)

Unauthorised expenses (as set per
company policy) are flagged in the
system as an automatic notification
prompting the user to deduct the item
from the expense claim e.g. alcohol
(Reviewed total shown to the right)
7
Logout
This option is at the bottom of the page, easily seen and gives the user the option to
securely log out when they have finished their session.
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9.1.2 Corporate Dashboard
2
3
4
1
5
7
198
6
9.1.2 Corporate Dashboard
1
Categories
This provides the account/reimbursement manager the option to filter incoming
receipts and analyse expenditure with ease. The features include:

Search by category, namely
o Travel and Expenditure
o Search by individual employee, date last receipt submitted, or by all
employees
o Search by department
o Search by expenditure allocated to department/employee
o Most expensed employee i.e. individual who has incurred the greatest
expense this quarter/year
o Total amount spent on expenses overall by all employees i.e. allowing for
trend analysis

Summary report page (As Seen below) provides the approver with access to:
o The number of outstanding receipts by status (pending, query,
reimbursed)
o Details of unauthorised expenditure flagged in the system e.g. alcohol
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2
Company Details
The company details are shown in the centre of the top header beside the EcoTrail logo.
The user details consist of:

Company Name

Company Logo & Default Profile Picture
3
Year on Year Comparison
This consists of the information fields that will distinguish between different expenses
for the company to compare spending habits monthly and annually. As can be seen from
the example, spending increased in 2011 compared to 2010 particularly in September.
4
Employee Comparison
The expenses incurred by each employee can be viewed here as well as a comparison to
colleagues. This allows the company to monitor any excess variances per department
and employee and take action accordingly.
5
Department Analysis
Here, the spending expense status of each department can be analysed to see which is
responsible for the most expenses and reports. From the example, department C has
overspent its budget.
6
Allocation Expenditure
This report shows where expenses have been incurred and how much. This allows the
company to identify where costs can be saved. The approver can see expenses broken
down by percentage and area (accommodation, food etc).
7
All Employees
The approver also has access to view each receipt for each expense submitted by an
employee. Any unauthorised expenditure is flagged in the system e.g. alcohol and the
approver can simply choose to accept/decline a claim for reimbursement by selecting:

Yes (Green Tick)

No (Red X)
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9.2 Design Considerations
The purpose of this section is to outline the design elements that we have taken into
consideration when developing ecotrailreceipts website including the layout, aesthetics,
use of imagery, and usability. This section identifies the features that we have adopted
in the site in order to improve the search engine optimization as well as highlighting the
implementation issues encountered during the design process. The report concludes
with an evaluation of the design alternatives considered and a justification of the design
elements chosen for the final website.
The design objective was to have an appealing and practical interface for users which
brings their main expense receipt needs and services together in one website. Customer
contact and queries can be made online which allows for the easy management of
customer information as query details go directly to email. We have justified our choice
of layout, functionality and design with literature throughout this section.
9.2.1 Elements of Design
Similar to the mobile application, when designing the EcoTrail website it was important
to adhere to the design guidelines listed below.
1. Consistency
Consistency was paramount with this website and examples of our consistency can be
seen with the banner that displays the company name and logo “ecotrailreceipts”. It
appears first on the homepage and is then repeated behind each link and is stationary
as a user browses the site. After prototype testing with users, we made a change to the
colour and background as the feedback suggested.
Before:
After:
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The navigation bar was designed to be a part of the banner image so that if a user is
browsing the ‘Home’ button is always in familiar easy to reach place (centre). Similarly,
the bottom bar, displaying our social icons details stays at the bottom of all pages. An
example can be seen below.
Again, after feedback from our website trial run, users indicated that our company’s
contact details should also remain constant in our footer along with our social media
details. We then incorporated this so our telephone number and email address etc. are
always readily available.
| Address: Invent Centre, DCU, Dublin 9 | Telephone: 555-2233 | email: [email protected] |
A further subtle example which would have remained the same if not for the benefits of
prototype testing can be seen below where the font differs on the web page. “Our
Location” and “Get in touch instantly” were corrected in the second screenshot.
Before:
After:
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A consistent light grey pattered background is used throughout the website as we
wanted the content of the website to stand out and not be distorted in any way by a loud
background.
2. Simple and Natural Dialogue
Similar to the EcoTrail mobile application, the Gestalt Theory of
restructuring was considered when laying out the contents of the
website. This is the reason that we decided to create a login section on the
homepage for clients. All digital receipt options are grouped together in a
list, so users can easily find them all in one place as shown on the right.
3. Speak the User’s Language:
As a business is obviously a professional environment we have used appropriate
language to reflect this. On EcoTrail’s ‘About Us’ page we have written, “ecotrailreceipts
stores all your receipts in one secure place and provides handy tools for managing your
expense claims helping eliminate paper waste…Here at ecotrailreceipts, we make a
promise that we will provide the best service we can.”
This shows that we care about the customer and want to tailor our experience to meet
their needs. There is also an FAQ section which is a button on the navigation bar so that
it can be easily found. The FAQ section shows that we understand any doubts and
queries a customer/user may have and welcome them to contact us if they have any
further queries. A sample of questions is shown in the screen shot below:
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4. Reduce user’s memory load
In the navigation bar, we have made the company logo as well as the ecotrailreceipts
name and app icons a link to the appropriate sections. This makes it easier for a user as
they can click on either to access the external social media sites and means that they do
not have to remember the correct one to pick. In the FAQ section, a link to our “Contact
Us” page is within the text under the question about where we are located.
5. Provide informative feedback
Users always have the option to press the home button on the navigation bar if they
have been browsing on another part of the site and want to go back. When a user shares
with a friend, there is a thank you message sent. This is a form of confirmation that the
function has worked.
Thank you for sharing
ecotrailreceipts!
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6. Good error messages
If a user incorrectly types the web address they are directed to Page Not Found. It is
clear that they should try to re-enter the main URL to redirect them back to the
homepage as seen below: http://www.ecotrailreceipts.com
7. Prevent user-driven errors
We have tried to minimise user-driven errors by clearly naming all the pages of the site
with relevance to its content. For example, with the link to Products and Services
section,
the
link
becomes:
http://www.ecotrailreceipts.com/products-and-
services.html.The only thing that changes from the homepage address is “products-andservices” extension written on the end. This makes it easy for a user to remember and
they can return directly to the home page by typing in that address if they wish. All
other pages are written in the same lower case format.
8. Provide easy reversal of actions
If a user is browsing on the site, they should be comfortable knowing that they can press
the Home button on the navigation bar at any time as the bar remains in the same place
throughout the entire website. Users also have the option of pressing the back button on
their browser.
9.2.2 Competitor Website Evaluation
We took a professional approach to design looking at rival websites before constructing
our own. We could see a clear pattern when looking at competing websites. They all
clearly try to portray simplicity. We agreed that this is what our average user would
also expect with the appearance of our site. However, we also noticed some room to
separate EcoTrail in terms of usability. For example, on Shoeboxed.com the login is not
as easy to see as it should be.
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Also, on Lemon.com, the user is only given one option on the home landing page and
may be unaware of the faded background is also a clickable option.
None of our competitors offer a ‘share function’ on their sites either therefore we
implemented this as a differentiating feature from competitors.
9.2.3 Layout
Good designs provoke positive feelings of success, capability, mastery, and clarity to the
user group. The users are not hindered by the computer, and can predict what is likely
to happen when they select a particular action. When it is efficiently designed, the
interface almost disappears, which lets the user concentrate on their work
(Shneiderman & Plaisant 2010).
We aimed to have an interface that was so clear and easy to use that it would indeed
disappear into the background and users would not have the frustration of trying to
figure out how to use it. This is why the same three pronged layout is used throughout
for consistency. It is easy to follow, understand and navigate.
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The website is centre aligned as opposed to being left aligned. We feel that this is a more
professional layout and that users are immediately drawn to this style as it typical of
most sites. This was validated during our usability testing. All of EcoTrail’s content is in
one block that is centred in the middle throughout all the pages. We thought about the
shapes of the text boxes and banner and how they would best look together. We aligned
them to make clear, aesthetically pleasing shapes. A sample wireframe can be seen
below:
Logo
Image
Image
Image
Content
Content
Content
Social Links
207
9.2.4 Aesthetics
From our research and user testing, we established that online advertisements on our
website would not be a design or revenue feature considering the corporate focus of
EcoTrail product offering. User testers made a note of preferring non-invasive banner
ads as it “affected the layout and experience”. Cormac McCartaigh of Google noted
incorporating online advertisements on such a website would be a “mistake.”
As seen above, the website has a light coloured background with black text. This
accommodates reading efficiency for the user as per a study conducted by Snyder,
Decker, Lloyd et al (1990), the results shows that tested readers read faster when there
was dark text on a light background orientation.
We tried several font choices such as Times New Roman, Verdana, Calibri, Cambria and
Arial. After feedback and testing, we finalised on Quicksand Regular font as it is clear
and easily read by users and presented a professional, minimalist appearance in
accordance with the site and target users.
208
Heading 2’s are used and all have a consistent dark grey colour. These headings identify
the main topic in the paragraph to be discussed beneath it. Users can quickly scan these
Heading 2’s and see if the content is relevant to them. We are aware that customers are
focused on time and we want to give it to them the content that they are looking for
quickly.
9.2.5 Imagery
We have used images to complement the eco/technological theme of the site. The
banner bar has an image where users see the company name located to the middle. We
felt it was important to highlight the name of our company in the banner clearly as this
is the first aspect of the site a user’s attention will be directed to.
Other images used throughout the website site include the NFC tags and NFC readers
which are features required by users with Non-NFC enabled smart phones.
209
9.3 Website Page Hierarchy
210
9.4 Wireframes
Wireframes were drawn up to give an idea of the layout before design and
implementation took place.
Content Pages
Homepage
Link Link Link
Link Link Link
LOGO Link Link Link
LOGO Link Link Link
Text Content …….
Text Content …….
…………………………..
…………………………..
Text Content …….
…………………………..
Text Content …….
Login
…………………………..
Social Links
Social Links
Company Dashboard
User Dashboard
LOGO
Option
Company Info
LOGO
User Info
Employee Info Company Image
Option
Expense Info
Expense Info
Option
Option
Option
Option
Option
Option
Option
Option
Logout
Logout
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9.5 System User Testing
User testing was an effective method for finding design errors at an early stage in the
website and app design and functionality. This testing method required a target-group
of users to carry out specific tasks on the EcoTrail website and application prototype.
We worked on identifying particular areas of the user interface that presented problems
to the user, and subsequently provided design solutions eliminating these problems.
Recommended changes from our testers here did not involve reprogramming or
redesigning our whole concept. Since modifications can easily be applied in the next
design cycle, the time and cost involved will be lower as compared to having to
implement them when all functionalities are already carried out.
The user testing revolved around 3 user areas: (1) Approver (2) Corporate User and (3)
Business & Technical professionals. We felt these 3 user types would give us the
necessary testing base in order to succeed with our technical designs.
Testers:
First Derivatives
Robert Doherty
Cormac McCarthaigh
Regina Connolly
James Daly
Robert Fitzpatrick
Area:
Approver
User
Approver
User
Business/Technical
Business/Technical
Tested:
Website
App
Website
App
App/Website
App/Website
Feedback was positive with good impressions of both the prototype application and
website. The testers were made to fully explore all the features available to them. This
made sure that all hyperlinks were working fully as well as receipt imaging and fields on
trip forms etc. Users made a note of the page loading speed as being quick and easy
navigation on both the app and site.
Some recommendations included;
 No online ads on website – affect user experience and minimalist design
 Addition of coloured symbols on app on the categories menu in future to match
site (currently black & white)
 More social integration on app and site
 Incorporate video tutorial on website home page for new visitors
 Less white space and more colour (see header bar colour change)
212
10. Backend Database – MySQL
A core technical requirement for the successful establishment of EcoTrail is a backend
database that can store customer information particularly individual receipt data and
user log in information thus providing users with a seamless and secure access to their
online profile. MySQL is a popular relational database management system (RDBMS)
and is used by many of the world's largest and fastest-growing organisations including
Facebook and Google (MySQL, 2012).
10.1 Why MySQL
The primary factors taken into consideration when choosing MySQL as EcoTrail’s
backend database were as follows; Scalability, High Performance, High Availability and
Data Protection. These elements are applicable to EcoTrail and vital for the business’s
long term success in the following ways:
Scalability: This refers to the ability of the database server to accommodate changing
capacity requirements and adapt to the increasing demands as a business grows. This is
a critical component for EcoTrail as the strategy in place is to start small but scale
quickly to gain a foothold in the market. The backend system has to be able to cope with
a dramatic increase in users with no impact in service to existing customers should a
contract to use our digital receipt expense management solution be secured with a large
corporation such as IBM. According to MySQL (2012), a MySQL database server has the
capacity to handle applications with a footprint of only 1MB to running massive data
warehouses holding terabytes of information.
High Performance: This refers to the ability of the database server to provide a high
quality and high speed retrieval of data. This is a critical component for EcoTrail as its
unique selling point is primarily focused on efficiency and automation of the expense
management process. The backend system has to be able to provide a seamless retrieval
of receipt data to the EcoTrail customer in order to add value and minimise the hassle
involved with the current manual expense management solutions in place. According to
MySQL (2012), a MySQL database server can meet the most demanding performance
expectations of any system with high-speed load utilities, distinctive memory caches,
and full text indexes.
213
High Availability: This refers to the ability of the database server to provide around the
clock uptime. Providing a reliable and constantly accessible service to users is of prime
concern for EcoTrail. System downtime which prevents users from posting/managing
their digital receipts will not only impede the reimbursement process and impact the
accounts of a client corporation but also damage the reputation of EcoTrail and
potentially deter future customers from considering their Expense management
solution. According to MySQL (2012), a MySQL database server offer rock-solid
reliability and constant availability.
Data Protection: This refers to the mechanisms in place to protect data assets from
unauthorised or malicious access. Protecting the personal details of customers such as
name and credit card details as well as restricting the access to user’s digital receipt
data is a fundamental concern for EcoTrail. The privacy concerns surrounding the
EcoTrail digital receipt expense management solution and the proposed security
measures in place to alleviate such concerns are discussed in detail on page 140.
According to MySQL (2012), a MySQL database server has powerful mechanisms for
ensuring only authorized users have entry to the database server. SSH and SSL support
are also provided to ensure safe and secure connections.
10.2 Technical Specifications
The Minimus package offered by Blacknight Solutions was the most suitable for
EcoTrail’s requirements. This package included MySQL database version 5.0.83 access
and hosting as well as use of the popular PHPMyAdmin tool to ensure the effective
management of the SQL database.
10.3 Database Specification
The following diagram illustrates the key tables required in the backend database to
facilitate EcoTrail’s digital receipt expense management solution. The primary keys of
each table are identified with a gold key symbol and foreign keys are identified with a
FK in the field name. The one-to-many relationships are also highlighted in the diagram.
Each table is numbered 1-9 and is discussed in detail below the diagram:
214
Database Specification
5
2
4
1
6
7
3
8
9
215
1
Users Table
Users of the EcoTrail expense management solution will have their own personal
receipt tracking profile which requires them to have their personal information stored
in a table. The data that will be stored in the user table consists of:

Each user has a unique ID in the system to identify them. As seen in the table
structure above this field will be the primary key.

Each user will also have a corporate ID assigned to them. This indicates the
company name which they work for. The corporate ID is a foreign key in the
table and is linked in a one-to-many relationship with the corporation table.

Other personal information stored in the table includes: first name, last name,
date of birth, email, password employee number and credit card information.
2
Corporation Table
The Corporation table holds details of the company the user works for e.g. Google. The
data that will be stored in the corporation table consists of:

Each corporation has a unique corporate ID in the system to identify them.
Unique corporate ID’s will be predetermined depending on when company
becomes a client to EcoTrail. Illustration: All corporate ID’s beginning with ‘100’
belong to Google and all corporate ID’s beginning with ‘200’ belong to Accenture.
As seen in the table structure above this field will be the primary key.

The company name and address ID are also contained in this table. Address ID is
a foreign key in the table and is linked in a one-to-many relationship with the
Address table.
3
Address Table
The address table holds details of the corporations address. The data that will be stored
in the address table consists of:

Each address has a unique ID in the system to distinguish it from similar
addresses. This is the primary key in the table. Information such as address line
1, line2, postcode and country are also stored in the table.
216
4
Receipt Table
The receipt table holds the specific details about the users digital receipts collected to
date. The data that will be stored in the receipt table consists of:

Each digital receipt collected using EcoTrail is assigned a unique receipt ID to
identify it from other receipts in the system. As seen in the table structure above
this field will be the primary key.

The unique user ID from the User table is a foreign key in the Receipt table in
order to assign specific receipts to the correct user. Each user has their own
personal profile with their personal collected digital receipts displayed.

Trip ID is a unique ID which is used to assign a specific receipt to the trip on
which it was incurred. Trip ID is a foreign key in the Receipt table and linked to
the Trip table in a one-to-many relationship.

Receipt Category ID is a unique ID which assigns each receipt to the appropriate
category for easy organisation. The categories that EcoTrail has on offer include:
Accommodation, Food, Transport and Miscellaneous. Receipt Category ID is a
foreign key in the Receipt table and linked to the Receipt Category table in a oneto-many relationship.

Reimbursement Status ID is a unique ID which assigns each receipt with the
appropriate status in relation to its progress in the reimbursement cycle. There
are three status levels in the reimbursement cycle which are: Reimbursed
(green), Pending (amber) and Query (red). Reimbursement Status ID is a foreign
key in the Receipt table and linked to the Reimbursement Status table in a oneto-many relationship.

Posted to Account ID is a unique ID which assigns each receipt with the option
‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in relation to whether or not the receipt has been posted to the
account payable department for approval yet. Posted to Account ID is a foreign
key in the Receipt table and linked to the Posted to Account table in a one-tomany relationship.

Authorised Purchase ID is a unique ID which specifies if each receipt contains all
authorised or unauthorised purchases e.g. alcohol. Authorised Purchase ID is a
foreign key in the Receipt table and linked to the Authorised Purchase table in a
one-to-many relationship.
217

Other information contained in the Receipt table is the merchant name, date of
purchase, total amount of purchase and an image of the receipt as proof of
purchase.
Trip Table
5
The Trip table holds details of the trips the user has been on where they have incurred
expenses and collected digital receipts. The data that will be stored in the trip table
consists of:

As mentioned previously, Trip ID is a unique ID which is used to assign a specific
receipt to the trip on which it was incurred. This is the primary key in the Trip
table.

Other information in the Trip table includes; the date ranges of the trip i.e. from
date- to date as well as the destination of the trip e.g. Conference in Dubai.
6
Receipt Category Table
The receipt category table specifies the types of categories a receipt can be categorised
under for easy organisation. The data that will be stored in the receipt category table
consists of:

As mentioned previously, Receipt Category ID is a unique ID which assigns each
receipt to the appropriate category for easy organisation. This is the primary key
in the table.

Category
name
specifies
the
types
of
categories
Accommodation, Food, Transport and Miscellaneous.
218
on
offer
namely:
7
Reimbursement Status Table
The reimbursement status table specifies the progress of the individual digital in the
reimbursement cycle. The data that will be stored in the reimbursement status table
consists of:

As mentioned previously, Reimbursement Status ID is a unique ID which assigns
each receipt with the appropriate status in relation to its progress in the
reimbursement cycle. This is the primary key in the table.

Status name refers to status level of the receipt in the reimbursement cycle
which are: Reimbursed (green), Pending (amber) and Query (red).
8
Posted to Account Table
The posted to account table specifies whether receipt has been sent by the user for
approval by the accounts payable department and signifies the first step in the
reimbursement process. The data that will be stored in the Posted to Account Table
consists of:

As mentioned previously, Posted to Account ID is a unique ID which assigns each
receipt with the option ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in relation to whether or not the receipt has
been posted to the account payable department for approval yet.
9
Authorised Purchase Table
The authorised purchase table is used to create a flag in the system if a user makes a
expense claim for an unauthorised purchase i.e. a purchase that is outside the scope of
those deemed reimbursable by their company’s policy. The data that will be stored in
the Authorised Purchase Table consists of:

Authorised Purchase ID is a unique ID which specifies if each receipt contains all
authorised or unauthorised purchases e.g. alcohol.
219
10.4 MySQL Database Screenshots
The following screen shots illustrate the MySQL database which has been created as a
backend support system for EcoTrail. The database has been populated with dummy
data for illustrative purposes to demonstrate the type of information that is required for
the effective delivery of EcoTrail’s expense management solution. Field names as well as
the associated field types (e.g. int, varchar etc.) can be seen below.
Note: Adhering to the practicum word/page limit the two most important tables (Users
and Receipts) have been emphasised in the following screen shots. The details of the
other tables outlined above namely (corporation, address, trip, posted to account,
reimbursement status, authorised purchase and receipt category) are available on
request.
User Table (field names and field types)
User Table (populated with dummy data)
220
Receipt Table (field names and field types)
Receipt Table (populated with dummy data)
These three receipts belong to the user with the unique ID 8. Two of the receipts
(Enterprise Rent Car and Holiday Inn) belong to their Trip with the ID 214. The other
receipt (Corporate Hackney) is from their Trip with the ID 110.
The final receipt “Rays Liquor Store” highlighted in the red box belongs to the user with
the unique ID 3. This has been flagged in the system as an unauthorised expense
because the keyword “Liquor” was extracted from the receipt which refers to alcohol an unauthorised expense for reimbursement.
221
10.5 Back-End and Front-End Interaction: PHP
In order for the EcoTrail website and EcoTrail mobile application to work effectively,
the seamless retrieval of user receipt data from the backend database is imperative.
PHP: Hypertext Pre-processor is a server-side scripting language which is used to
communicate between a backend MySQL database and Website front end. According to
W3 Schools (2012), PHP is the most suitable language to facilitate this communication
because it has the ability to run on different platforms (e.g. Windows, Linux & Unix), it is
compatible with almost all servers (e.g. Apache, IIS), it is free to download and it runs
efficiently on the server side.
The following is a sample of the PHP code that would be required to allow an EcoTrail
customer to log-in to their personal online digital receipt profile using their email
address and password via the website. The email address and password would be
validated by checking if the correct match was stored in the backend MySQL database.
222
The following is a sample of the PHP code that would be required to retrieve the user’s
personal receipt data (e.g. date of purchase, merchant name, total amount and receipt
image proof) from the backend MySQL database and display it on the user’s online
digital receipt profile:
This section of the code displays to the user the receipt ID, merchant name, data of
purchase, total amount and proof of purchase with a receipt image.
223
A screen shot of a sample user profile from the website can be seen below:
Although the PHP code outlined above will successfully allow an EcoTrail user to log in
to their online digital receipt profile and retrieve their personal receipt data with ease,
the complexity of the PHP code that is required to perform additional actions such as
filtering the retrieved data by trip and flagging unauthorised expenditure in the system
is beyond the programming ability of the team members who all come from a business
background. For this reason, the PHP coding and software development of the EcoTrail
system will be completed by the software developer hired by EcoTrail who has the
necessary technical expertise to produce the system to a high standard. The cost of this
has been factored into the price quote received from the chosen software development
to produce the EcoTrail System.
224
10.6 Database Testing
The following elements were considered in order to test the functionality of the MySQL
database and ensure that it was running as intended. There are two types of errors that
may occur in a database namely;

Data Integrity: Missing or invalid data in a table.

Output Error: Errors that occur in writing, editing or reading data in the tables.
Output errors were the prime concern in this case rather than the integrity of the data
itself. Time was taken at the final stage of development to verify that the database was
retrieving the correct information as requested. No errors were discovered.
11. Technical Diary
The following diagram highlights the key milestones in the progress of the technical
deliverables required for EcoTrail’s digital receipt corporate expense management
solution. A detailed explanation of each key milestone can be seen below in the technical
diary.
225
Decision on the Technical Deliverables: 20th -31st March 2012
The first step in fulfilling the technical requirements of the Practicum was to decide on
what technical deliverables the team were capable of building. As all team members
were from a business or marketing undergraduate background the skills we had at our
disposal were those solely developed as part of the MECB curriculum. The basic
technical requirements that we identified for the EcoTrail digital receipt corporate
expense management solution were as follows; Fully functioning website interface,
Mobile application suitable for the Android, iOS, and Blackberry platform, MySQL
database to store customer details, Suitable software package to transmit a digital
version of a receipt at the point of sale to a smart phone using NFC technology.
Given the time constraints of the Practicum we prioritised our time to complete the
most critical technical components and chose to develop an Android Mobile Application,
Website and MySQL database as the technical deliverables for EcoTrail. We felt it would
be important to have such components developed to show how the proposed EcoTrail
system would work when securing funding. In terms of the software development
needed to transmit a digital version of a receipt at the point of sale to a smart phone
using NFC technology, given the team’s business background and basic java
programming skills we felt it would be beneficial to outsource this aspect of the
business to ensure a high standard.
Research: 1st April – 31st May 2012
Research was a core aspect throughout the Practicum process particularly concerning
the technical components as this was the area we as a team were most unfamiliar with.
Detailed research was conducted into Near Field Communication Technology - its
strengths and weaknesses as well as its alternatives such as Bluetooth and Wifi.
Additional research was conducted into the hosting requirements for EcoTrail which
involved a domain name and database server space hosting. Companies considered
were Hosting Ireland, Lets Host.ie and Blacknight Solutions. After careful evaluation of
the service offerings of each of the companies listed above in terms of cost, data
transfer, domain name availability, security features and additional support we chose
Blacknight Solutions.
226
The Blacknight Minimus package fulfilled the requirements for EcoTrail as a Small to
Medium sized business and in terms of having the option to acquire additional server
space in line with the growth of EcoTrail to accommodate the expanding client base in
the future.
Wireframe Development: 1st -15th June 2012
Wireframes were created as a first stage in the website and mobile application
development. It was used as a way to establish the basic structure of a page before
visual design and used to lay out content and functionality on a page taking into account
user needs (Experience Solutions, 2012).
This was particularly beneficial to the Practicum team as it provided a common visual
understanding for all team members of a particular EcoTrail web/mobile app
page/screen early in the project so that modifications could be made and agreed upon
before the coding.
Android Mobile Application Development: 31st May – 20th July 2012
After successfully creating the wireframes as a starting point, the app development
began. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology App Inventor tool was used to create
the Android App prototype. After attending the MIT App inventor workshop hosted by
Colm Bennett in May 2012, the team were adequately prepared to undertake the
challenge of coupling the java programming skills developed during semester one with
the logical thinking and app building experience gained during the workshop to develop
a working mobile application prototype.
The limited functionality of the MIT app inventor tool restricted the progress of the app
development as it is primarily an educational tool. At first it seemed that only one
screen was able to be created for the app which was a major obstacle for the EcoTrail
Application as it required multiple screens e.g. log-in, receipt categories, receipt images
and so on. This issue was overcome through online research and tutorials which
showed that multiple screens could stem from a single screen by making element visible
and invisible to the user as required.
227
Despite the minor criticisms outlined above, a skeleton application for EcoTrail was still
produced as a prototype by the end of July which highlights the planned functionality of
the EcoTrail mobile app solution.
Website Development 15th June – 15th July 2012
The website was developed concurrently with the Android mobile application so that
the features were compatible and provided the same solution to customers in terms of
their expense management needs. Adobe Dreamweaver was the tool used to develop
the website. Careful consideration was made with the design to ensure a user friendly
interface in order to differentiate EcoTrail from competitors such as Concur and CORE
who from our research have a poor interface which inhibits the user’s experience.
According to Cormac Mac Cathaigh from Google, the user experience is paramount;
therefore we strictly adhered to the design principles outlined by Schneiderman (2010)
when developing our website.
MySQL Database Development 1st July – 29th July 2012
Using a MySQL database to support the backend of EcoTrail in particular the customer
details was advised by our technical supervisor Brian Stone and so the team took on the
challenge of developing a MySQL database for the purpose of the practicum. A number
of challenges were encountered in the process including the complex user interface of
PHPMyAdmin making it difficult to relate the tables and the team’s lack of experience
with PHP which is the required programming language for a MySQL database to
communicate with a website. A large volume of MySQL online tutorials from the New
Boston were referred to as an attempt to conquer the PHP aspect of the task, however
the complexity of the language inhibited progress. Nevertheless, despite such obstacles
the MySQL database was developed and populated with dummy data in order to
represent potential EcoTrail customers and their receipts.
228
Testing and Modifications 20th July – 13th August 2012
The website and mobile application were completed on schedule at the end of July to
have a period of testing conducted in the market to obtain user feedback and
accommodate changes before the final prototype stage. Both the website and mobile
application were tested in the market with Global Expense Management Operations
Manager Cormac Mac Carthaigh from Google, Robert Doherty from AIB Merchant
Services and Catriona Hayes Technical Consultant for First Derivatives. The response
from the market was extremely positive with only minor suggestions in terms of layout
brought to our attention.
12. Technical Deliverable Timeline
The following table outlines the proposed timeline for the technical deliverables for
EcoTrail’s Market launch in 2015. Proposed start date, duration (days) and End date is
provided. Note: All dates are estimations and based on the recommendation from Tony
Murphy – Software Development consultant at Cellusys.
A Gantt chart is also displayed below illustrating the activities in sequence and the areas
which they overlap.
229
Technical Deliverable Gantt Chart
230
Section C
Appendices
231
Appendix: Table of Contents
1. Full List of people contacted for Practicum……………………………………………………233
2. Industry Experts Contacted…………………………………………………………………………….234
3. Additional Interviews Conducted……………………………………………………………………240
4. Potential future customers………………………………………………………………………………244
5. Qualitative Research Approach……………………………………………………………………….245
6. Quantitative Research Approach……………………………………………………………………..246
7. Questionnaire…………………………………………………………………………………………………..249
8. Questionnaire Market Research Findings……………………………………………………….252
9. Pricing Brochure……………………………………………………………………………………………...258
10. Supplier Quotes……………………………………………………………………………………………..259
Financials Accounts
11. Best Case Income Statement………………………………………………………………………….263
12. Best Case Balance Sheet…………………………………………………………………………………264
13. Best Case Cash Flow Statement……………………………………………………………………...265
14. Worst Case Income Statement……………………………………………………………………….266
15. Worst Case Balance Sheet………………………………………………………………………………267
16. Worst Case Cash Flow Statement…………………………………………………………………...268
17. Cost of Sales……………………………………………………………………………………………………269
18. Selling and General administration……………………………………………………………….269
19. Blacknight Hosting Package for EcoTrail………………………..……………………………..270
20. Hosted Based Solution Providers…………………………………………………………………..271
21. TNS Hosted Based Solution Provider Interaction………………………………………….272
22. Practicum Advisor Interaction………………………………………………………………………273
23. Team Interaction……………………………………………………………………………………………278
24. EcoTrail Business Cards………………………………………………..……………………………….284
232
Appendix 1: Full List of Contacts for Practicum
Contact
Role
Cormac McCarthy
Google: Global Expense Chief Operating Officer
Contact Type
Industry Expert
Brendan Gillen
DCU: Head of DCU Finance Office
Industry Expert
Robert Doherty
AIBMS: Expense Reimbursement Processor
Industry Expert
Enterprise Ireland
EI: Development Advisors & Client Service
Industry Expert
Alan Smeaton
DCU: Travelling Lecturer
Future customer
Gerry Conyngham
DCU: Quantitative Research Advisor
Research Advice
Teresa Hogan
DCU: Entrepreneurship Advisor
Business Advice
Claus Pahl
DCU: Middleware and Cloud Advisor
Technical Advice
Paddy Power
Market Research
Beta testing potential
Ebay
Market Research
Beta testing potential
Accenture
Targeted with Questionnaire
Future customer
First Derivatives
Targeted with Questionnaire
Future customer
AWAS
Targeted with Questionnaire
Future customer
Linked In
Targeted with Questionnaire
Future customer
DCU Lecturers
Targeted with Questionnaire
Future customer
Catriona Hayes
First Derivatives Consultant Interview
Future Customer
Tiffany Lai
Advanced System Ltd: NFC Reader Inquiry
Future Supplier
Tony Murphy
Cellusys: Software Developer
Software Advisor
Bharat Sharma
Monsoon Consulting: Software Developer
Software Advisor
Nishtha Singh
Tatsoft: Software Developer
Software Advisor
Blacknight
Hosting and Domain Name Requirements
Hosting provider
Commidea
Hosted Based Solutions
Hosting provider
ServeBase
Hosted Based Solutions
Hosting provider
Integral
Hosted Based Solutions
Hosting provider
DataCash
Hosted Based Solutions
Hosting provider
TNS
Hosted Based Solutions
Hosting provider
Anthony McKenna
Local Manager for Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Third Party Partner
Raymond Byrne
Manager at Jury’s Hotel (Parnell Street)
Third Party Partner
Donna Brown
Tesco Clearwater Petrol Station
Third Party Partner
Declan Meagher
Guest Service Manager Carlton Dublin Airport
Third Party Partner
Philip Greene
Bank of Ireland
Financial Advisor
233
Appendix 2: Industry Experts Contacted
Contact
Role
Cormac Mac Carthaigh
Global Expense Chief Operating Officer (Google)
The meeting with Cormac Mc Carthy was extremely beneficial and gave us great insight
into the expense management process that the Finance Department at Google incur
each day as well as an overview of how Concur works within the company. According to
Cormac Google’s dream idea of an expense management system is a no touch, accurate
system with a very effective workflow. We received an overall positive response from
Cormac about EcoTrail. The following points highlight the key findings from the
meeting:

Cormac informed us of what Google would look for in a potential tender such as
EcoTrail. He suggested the following:
roadmap
security
operations
Scalability
roadmap
for the next
5 years
Willingness
to invest
 A roadmap towards the perfect trip – touch at travel and it flushes through the
system to reimbursement
 Talk about the security operations – Google dont want their data dumped out in
the market
 Willingness to invest and acquire
 Have a roadmap for the next 5 years i.e. will EcoTrail be around in 5 years
 Scalability – will it deal with large volumes e.g Google went from 16k employees
to 32k since they started using Concur’s system
234
We learned that a tender process was used by Google to decide on Concur as an expense
management solution. Prior to Concur they used Oracle (paper based system). The Retender process occurs every year. This gave us insight into how to approach the various
large companies.
Data to use towards projecting sales:
In Google there are 30-40k active travellers i.e. there are 450 million expense lines with
34,000 expense reports per month. This is why scalability in EcoTrail is so important.
We need to deal with the increase in customers each year by having the correct server
in place
Legal Issues
“Ideally we want everything Digital” – Google are willing to take the penalty of having
everything digital in countries where paper receipts are the norm. According to Cormac
auditors prefer digital copies of receipts as it is more efficient for them to process.The
most valuable insight we gained was the fact that there is a different stance in countries
regarding digital receipts. In Ireland, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and
Singapore softcopy Digital receipts are accepted for VAT purposes, however in Germany
and Japan a hard copy is required. e.g. a paper copy must be sent to processing centre
which impacts cycle time.
How we should sell the product?
Cormanc proposed a possible strategy for us to pursue when approaching potential
companies. Use a Venn diagram to show what companies use what hotels, taxi, car
rental, restaurants. Look for the overlap and offer NFC digital receipts there. This will
allow companies to gain trust in the product. Cormac suggested this partnership model
to find out where the volume of employees travel and offer digital receipts there.
235
How Google manage their expense system
Employees must submit receipts within 30 days of expense. If not, employees get an
email reminding them to. If this is still not done within 60 days this is a sign of gross
negligence and their card will be cancelled and the individual subject to a personal audit
of their expenses. At the moment reimbursement takes place after 4 days with a soft
copy and 12 days with a hard copy. Approval process: 1 day with manager, 2 days with
processing team, 2 days with payment team
Experience with Concur
Cormac rated Concur 3/5 due to the faults in the user interface and the fact that Concur
are slow to change and adapt to fit Google needs. Google went to them with 10 things
they wanted, but they have not changed them yet. “nothing is every good” mentality in
Google – Google always pushes the boundaries. Features missing include: It does not
allow the account payable department to monitor a certain segment of employees,
Google wanted to monitor certain employees that have had discrepancies in the past.”I
want to look at 10% of this group of people”. EcoTrail has adopted this feature for this
reason.
Contact
Role
Brendan Gillen
Head of DCU Finance Office
In order to gain insight into the expense management system in place in DCU from an
administrative point of view the team met with Brendan Gillen from the DCU Finance
Office. During this meeting the team asked Brendan a number of questions about the
current system in place regarding its best features and its limitations. The team also
pitched the Ecotrail Expense Management system to Brendan to gain some feedback
from an industry expert. The following are the main points from the meeting:

The current system in place in DCU is the Core Expense Management System. The
system has been in place for 5 Years and was chosen as it was an upgrade option
offered by the more basic Core system they had in place previously. During that
period DCU had one full time employee working 9-5 Monday to Friday to process
expenses. Now they have an employee working 1.5 days a week ensuring the
system works properly.
236

DCU uses Agresso as the finance system along with UCC and NUIG. Core Expense is
compatible with Agresso which is important. EcoTrail took on board this
information and looked at how the system could be integrated with the finance
systems of companies. We discovered that this can be achieved through
middleware.

Brendan gave us a demonstration of how the expense claiming process works.
Expense reports must be filed manually by claimers who must include all physical
receipts in the report. These reports must be checked manually by staff and
physically filed away for reference in future audits. Receipts are stored for 2 years
in DCU and then externally for between 7 and 15 years as per EU Grant Legislation.

Brendan was very receptive to our idea and expressed his desire for a more
automated system. While he feels that Core Expense is a 3/5 overall it does require
a good deal of labour on the part of the claimer and auditor which he would like to
see minimised.

Strengths of Core include having a status of reimbursement for each expense, only
needing to input data once, provides a more accurate claiming system than DCU had
previously.

Suggested areas of focus by Brendan for Ecotrail include ensuring it is compatible
with companies finance and payroll systems, system should allow drill down into
the detail of each transaction and resistance to change by claimers will act as an
obstacle to the adoption of the system.
237
Contact
Role
Robert Doherty
AIB Merchant Services: NFC & Expense Processing
Robert Doherty works for AIB Merchant Services and was kind enough to take the time
to talk to the group about our concept and how he could be of help. He also provided
two colleagues from the finance department to also be at hand for discussion. The
following are the key points from the meeting

Talked about Concur implementation in AIB, the timeline, training and the
advantages and disadvantages of it

Discussed the current process of receipt digitization and highlighted it was still a
very manual process which was a stopgap solution

He opened up a possible new expense idea in the future by highlighting Mileage
as one of the biggest expenses and is manual, no receipt for it, which companies
have yet to figure a solution for.

Great insight into NFC development and timeline. How it has moved forward and
what to expect in the future.

Advised us further on the focus for corporate clients insisting revenue options for
the general consumer at this point and time would be minimal

Informed us on the development of PoS terminals and how they have become
essentially a mini computer.

This was essential line of opening to the group to figure out the hosting aspect of
EcoTrail in order to put the software on potentially every hosted PoS

Provided us with a list of PoS manufacturers which he felt would be worthwhile
to the group to follow up on

Robbie proposed the idea of hosting EcoTrails software application externally to
the point of sale terminal using hosted based solution providers such as
ServeBase. He provided a detailed list of service providers for us to follow up
with.

He shed light on receipt compliance – i.e. an itemised receipt which would have
to have currency on it, vat number, merchant name and address and how the
transaction happened, cash, chip and pin etc.
238
Contact
Role
Enterprise Ireland Representatives
Client Service, Grants Payable, Development Advisor
Enterprise Ireland proved to be helpful and cooperative in whichever area they could
for our EcoTrail concept. We spoke to several people within the organisation, namely;
Sarah Kelch (Client Service Unit), Theresa Ormsby (Grants Payable), Alistair Doyle
(Finance) and Tom Kennedy (Development Advisor). Each department shed light on
numerous issues for us.

An in-depth discussion of what EI did for the country and efforts to help rebuild
the economy through exporting and supporting hi-tech potential start-ups such
as EcoTrail

We were made aware of the various grants available to hi-tech start-ups, the
eligibility criteria and general start-up advice

How to process a grant claim in quickest manner

What EI look for in a new start up (Readiness to export) and how EcoTrail can
realistically meet those goals

Current system they use for expense management (Oracle) and how it worked

Feedback on the system, advantages and disadvantages

The reimbursement policy and terms and conditions of expense reporting for EI
employees, how long after the report they pay

Provided us with some competitor analysis and case studies of similar start-ups
entering foreign markets for us to compare ourselves

Advised us to look at other information sources such as Forfas and market
reports if we could get them (Forrester, Frost & Sullivan etc).
239
Appendix 3: Additional Interviews Conducted
Contact
Role
Dr Alan Smeaton
Lecturer DCU School of Computing
We met with Alan Smeaton to question him on his use of the expense management
system at DCU (CORE) and to get his insights on our business model. In this meeting we
wanted to familiarise ourselves of the process that business people such as Alan go
through on their multiple travels every year.

Firstly Alan went through his expenses incurred already this month.
They mainly consisted of the standard expenses which EcoTrail had previously
identified however subscription to Tripit Pro, Visa surcharges, work permits and
registration at various conference events stood out as possible areas for attention
due to the POP.

Similarly to Cormac, Alan sees the future of expense management to be concerned
with one touch. Having receipts being allocated by Trip automatically was a
proposed feature by Alan which EcoTrail have adopted.

Alan suggested the best way for us to sell the product is that we need to convince
the finance department and the employee’s that this is the best system to use.
Targeting Finance department: emphasize the greater efficiency and Easier to
organise expense
Targeting Sales people: emphasize the reduced paperwork i.e. eliminate that
end of month pile of receipts on your desk.

Views with the current expense system in DCU?
Alans opinion on the CORE expense system in DCU is negative: e.g. User interface is
bad – - especially a new user would have no idea how to use core expense and the
restrictions in place that prevent users from entering expense from home.
240

What he looks for in a practicum?
Proof of team interaction, evidence of progress and where the team is in the process
to bringing the product to market, honesty in terms of the teams technical ability.
Contact
Role
Gerry Conyngham
Quantitative Research lecturer DCU
The team met with Gerry Conyngham to have our questionnaire reviewed before
sending it out in the market. Gerry has industry experience developing survey
methodologies, designing questionnaires and analysing quantitative data for
organisations in the public and private sector. For this reason we felt it was important
for us to get his expertise to ensure our questionnaire was of a high standard.
Gerry reviewed the questionnaire and suggested the following changes:
1. Provide a description of the idea at the start of the questionnaire to set the scene for
the candidate
2. Use a rating scale to determine a candidates level of comfort using a mobile phone
as an expense management tool
3. Provide options for questions rather than leaving an empty box for the user to fill
e.g. how many days does it take for receipts to be reimbursed (1-2days, 2-3days, 3-4
days, 5-7 days, 10+ days)
The team took these recommendations onboard and received a high response rate from
candidates as a result.
241
Contact
Role
Teresa Hogan
Lecturer DCU Business School
As part of MECB, the team completed a module in semester 2 called Innovation and high
Technology Entrepreneurship which is similar to the practicum process in terms of the
end deliverable i.e. a business plan and presentation.
Our team performed very well in the module (73% overall), however, we contacted
Teresa in order to find out where we lost marks and gain feedback as to where we could
make additional improvements for the practicum.
We obtained a detailed breakdown of the marks awarded for each section namely;




Business model
Technology
Market Analysis
Finance
Upon review of the feedback we adapted our approach to the practicum in order to
improve our chances of achieving a good mark as an end result. The steps we took
included; backing up the EcoTrail business model with statistics obtained during our
market research and expanding the technology section to include a skeleton prototype
of the EcoTrail System by August.
242
Contact
Role
Dr Claus Pahl
Senior Lecturer DCU School of Computing
We learned through our market research with Brendan Gillen about the importance of
our EcoTrail system integrating smoothly into the current finance systems used by the
companies that we approach e.g. Agresso. In order to investigate this matter further we
contacted Claus Pahl in order to gain his industry experience into the most appropriate
middleware required to ensure this seamless integration.
We learned that there are 2 core types of middleware that EcoTrail should consider
namely; CORBA and Microsfot.Net. Claus also informed us that XML is language used to
communicate between middleware platforms. This insight better equipped the team to
discuss the possibility of middleware with software developers, an area that had
previously not been addressed.
Furthermore, Claus recommended that as EcoTrail expands (UK & USA market) the
company should consider moving to cloud computing storage as this is the most cost
effective solution. Considering Claus’s role as director of the CLOUDCORE research
centre we took this advice and revised our hosting plan to include cloud hosting in year
3.
243
Appendix 4: Potential Future Customers
Paddy Power Interaction
Ebay Interaction
244
Appendix 5: Qualitative Research Approach
EcoTrail conducted a number of in depth interviews as part of the market research. The
management team agreed that conducting in-depth interviews would be a logical and
insightful method in our concept research.
Approach
The team decided to take a “non-probability” approach to selecting the sample
respondents for interviews. The team identified “convenience sampling” as the most
appropriate approach because it was deemed to yield the highest response rate from
potential participants.
A list of all possible interviewees were identified and contacted via phone/e-mail in
order to arrange a possible interview. During the initial e-mail/phone call, the potential
interviewee was informed of the following:
o The background to the EcoTrail concept, research and their role in potentially
participating in an interview.
o Members of the management team could travel to their premises to conduct the
interview at whatever time was most convenient for them.
o The management team assured the individual that all information provided by
them during the interview would be held in the strictest confidence and would
not be made available to any third party.
o The management team would provide the participant, if they so wished with a
copy of the findings from our market research.
This approach ensured that the qualitative interviews were arranged and undertaken in
an ethical manner at all times. The EcoTrail team used the Dublin City University
guidelines on research ethics at all times as the basis for their research approach.
245
Appendix 6: Quantitative Research Approach
Methodology
The EcoTrail team had identified the target market of expense users, enterprises that
operated in the Republic of Ireland and had an expense management system or process
in place. The team used a rational approach of sampling this target market. According to
Blumberg et al (2005, p202) the term sampling is “selecting some of the elements of the
population, thus attaining conclusions of the entire population.”
As with the qualitative research, convenience non-probability sampling was the specific
approach used. The management team agreed that due to their pool of business &
personal contacts and the timescale involved that convenience sampling would be the
most appropriate option. According to Bryman and Bell (2007, p197) “a convenience
sample is one that is simply available to the researcher by virtue of its accessibility.”
Questionnaire Design
Malhotra’s Ten Step Questionnaire Design Process was used to ensure the questionnaire
used by EcoTrail was of a high standard (Malhotra, 3rd Edition, page 331).
Step 1 Specify the information needed
EcoTrail needed to take into consideration our research objectives when constructing
our questionnaire to ensure all necessary questions were asked.
1. Identify the characteristics of the current expense management system within the
industry and relevant organisation.
2. Identify any perceived issues or limitations that existed with their expense
management process.
3. Identify attitudes towards using a expense management system such as EcoTrail and
their perceived willingness to adopt such a system.
4. Identify the level of understanding of mobile use by employees as a tool in expense
management.
246
Step 2 Specify the type of interviewing method
EcoTrail decided that a questionnaire sent via email was the best way to target
corporate clients due to busy nature of their work. Therefore, due to the lack of personal
involvement between researcher and respondent, questions were worded simply and
detailed instructions were provided.
Step 3 Determine the content of each question
Only questions that were relevant and directly addressed our research problem were
included in our survey. EcoTrail limited the questionnaire to 11 questions as we felt a
questionnaire any longer than that would discourage respondents.
Step 4 Design questions to overcome the respondent’s unwillingness to answer
In order to encourage the respondent to complete our questionnaire to the best of their
ability we ensured that all questions were either multiple choice or dichotomous. We
felt that this convenience would appeal to corporate users and ultimately result in a
greater response rate.
Step 5 Decide on question structure
We limited the number of open ended questions in order to ensure comparisons
between respondents could be made with ease. In addition to this, as we would be
analysing the data collected using SPSS we felt it was important to provide respondents
with possible answers to aid in the coding process.
Step 6 Determine the question wording
As travelling business men were the target audience of our questionnaire we felt it was
important to use simple and unambiguous words in order to avoid frustration. In
addition to this we felt it was important to eliminate any leading or double barrelled
question to avoid bias or confusion.
Step 7 Arrange the questions in proper order
Questions were arranged in a logical order, starting with the easiest question first – “Do
you incur expense as part of your job?” The survey addressed questions about current
expense management solutions in place and moved on to Ecotrails product offering.
247
Step 8 Choose the form and layout
As our questionnaire was self-administered, the layout was extremely important. We
numbered each question and ensured adequate space was left between each question.
Step 9 Reproduce the survey
We made sure our questionnaire looked as professional as possible in order to
encourage respondents to take the time to complete it.
Step 10 Pre-Test
The questionnaire was tested by sending it to a sample group of travelling business men
to ensure it was working correctly and to detect any issues. Any problems were rectified
before sending the survey to our target market.
248
Appendix 7: Questionnaire
The following questionnaire was completed by 54 respondents who all incur business
expenses as part of their job. The respondents were from a diverse range of industries
as follows: Accenture, First Derivatives, Dublin City University Lecturers, Google, Ebay
and AWAS. The findings from the questionnaire can be viewed in Appendix 8
“As part of our Masters Practicum we have decided to assess the commercial potential of a
digital receipt expense management system that companies can use to process expenses
incurred by staff on work duties more efficiently. By providing a web based and mobile app
solution we intend to solve the problem that employees at all levels have - collecting and
filing their paper receipts manually. The proposed solution known as - “EcoTrail” will
allow an employee to capture a digital version of a receipt at the point of sale using their
smart phone and submit it for reimbursement approval immediately, therefore negating
the collection of all those receipts. Many thanks once again for filling taking part in this
survey and helping us with our project.”
1. Do you incur expenses as part of your job? *

Yes

No
2. Please select the areas that you claim expenses while on business *

Hotels

Restaurants

Public Transport

Flights

Car Rental

Airport Purchases

Taxi

Other:
3. On average, how much do you spend on expenses per month? *
4. What system does the company you work for use for managing travel and expenses of
employees? *
249
5. Does this system require you to submit original or copies of paper receipts as proof of
purchase? *

Yes

No
6. If so, when do you submit the receipts for approval? *

the same day the expense is incurred

at the end of the week the expense is incurred

at the end of the month the expense is incurred

when the business trip/reason for expense e.g. entertaining a client is complete

Other:
7. How long does it take for you to be reimbursed after submitting receipts for
expenses? *

1-2 days

2-3 days

3-4days

5-7days

7-10 days

>10days

Other:
8 How would you rate the current expense management system in place? Rate 1-5 (1
being poor – 5 being excellent) *
1
2
3
4
Poor
5
Excellent
9. Which is the most important element for you when using an expense management
system? *

Efficiency

Usability

Accuracy

Level of Paperwork

Other:
250
10. How comfortable are you with using a mobile phone as an expense management
tool? Please rate on a scale of 1 – 5 (1 being not comfortable and 5 being very
comfortable) *
1
Not comfortable
2
3
4
5
Very Comfortable
11. What potential flaws do you see with the proposed system? *
Submit
251
Appendix 8: Primary Market Research Findings
What areas do you incurr expenses while on
business?
50
45
40
35
30
No. of
25
respondents
20
15
10
5
0
The above graph shows that:
22 out of 54 (41%) of respondents claim expenses on Car Rental
34 out of 54 (63%) of respondents claim expenses on Hotels
47 out of 54 (87%) of respondents claim expenses on Food
#1 most common
44 out of 54 (81%) of respondents claim expenses on Transport
#2 most common
31 out of 54 (57%) of respondents claim expenses on Flights
15 out of 54 (27%) of respondents claim expenses on Airport Purchases
37 out of 54 (68%) of respondents claim expenses on Taxi
#3 most common
10 out of 54 (18%) of respondents claim expenses on ‘Other’
Of the 10 respondents that selected ‘Other’:
7 specified parking and petrol as additional expenses
2 referred to conference subscription fees and 2 referred to client entertainment.
252
How much do you spend on expenses per
month?
6%
26%
€0-€100
22%
€101-€350
€351-€750
€750-€1500
24%
> €1500
22%
Based on the 54 respondents the overall average monthly spend on expenses was €654.
The above pie chart shows the breakdown expenditure with:
14 out of 54 respondents (26%) spending €0-€100 per month on expenses
12 out of 54 respondents (22%) spending €101-€350 per month on expenses
13 out of 54 respondents (24%) spending €351-€750 per month on expenses
12 out of 54 respondents (22%) spending €751-€1500 per month on expenses
3 out of 54 respondents (6%) spending greater than €1500 per month on expenses
When do you submit receipts for approval?
30
25
20
No. of
15
Respondents
10
5
0
end of month end of week
expense is
expense is
incurred
incurred
253
same day
expense is
incurred
trip is
complete
other
The above bar chart shows how often respondents submit receipts for approval:
26 out of 54 respondents (48%) submit receipts at the end of the month the expense is
incurred. #1 most common
6 out of 54 respondents (11%) submit receipts at the end of the week the expense is
incurred
1 out of 54 respondents (2%) submit receipts the same day the expense in incurred
12 out of 54 respondents (22%) submit receipts when the trip is completed. #2 most
common
9 out of 54 respondents (17%) selected ‘other’ with the majority specifying ad-hoc/
whenever they have the time to submit the receipts. #3 most common
How long does it take to get reimbursed for
expences?
18
16
14
12
10
No. of
Respondents 8
6
4
2
0
1 - 2 days 2 - 3 days 3 - 4 days 5 - 7 days 7 - 10 days > 10 days
other
The above line chart shows the length of time it takes to be reimbursed:
4 out of 54 respondents (7%) said that it takes 1-2 days to be reimbursed for expenses
6 out of 54 respondents (11%) said that it takes 2-3 days to be reimbursed for expenses
7 out of 54 respondents (13%) said that it takes 3-4 days to be reimbursed for expenses
17 out of 54 respondents (31%) said that it takes 5-7days to be reimbursed for expense
5 out of 54 respondents (9%) said that it takes 7-10 days to be reimbursed for expenses
7 out of 54 respondents (13%) said that it takes >10 days to be reimbursed for expenses
8 out of 54 respondents (15%) selected ‘other’ and the majority specified that expenses
are reimbursed monthly.
254
What would you rate out of 5 the current
expense system in place?
5
4
Rating out of 5 3
2
1
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
No. of respondents
The above bar chart shows the rating of the current expense management systems in
place out of 5.
1 out of 54 respondents (1%) rated the current system as 1 out of 5
7 out of 54 respondents (13%) rated the current system as 2 out of 5
25 out of 54 respondents (46%) rated the current system as 3 out of 5
17 out of 54 respondents (31%) rated the current system as 4 out of 5
4 out of 54 respondents (7%) rated the current system as 1 out of 5
What is the most important element when
using an expense managment system?
25
20
15
No. of Respondents
10
5
0
Usability
Efficiency
255
Paperwork
Accuracy
Other
The above chart shows the most important element in an expense management system:
8 out of 54 respondents (15%) said usability was the most important element for an
expense management system
24 out of 54 respondents (44%) said efficiency was the most important element for an
expense management system
11 out of 54 respondents (20%) said paperwork was the most important element for an
expense management system
9 out of 54 respondents (17%) said Accuracy was the most important element for an
expense management system
2 out of 54 respondents (4%) selected ‘other’ and specified that convenience was the
most important element for an expense management system
What would you rate out of 5 your level of
comfort using a smartphone as an expense
managment tool?
30
25
20
No. of respondents 15
10
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
Rating out of 5
The above line chart shows that:
4 out of 54 respondents (7%) rated their level of comfort using a smart phone as an
expense management tool as 1 out of 5
8 out of 54 respondents (15%) rated their level of comfort using a smart phone as an
expense management tool as 2 out of 5
9 out of 54 respondents (17%) rated their level of comfort using a smart phone as an
expense management tool as 3 out of 5
256
9 out of 54 respondents (17%) rated their level of comfort using a smart phone as an
expense management tool as 4 out of 5
24 out of 54 respondents (44%) rated their level of comfort using a smart phone as an
expense management tool as 5 out of 5
Altogether this shows that 75% of respondents consider using a smart phone as an
expense management tool a comfort level of 3 or above.
Does the current system in place require you to submit paper receipts as proof of
purchase?
All 54 respondents (100%) said that ‘yes’, paper receipts must be submitted as proof of
purchase. This shows that the collection of paper receipts at the point of purchase is a
critical step in the expense management process.
What is the current system in place?
The respondents used a variety of systems. The most common were Concur, Oracle,
CoreExpense and traditional manual Excel Spreadsheet. For this reason we chose to
incorporate the above mentioned systems in our competitor profile analysis.
Issues raised with EcoTrail System in the Market Research & addresses in report
 If you lose the phone do you lose your receipts?
 Poor coverage? Will my digital receipt still be transferred
 Does it cater for all currencies?
 Not being able to do it for all receipts e.g. handwritten receipts?
 Confirmation that receipt has successfully been captured
 Fraud? People colluding with same receipt
 Training available how to use it
 Mixed expensable and unexpensable items listed on receipts
257
Appendix 9: EcoTrail Pricing Brochure
258
Appendix 10: Supplier Quotes
NFC Reader Quote from Advance Card Systems Ltd
Software Quote: Tony Murphy at Cellusys
259
Software Quote: Bharat Sharma at Monsoon Consulting
260
Software Quote: Nishtha Singh at Tatvasoft
261
262
Appendix 11: Best Case Income
Statement
Development
Development
Ireland & UK
Ireland & UK
Ireland,UK, USA
Best Projected Income Statement for Ecotrailreceipts Ltd for the period 2013 - 2018
2,013
2,014
Sales
Cost of Sales
W2a
Gross Profit
-
46,000
46,000
W2b
-
7,000
7,000
2,015
Wa
W2c
Gross Profit percentage
-
734,400
32,590
701,810
96%
2,016
Wb
W2d
-
1,861,800
37,590
1,824,210
96%
2,017
Wc
W2e
15,975,000
42,590
15,932,410
98%
Operating Expenses
Consultancy fees
Selling and General Expenses
Rent of Office
Research and Development
Depreciation
Marketing
W3
10,000
W5a
W6a
W7a
3,750
370
5,400
160,319
179,839
Registration with CRO
Rent of Office
Staff salaries
W8a
W9
Total Overheads
Operating Income/(Loss)
Other Income
Dublin Enterprise Board Grant
Enterprise Ireland
-
W3
Net Profit/Loss
5,900
10,000
3,750
W5b
225,839
3,750
90,000
4,550
90,000
5,400
10,000
120,000
15,000
15,000
10,600
-
230,691
409,841
5,400
250,691
430,641
-
192,369
291,969
1,393,569
15,461,810
W8b
300,000
470,600
291,969
40
1,393,569
75
150,000
15,461,810
97
292,009
36,501
1,393,644
174,205
15,461,907
1,932,738
255,508
35%
1,219,438
65%
13,529,168
85%
107,000
-
118,839
-
192,369
-
118,839
-
192,369
-
118,839
-
192,369
W10
Tax on Profit/Loss
Profit/loss retained by business
10,000
60,000
10,000
5,400
160,319
185,369
Net profit percentage
Interest expense
W6b
10,000
60,000
10,000
Net Profit percentage
263
-
Appendix 12: Best Case Balance Sheet
Best Case Balance Sheet of Ecotrailreceipts for the year ended
Tagible Fixed Assets
Computers & other IT Equipment
4 Motor cars
Intangible fixed assets
software 5 times sales cost incurred in gettin up running
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
15000
11250
7500
6950
2400
96000
4500000
12000000
35863
300450
1148807
498750
250,000
Current Assets
Cash at Bank
Debtors- 3 mnths
Accrued Expense - rent
Enterprise Ireland
Total Assets
198,843
750,000
3,560
5,400
15000
123600
5400
219,243
270,210
896,100
Current Liabilities
Trade Creditors
150000
13,895,957
4,843,263
75,000
Other current liabilities
non current liabilities
grant repayable
Bank Loan
Total Liabilities
Total Assets - Total Liabilities
19,980
-
35,310
300,000
335,310
116,067
Financed By:
Paid up capital
Retained Earnings/(Loss) carried forward
Total Equity
-
20,000
109,559
89,559
300,000
319,980
-49,770
-
264
20,000
261,028
241,028
240000
315,000
581,100
0
-
20000
154,294
-134294
0
180000
180,000
4,663,263
20000
351,737
371,737
0
120000
120,000
13,775,957
20000
1,500,545
1,520,545
Appendix 13: Best Case Cash Flow
Best case Balance Sheet of Ecotrailreceipts
Operating activity
Profit before tax
Depreciation
Grants received
Net cash inflow from operating activity
Creditors
Net working capital
Interest Paid
Tax paid
Net cash outflow from operating activity
Finance activity
Bank opening balance (own investment)
Private investment
Repayment of bank loan
Bank loan
Net cash flow from finance activity
Investing activity
Purchase of Motor cars
Purchase of Laptops
Net cash flow from investing activity (3,000)
Increase in Cash flow
2013
-
2014
2015
2016
2017
109,559
3,750
107,000
6,309
-
151,469
3,750
121,982
4,550
578,321
4,550
-
155,219
126,532
582,871
1,312,923
4,550
150,000
1,467,473
-
6,309
15,720
-
155,219
15,720
-
6,309
-
155,219
126,532
15,720
15,248
111,284
582,871
15,720
72,290
510,581
1,467,473
15,720
164,115
1,303,357
60,000
60,000
60,000
-
20,000
300,000
320,000
-
3000
310,691
265
-
-
155,219
-
60,000
50000
3000
168,284
-
60,000
570,581
-
60,000
1,363,357
Appendix 14: Worst Case Income Statement
Worst Case Income Statement for Ecotrailreceipts Ltd for the period 2013 - 2018
2013
2014
Sales
Cost of Sales
2015
273,000
Wa
W2a
Gross Profit
-
46,000
46,000
W2b
-
307,000
307,000
W2c
-
434,000
161,000
2016
933,000
Wb
W2d
-
811,190
121,810
2017
1,995,000
Wc
W2e
-
242,590
1,752,410
Gross Profit percentage
Operating Expenses
Consultancy fees
Selling and General Administration
Research and Development
Depreciation
Marketing
Rent of Office
Staff salaries
W3
W11
W5a
W6a
W7a
W8a
W9
10,000
370
4,100
3,750
Other Income
Dublin Enterprise Board Grant
Enterprise Ireland
4,100
3,750
11,300
125,000
154,520
Total Overheads
Operating Income/(Loss)
W5b
-
W3
200,520
11,300
125,000
144,150
Net Profit/Loss
W10
10,000
60,000
3,750
90,000
11,300
4,550
90,000
11,300
250,691
426,541
230,691
399,841
W8b
451,150
-
560,841
-
304,731
1,056,610
150,000
1,206,610
60
60,000
-
140,520
-
451,150
-
560,841
205
-
304,731
33
-
15,720
-
15,720
-
15,720
-
15,720
-
156,240
-
466,870
-
576,766
-
320,484
1,190,951
-
156,240
-
466,870
-
576,766
-
40,060
280,423
148,869
1,042,082
Tax on Profit/Loss
Net Income/(Loss) for year
10,000
120,000
15,000
800
205,000
45,000
300,000
695,800
-
Net profit percentage
Interest expense
W6b
4,100
60,000
266
-
15,720
Appendix 15: Worst Case Balance Sheet
Worst Case Balance Sheet for Ecotrailreceipts Ltd for the period 2013 - 2018
2013
Tagible Fixed Assets
Computers & other IT Equipment
Intangible fixed assets
software 5 times sales cost incurred in gettin up running
2,014
15000
2,015
11250
2,016
7500
6950
100,000
Current Assets
Cash at Bank
Trade Debtors- 3 mnths
Accruals
1,000,000
552330
77,750
34006
22750
163,760
2400
1,000,000
148,760
Total Assets
Current Liabilities
Bank Overdraft
Trade Creditors
Interest Due
Other expenses due
non current liabilities
Bank Loan
Total Liabilities
2,017
838,364
166250
137967
11,250
130,250
314,360
969,921
300,000
300,000
300,000
614,360
240000
1,209,921
180000
180,000
120000
120,000
-603,110
-1,079,876
1,491,036
2,024,981
Total Assets - Total Liabilities
-
136,240
Financed By:
Paid up capital
Retained Earnings/(Loss) carried forward
Revaluation Reserve
Total Equity
-
20,000
156,240
-
20,000
623,110
-
-
136,240
-
603,110
-
267
20000
1,199,876
100,000
1,079,876
1,671,036
-
20000
1,480,300
1,000,000
460,300
2,144,981
-
20000
438,218
1,000,000
581,782
Appendix 16: Worst Case Cash Flow
Worst Case CashFlow statement of Ecotrailreceipts for the period 2013 - 2018
2013
Operating activity
Net Income/(Loss) for year
156,240
Depreciation
3,750
-
152,490
-
152,490
Increase/(Debtors) in Trade Creditors
Decrease/(Increase) in Trade Debtors
Net working capital
Net cash inflow/(outflow) from operating activities
Financing activites
Owners' cash investment
Bank loan
Repayment of bank loan
Net cash inflow/(outflow) from finance activities
2014
2015
-
466,870
3,750
-
576,766
3,750
-
463,120
-
573,016
-
22,750
22,750
-
-
-
595,766
-
-
60,000
60,000
-
463,120
20,000
300,000
320,000
Investing activities
Purchase of Motor cars
Purchase of Laptops
Net cash inflow/(outflow) from investing activities
-
Net cash inflow/(outflow) for the year
Cash balance at start of year
Cash balance/(deficit) at end of year
-
18,750
18,750
148,760 0
148,760
268
-
-
463,120
148,760
314,360
-
-
655,766
314,360
969,921
Appendix 17: Cost of Sales
W2a - Y1 2013:
NFC System Development
Website Development
Server Hosting
Domain name registration p.a
Staff training
40,441.00
500
50
9
5,000.00
Cost of implementing the sytem
46,000
W2b - Y2 2014
W2c- Y3 2015
Updates
5,000
Technical Support
18,000
Server Hosting 50
Amazon Server
5,000
Instant Housecall1,699
package
staff training
5,000
Domain name registration
9 p.a
Webex
456
Hosting Of App on iTunes
242 and Android
Maintenance costs
4,000
7,000
Hosting of App
125
Domain name registration p.a 9
32,590
W2d - Y4 2016
System updates 18,000
Amazon Server 10,000
Staff training 5,000
Webex
456
Maintenance costs4,000
hosting of App 125
Domain name registration
9 p.a
37,590
Appendix 18: Selling and General administration
W11
Selling and general administration
2013
Y1:Registration with CRO 125
Stationary
245
2015
20,000
20,000
20,000
60,000
Y2: Rent-a-car
Hotel Expenses
Motor expenses
Office expenses
2016
370
269
2017
20,000
20,000
20,000
60,000
40,000
80,000
120,000
W2e - Y5 2017
System updates
Amazon Server
staff training
Webex
Maintenance costs
Hosting of App
Domain name registration p.a
16,000.00
15,000.00
7,000.00
456.00
4,000.00
125.00
8.95
42,589.95
Appendix 19: Blacknight Hosting Package for EcoTrail
270
Appendix 20: Hosted Based Solution Service Providers
271
Appendix 21: TNS Hosted Based Service Provider Interaction
Name
Company
Role
Chris Eagles
Transaction Network Service
Technical Operations
From this interview we wanted to get an insight into the back end operations of the
transaction provider. Chris talked about the new NFC terminals recently released with
NFC installed as well as the certification that is used for the handling of credit card
payments.
NFC Chips are now built into point of sale terminals starting from Verifone A20. The
option offered by TNS to accommodate EcoTrails software involves encoding our
software onto the point of sale terminal.
Chris envisions the software sitting on the point of sale terminal as a file. The file will
pick up the receipt details and send the digital receipt to the users Mobile Application
via NFC.
According to Chris, at the moment a receipt is generated by air tight security encryption
and certification.
Quote from interview: “The receipt coming out of the terminal and down to the phone is a
fundamental change in point of sale transactions, however I do feel it is going to happen
sooner rather than later”
272
Appendix 22: Practicum Advisor Interaction
Contact
Role
Dr Claire Gubbins
Business Advisor
We met Claire Gubbins on two occasions when she was available over the summer.
Below are the main points from our meetings with Dr. Gubbins:
Meeting 1: 25th May 2012
When we met with Claire Gubbins we were undecided what direction we should take
with our Digital Receipts idea. The team were aiming to service both the public sector
and the corporate sector as we felt that both markets could be commercialised
successfully. We presented the idea to Claire who suggested that maybe we were taking
on too much for the practicum catering to both markets. This provided the team with
ample food for thought and in fact shaped the direction of our practicum.

Claire suggested that we revise the way we pitched our idea as she said that people
who are not technically savvy may have trouble understanding it. She suggested
that we focus our pitch on explaining a technical project to a group of non tech
savvy people.

Claire suggested that we develop prototype applications and websites and have
these tested by our potential users. The feedback we gained from these sessions
would allow us to revise the functions of our technical deliverables and gain
insights into their strengths and features as well as what they were potentially
missing.

Claire suggested that we conduct extensive research into the market we are looking
to go into backing up any point or argument we make with literature.
273
Meeting 2: July 31st 2012
The team gave Claire an update on our idea and progress to date. Claire was delighted
with the direction that we had taken with the idea as she could identify that the service
provides a real value proposition and stated that it has potential to succeed. Here are
the main points from the meeting:

Claire quizzed us on our financials which were admittedly weak at that time as we
were awaiting confirmation from external sources. Claire suggested that we get 3
quotes for the cost of developing our system and triangulate the result based on
these quotes.

Claire suggested that we needed to emphasise the primary research we have
conducted in our report, especially the fact that we have tested the app with a
corporation (Google), with a consultant (User) and AIBMS (backend accounts
payable department).

Claire suggested that we develop a HR plan that lists where we will recruit our
employees and where we will develop our system. Claire suggested that we have an
Irish focus in order to improve the Irish Economy, with specific focus on the
Government Trade and Employment Initiative.

Claire also suggested that we conduct a cost benefit analysis to find out how much it
currently costs a hotel to process hotel receipts from the hotel perspective in terms
of accounting. This involves the annual salary that is paid to the accountant and
time spent. The report should highlight where EcoTrail can make a cost saving for
the hotel thus encouraging them to adopt our service.
274
Contact
Role
Brian Stone
Technical Supervisor
Brian was a continual source of guidance to us during our practicum project. The team
met with Brian over 5 times throughout the Practicum process and gained valuable
insight into the technical requirements for EcoTrail to succeed. He was particularly
helpful in briefing us on technical matters to which we were not accustomed and in
informing us of the importance of one-on-one interviews and research with industry
experts. Above all he advised us to play the hand we were dealt with our research and
grab every opportunity to acquire new information.

Security issues such as data manipulation

Gave us direction and put the question to us to what we wanted to do and
achieve.

Put scope of technological aspects into perspective which helped us narrow
down platforms and devices.

Challenged us to find out the current market standard and our USP, how can our
practicum concept be better than competitors

Consulted with the group into looking into the aspects of expense management,
what exactly was involved, and how our digital receipt premise could be applied
to the industry.

Opened up new industry connections for us through networking.

What to think of when designing technical platforms such as a website or mobile
app

Referred with the group about the importance of costing and finance

Very insightful in asking us how we planned to present our concept, what we
should compress and expand
275
Contact
Role
Dr. Regina Connolly
Substitute Business Advisor
Dr. Regina Connolly stepped in as our Business Adviser for June-July as Claire Gubbins
was on annual university leave. Regina provided us with the opportunity to try and
explain our idea in a clear and concise manner to somebody that is not familiar with it
as practice for the presentations. We had a total of 2 meeting meetings with Regina
over the course of the Practicum semester. The key findings and recommendations
made are detailed below:

Regina emphasised the importance of having a distinguished USP & value added
offering to customers. For the next meeting, she wanted us to be able to say in 3
sentences what our idea is. Answer: Speed (corporate), easy (customer), cost saving
(retailer)

Regina’s interest in IT security caused here to question the security of EcoTrail. She
asked us to consider the resilience issues (crashing of system) if IBM and other
large corporations adopt app & backend database quickly can the system cope? E.g.
DDoS attack. EcoTrail included a security evaluation in the report as a result.

Regina completed a questionnaire for us in order to assess the travelling university
lecturers of DCU and their expense with expense management. Furthermore, she
gave a detailed account of her experience with CORExpense which was very
beneficial and led to us speaking to Brendan Gillen from DCU Finance Office.

At the final meeting Regina provided use with the key elements that previous
practicums had performed well in and the team incorporated these tips into the
project deliverables as follows:
276

Live demo – we aim to demonstrate our Android application at the interview
panel

Approached companies – we have contacted a large number of companies
from a diverse range of industries as part of our market research in order to
gauge the interest for EcoTrail

Identify security weaknesses with the technology chosen and how these can
be overcome – a detailed evaluation of NFC, its strengths, weaknesses and
alternatives can be seen in the technology report.

Furthermore, Regina suggested how important the presentation is and how you
need to capture the attention of assessors. She proposed the following schedule
which we intent to adopt:








Purpose
Objective
How it works
Keep it very simple
Target market
Opportunity to diversify
Cut off question points by addressing security and privacy concerns from
the start
Emphasize the green aspect of the business
277
Appendix 23: Team Interaction
Team Meetings
During the initial stages of the practicum the team met daily in DCU library study room
17. This became EcoTrail office for the month of June as it had all the facilities we
needed; private room, desk, internet, quiet, whiteboard for brainstorming. We felt it was
important to meet up this frequently and work side by side at the start as a lot of team
communication was needed to establish the direction of the practicum and carve out the
work load and deliverables. This strategy was reviewed at the beginning of July once the
direction of the practicum was finalised and the team agreed to meet 3 times per week
(Monday, Wednesday and Friday). Please see collage of pictures taken of team meetings
below:
278
Progress Meeting:
5 days until deadline
Industry
Expert
Meeting
at
Google
Whiteboard
brain
storming
session
Industry Expert
Meeting at AIBMS
Team Meeting Library Study
Room A.K.A Eco Trail Office
Wordpress Blog
The team kept a word press blog throughout the practicum process in order to keep
track of progress and valuable insights gained from meetings with industry experts.
Minutes from meetings with practicum advisors as well as key points from interviewees
were also included. The blog was a beneficial tool as it allowed the team look back at
how the idea morphed throughout the practicum process and at what stage additional
features were added. The EcoTrail blog can be accessed at the following link:
http://ecotrailreceipt.wordpress.com/
279
Practicum Facebook Group
The primary form of communication between team members was via facebook. The
team created a private Practicum 2012 group on Facebook to share interesting articles,
videos and images relating to NFC digital receipts as well as meetings and interview
secured with industry experts. Facebook was a useful tool to announce group meetings
with a single comment. It became the norm to confirm your attendance by ‘liking’ the
Facebook comment containing the details of the meeting. The Facebook group was also
beneficial as a means of gaining instant feedback from team members about an idea
posted. Throughout the practicum process there were 23 videos, 12 images, over 55
articles and over 300 team member comments posted in the Facebook group. The
screen shots below show evidence of team interaction on Facebook:
280
Facebook Group Interaction:
281
282
283
Appendix 24: EcoTrail Business Cards
284
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