xTrack Business Plan Msc. Electronic Commerce 2012

xTrack Business Plan
Expense and Activity Monitoring made easy
Msc. Electronic Commerce
2012
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xTrack Business Plan
Course Title: M.Sc. Electronic Commerce
Project Title: Practicum
Module code: CA550
Supervisors: Dr Cathal Gurrin & Dr John Loonam
Due Date:
20/08/12
Student Name:
Student Number:
Programme:
Niall Hanlon
11210590
MECB1
Michelle O’ Beirne
11210714
MECB1
Glen O’ Donoghue
58389594
MECB1
BrianTurley
10211839
MECB1
Declaration
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 we have read, understand
and are in compliance with the DCU Guidelines on Best Practice in Research Ethics.
Signed:_________________________
Signed:_________________________
Signed:_________________________
Signed:_________________________
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xTrack Business Plan
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Over the past few months we have availed of support and expertise from specific
individuals in the university and industry. We wish to acknowledge their contribution to this
project’s completion and hopeful success. They are the following:
Dr Cathal Gurrin our Practicum technical adviser. Without our constant contact with
Cathal throughout the Practicum process and his understanding of the need for our idea we
would not have this work complete. We wish to thank him for his dedicated help and
personal approach even though he was assisting other groups and managing the whole
process. We certainly appreciated his energy, enthusiasm and helpfulness throughout this
Practicum process.
Dr. John Loonam our Practicum business adviser. With his knowledge of how
business works he instilled the confidence in us to discover how to sell our product and to
whom. His informal approach to our meetings and suggestions showed clear interest in our
success and helped us to discover the intricacies of the business side of the project. He felt
like another member of the team.
Both of our supervisors provided the team with their recommendations, time and
expertise in each area.
The team would also like to thank Mr Brian Stone from the Dublin City University
Computing Faculty for his time, help and constructive suggestions.
We are completely grateful to the numerous members of the industry, they gave us
the key understanding, confidence in our product and advice that was crucial to making
xTrack a tailored solution to their problems.
Finally the authors would like to thanks their friends and families for their help and
support throughout length of our work on xTrack.
Brian, Glen, Michelle and Niall
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xTrack Business Plan
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................. 5
THE ORGANISATION TEAM ........................................................................................................................... 9
BUSINESS PURPOSE .................................................................................................................................... 15
BUSINESS MODEL ....................................................................................................................................... 19
GROWTH STRATEGIES................................................................................................................................. 25
RESEARCH .................................................................................................................................................. 28
Qualitative Research ............................................................................................................................ 28
Quantitative Research .......................................................................................................................... 36
MARKET OVERVIEW.................................................................................................................................... 39
Potential Markets ................................................................................................................................ 39
Current and Future Trends ................................................................................................................... 41
Buyer Behaviour .................................................................................................................................. 42
Target Market...................................................................................................................................... 43
SWOT Analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 44
Pestle Analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 45
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................................. 49
BUSINESS STRATEGY AND MARKETING PLAN .............................................................................................. 53
FINANCIAL DATA......................................................................................................................................... 57
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................... 57
Investment Requirements ..................................................................................................................... 58
Revenue Breakdown ............................................................................................................................. 59
Pricing .................................................................................................................................................. 60
Notes to the Accounts........................................................................................................................... 62
Financial Statements............................................................................................................................. 66
Legal Considerations.............................................................................................................................. 69
RISK ANALYSIS............................................................................................................................................ 74
DESCRIPTION OF TECHNICAL DELIVERY ....................................................................................................... 81
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................... 81
System Design....................................................................................................................................... 84
Technical Requirements ........................................................................................................................ 96
Development Plan............................................................................................................................... 101
APPENDICES............................................................................................................................................. 102
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xTrack Business Plan
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
XTRACK MISSION STATEMENT
Ultimately we wish to make employee expense claims a streamlined, simple process,
taking the out of office employee back into the office using the various tools we have
developed for our customers.
THE PRODUCT
In today’s economy, organisations are labouring under the constant pressure of
reducing costs while attempting to increase sales. While expenses are a necessary element
of business operations, they sometimes can be difficult to keep track of and often times can
present a laborious task to administration staff when attempting to collate, collect and sign
off when submitted. Further to this, field staff can find it equally time consuming when
filling expense claims because of the nature of physical receipts and expense forms.
In addition to the issues that can be caused by expense claims, many organisations
have great difficulty monitoring field staff while they are working on behalf of the
organisation out of the office. Although a staff member can check in with Headquarters by
phone or by email, there is still the possibility of the employee to give a distorted account of
their whereabouts.
Using the above as an inspiration for the concept, we have devised the XTrack
expense and employee monitoring system. This system gives the Employer the opportunity
to keep track of field staff expenses while at the same time accessing a full and transparent
view of the employee’s activity while out of the office. XTrack is comprised of two central
aspects that make up the overall system, these are a mobile application and a Web based
platform. The mobile application is used by the employee to enter expense data and take a
digital copy of the receipt using the phone’s camera, the expense information is then sent
back to the central data base where it is stored and in turn can be accessed via the web
platform.
The web based platform can be accessed by both the field employee and the
director responsible for expense claim sign off under the headings of user and
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xTrack Business Plan
administrator. The user can use the website to view the expense submissions he or she has
made via the smart phone app. In addition, the administrator can also access the employee
submissions as well viewing the employee’s daily activity that has been logged throughout
the day.
Using xTrack, companies can take the hassle out of expense claims and attain a clear
view of the employee’s activity when in the field. By saving time on expense claims, the
employee can fully focus on their job.
COMPANY DESCRIPTION
xTrack is a new Irish start up with an innovative field employee solution combining
expense tracking and activity monitoring in a simplistic, comprehensive manner. The system
is affordable, reliable and a solution that can expand and grow as its clients’ company does.
It takes only ten minutes to register your account and prides itself on being a quicker and
more user friendly interface than competitors. The system is designed to be intuitive to use,
a high degree of affordance enables clients to learn how to use the system with ease as they
navigate it. There is no need to train to use the system although video tutorials on the
capabilities of the individual sections will be made available on the platform. We believe this
simple system differentiates us from our competitors and enable clients to use the system
to its full capability.
BUSINESS MODEL
xTrack’s business model will focus on the business to business market. We will have
3 service models available to our clients. These clients will be classified as small to medium
sized businesses with less than 250 employees. The users of our service will be employees of
those clients that work outside the office, as a result incurring expenditure that would be
arduous to be recorded by the in house staff.
Our revenue will be generated through this 3 tiered model with clients paying a fixed
annual fee to subscribe to the service. Should they wish to improve the quality and quantity
of features that they receive they merely pay the extra fee to upgrade from basic to
advanced and similarly from advanced to premium. We also provide the facility to subscribe
immediately to any of the 3 tiers depending on the client’s preference.
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xTrack Business Plan
Our value proposition consists of providing a simple, efficient and valuable service
for real time logging and understanding of employee activity. The benefit to the customer is
the removal of the laborious task of recording expenditure at the end of the week or month
as we provide a real time instant solution
FINANCIAL FORECAST
Below is a summary of the key figures arrived from the xTrack financial forecasts.
They consist of revenues, costs, capital, and asset figures based on assumptions from the
primary and secondary research that we have conducted.
These figures demonstrate a viable business by our third year. The losses are
justified by the expenditure necessary to establish the growth in clientele by year 3. The
directors are willing to sacrifice their salary payments to reduce the loss figures in year 1
and 2 whilst improving the cash figure should liquidity problems arise.
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Revenue
8,860
44,800
716,000
Gross Profit
6,645
35,840
572,800
Net Profit/(Loss)
(165,704)
(150,003)
311,063
Cash
(60,210)
(209,969)
91,269
Capital Employed
(70,704)
(220,707)
90,356
FUNDING REQUIREMENTS
xTrack will obtain the majority of its funding in the form of Director’s contributions.
We deem this appropriate as we wish to maintain ownership of the firm as venture
capitalists would require a share of the company in reward for their capital. We understand
that the loss and cash figures may warrant the injection of capital. If that need becomes
urgent we will enlist the assistance of the director’s local enterprise boards in the form of
grants. However we have availed of the AIB Seed Capital scheme as we had valued the
banks contribution to the start-up of similar small enterprises. We feel it is necessary to
obtain an SME loan from the same bank as the rate is a preferable sacrifice compare to
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xTrack Business Plan
dilution of ownership. Finally as the company grows we may finally enlist the investment
from outside venture angels if we feel the funding and their advice would be adequate.
TARGET CUSTOMERS
Our target consumers are small enterprises with less than fifty employees operating
in Ireland. Within that our initial focus will be on those companies with sales representatives
working in the field.
MARKETING STRATEGY
At xTrack we understand that we have numerous competitors providing a similar
service. To compete we propose to use the Best Cost Provider Strategy. The reasoning
behind this is that we aim to differentiate ourselves from our competitors by providing a
simpler, more efficient and cost effective service compared to the complicated and
expensive offerings by existing players. For the projected 3 years we will follow this strategy
closely with the hope of developing a growth strategy involving diversification in years
following this forecast.
THE POTENTIAL FOR EXPANSION
xTrack is a scalable business concept which could not only work with larger
organisations in the future operating in different markets but it lends itself to expand,
offering additional functions and features to the existing system. As stated by our
objectives, in the longer term we hope to establish ourselves as a household name in this
sector by building a strong rapport with customers as a brand of high quality, affordability
and reliability. We hope that efficient customer relationship management would allow us to
become a trusted brand name among the business community.
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xTrack Business Plan
THE ORGANISATION TEAM
xTrack consists of 4 budding entrepreneurs, with the assistance of a software
developer. Ownership of the company will belong to the four directors holding an equal
25% share. Each member of the founding team will have a specific position and title within
the firm. These members are the directors that will be referred to during the report. Each
director will take responsibility for a department based on their qualifications and previous
work experience.
The diagram below will display the organisation structure:
CEO & Director
of Finance
Director of
Marketing and
Sales
Director of
Operations and
Sales
Director of IT, IS
and Sales
Software
Development
CEO & DIRECTOR OF FINANCE – GLEN O’DONOGHUE
BACKGROUND AND QUALIFICATIONS
A recent graduate from Dublin City University, Glen has a Bachelor’s degree in
Accounting and Finance in 2011 majoring in Finance. He is now completing a Masters in
Electronic Commerce (MECB) with the hope of graduating in November 2012.
Qualifications include exemptions from the CAP1 Chartered Accounting
examinations and PRINCE 2 Project Management. His knowledge of company law,
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xTrack Business Plan
economics and accounting were put to test in the areas of taxation, legislation, funding and
forecasting.
The xTrack management team understands the importance of this knowledge in
ensuring that our financial obligations our complied to.
SKILLS AND CHARACTERISTICS
Glen’s competence at assignments proved crucial to the teams he worked with. Glen
is a proven problem solver relating to financial issues that some would consider tedious.
Glen is adept at information keeping being the note taker and listener during group
meetings. He is successful in engaging with other directors in relation to allocating costs to
the expenses that their department will occur.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Glen is expected to manage all of the financial aspects of the business. As CEO he will
also oversee the work of xTrack’s departments. Delegating the responsibilities in regards to
this document and work overall. Clear guidance will be at the heart of his work.
Responsibilities will not be exhaustive but they include:
Consulting regularly with directors on accounting figures.
Outlining the financial position of the company.
The annual report.
Sales forecast.
Funding requirements.
Financial strategy and forecasting.
Delivering departmental budgets.
Providing accounts in a true and fair view according to Generally Accepted
Accounting Practices (GAAP).
Developing a Risk Management strategy.
Compliance with company registration and legislation.
It is discussed above that the true and fair view will be required in presenting our
accounting figures. Consequently Glen must comply with the International Accounting
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xTrack Business Plan
Standards in providing clear, understandable financial statements that can be recognized
worldwide.
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND SALES – MICHELLE O’BEIRNE
BACKGROUND AND QUALIFICATIONS
Michelle graduated from Dublin City University in 2011 with a Bachelor of
International Business and Languages (French and Spanish) specializing in Marketing.
Michelle is also studying MECB with the hope of graduating in November 2012.
Michelle has previously worked in retail and sales regarding well known products in
several different positions. Michelle is also in the process of training for a marketing position
with Jameson in Irish Distillers.
She is also qualified in PRINCE 2 project management proving she is more that
capable to take the lead if situations require it.
SKILLS AND CHARACTERISTICS
Michelle has incredible communication skills, she is more than adept to get the
picture across and faces no difficulty in organising discussions with academics to assist our
research. With her knowledge of marketing we felt it was imperative to place Michelle at
the helm of analysing the current industry and where our product would fit. With her
charismatic, friendly and accommodating personal approach we could also consider
Michelle as the HR face of our company should we require someone in that position.
Michelle is an approachable and interpersonal person, for this reason we believe she is the
person perfect for getting into the market and developing relationships with key players
that could provide revenue for us.
Our marketing manager could be defined as “selfless in giving others the credit when
things go right, and quick to accept responsibility when things go wrong” (Business Mastery,
2011) Michelle is definitely capable of thinking outside the box and is risk accepting. We will
need a manager like this to get our brand recognized and promoted.
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xTrack Business Plan
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Michelle will direct and organize the Marketing Department efficiently. As with all of our
Directors she is also responsible for sales in the initial few years. Michelle’s marketing roles
consist of:
Evaluate marketing campaigns such as Adwords.
Use available means to spread our company image and get recognised.
Launch and maintain an Online Advertising Strategy.
Remain in contact with the Financial director to ensure compliance with budgetary
controls.
Network and liaise with customers.
Provide customer support where necessary.
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AND SALES – NIALL HANLON
BACKGROUND AND QUALIFICATIONS
Niall graduated from NUI Maynooth 2009 with a Bachelor degree in Business Studies
with Event Management. He is also in the process of completing MECB with qualifications in
PRINCE 2. Niall has 2 years’ experience working as marketing and merchandising
representative. He also engaged in planning and administration as part of his previous roles.
To this end we believe that Niall is the most experienced of our Directors regarding
the operations of a company thus placing him responsible for the Operations and Sales
department.
SKILLS AND CHARACTERISTICS
Like Michelle, Niall could be considered as an amiable person. His experience
working in areas similar to that of our prospective clients, he knows what features xTrack
need to provide. He conducted the majority of our primary research through telephone
interview and we hope that he can use this experience to build on the existing interested
parties in our service. His confidence in approaching others and ease of communication
confirms our confidence in this operations manager.
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xTrack Business Plan
His experience in recording expenses in the past will help tailor how the product will work
and look to our users.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Niall will be responsible for the overall day to day operations of the firm. As with the
other directors he will have obligations for the sales of xTrack. The main operation functions
will be:
Providing clear customer information and support.
Planning and declaring company strategy.
Analysing the current industry and competitors.
Identifying our target customers.
Complying with the finances department’s budgetary specifications.
DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND SYSTEMS – BRIAN TURLEY
BACKGROUND AND QUALIFICATIONS
Brian graduated with a Bachelor of Music Technology and a Graduate Diploma in
Accounting. Brian is also completing the MECB degree. He has received qualifications in
Google Adwords and CAP1 alongside PRINCE 2. With his degree we felt that Brian was the
most qualified of the directors in the region of technical planning, design, price and
usability. With his technical capabilities we knew he would be more than able to understand
the issues clients would have with the software.
SKILLS AND CHARACTERISTICS
Brian is the most technologically savvy of the directors. He was more than willing to
take on this role. Brian also has a flair for making even the most difficult of areas easy to
interpret. He can make difficult things look easy. As a result he has great educational and
leadership qualities in that he thought our finance and operational directors how to become
proficient in the use of numerous web development tools. He is certainly creative, using this
skill to design the website and app that we had in mind.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
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xTrack Business Plan
Brian will design manage the web platform and app. He will lead the software
developer in creating the web platform and app. He will also train those software
developers to become customer service representatives as we will need those with
technical skills to assist with customer queries and troubleshooting. Other job
responsibilities include:
Ensuring the infrastructure of xTrack is secure at all times.
Leading all employees in the IT Department.
Compliance to finance departments’ budgets.
Create and update a Business Continuity plan.
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xTrack Business Plan
BUSINESS PURPOSE
XTRACK’S VISION
Our mission and vision are synonymous. To make employee expense claims a
streamlined, simple process, taking the out of office employee back into the office using the
various tools we have developed for our customers.
OBJECTIVES
For any business to be a success, the company must have a clear set of objectives in
order to ensure that all individuals involved are working towards the same outcome. In
addition, having clearly defined goals ensures that new employees entering the organisation
are aware of the overall mission of the company.
With regards to the xTrack platform, it has been decided to divide the company goals
and objectives into short, medium and long term objectives. The rationale behind this
approach is to avoid the organisation’s employees becoming myopic in their views, while at
the same time keeping the foresight that is required to run and develop a business
successfully. Many of these goals are based on the financial projections of the company
which are outlined in the financial section of this document.
Our objectives are based on the SMART framework. The reason this framework is
used as a basis for the definition of the objectives is in order to offer clarity and structure to
the goals that have been set for xTrack.
Specific Measurable Agreed Realistic Time specific
SHORT TERM OBJECTIVES
The directors of xTrack envisage several short term goals for the company. These will
be based solely around year one of the financial information provided. The purpose of this is
so that these metrics can deem whether an objective is achieved or unachieved. Having said
this, it is important to understand that some business goals are more tangible than others.
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xTrack Business Plan
Our short term goals are as follows:
DEVELOP BRAND AWARENESS–
In the first and second business quarter it is hoped that the xTrack brand can be
established amongst customers around Ireland. This goal will be enabled by the various
marketing techniques and strategies that are more comprehensively discussed in the
marketing section of the document.
In many ways it can be quite difficult to measure how brand aware customers are of
a product or service. However, we predict that if there is an increase in hits on the xTrack
website, it indicates that the brand name is becoming more popular, and thus we are
beginning to become more recognisable. As such, website analytics will be a useful measure
of our brand awareness.
HIT PROJECTED SALES TARGET FOR YEAR 1 –
In the financial section of the document, it is stated that the company aims to
have 43 users of the service by the end of the financial year. As the company’s short term
objectives are based mainly in year 1, it is felt that achieving 43 users is an adequate and
realistic short term goal for the organisation.
MEDIUM TERM OBJECTIVES
Here our objectives will be centred on the various plans that are in place for years 2
and 3 respectively. As these objectives are more distant in time, we must bear in mind that
they may be altered to suit the business needs that may arise.
ADDITIONAL STAFF
Once again referring back to our financial projections, it can be understood that xTrack
intends to grow to the point that additional staff will be required to run the company. By
adding more staff to the team, growth in the business will be evident, thus continuous
recruitment in the firm is an important medium term goal.
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xTrack Business Plan
HIT YEAR 2 & 3 TARGETS /TURNOVER PROFIT
In year two it can be seen that a loss is projected, however in year three it is projected that
a profit will be made by the company. The objective of xTrack in the medium term will be to
stay on target with regard to the loss projections in year two; however slight deviations
from this figure will be permitted.
Year three will be the first year that the company will attain a profit. Considering a profit can
indicate that the company is successful, hitting the profit projections for year three will be
the most important of the medium term objectives outlined.
LONG TERM OBJECTIVES
In the previous parts of this section it can be seen that the short and medium term
goals are based on the financial future of the company. In this section, the business
objectives will be considered to be aspirational in nature. The core theme for the long term
will be “expansion”
FIRST MULTINATIONAL CUSTOMERS
In our fledgling stages it was decided to target SME’s in Ireland. Targeting SME’s in
the beginning gives the company the opportunity to learn and develop while the company is
still dealing with small clients. As a result we can make changes to our products as we grow.
As the company expands across the SME market, we hope that xTrack will have a tried and
trusted brand name amongst the business community.
Leveraging on the strength of the brand in the future, we feel that this is the correct
time to expand into the Multinational market, which could potentially be extremely
lucrative for xTrack. This objective is set for year 5 of the business.
UK EXPANSION
From years 3 and 4 it is hoped that xTrack will have enough success and momentum
behind it as a business to expand into a new market. Considering the geographical
positioning of the UK and our connection with the nation, it is believed that this market
would be a strong long term strategic target in the future of xTrack. A further justification
for expansion into this market is the mass of SME companies present there. We would have
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xTrack Business Plan
a prospective 4.5 million small businesses in the UK to target (Federation of Small
Businesses UK, 2012)
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xTrack Business Plan
BUSINESS MODEL
When creating a business from a concept or idea, it is imperative that the correct
business strategies and operation plans are put in place, in order to create a viable and
successful company. In this section we will discuss the business strategies, actions and plans
that will be under the heading of the business model.
UNIQUE SELLING POINT
As will be discussed in the market overview section of this document, the
competitors within the market have taken different approaches to expense and activity
tracking, largely creating very complicated systems and interfaces that can be difficult for
accounts/administrative staff to learn how to use. Using this point as a backdrop, we have
decided to position the company in a way that could be described as carving out a niche in
the market.
Referring to the research data that has been collected, it is clear that the market is
seeking a product that is inexpensive yet effective. In addition we feel that having a simple
interface will be key to the success of xTrack.
The USP of the platform can be divided into two separate elements: Simple interface
design and inexpensive.
SIMPLE INTERFACE DESIGN
From experience with existing competitor systems in the market, we found that
these platforms can be quite complicated for a new user. For example, when opening an
account with Concur (main competitor) it took almost 45 minutes to get the account up and
running. With the xTrack platform it is estimated that it should take no longer than ten
minutes to sign up and become a customer. Hence, xTrack offers a quicker and more user
friendly interface, which is at the centre of the overall unique selling point of the business.
Our interface will be intuitive, providing easy learning and navigation. Our opinion
centres on the assumption that if users can “get the hang of” the system quickly, it is more
likely to be adapted and used to its maximum within a range of organisations across many
different industries.
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xTrack Business Plan
If the system is easy to use and can be adopted quickly by the user, then we can
offer an expense and activity tracking platform that will be like no other that currently exists
in the market.
INEXPENSIVE
The research data that was collected indicated that SME’s are seeking expense and
activity tracking systems that are affordable yet effective. By offering the system at €120 per
user per year, organisations are being offered a system that is effective and reliable but less
expensive than the competition.
REVENUE STREAM
The revenue stream of a company is in essence the method in which a company
collects money from customers. From our research we have concluded that revenue should
be generated by way of charging customers on a subscription basis for the xTrack platform
service. Although there is a possibility to create other revenue generating streams such as
consulting, training and advertising in the future, at this particular point in time we feel that
the subscription revenue and professional services model will suffice.
REVENUE MODEL
Many similar services have employed the subscription based revenue model. We feel
that this is the strongest possible model for the xTrack platform as it will give the
opportunity for the customer to register and avail of the service on a monthly subscription
basis rather than paying for a once off installation. In addition, as this is a web based
platform no installation is required on the customer side of the transaction.
There are many approaches a company can take when trying to define the revenue
structure of the business. Drawing on information we have gained from other web based
platforms and referring back to the primary research we carried out, it is our opinion that a
three tiered payment structure should be employed for xTrack.
The three tiered subscription model offers customers the opportunity to purchase
the different services offered by xTrack in three separate bundles of features. The three
tiers will be named as xTrack Basic, xTrack Advanced and xTrack Premium. It is clear from
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xTrack Business Plan
the names of the different service bundles how the structure will be set out for the
customers.
THREE TIERED REVENUE STRUCTURE
XTRACK BASIC
In the first tier, the customer will be offered the fundamental elements that make up
the xTrack service. xTrack basic allows the customer to try out the service at the lower end
of the cost scale, in order to encourage customers to adapt and use the service. It is also
planned that when a customer signs up, they will be able to avail of the service for free for
the first month, to allow them to familiarize themselves with the benefits it can provide.
For example, if a company with five sales representatives register’s for six months at
the basic level, the customer will be charged at the rate of €120 per year per user. On a six
month contract, the price would be offered at €10 per user monthly. With five employees
the overall cost to the customer would be €300 for six months.
In the basic tier of the xTrack system, the customer can avail of the following features:
Receipt scanning on smart phone, receipt information collected and collated by the
web platform
Admin access for directors and managers
Restricted platform access for sales representative/ field staff
Basic activity tracking.eg. the director can view where the field staff members have
been on a daily basis.
XTRACK A DVANCED
In the advanced tier of the service, the customer will be charged an extra fee for
additional features. We expect both customers that will purchase the system initially at the
advanced level, and customers that will upgrade to the advanced tier after initially
purchasing the service at the basic tier.
Once again basic tier customers will be incentivised to upgrade by being offered one
month free. We feel that incentivising customers in this way we will encourage them to
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xTrack Business Plan
upgrade and avail of all of the services available. The customer will be obliged to upgrade
for a minimum of six months to avail of this offer.
In addition to the features that will be offered at the basic tier of the xTrack
platform, customers will also avail of the following in the advanced tier of the system.
Advanced activity tracking: In addition to the client viewing the movements of their
employees, they will also have the opportunity to see exactly where purchases were
made, and where employees stopped. Activity data on time spent driving vs. walking
vs. stopped is also available.
Graphs and visual breakdowns of activity and purchases made.
XTRACK PREMIUM
The premium tier of the xTrack service offers the customer the top end service with
all of the features that are available when subscribed to the xTrack platform. As can be seen
from the financial section of this document, we plan to charge €360 per user per year.
Similar to the structure of the other 2 tiers, it is expected to have two kinds of customers
availing of the premium service of xTrack. Once again we expect some revenue to be
generated from this tier through customer upgrades from the advanced tier. In addition to
customer upgrades, full first time purchase of the professional service is expected. In
addition to the services that are already available in tier 1 and 2, the customer will also
receive the following:
Notification system allowing budgets to be set by employee, category etc., with
automatic notifications sent by sms, email or via the mobile app when budget
approaching/exceeded.
Client has access to the analysis section of the system, where the customer can
compare and contrast expenses of employees against one another. Blocks of
statistics can be picked together and correlated against each other for performance
purposes.
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xTrack Business Plan
KEY MILESTONES
In order to keep track of how successful a business is, it is important that the team
working within the business are aware of the key milestones to be achieved as the business
begins to gain momentum. Previously in this document we have already discussed the
overarching goals and objectives of the business, which in many ways can be considered to
be part of the key milestone framework. However, although business objectives do have a
role to play in defining milestones, objectives are considered to be based in hopes rather
than being used as indicators of success and business performance. In addition, the short
term, medium term and long terms objectives can be viewed as the macro elements of the
company’s future, whereas key milestones are based on the micro day to day operations of
the business.
The key milestones that will be outlined for the xTrack platform will be centred mainly
around year 1 of the business. By using the following key milestones as indicators we will be
able to gauge how near or far we are away from our overall business objectives.
MILESTONE 1: INCREASE IN WEBSITE HITS
In the days after the website goes live, we are aware that there may not be much
traffic to the website, however as the amount of hits increase on a daily basis, it will indicate
to us that there is interest in the system from the market.
MILESTONE 2: FIRST CUSTOMER
Within the first 6 weeks after the marketing and sales campaign has been launched,
we expect to generate business from our first customer.
MILESTONE 3: FIRST UPGRADE
As the system becomes more popular and companies are becoming more aware of
the business, it hoped that we will see our first upgrade from basic to advanced/premium.
MILESTONES 4: HALF WAY TO TARGET PROJECTED SALES TARGET
In the business objectives section we discussed that one of the company’s short term
objectives is to hit the projected dales target of 43 users in year 1. We feel that an adequate
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xTrack Business Plan
milestone is gaining half of this number in the first 6 months. This milestone will indicate if
we are on course for the overall objective or not.
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xTrack Business Plan
GROWTH STRATEGIES
When a company has gotten through the early phases of development, the team
running the business must then seek to grow and expand the business across different
markets and different customers.
In order to outline our growth strategy we have decided to use Ansoff’s growth
matrix as the framework to illustrate the growth strategies that could be used in the future.
Note that the growth of the company will be planned for year three, four and five of
xTrack’s existence.
Market
penetration
Product
Development
Market
development
Diversification
MARKET PENETRATION
Market penetration is considered to be a company attempting to increase its market
share in an existing market using the existing product. After two years of conducting
business targeted at the SME sector in Ireland, we do not envisage the market to be totally
saturated, considering the overall size of the Irish SME market. With this point in mind we
believe that the first stage of the growth strategy for xTrack is to exhaust the current market
with the current product before moving onto the second stage of growth.
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xTrack Business Plan
MARKET DEVELOPMENT
Market development involves xTrack expanding into different geographical regions
or into different markets. Once again with reference back to the objectives section of this
document, it is clear that we have pinned the majority of our long term objectives on
expanding into different geographical markets. In year three it is planned that xTrack will
expand into the UK SME market.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Although it can be hard to speculate about customer needs with regards to a
technology service four or five years down the line, it is important for a company like xTrack
to expect changes in the product. Product development involves taking the original product
offering and modifying it, in order to generate more revenue or to keep the continuous flow
of revenue from this product.
Regarding product development within xTrack, we envisage many changes from
years 3 to 5. As technology is constantly evolving, it is our belief that these changes must be
reflected in the xTrack platform. For example there will be a need for server upgrades,
interface upgrades and the adding of new features to the xTrack service. One possibility may
come with improvement of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology, which may
shorten the expense submission process considerably through automatic text extraction.
In addition to the upgrades, it could be possible in the future to offer a more
dynamic version of xTrack as company grows. Currently the xTrack platform is a system that
offers customer a static service that is offered in one form. In the future the xTrack service
could be developed in a way that can become customisable to a customer based on the size
and requirements of that specific customer. Moving to this new dynamic product offering
will help xTrack grow by offering a more diversified, developed product.
DIVERSIFICATION
This cell of Ansoff’s Matrix can sometimes be considered one of the riskier moves
regarding growth strategies, as it forces companies to move away from the original
competencies of the company.
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xTrack Business Plan
We feel that as the xTrack platform grows and becomes more established with the
market, we as a company could begin to offer expense/tracking consultancy to new
customers. In addition it could be possible to draw on the experience built up by the xTrack
team in IT by selling IT consultancy/professional services to SME’s and multinational
organisations. One must note that this strategy is not an official objective of the company
and may only come into consideration in year 10 or further of xTrack’s existence.
To conclude, the future growth strategies are now clearly defined while at the same
time keeping in line with the company’s long term goals and objectives. Although some of
the strategies will not be put into action for at least five years, we feel that a clear road map
for growth is now defined which will contribute to the large scale success of the xTrack
platform.
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xTrack Business Plan
RESEARCH
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
For the purpose of developing the company to the highest calibre, and to gain
valuable feedback on our business idea, we employed both qualitative and quantitative
research methods.
With regard to research on the topic, the team agreed that there needed to be a
mixed method approach to the research section, as it is felt that mixed methods research
will give a 360 degree view of opinions and feelings towards the company. When deciding
on the qualitative methods of research, many factors had to be taken into account such as
sampling and unit of analysis. Using these two factors at the core of the criteria, we
developed a clear structure as to which individuals and companies would yield the best and
most relevant information.
We availed of the qualitative interview as a research method. Although we initially
decided that the research should be balanced using both interviews and focus groups, it
soon became apparent that it would not be possible to carry out focus groups, as many of
the individuals we needed would not have the time to take part in this research method. It
is for this reason we felt that conducting phone interviews would be a stronger approach to
the qualitative research necessary for this project.
As discussed, it was decided to target the SME market in the first 3 years of the
business. The main purpose of the research was to generate a consensus amongst potential
customers by interviewing a cross section of the market.
Before an interview could be conducted they first had to meet a certain criteria in
order to yield the most accurate information for our research. The criteria are as follows;
UNIT OF ANALYSIS:
Company must have sales representatives or field staff employed in the organisation
Must be an SME - less than 250 employees
Employee must be at management level, work in the sales or account department
or must be an individual that is knowledgeable about company expenses
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xTrack Business Plan
At the beginning of each interview, the subject and the purpose of the interview was
explained to the individual taking part. After this we then asked each interviewee a set of
precompiled questions. We used the same questions for each interview to maintain
consistency within the research.
DATA ANALYSIS
Overall we carried out a series of nine interviews with individuals from a range of
different companies and departments. From these interviews we gained answers to many
questions regarding the feasibility of the company idea, how companies currently deal with
employee expenses, employee activity tracking, pricing, and how up to date SME’s are with
new technology.
In the first section of the interview the interviewee was asked about the number of
employees working in the organisation and the general size of the organisation. Across the
nine organisations the number of employees ranged from 10-110. In addition to
determining the size of the organisation, we also felt it necessary to learn about the
different roles employees perform as field staff within each company.
In each session, the interviewee was asked about the company’s current expenses
system, in order to estimate how many companies actually have an expense system in
place. In the majority of cases we found that companies did have such a system in place, but
it was paper based, and could be considered out dated when compared to the xTrack
platform that has been developed.
“Our current expense system is haphazard, we would be very interested in using your
system”(Chris Mullen, Sales manager of Dectek IT & support systems)
The general opinion between the employees of the SME’s we interviewed was that
their current paper based systems were wasting a huge amount of time for staff within both
sales and accounts departments. For example in an interview with a member of the
accounts team in WMO healthcare, the interviewee referred to the amount of time she
spends at the end of the month checking and double checking receipts against claim sheets
and credit card statements.
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xTrack Business Plan
“Your system would make my job much easier, I would not have to spend hours comparing
receipts to credit card statements”(Anne Byrne, Accounts employee WMO Healthcare)
Although the existing expense management systems varied across the many SME
employees we interviewed, the core of the expense claim process had numerous similarities
amongst the interviewees. This is shown below in the diagram
Employee
incurs
expense
Fills out
expense
form
Sends
expense
form with
receipts via
post to HQ
Accounts
department
collect and
collate
receipts
Expense
matched to
receipt
claims
Receipts
and form
sent
director for
sign off
Employee
reimbursed
financially
Although the above diagram is a basic description of the expense process across the
nine companies, it is an adequate representation of the process that many SME’s have in
place.
Further to questioning the interviewees about the current expense process, we also
wanted to enquire whether or not SME’s have equipped field staff with the most up to date
computer and phone technology. The motivation behind asking questions regarding
technology was to infer if companies were willing to take on new technologies i.e. smart
phones, tablets etc. We felt that if companies were willing to equip staff with such
technology that they would be more likely to use the xTrack platform for expense claims
and activity monitoring. Each company interviewed had equipped field staff with an iPhone
or similar smart phone and in one case a Tablet. According to Tom Murphy (General
Manager at Pamex), sales representatives use tablets within sales calls to help sell the
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xTrack Business Plan
various products that are available from Pamex. Mr Murphy then explained that this is
becoming the norm amongst representatives in the sales community as it offers a visual
aide to the customer.
One can surmise that these SME’s with field staff could be considered to be
technologically adept, considering the amount of out of office employees that are carrying
smart phones in their active work. Therefore we can conclude that there is a strong
possibility that the xTrack system could be adopted in various organisations due to the fact
that the smart phone is a key component of the xTrack system.
Within each interview we also asked if companies track their employees when they
are out of the office. With regards to the data collected we discovered that many SME’s do
not track out of office employees due to unwillingness to install tracking devices into the
vehicles of field representatives.
In the interview with Pat Buckley (sales Director of WMO Healthcare), he felt that
activity tracking would be advantageous in getting a better insight into the actions of
employees on the road. He also felt that this facility should be offered at the premium level
of the service and not at the basic. Currently there is a lot of variation in organisations
tracking employees or not. However, the methods of tracking used are open to fraudulent
practices. For example, Pamex currently tracks its sales representatives by requiring all staff
to fill in a diary of the sales calls that have been made over the week. Although this system
is the cheapest way to track employees, field staff still have the opportunity to falsify
information on the form. This would not be the case when using xTrack as it is an electronic
system.
In the case of O’Flynn Medical, the team of seven sales representatives are tracked
by the CRM system in place. The company currently uses Microsoft Dynamic CRM for small
business in order to track orders and offer visibility on sales opportunities. Within the
system, the representatives have the option of marking a lead as active, closed or dead. By
tracking the stages at which sales are with different customers, the sales director is able to
monitor the activity of the sales representative on a daily and weekly basis. Although this
system could be considered to be adequate, Lorraine Carey (Marketing manager) believes
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xTrack Business Plan
that the xTrack system will offer a more in depth solution to monitoring employees in the
field.
Midway through each interview session the individual taking part was presented
with questions surrounding the “sign off” stage of the expense claim back process. We felt
that this question should be included because it would help us gain knowledge about the
needs of administrative users of the xTrack system. According to the data that was collected
from the research that was carried out, most companies will have expense claims signed off
by the financial director, managing director or sales director.
Generally, companies have the same individuals in charge of signing off on expense
claims, however Pat Buckley raised an interesting point about expense claims. At WMO, Mr
Buckley is responsible for signing off on employee expenses, but as he is an out of office
employee himself, he is not permitted to sign off on his own expenses. We feel that when
developing the xTrack platform, we must take small variations like this into consideration.
Upon further discussion with Mr Buckley, he felt that the xTrack system should have the
following login privileges:
Restricted access: Front line sales representatives and other field staff that are
claiming expenses or being tracked
Admin access: For the Director or manager of the sales team.
Master Admin access: This is a full view of the expenses and actions of the sales
representatives and the managers/directors. Master Admin access would be
reserved for the CEO/Managing Director
Given that this part of the interview confirmed what we had already speculated, we
also managed to gain some valuable information regarding company structure that we have
not already factored into the development of the xTrack platform.
As discussed, we wanted to gain an insight into how potential clients felt about the
xTrack concept and whether the platform would be commercially viable as a business.
Generally the xTrack concept was very well received by the companies that we had
interviewed. The data that had been produced indicates that many employees in the SME
community find expenses to be a hindrance, a laborious task. In many cases we found that
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xTrack Business Plan
directors see the value in the xTrack system and would be interested in implementing the
system in their organisation.
“The system sounds very innovative and could really help accounts departments deal more
effectively with expenses” (Larry Macken, Financial controller Protek)
“This system would give a good view of how much expenses our sales reps incur” (Lorraine
Carey, Marketing manager O’Flynn Medical)
The above is an example of some of the quotes from the individuals that were
interviewed, although nine interviews would only represent a small cross section of the SME
community, we feel that the positive feedback that was received generally indicates a very
optimistic outlook for the xTrack concept.
With regard to pricing, some individuals felt that they were not in a position to
comment as they were unsure as to how much their organisation would be willing to pay for
such a service. However, the general view was that it should be as low cost as possible.
Although the interview questions asked specifically about pricing, the interviewee
was also given the opportunity to give his/her opinion on possible revenue models and
payment plans that could be employed when using the xTrack service. Many of the
individuals had varying opinions, having said this certain correlations of opinions did emerge
regarding this subject.
In at least three different interviews, the individuals felt that using a three tiered
system of purchase would be desirable for the SME market, in addition it was also felt that
this approach would encourage companies to implement the xTrack system.
Where actual figures were discussed, €120 per user per year was provided as a
reasonable price for the service especially when targeted at the SME market.
With regards to how payments should be made to xTrack, there were many
conflicting ideas. We believe that different payment plans would be preferred depending on
the different types of SMEs out existing and the individuals involved in their operations.
Generally it emerged that a monthly, bi-monthly, or yearly payment would be the preferred
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xTrack Business Plan
methods of payment. In addition some mentioned that a free trial would also be desirable
at the beginning.
In our interviews it was found that no major problems occur when expenses are
submitted by employees. Although at least two of the interviewees mentioned that the
biggest issue experienced is receipts being misplaced or expenses not making the journey
from the employee to the accounts department where the expenses are collated. From this
we can assure that the xTrack platform ensures that receipts will not get misplaced or lost in
transit with the digital platform that will be implemented.
From the data we collected as part of this research, we found that the individuals
responsible for collecting and collating the expense information that is submitted by field
staff will belong to that department. As expenses are submitted by field staff, the office staff
are tasked with the job of matching receipts to expense forms and in some cases credit card
statements. According to the data collected, there is usually an admin team within the
Finance/Accounts department given this task.
CONCLUSIONS
Upon reflection we can draw some key points from the data that has been collected
by the team in the interviews that were conducted. The general opinion of interviewees is
that our platform is a strong concept that would be used by SME’s that have sales teams
and other out of office staff in these organisations.
Further to this we also discovered that many of these companies have a very
outdated paper based system that needs to be overhauled, in order to save time and money
for the organisation.
With reference to the data, we can also surmise that SME’s are open to new
technologies and are willing to integrate these technologies as part of daily business
operations.
Although “target markets” were not mentioned as a question within the interview,
we did receive feedback as to why targeting SME’s is a strong positioning strategy for the
xTrack platform. For example, when interviewing Larry Macken from Protek LTD, he was
keen to point out that a new company must first develop a good base of smaller clients
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xTrack Business Plan
before attempting to sell a service to larger firms. His reasoning behind this opinion was
that if a new IT service is implemented in a small firm and fails, the damage to the brand
name is minimal compared to a large scale failure at multinational level.
“I believe that by targeting SME’s in the early stages of the business, you are giving
yourselves the chance to iron out bugs and produce an extensive track record before
attempting to break the multinational market” (Larry Macken, financial controller, Protek
LTD)
When deciding which market should be targeted with a new product, it sometimes is
based on which market will yield the most revenue. Although it was originally planned to
aim at both the SME and multinational market simultaneously, we feel that our interviews
indicate that the SME market should be targeted exclusively in our founding years.
“SME’s are the right market for your business. When starting out. SME’s are very flexible
when adapting new systems. When implementing a new system, multinationals are
extremely slow to move where as SME’s can move quicker”(Pat Buckley, Sales director,
WMO healthcare.)
Based on our research the individuals that were interviewed for the purpose of this
project feel that the SME market is the best starting point for selling the xTrack service.
Although research data may not always offer definitive answers on certain subjects, we feel
that the information that has been collected is extremely valuable when deciding which
direction the company should take.
Another of the important conclusions that can be drawn from our data is the
interviewee’s opinions on the price of the service. According to some of the interviewees,
the price of €120 per user would be a good price to generate revenue but at the same time
avoiding the alienation of customers. After talking to various companies it became very
apparent that hitting the correct price point with the service is crucial when attempting to
sell the xTrack platform as a service to various customers.
Based on the research analysis that has been carried out in this section, we are
optimistic that the xTrack expense and activity tracking platform will be considered a viable
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xTrack Business Plan
service by our target market. Having said this, the research does also indicate that the price
will be a much bigger factor in the success of xTrack than originally anticipated.
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
QUESTIONNAIRE ANALYSIS
We constructed the questions for our quantitative research based upon primary qualitative
research conducted in the form of interviews with small sized companies with field staff
operating in Ireland. We combined this with secondary research that we conducted
surrounding the main competitors in this sector and the technology available to enable us to
build a comprehensive system such as xTrack.
The questionnaire comprised of 20 questions and was distributed to find out the
requirements of employers in our target market for software solutions such as xTrack as
well as gauging what was most important to them and useful for them. The questionnaire
was constructed using the Google Document’s Form tool and data was coded and analysed
using the analysis function of this tool.
We promoted our questionnaire in numerous ways. Firstly we actively engaged in LinkedIn
Groups such as Ireland’s SME Community and SME Business Professionals (UK). Following
this engagement in the online communities we then posted our questionnaire some weeks
later (See Appendix 2B). Secondly, we used Twitter to target those small business users and
company profiles by constructing a tweet with carefully selected important hash tags used
by those in that industry. For example, #SMEcommunity, #Irebiz, #GBiz, #nibiz and
#telework. The tweet presented the research topic and asked for their help as a participant
(See Appendix 2B). The tweet was published twice, five days apart to further maximise
exposure.
Lastly we contacted the Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) and every
enterprise board in Ireland and Northern Ireland to explain the nature of our result and
request their help in promoting our research survey on our behalf to their members.
Although various attempts through different media were employed to get small companies
to respond to the questionnaire, we only received ten valid responses. Fortunately we had
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xTrack Business Plan
also conducted additional primary research in the form of interviews and our own individual
secondary research into the industry and competitors.
60% of participants said that monitoring field employee expenses was important to
their company; the remaining 40% said it was quite important. From our questionnaire we
can deduce that currently most companies (70% of those surveyed) operating in this area
already provide their employees with the use of smart phones as part of their job. However,
many companies were not using any expense tracking system to enable them to localise
data from employee expenses. In fact, among those respondents who participated, 70%
were not using a computer software package for tracking field employee expenses and
activities. Many small companies rely on software such as Excel spreadsheets to keep track
of field staff expenses as they feel they could not afford many of the solutions on offer in
the marketplace. XTrack offers an affordable solution that would add so much value to any
small company with field staff. As almost three quarters of the participants already provide
their staff with the use of smart phones, it would be a very small additional cost to
introduce the xTrack expense and activity monitoring system into their companies.
While there was much variance in opinion on the level of difficulty involved
monitoring these expenses, one must note again that 70% of participants are not currently
using a computer software package to complete this task. When asked about the amount of
time spent processing field employee expenses, the average response was that quite a
significant amount of time is spent on this activity. As mentioned before, xTrack would
greatly reduce the time required to process and sign off on expense receipts. Half of
respondents felt it was difficult or very difficult to track the daily activities of their field
employees. xTrack would empower them by giving them much more information than the
currently have and give employees more responsibility instead of regular phone calls to see
where they are and asking how well they are performing.
Of the 30% of those participants with a computer software package in place, none of
the systems provided the functions of an automatic notification of unauthorised purchases,
an electronic clock in system for employees or a GPS tracking function of employee travel.
xTrack offers to first two functions as described and the last using GSM technology for an
accurate location.
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xTrack Business Plan
With regards to the importance of certain factors when choosing a software package
for field employee management, Functionality, Cost and Ease of Use were deemed to be the
most important, in that order. xTrack prides itself on having a streamlined, simply system at
an affordable price for small companies with any number of employees. Among the
participants, 70% of their companies had less than six field employees. An additional 20%
had between six and ten field employees.
One third said their field employees currently submitted their expenses weekly, with
other 70% saying they had monthly submissions in place. 70% of respondents felt it would
be quite useful to very useful if real time tracking of field employee expenses was available
instead of waiting the week/month to see the balance. 70% said that occasionally field
employees exceeded their budgeted expenses and 40% occasionally submitting
unauthorized items. The xTrack system would be able to notify field staff in advance of
exceeding their budget using pre-determined notifications. Moreover, the employer would
be notified if an unauthorized item was submitted to expenses. 60% of respondents felt
notifications of this type would be useful or very useful.
70% felt electronic copies of field employee expense receipts would be useful or very
useful to their company. From the other perspective of xTrack’s value proposition, half of
participants believed it would be useful or very useful to be able to monitor their field
employees’ daily travel. Overall one can see that there is demand for a system such as
xTrack that incorporate both expense and activity monitoring. Many of the key parts are
already in place such as a wiliness of management to use such systems, technology being
seen as something to be embraced and smart phones already being in use in the majority of
the companies.
Although we spent a considerable amount of time promoting our questionnaire
through a spectrum of mediums and making direct contact with people asking them to
participate we found it extremely difficult to gain a conclusive number of respondents that
would allow us to ensure our data collected would give us conclusive evidence. Thus, one
must conclude that although the data collected gave us insight into the demands of small
companies operating in this industry, we must conduct more primary research to ensure we
reach a decisive conclusion.
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xTrack Business Plan
MARKET OVERVIEW
From our secondary research we can see that the employee software solutions
market is highly competitive. There are many key players operating in this sector, offering
solutions for companies with field staff in Ireland. However most solely focus on the
expenses tracking element of employee solutions, omitting the function of activity
monitoring. Many of the existing companies offering these services provide a blanket
solution for all clients. However, some do provide a more specialised product offering,
breaking their client base into general categories such as retail, government and healthcare
etc. While there are many existing direct competitors we believe our product offers a more
streamlined, simple platform interface and an app that users can navigate with ease without
much learning time, if any at all.
THE POTENTIAL MARKETS FOR OUR PRODUCT
There are many markets suitable for our product within the small sized companies in
Ireland, especially for those companies with field staff. This includes but is not limited to
transport staff, sales representatives, field operatives, repair technicians, inspectors,
teleworkers or any other employees who operate primarily off premises including staff who
travel occasionally on business. Our initial target market is sales representatives which will
be explained in more detail in the Target Market section (p46). The value proposition for
site inspectors (electricity and other) is that they utilise not only the expense tracking
elements of the product whilst on the road but also the activity monitoring aspect. For each
building they certify or approve, the client has concrete proof that they were on site for the
approval on the specific date in question. This would prove to be extremely useful for the
official records of the employer and for both the employer and employee in a case where a
query is made in the future.
In the case of academics, their role sees them travel quite frequently for seminars,
conferences and guest lecturing. Our product would allow them to submit expense receipts
as they occur instead of retaining receipts for the duration of their trip. Moreover the
technology involved would allow the system to detect which currency the receipts are in
based upon the location they are scanned from. This simple system would allow employees
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xTrack Business Plan
to receive payment for their receipts much faster as the administration of the task and
signing off process is greatly reduced. From the employer’s perspective, value is added
because the process requires substantially less labour to process and approve expenses.
Thus, staff on and off site can spend more time dedicated to their other responsibilities and
used this extra time gained to achieve company objectives.
The above are two basic examples of simple ways our system can add value for both
the employee and the business. Our product has a dual value proposition throughout. The
employer can benefit from having access to real time data about employee expenses,
adding strategic value. This is particularly useful for our target market, small Irish
companies, as the development stage of their operation often results in difficulty balancing
cash flow. xTrack enables employers to clearly see at any moment, money to be paid in the
form of expense receipt claims. Thus they can constantly balance their books instead of only
finding out the total expenses to be paid at the end of the month. Furthermore it offers an
operational value as it allows them to begin using a technological architecture that can grow
with them as the company expands in size and develops further needs from the system. Our
product also facilitates compliance for small companies in accordance with governmental
legislation (as further explained in the Risk and Employee Law sections). Finally, it allows the
employer to gain more visibility and communicate better with employees as they can
analyse the activity monitoring data produced, improve route planning and there is a
continuous dialogue from the expense receipt input into the system.
On the other hand, the employee is given a simple tool to input their expense
receipts in real time, eliminating the need to compile them and process them traditionally
which is not only time consuming but tedious too. This allows employees to focus on their
primary duties. Moreover, submitting expenses in this way means they can be processed
faster and so the turnaround of repaying expenses to the employee can be considerably
faster than the traditional method. Finally it allows staff to record sales and other important
data so that they can easily calculate commission etc. again adding value for the employee.
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xTrack Business Plan
CURRENT AND FUTURE TRENDS
CURRENT TRENDS
Current trends show that most field staff are provided with a smart phone as part of their
employment. Employers of companies of all sizes see the benefit of equipping staff with the
necessary tools to perform their role better and to enable clearer communication between
all actors in the business. This tool has been enabled Global System for Mobile
Communications (GSM), Global Positioning System (GPS) and accelerometer technology to
be utilised as well as the grouping trend of apps that use Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) technology, whose accuracy is continuously being improved.
FUTURE TRENDS
Some of the likely future trends which we deem most relevant to our business idea are:
Smartphone ownership will continue to increase. At present in Ireland there is 43%
penetration (www.thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet). The capabilities of these
smartphones can aid businesses not only in communication but in data collection.
“Mobility is helping many organizations rethink their business models. Consumerfacing mobile applications are only the beginning… with the explosion of mobile use
cases” (Deloitte, 2012)
The price of sensors will continue to fall, and their ubiquity will increase. The amount
of data being gathered will explode exponentially, requiring software solutions to
make sense of it. (Forbes,2012)
As smartphones contain a number of sensors, they will be a likely tool in data
collection. We are already seeing today the integration of geographical location data
into consumer apps and products. This is set to continue, as location tracking
becomes more accurate, and as people find new commercial uses for this data.
“Geospatial Visualization takes advantage of an explosion of geographical, locationaware data. Sources feeding this growth include new semi-structured data from
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xTrack Business Plan
mobile devices, geo-tagging of existing enterprise structured data and tapping into
new streams of location-aware unstructured data.”(Deloitte, 2012)
The capabilities of smartphones will improve, and this will enable better methods of
conducting business processes such as submitting expense receipts. One technology
we have identified with potential is optical character recognition, which could
greatly improve our product. Already this technology is being made use of, for
example Google Goggles (google.com/mobile/goggles), but is not yet accurate
enough for our purposes.
BUYER BEHAVIOUR
From our primary research we can deduce that being able to monitor field employees’
expenses effectively is very important to all companies operating in our target market.
Collecting data that accurately displays employee expenses and that can be used not only to
calculate repayments but for productivity analysis, comparison of employees or team
groups/different regions is extremely valuable and value adding for our clients.
Most companies spend quite a significant amount of time processing expense receipts. Our
product would allow them to greatly reduce the time spent on this activity giving them the
opportunity to focus on other responsibilities. Overall, the current methods employed to
manage field expenses and activity monitoring are seen by users as somewhat difficult to
use. Furthermore, are target market believe it would be very useful to monitor activities
such as location, movement etc. to further understand the how their employees are
working in the field.
Perhaps many small companies feel that it would not be feasible for them to have a solution
catering for their needs at a price they can afford. Small companies are extremely cost
aware at this stage of development of their company. They need a reliable, accurate system
that is affordable to implement and maintain. One which will store their data securely and
equip them with the necessary tools to analyse it. This will enable them to make cross
comparisons and improvements for the future. Companies want to ensure that software
solutions are a good fit for their company and the activities their field staff are involved in.
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xTrack Business Plan
Offering a free month’s trial of xTrack will enable the employers to assess the system’s
effectiveness for their company before making an investment. Moreover, they need a
system, such xTrack that can grow as the company develops further. All of this should be
offered in one, simple streamlined system so that there is no expensive training costs added
on, just added value in each aspect of the product offering.
TARGET MARKET
Our overall target market for this product is small sized companies operating in
Ireland who have sales representative or other teleworking employees. It is our belief that
the data collected from the combination of expense tracking and activity monitoring
functions is far more value adding for small sized companies in this market as it can be
utilised to provide specific knowledge from its analysis. Thus, our product will offer many
additional value adding complementary functions in addition to the basic expense tracking
capability.
We have selected Irish small sized companies as we feel the value proposition of our
platform and app is best suited to a company of less than fifty employees who have a
significant a number of staff working in the field. We felt that a small enterprise would not
have sufficient sales representatives or teleworkers to justify or require a system like ours.
We were also mindful, that as a young company it would be best for us to learn from our
experience of serving clients in small enterprises and using this to develop the product
further by making alterations suggested by current clients before offering it to clients who
work on a larger scale.
Within that frame we are focusing on offering our product to companies who have
staff working in the field. Our solution offers an innovative way for sales representatives to
submit their expenses in real time, route mapping to allow it to be analysed and improved,
individual sales and commission records and a record of the time they checked in for client
visits.
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xTrack Business Plan
SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths
Weaknesses
•Streamlined System with simple design
•Dual value proposition
•Low cost
•Constructed with a specific target customer in
mind
•Team with diverse skills
• Highly competitive Market
• Well established brand names
• Limited industry experience
xTrack
Opportunities
Threats
• Increase of smart phone use and
associated technology in this industry.
• Demand for a better software solution.
• Existing competitors and new entrants
• Changes in compliance legislation
STRENGTHS
xTrack has many strengths when analysed. Firstly it has a dual value proposition. That it is to
say that xTrack offers a combined solution for expense tracking and activity monitoring
producing real-time data for both aspects. This data is extremely valuable for both the
employer and employee. The xTrack system is centred on being simplistic in nature and
streamlined in design.
We wanted to create a platform with limited, if any, learning time. The idea is that
users can simply turn it on and use it from that moment onwards. There will be video
tutorials explaining how best to use it for those novice users who may wish more
information or tuition. We have made this system with our specific target user in mind. Thus
they have been at the centre of every decision to construct the system as it is. Lastly, we
have positioned ourselves in the lower end of the price bracket for this market to better
target our customers (as they seek an affordable solution) and to be competitive.
WEAKNESSES
Our weakness is that we have limited industry experience among our team. We are
entering a highly competitive market with many already established brand names such as
Concur and Filexpenses. However we feel our product offering and dedication to adding
value in every function that our solution possesses will distinguish us in the marketplace. As
44
xTrack Business Plan
will our extensive knowledge and excellent sales and presentation skills. We hope to gain
brand awareness through our marketing plan but also to incentivise potential clients to try
our system using the one month trial. We feel that our brand will be built on a positive
relationship and experience with our clients which will lead to additional clients on a referral
basis.
OPPORTUNITIES
We see our opportunity being based in the huge increase of smart phone use in
recent years. This is a trend that will continue, especially in our target market. There is
demand for solutions such as xTrack that combine the capabilities of smart phones with
affordable technology that can add value for employers and employees alike. Moreover,
although there is much competition in this area, we can see that there is demand for a more
comprehensive software solution, such as xTrack.
THREATS
With regards to threats facing xTrack, there are many competitors in the market. We
face the threat of new entrants in an increasingly bigger market place. Moreover, there
could be the threat of a change in compliance legislation in the future meaning we will have
to alter our system to include other elements or change existing functions that xTrack
provides. There could also be the threat of legislation with regards to privacy and our use of
location monitoring.
PESTLE ANALYSIS
POLITICAL
As the government is trying to nurture growth in the economy they will rely on new
start-ups like xTrack. A result of this will see a variety of forms of political support for our
company. This arrives in the form of the previously mentioned start up grants. Upon review
xTrack could also avail of innovation vouchers should the need arise however we did not
account for this in our 3 year plans.
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xTrack Business Plan
Datamonitor has surveyed the political landscape in Ireland. Austerity is a key
determinant of Ireland’s situation, with €21bn in spending cuts to help drive the company
back to growth. The current government is focussed on these measures which face a large
risk of being opposed to by the people and businesses operating in the nation. However the
government is particularly favourable in the current climate towards new technology startups such as xTrack.
The effects of the government’s initiative to turn Ireland into a Smart Economy since
2010 (McGee, 2010) will apply specifically to a tech start up like xTrack. At the heart of this
are the attempts by our leaders to attract wealthy venture capital from the United States.
Again xTrack could benefit greatly from this with foreign investors providing needed capital
in our fledgling years. The knowledge of these investors can be used to advise xTrack in their
potential expansion to markets outside of Ireland.
In our financial section we referred to the funding and support we have received
from the AIB Seed Capital Scheme. The Dublin City Enterprise Board and the Micro Finance
fund will also provide funding should the need arise.
ECONOMIC
The current inflation rate in Ireland is 1.61% (inflation.eu, 2012). Ireland is still
experiencing the effects of the 2008 downturn. As a result growth is slow with an increase in
GDP of 1%. This will reflect in client’s propensity to consume. We can tailor these figures to
our advantage as we position ourselves as the simple and affordable solution to our
competitors’ products. 2011 was a positive year in regards to GDP growth as we have seen a
positive figure, this will prove optimistic to our clients and they may be willing to consume
more.
We must also reflect on the economic outlook in the UK having recently entered a
double dip recession with a current inflation rate of 2.6% and a GDP movement of -0.7%.
This will affect our clients view on spending and also the revenues we generate should this
impact on exchange rate fluctuations. A stronger Pound will result in lower revenue when
converted back to our home currency. As a result we must prepare for the economic risk
associated with exchange rates. With this we expect to see cuts in our clients’ budgets
reducing the potential uptake of our platform.
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xTrack Business Plan
Comreg estimated in 2010 that mobile phone usage is ranked at 95%. A significant
figure for us in doing business as the web platform relies on its connectivity with the mobile
app.
SOCIAL
The strength of smart phones in the market, their features and favourable network
plans result in an almost complete uptake amongst our prospective clients. With a
smartphone penetration of 43% in 2012 alone it is clear that we need not fear the uptake of
our app. Our qualitative research also provides justification for this presumption considering
that our interviewees provide the phones to their staff. Ultimately we feel that those with
the smart phones will have a clear intuitive understanding on the way traditional apps work
complimenting the ease of use of our system.
TECHNOLOGY
Again the dominance of smart phones in the market will obviously have its
implications on businesses. Mobile networks are continually improving their plans to suit
those relying on constant internet usage on these phones. The majority of our clients
provide their employees with smart phones, as a result we should benefit from the network
providers’ changes to their data limits. With networks like 3 providing free internet on their
affordable bill pay plans, their competitors have adjusted their services to follow suit.
Consequently we feel that there is significant web infrastructure to use our app and website
with our target clientele being on the road. The coverage 3G in the Republic of Ireland is
almost 100% for each of the big 4 networks (Vodafone, 3, o2 and Meteor) means our client
will have almost guaranteed access to high speed internet to upload their data to our
servers with ease. The recent auction for the 4G wireless spectrums (Silicon Republic, 2012)
this will further cement the guarantee for the fast guaranteed data transfer that would
assist our service.
LEGISLATION
Ireland is ranked 7th highest in the Wall Street Journal 2011 Index of Economic
Freedom, this was caused by the economic instability of the worldwide recession. According
to World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2012 statistics the nation is ranked 10th out of 183, it
takes 13 days to start up a business, 8 days to get credit and 4 procedures to set up a
47
xTrack Business Plan
company. The corporation tax still remains at its welcoming 12.5% for all companies. With a
transparent legal framework and apparent minimal presence of bureaucracy it should be of
little difficulty for the software to develop into a novel business.
We have discussed in the Legal section the requirements alluded to in the above
paragraph in more detail.
ENVIRONMENT
As we are solely focussed on marketing and doing business online we consider
ourselves to be a green company. The relinquished requirement for the storage of receipts
mean the paper can be recycled and used for other means. Our technology will be up to
European standards regarding the computer equipment that we will use.
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xTrack Business Plan
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
PORTER ’S 5 F ORCES
2. Threat
of New
Entrants
5.
Bargaining
Powe of
Suppliers
1.Rivalry
Among
Competitors
3.
Bargaining
Power of
Buyers
4. Threat
of
Substitutes
(Porter, 1980)
RIVALRY AMONG COMPETITORS
The nature of this sector means there is high rivalry among firms as the market is
concentrated on being more innovative, technologically savvy and cost effective than other
actors in the sector. While xTrack is entering a competitive market, we can deduce from our
research that the company has the potential to challenge the existing players in the market.
This is due to our highly reliable expense and activity monitoring system being designed in a
streamlined and simple manner. We hope this distinction will allow us to penetrate the
market and gain market share over time.
THREAT OF NEW ENTRANTS
There are many legislative considerations to be taken into account when offering a product
of this nature which is based so much on compliance. We have ensured we are in
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xTrack Business Plan
accordance with such legislation in order to enter the market with our expense and activity
monitoring system, adding value for our clients.
BARGAINING POWER OF BUYERS
As our target market is small companies with sales representatives operating in Ireland they
are sensitive to price changes. We are aware that altering our pricing greatly could
potentially result in clients no longer being able to afford the product. It is for this reason
that we have kept our objective of being a lower cost service provider of expense and
activity monitoring but also introduced a three tier system so that we can offer more
advanced and expensive systems to those clients who have additional needs for the
extensions and who can afford them. This will also allow us to classify our clients better and
establish fundamental accounts.
THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES
There is a high threat of substitutes as the individual components of the technology used
are not patented by our company. However, to date, no competitor has married the
technologies in the same way. Moreover our system stands out as it is presented in such a
streamlined manner. Finally, there is a reasonable switching cost involved for the client
should they move providers. This cost is inclusive of the price to train staff on a different
competitor system as most competitor systems are not constructed in such a simple,
streamlined way that facilitates ease of use from the beginning like xTrack.
BARGAINING POWER OF SUPPLIERS
The switching cost of xTrack changing suppliers would not be considerable as the
technology is not extremely specialised. Thus if our supplier did greatly increase the price of
our raw materials we wouldn’t have a significant issue in changing to another supplier
provided the same high quality was maintained in doing so.
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xTrack Business Plan
MAIN COMPETITORS VS. X TRACK
Solution
Expenses
Activity
Additional Features
Pricing
Monitor
xTrack
Degree of
Simplicity
GSM itemised
Low cost
Excellent
Specific ‘TripIt’ Tool
Low cost
Poor
Route Planning
Midrange
Very Good
Mileage tracking
Expensive
Good
Manage Field
Report Scheduling
Midrange
Poor
Staff
&GPS Tracking
purchases
Concur
Transpoco
X
X
Driver Identification
Filexpenses
X
xTrack is a dual expense and activity monitoring system that is easy to adopt and use. It’s
simplistic in design and has streamlined the functions available from competitors as well as
adding complimentary ones. Overall, it is less expensive than many competitors, starting at
€120 per user per year. In addition there is 1 month’s free trial (on each of the three tiers) to
test suitability of the system to a company’s particular needs. xTrack has a three tiered product
offering:
xTrack Basic - offers the basic expense and activity monitoring system at the lower end
of the cost scale (€120 per user per month).
xTrack Advanced –offers the mapping of individual purchase i.e. the location of where
the transaction takes place, through the activity monitoring system. Data analysis of
time spent stopped vs. driving vs. walking presented in graphic format and available for
further analysis. Established clients are incentivised to upgrade to this tier by an
additional 1 month free trial. Mid range cost of €240 per user per year.
Premium – this system offers an automatic notification system when the expenses total
reaches pre-determined amounts set and personalised by individual users for their own
needs. It also includes advanced statistical information on data collected to be used for
cross correlation. The premium system cost is€360 per user per year.
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xTrack Business Plan
Concur is currently a market leader in this sector and possesses a five tiered model
of products available for our target customer base. Concur offer a 30 day free trial but only
for its bottom two platforms of its five tier model. They do have the Trip It functionality
which enables booking short journeys but this level of the model doesn’t offer activity
monitoring. Although it is not a very expensive option, the set up of a new account is
extremely time consuming (approximately forty five minutes). The xTrack platform takes no
longer than ten minutes to register and begin use. Moreover, the xTrack interface is much
more user friendly, offering a simple design with the target client in mind.
Transpoco have a more specific and somewhat limited product offering than xTrack
as their value proposition is predominantly based on vehicle tracking and security. Their
products offer a driver identification system so improve the security of the company vehicle.
The GPS tracking system allows improved communication as the office can monitor their
position and predict when they will arrive at a customer’s location. However the advantage
of the xTrack is that the technology is based in the app and not the vehicle. Thus we can
collect valuable data about the activity of an employee both in and out of the vehicle as well
as the impressive expense tracking addition. Transpoco do however offer route planning
and manage servicing and fleet administration.
Filexpenses offer a comprehensive file expenses management system with a receipt
capture function as part of their solution but they do not provide a function to enable
activity monitoring of field staff. They have solution packages targeted at consultants,
corporate, self employed and SMEs and do offer customisation of the basic package for
tailor made corporate branded solutions for an additional fee.
Manage Field Staff are one of the weaker competitors as the solution they offer is
limited and their design is over complicated. They offer a GPS tracking system and a realtime travel route of field staff as well as report submission via the mobile device. Moreover
they offer a scheduled report of individual field staff member which is sent to employer via
email. This is very much a surveillance system in contrast to xTrack which provides a
platform for continuous communication.
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xTrack Business Plan
BUSINESS STRATEGY AND MARKETING PLAN
TARGET SEGMENTS
It is our belief that the XTrack system could eventually be rolled across many
companies in many industries in Ireland. However, as XTrack is still in the early stages of its
inception we feel that specific markets must be targeted early on to avoid attempting to
promote the company in too large a segment and thus causing the marketing to become
diluted and ineffective.
It is our belief that many organisations of all sizes could be considered to be
potential customers of the XTrack system, having said this it would not be the correct way
to target these potential customers.
After conducting primary and secondary research, we feel that XTrack should be
targeted at the SME segment of Irish business and enterprise in the early stages. If SMEs are
our main customers in the early stages, it provides us with the opportunity to implement
the XTrack platform on a very small scale. By starting with smaller customers, we can
change or develop the XTrack platform without creating too many issues as there will only
be a small amount of users from SME’s
Throughout the research phase of this project we found that collecting data and
figures on SMEs in Ireland was quite difficult as the data on these companies is limited.
However, according to CSO figures there is just over 198,000 Micro, small and medium size
enterprises operating in Ireland divided across five main headings which are Miscellaneous
Industry, Construction, Services, Distribution and Financial Services & Insurance. We believe
that any SME that has field staff eg. sales team, support staff, maintenance team etc. is a
potential customer for the XTrack service. We have pinpointed that the 13,574 companies in
miscellaneous industry, the 7,820 companies in the services industry and the 5,996
companies in financial services/insurance are customers that maybe be of interest within
the segment as they are companies that are more likely to have active field staff. With
reference to the figures it is clear that the SME target segment is quite sizeable, thus
indicating the sales potential regarding XTrack.
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xTrack Business Plan
In addition to the many SMEs in existence we feel that placing emphasis on some
other key industries such as pharmaceuticals and the medical device industry is particularly
important as the majority of these companies have sales teams based out of the office.
While conducting interviews as part of our primary research we discovered that
many companies within the target segment had reacted quite positively to the XTrack
concept. In addition we found that some of the interviewees supported our hypothesis that
the SME market is a good segment to target initially.
“I believe that targeting SME’s in the early stages of the business, you are giving
yourselves the chance to iron the bugs and produce an extensive track record before
attempting to break the multinational market” (Larry Macken, Financial controller at
Protek)
Further to Mr Macken’s comments on the producing a track record in a market
before moving into a larger more difficult market, we also found that some individuals felt
that the SME market contains companies that can react quickly by implementing services
such as XTrack easier than in larger organisations.
“SME’s are the right market for your business starting out, SME’s are very flexible when
adapting a new system, Multinationals are extremely slow to move were as SME’s can act
fast” (Pat Buckley, Sales director, WMO healthcare)
In addition to the above quote, Mr Buckley also described that the difference in
SMEs and multinationals implementing new systems as the difference between “a
speedboat turning in the water and an oil tanker making the same turn”.
In conclusion we believe that the Irish SME market is sizeable enough to generate
revenue from considering the figures, further to this the data collected from the qualitative
interviews conducted indicates that the SME market is the strongest segment to target.
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xTrack Business Plan
MARKETING STRATEGY
Our marketing strategy for the beginning years will be primarily by two methods:
Direct Marketing by our sales directors to potential clients through networking,
telephone and personal meetings.
Online Marketing through search & display network advertising, email and social
media.
DIRECT MARKETING
A good starting point for our direct marketing campaign would be to follow up the
leads generated from our primary research interviews, with Niall and Michelle arranging to
meet with interested parties and pitch the concept to them. However, this would ideally be
done when the system has been tested and ready to launch so a full demonstration could be
given. So until this time, they will focus on generating new leads, through networking and
contacting potential clients.
Once a few companies have signed up and are using the system, the campaign will
also include promotion at enterprise and technology events and conferences. By learning
from our first clients the types of business that are using our software, and the features
from which they benefit the most, we can tailor our approach accordingly.
The sales team will grow as the company develops, according to demand, and the
level at which we see direct marketing as a long term approach, or choose to focus more on
online marketing- this will depend on how effective each approach is, as concluded in
periodic reviews.
ONLINE MARKETING
Our primary method for advertising online will be through Google Adwords. The
amount to be allocated to this is indicated in the finance section. A small amount of the
online advertising budget will also go to Bing advertising and some paid listings such as
Yahoo directories. The majority of the budget will be spent on purchasing advertising on
Google’s networks. We will target the search network through relevant keyword matches.
55
xTrack Business Plan
By analysing the analytics data coming from our product website, we can see how users are
finding the site, and use this to help build our keyword list and targeting strategy. We will
begin the campaign at launch date with a broad selection of keywords, and various formats
of the advertisement. By allowing keywords and ads to compete for the first few weeks, we
can review their performance and optimize the campaign accordingly.
We will also target Google’s display network with banner advertising on specific
placements. We will choose placements which may be relevant to our target market, such
as business news or analysis sites. Again, we will start with a wide list and allow placements
to compete, determining which are most effective based on their CTR, avg. cost, and other
metrics. Sites which performed poorly will be removed. For sites which were effective, we
will search for more placements similar in content.
Exactly how much of the budget will be allocated to search advertising and how
much to display advertising will not be known until we review the performance of our
various keywords, placements, ads, and ad groups after the initial period of trial and error.
However, it is likely that in the early stages we will focus heavily on the search network, and
perhaps some CPC display advertising, as our focus is on driving users to our site, not so
much on branding.
We will also set up profiles on all the popular social media websites at the moment,
using these to market our product and direct users to our site. A blog on the company’s
activities will also be published and updated regularly. Users who connect with us through
our social media and opt in to receiving offers by email will also be contacted with
marketing promotions via this medium.
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xTrack Business Plan
FINANCIAL DATA
DISCLAIMER
The financial data summarised in the following section and available in full detail in
Appendix 1 are included solely for illustrative purposes. They do not provide a guarantee for
future performance or profit. This data provides an illustration of only one of numerous
possible outcomes based on the assumptions discussed below. Every effort has been made
by the financial director to provide the most realistic and accurate assumptions given the
information available. The accounts shall be prepared beginning 1st September 2012 with a
year end of 31st August 2013, and a similar accounting year for 2013 and 2014.
INTRODUCTION
In the business models section it is clear that our system aims to provide a service.
With Software as a Service, financial issues would focus on the areas of managing operating
costs efficiently, and steadily increasing sales revenue, in order to nurture continuous
growth of the company. The figures we have arrived at in the following reports have been
arrived at through the understanding of industry and accounting standards.
We have calculated reasonably realistic sales values and expenses helping us arrive
at an achievable gross profit figure.
xTrack will offer a 3 tiered business model to its clients, as suggested by industry
players we have interviewed. The packages will be named Basic, Advanced and Premium,
and prices charged will depend on what services clients require. We have decided to offer
the Basic package to all customers initially, with the chance to upgrade to Advanced then
Premium if they so wish at extra charges.
xTrack have a challenge to accomplish in obtaining sufficient capital to support the
business in its fledgling stages. The available capital will help develop the technology that
will generate the revenue needed to strengthen the company. We understand that our
customer base must grow and thus we will engage in customer engagement and attraction
activities throughout the upcoming years. Customer recruitment is at the heart of these
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xTrack Business Plan
plans as growth relies on the customer base of xTrack expanding at a constant rate through
the following three years and beyond.
INVESTMENT REQUIREMENTS
In order for xTrack to become a working company an initial capital injection of
€120,000 will need to be raised. This will fund the initial heavy cash requirements, providing
liquidity up to year 3 where we hope to expand to an extent that our revenue figures will
cover the expenses. It is agreed that each director will provide €15,000 each from personal
assets, family and friends. We will apply for the AIB Seed Capital Fund to obtain a further
€10,000 in funding. Finally the remaining €25,000 will be obtained through 4.40% SME Loan
provided by AIB. We chose AIB due to the lower comparable interest rate. The terms suit a
new small business like xTrack. It is a flexible source of finance that can be used for setting
up costs and purchasing assets among others.
The funding breakdown is as follows:
Source of Funding
Amount
AIB 4.40% Bank Loan
€25,000
AIB Seed Capital Scheme
€10,000
Director Investment
€60,000
Total
€95,000
The loan shall be paid off in the 3 year period. Each year one third of the price will be
accounted for offsetting the loan. On the final year these amounts will be combined and
used to repay the loan in the full €25,000 amount.
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xTrack Business Plan
The breakdown of payments is as follows:
Investment
Investment Amount
AIB 4.40% Bank Loan
€25,000
Yearly Interest
€1,100
Yearly Loan Repayment
€8,333
Total Yearly Repayment
€9,433
Total Repayment at year 3
€28,299
Due to the funding coming from the directors, loans and other supports ownership
will be fully under the directors’ control.
REVENUE BREAKDOWN
xTrack is focusing on three revenue models that are tailored to different client
needs. As discussed the three models are:
1. Basic
2. Advanced
3. Premium
Basic will be offered to each new customer with the opportunity to add more
services based on their information needs. The projected sales for these models are based
on an optimistic scenario and potential customers are as follows:
Revenue sales
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Basic
€5,160
€25,800
€387,000
Advanced
€2,400
€13,800
€207,000
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xTrack Business Plan
Premium
€1,200
€7,800
€117,000
Total
€8,760
€43,800
€711,000
Subscriptions
800000
700000
600000
500000
400000
300000
200000
100000
0
Year 1
Year 2
Basic
Advanced
Year 3
Premium
The table and the chart above depict a significant growth level for the company.
These figures can be justified in the pricing of the packages and their subscription rates.
PRICING
With the three models we believe it would be best to provide the Basic package
initially. The Basic package would cost €120 a year per employee broken down into monthly
payments of €10. Clients can opt for the Advanced or Premium packages immediately or
upgrade at a later date both costing a further €120 each. As a result the Advanced package
will cost €240 and Premium €360. With this pricing those with the Advanced package are
essentially Basic subscribers too with the added Advanced features and similarly for
Premium clients. For accounting purposes we treated every customer as basic and included
the additional €120 per upgrade to arrive at the revenue figures.
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xTrack Business Plan
The subscriber figures are based on the number of employees per company using
the web platform and app. They are represented in the table below:
Subscribers
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Basic
43
215
3,225
Upgraded to Advanced
20
115
1,725
Upgraded to Premium
10
65
975
As the features of each package are upgraded those subscribers still retain the
features of the previous service. Therefore the figure for basic subscribers is the total
number of subscribers for that year with the numbers in the Advanced and Premium rows
being those Basic subscribers who have upgraded.
In Year 1 we have deduced our interested clients from the primary research conducted. As
we advertise further and popularity grows we hope to expand to 5 times that amount in
Year 2. In Year 3 we will reach even further and target the UK SME industries with the hope
of increasing our users 15 times.
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xTrack Business Plan
NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS
COST OF SALES
As discussed, a Software as a Service company like xTrack will have little in the way
of trading costs or stock. Cost of Sales will focus solely on acquiring and training of
employees. In our first year we will only need one technical employee along with the four
directors. We will increase the number of employees by 1 in year 2 and 2 in year 3. We wish
to hire fresh graduates whom, like ourselves, will be fresh with technological knowledge.
These graduates will also cost less to employ.
The cost of sales figure will be 25% in year 1 and 20% in years 2 & 3 in order to
ensure the availability of cash to pay for correct training of new employees. We will not
need a large cost of sales figure in our first year as there is little in the way of training, but it
will cover the need for any technology or equipment purchases.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
As we are providing a service through our software we will need to be on hand to
assist with updates and installation of the products. As a result we propose a €20 call out
charge for those clients having difficulty with the web platform or app. These charges are
estimated on 5 visits in year 1, 50 in year 2 and 250 in year 3.
SALARIES
The salaries figure represents the remuneration of those involved in the daily
running of the organisation. We will have 5 employees in year 1 consisting of 4 directors and
a software developer with technical support duties. To meet the increase in clients we will
proportionally increase by 1 employee in year 2 and 2 more in year 3 for technical and
customer support. This will bring us to a total of 4 directors and 4 employees by year 3. Due
to the high demand for technically proficient graduates we understand that there will be a
high bargaining power for salaries. As a result the directors will deduct their remuneration
as it sees fit in the hopes of satisfying the set salaries figure. The new employees in year 3
will be recent graduates with customer service and marketing skills to help attract and
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xTrack Business Plan
engage with new clients. As the company becomes more profitable we hope to increase
salaries in a fashion similar to other small businesses.
Salaries
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Niall
21,875
18,750
21,250
Michelle
21,875
18,750
21,250
Glen
21,875
18,750
21,250
Brian
21,875
18,750
21,250
Employee
30,000
30,000
32,500
30,000
32,500
Employee
Employee
17,500
Employee
17,500
TOTAL
117,500
135,000
185,000
RENT, RATES AND INSURANCE
As we will avail of external databases, using the cloud for our service, we won’t need
a large office. Essentially our own employees will be on the road recruiting clients and
working from their residences. For the first 2 years we will not need a large office space. As
a result we will acquire a virtual office letting from Regus. This will cost €1,428 per year.
Whilst working from home offices this will present us in a professional light until we acquire
our own private office. We will look into renting a traditional small office in year 3. The cost
of this will appear in that respective column.
GENERAL EXPENSES
General everyday costs are catered for in this category as a result of running the
company. This will include phone bills, internet subscriptions, stationary and other
expenditure. These figures will reflect the largely online nature of the company.
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xTrack Business Plan
PROFESSIONAL FEES
An estimate of these fees was arrived at through consultation with Payroll website.
In the initial stages of setting up this company we needed guidance in regards to legislation,
tax and accounting. The figures that arise in years 1 to 3 are the cost of this consultation. It
is logical to expect an increase in the second and third year as client numbers increase, thus
increasing the workload for our outsourced accountant.
MARKETING
We intend to attract our customers mainly through Adwords and direct marketing
for the first year. We will look into SME, Enterprise Ireland and similar publication in year 2
and 3. With Adwords we will initially budget €750 per month due to the significant amount
of competitors on the market. We will monitor this Adwords account and increase our
spending by 25% in year 2 and year 3 to increase our presence on Google searches, account
for increased competition and to attract new customers.
Marketing
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Banner Advertisements
3,000
5,000
5,000
Google Adwords
9,000
11,250
14,063
Paid Directories
1,000
1,000
1,000
Total
13,000
17,250
25,063
FIXED ASSETS AND DEPRECIATION
Fixed assets will consist of purchased equipment such as PCs. The value will increase
each year as we acquire more equipment and furniture. We will depreciate the PCs and
furniture on a useful economic life of 3 years and 10 years respectively on a straight line
basis.
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xTrack Business Plan
BANK INTEREST AND CHARGES
xTrack will acquire a loan of €15,000 for a three year period. Each year the loan’s
interest will be paid and one third of its lump sum will be saved towards full payment in year
3.
OTHER EXPENSES
This figure comprises of sundry expenses mainly relating to the technical side of the
product. These include the use of Adobe Dreamweaver, Illustrator and Photoshop for
designing the website. MySQL Standard Edition will be used for storing our customer data
and Amazon Web Services Hosting as the server that will be the home to our website.
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xTrack Business Plan
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
Profit and Loss account for the year ended
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Basic
5,160
25,800
387,000
Advanced
2,400
13,800
207,000
Premium
1,200
7,800
117,000
Professional Services
100
1,000
5,000
8,860
44,800
716,000
Less Cost of Sales
(2,215)
(8,960)
(143,200)
Gross Profit
6,645
35,840
572,800
Salaries
117,500
135,000
185,000
Employers PRSI
11,494
12,238
17,613
Rent, Rates & Insurance
1,428
1,428
1,428
General Expenses
4,500
4,500
8,000
Professional Fees
2,500
3,250
4,225
Marketing
13,000
17,250
25,063
Depreciation
500
1,000
2,800
Bank & Interest Charges
9,433
9,433
9,433
Other Expenses
11,994
1,744
8,175
Total Expenses
(172,349)
(185,843)
(261,737)
Net Profit / (Loss)
(165,704)
(150,003)
311,063
Cumulative Profit / (Loss)
(165,704)
(315,707)
(4,644)
31stAugust
Revenue
Expenditure
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xTrack Business Plan
Cashflow Forecast for the year ended
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Operating Revenue
8,860
44,800
716,000
Bank Loan
25,000
Capital
70,000
Total
103,860
44,800
716,000
Cost of Sales
(2,215)
(8,960)
(143,200)
Fixed Assets Purchase
(1,500)
(1,500)
(18,000)
PRSI
(11,494)
(12,238)
(17,613)
Salaries
(117,500)
(135,000)
(185,000)
Rent, Rates and Insurance
(1,428)
(1,428)
(1,428)
General Expenses
(4,500)
(4,500)
(8,000)
Professional Fees
(2,500)
(3,250)
(4,225)
Marketing
(13,000)
(17,250)
(25,063)
Depreciation
(500)
(1,000)
(2,800)
Bank & Interest Charges
(9,433)
(9,433)
(9,433)
Total
(164,070)
(194,559)
(414,762)
Period Inflow / (Outflow)
(60,210)
(149,759)
301,238
Cumulative Inflow / (Outflow)
(60,210)
(209,969)
91,269
31stAugust
Cash Inflows
Cash Outflows
Other Expenses
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xTrack Business Plan
Balance Sheet as at 31stAugust
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Cost
1,500
3,000
21,000
Accumulated Depreciation
500
1,500
4,300
Net Book Value
1,000
1,500
16,700
(60,210)
(209,969)
91,269
PRSI
(11,494)
(12,238)
(17,613)
Working Capital
(71,704)
(222,207)
73,656
Total Net Assets
(70,704)
(220,707)
90,356
4.40% Loan
25,000
25,000
25,000
Capital and Reserves
70,000
70,000
70,000
Accumulated profit/(loss)
(165,704)
(315,707)
(4,644)
Capital Employed
(70,704)
(220,707)
90,356
Fixed Assets
Current Assets
Cash at Bank
Current Liabilities
Financed by:
Long Term Liabilities
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xTrack Business Plan
LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS
To satisfy the requirements of the Companies Registration Office (CRO) we must
register our business as an official company. xTrack will be classified as a limited company.
BUSINESS NAME
The chosen name of the company is xTrack. It was free to check the availability of
that name on the CRO website. Upon acknowledging the availability of xTrack we will
reserve the name of the Companies Online Registration Environment (CORE) website for a
fee of €25. CORE should approve this name within one working day of the submission,
providing us with a Reserve Name Certificate. Finally we shall complete the RBN1A form to
allow us to be recognized as a separate legal entity, a limited company. This registration is
covered in the fee charged for registering the company name.
COMPANY REGISTRATION
We wish to register xTrack as a Private Limited company. Shares will be divided
amongst company directors with a plan to dilute ownership in the future through making
the company public. As a result, we the directors will not be liable for any damages in the
event of bankruptcy. There is a sequence of steps in registering the company as a limited
entity separate from those running it; they will be completed as follows:
1. Memorandum of Association: A document setting out the conditions upon which
the company is granted incorporation (CRO 2012). Details of the company are
provided in this document, including the name and objects of the company and
whether the company has limited liability status. This memorandum must be in
accordance with table B (a private company limited by shares belonging to the
owners) of the First Schedule to the Companies Act 1963.
2. Articles of association: Document setting out the rules under which the company
proposes to regulate its affairs (CRO 2012). A private limited company like xTrack will
be able to register the articles with the CRO. Under the Companies Act 1963 we will
complete Table A Part II.
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xTrack Business Plan
3. Form A1: Requires the details of the company name, its registered office, details of
secretary and directors and their consent to those positions, the subscribers and
details of their shares. This form will require a statutory declaration that the
Companies Act has been complied with and the activities that the company will be
engaging in.
4. xTrack will conform to the classifications of NACE code 72.20. xTrack is a “Software
consultancy and supply” organisation in relation to our principal activities.
REGULATION OF XTRACK
The following are required of xTrack to file with the CRO in the A1 Form:
Address: As we are running the business from our home with use of a virtual
business for the initial three years, we will provide the home address of director Glen
O’Donoghue.
Directors and Secretary: xTrack will have four directors as outlined previously.
Michelle O’Beirne, Marketing Director will be appointed as Secretary.
Annual General Meeting: A meeting with the directors must be held within 18
months of company incorporation. After that an AGM will be held on an annual basis. This
satisfies the requirements of Section 148(1) of the Companies Act (1963)
Accounting and Auditing: Our accounts must give a true and fair view of the
company’s financial affairs. Details of the company accounts will be disclosed at every AGM,
a copy of the accounts will also be provided in the form of a director’s report to the CRO.
LEGISLATION WITH ONLINE OPERATIONS
As we are operating a mobile app and a web platform with sales through ecommerce
methods we will have a significant online presence. We will acquire a respected domain
name tailored to our target markets as we evolve, initially we will avail of a .eu domain. We
are reserving the address www.xtract.atspace.eu as our URL which we will receive just as
our company name is registered. We will also register to cater for expansion into
international SME markets in the future at a cost of €10 per year.
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xTrack Business Plan
ELECTRONIC COMMERCE ACT 2000
Again as we are conducting our main business operations through the internet we
will need to follow the E-Commerce Act. Similarly to products sold through traditional
means our service will involve stating the terms and conditions for each subscription sold. A
contract will be formed with each client and this contract will follow these terms and
conditions rigidly in accordance to the Act. We must ensure that our clients read and
understand our T&Cs before subscribing to our service. It is crucial to do so as we hope to
store these clients’ personal information and preferences on our application.
Our contracts will be authorized through the use digital signatures as we are an
online company. The digital signature will consist of the client submitting their name,
contact information, acceptance of T&Cs and action of sending or continuing the process of
purchasing their package. Upon doing so they will have entered a binding contract with
xTrack, thus receiving a confirmation email with evidence of their purchase. There will also
be an option to arrive at our offices to sign a physical contract if clients prefer.
DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998
As we are storing substantial information on clients, their activity and their expenses
we will need to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. This information will be stored in
our servers providing confidential information about our clients. We will need to undertake
preventative and defensive measure to deter competitors or other malicious users from
gaining access to that information. In doing so we will prevent any legal ramifications of
losing that data. Under the act we will be classified as Data Controllers. To maintain
transparency we will register with the Data Protection Commissioner annually.
The following precautions will be taken to ensure protection of our client’s sensitive
information:
1. Information will be obtained and processed fairly with use of only the minimum
required data.
2. Data will be kept for their lawful purpose of expense and activity tracking solely.
3. Security measures will be taken to keep data safe.
4. Only the most adequate, relevant and concise data will be kept.
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xTrack Business Plan
5. Data will only be kept for the necessary time it will take to complete its purpose.
6. Unwanted and legacy data will be disposed completely in a true and fair manner.
7. Maintain utmost availability of this data to the owner on request.
EMPLOYEE LAW
In our first year we will start the company with one graduate IT specialist. This
person will develop the website, mobile app and conduct on-going maintenance. This
number will increase by 2 in each of the subsequent years. The legislation in place will be
relevant to the employment of those staff.
We will operate in compliance to the following relevant legislative statutes:
The Terms of Employment (Information) Acts 1994 and 2001 providing a written
contract of their employment with the T&Cs of their position.
Unfair Dismissals Act 1977-2001 will protect our staff from unfair dismissals on
areas including trade union membership, religious or political opinion, race, age,
sexual orientation and pregnancy.
Employment Equality Act 1977 to monitor discrimination in our workplace. This will
protect against discrimination on the grounds of gender or marital status in relation
to access to employment and treatment in relation to dismissal. (Wallace et al 2004
p61)
National Minimum Wage Act 2000 states that the standard wage to be paid at a
minimum to employees on a full or part time contract is €8.65 an hour. In order to
fund our technical staffs that have a high bargaining power in regards to salary, the
directors will take a wage below that level. This will help minimise the expense cost
and reducing the risk of a high loss figure in the founding years.
The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 required a maximum working week of
48 hours. In accordance to this act we will allow employees rest breaks of a
minimum of 15 minutes per 4.5 hours worked, 30 minutes per 6 hours worked and
annual leave entitlement of four weeks for full time workers. Should the workload
require extra commitment beyond those hours, the directors will take on that work
at the expense of their holiday entitlements and extending the maximum hours. This
is for the benefit of the company.
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xTrack Business Plan
TAX LEGISLATION CONSIDERATIONS
As a registered company under the CRO and begun trading we will be liable to tax. As
a result we must register with the Revenue to abide by Irish tax law.
Value Added Tax –xTrack is responsible for obtaining a VAT number to claim VAT on
purchases and expenses. A VAT return will be completed on a bi monthly basis.
Corporation Tax – We must consider this charge for our accounts. The rate is 12.5% and will
be deducted from our Operating Profit after interest costs. In the years of loss we will not be
eligible to pay this tax.
Tax on Employees – Wages that are within the threshold for paying PAYE will have the rates
deducted from them. The financial director will deduct these from the employee’s salaries
each year.
Employers PRSI is a statutory tax requirement that is calculated on the total salaries
figure at a rate of 10.75%.
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xTrack Business Plan
RISK ANALYSIS
IDENTIFYING AND PRIORITISING RISK
For the purpose of this company we will identify risk in three areas. They are
Business Risk, Technological Risk and Operational Risk.
In order to manage and mitigate this risk we will assess the probability of this risk
occurring separating it into four areas:
1. Very likely to occur
2. Some chance of occurrence
3. Small chance of occurrence
4. Very little chance of occurrence
Our risks will be prioritised in this manner, with this we will deal with those risks that
have a high likelihood of occurrence at the top of the table resulting in the most damage to
the company.
BUSINESS RISK
Investopedia defines this as the possibility that xTrack will have lower than
anticipated profits or that it will experience a loss rather than a profit. (Investopedia 2012)
At the heart of this risk is the failure to achieve our forecasted revenue targets. Our
initial revenue figure is based on those companies that we have interview and their staff
that would use our product. We face the possibility that not all those who showed interest
will actually subscribe to the product. Alternatively we could gain significantly more clients
than we have forecasted however we will need to be prepared for each scenario. As
directors with equal ownership of xTrack we have agreed to sacrifice our salaries should our
productivity reach levels that it would be require doing so. The sacrificed wage will allow
that cash to be allocated to measures in attracting more clients.
We constantly face the risk of numerous competitors mirroring our product to the
possibility of providing a better and cheaper service than us. To mitigate this we will need to
keep an eye on the market and the movements in the area of expense and employee
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xTrack Business Plan
tracking systems. It might be necessary to obtain a patent for our product, however as there
are numerous competitors with similar products we feel that it might be a wasted cost. As a
result the low barriers to entry in our market will provide a significant business risk.
Other areas of business risk that will face xTrack include compliance with new and
existing legislation, the current economic climate, the need to cut costs should it arise,
talent management of our staff and directors, redundancy of our software as a service
business model, and maintaining our reputation as a trustworthy service provider with our
client’s important data.
OPERATIONAL RISKS
In order to manage these risks we will avail of insurance for the business premises
and equipment. It is recommended that we cater for any potential disasters with the use of
a business continuity plan.
In the business continuity plan we will address the following interdependent objectives:
1. Identification of major risks of business interruption.
2. Developing a guide to mitigate or reduce the impact of these identified risks
3. Training our staff to plan and react to those risks
Operational risks that will be covered under our business continuity plan include the
following:
Unplanned site outages: xTrack will be at risk of attacks from viruses and other
malicious software types. We will avail of runtime protection technologies to offer
protection from these risks. As a result of this we will have a backup server for all of
our data that contains the same protection and authentication as the main server in
the event of a fault.
Server capacity issues: We will maintain constant monitoring of the data capacity of
our servers providing more storage should the risk of overloading resulting in loss of
new data arise.
Natural disasters: These will range from floods, fire, electrical damage, storms,
blizzards etc. As we are located in Dublin natural disasters are quite uncommon,
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xTrack Business Plan
however we will need to prepare for the occurrence of snow conditions that we
have experienced recently and the possibility of floods due to our high rainfall. Off
premises data storage and servers will mitigate this risk as discussed above.
Unauthorized use and theft of proprietary information: xTrack will be selling access
to a web platform and app package. The necessary steps in protecting the
information stored on those platforms will involve authentication and encryption
methods such as RSA encryption. This will also be discussed in the technical risks
section.
At the heart of this Business Continuity Plan will be constant maintenance. xTrack
will review and update the BCP every 6 months whilst our employees are fully educated and
kept aware of any changes to the plan.
TECHNOLOGICAL RISKS
The majority of the physical technological risks related to the hardware will be
covered in the BCP. However we will need to account for the security of the information we
are holding. xTrack is a business depending on a web based platform, therefore it is
imperative that we are aware of the security risks that are facing us. These will arise in the
form of activities from cyber criminals wishing to attack, hack and sabotage our platform.
xTrack will harbour sensitive company data belonging to our clients on our servers
and databases. We need to consider the implications of a large scale attack on our platform
and protect it with a comprehensive security plan to avoid such a breach that would
jeopardize our entire business.
Subsequently we will outline the threats faced by xTrack in a security plan to
complement the BCP. At the heart of this will be our security risk assessment.
SECURITY RISK ASSESSMENT
At xTrack we have first identified what needs to be secured and protected. This is the
data that will be provided under trust by our customers to our servers. This data consists of
sensitive financial information including employee identities, expenses, location of
employees and insights to the client’s day to day business operations.
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xTrack Business Plan
Below is an extensive but not exhaustive list of potential attacks to our system.
Below are the attacks that we believe are at the highest tier in our risk assessment table
discussed at the beginning of this risk section.
Distributed Denial of Service Attacks: “Ecommerce is exceptionally vulnerable to
distributed denial of service attacks, as unscrupulous players could also decide to
sabotage competitor websites to steal customers” (Rashid 2011)
DDoS attacks involving numerous infected computer flooding the network with
traffic have caused many high profile disruptions to some of the largest e-commerce
websites in the world. Considering that xTrack is a web based platform that needs to
be running 24 hours a day without interruption, it is felt that a DDoS attack is one of
the primary threats to the websites security.
SQL injection: Our system relies heavily on a main website open to targeting by
cyber criminals or hackers. Using what is known as an SQL injection, the hacker can
extract sensitive information contained on the database that is connected to the
main website.
A SQL injection maybe used to gain information about client expenditure and
financial transactions made on a daily basis. Our expansion will rely on the good faith
we deliver to our customers, therefore it is paramount that all customer data is
protected rigorously, preventing competitors access to information on each other
through corporate espionage enabled by a SQL injection
SQL injections are launched by inserting a malicious piece of SQL code into a
website’s database. This is carried out by entering the code into the field where the
customer is asked for personal information for registration, the SQL command that is
typed into the registration field can instruct the database to dump all the
information stored. If such an attack was to occur on the xTrack system knowledge
of this breach will spread leading to a loss of customer trust which is at the heart of
our operations. This could lead to failure of the company.
Phishing/pharming/website forgery: Phising has posed a major threat to websites
around the world since the mid-nineties. There are now many various forms of
phishing that have been designed to defraud customer’s and steal information from
web based platforms. When researching the various security threats, it was
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xTrack Business Plan
recognised that phishing and website forgery could pose an enormous threat to the
xTrack platform and the business in general. One of the main examples of website
forgery that has been documented in the past number of months was regarding
Lloyds TSB bank. In this case hackers had managed to forge the bank’s website by
redirecting customers to a different URL that had the exact same interface as the
Lloyd’s TSB homepage. This action caused many customers to unknowingly hand
over bank account details to cyber criminals.
If such a situation was to occur with regards to xTrack, the damage caused to the
business would be irreparable. Firstly, customer’s accounts would be compromised
regarding sensitive personal, company and financial information; this information
could be used to defraud customers or to gain insight into customer’s expense
transactions. Secondly, the xTrack platform would be considered to be
untrustworthy and thus would decimate xTrack customer base causing revenues to
fall dramatically.
Secure data transfer: Our clients will be supplying extremely sensitive information
regarding company data, and payment information. As all of this information is
travelling on networks, it is imperative that the correct security measures a put in
place.
We will be incorporating an IPsec Internet security protocol into the xTrack platform.
IPsec secures communications by authenticating and encrypting individual packets
exchanged between the client and the server. As the type of encryption is implanted
on platforms across the internet, it is felt that this standard of security will protect
customer information during financial transactions.
Secure stored data: According to Cisco many cloud companies will secure data when
it is in transit, but will not protect the information while it is storage. Although
information is quite vulnerable in transit it still must be secured to a high level when
stored in the company servers. This can be done by storing the information in an
encrypted state on the server.
User access control: This element of security is extremely important to avoid a data
breach from within whether intentional or accidental. This can be done by providing
a series of protocols and controls that employees will have to adhere to. Such
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xTrack Business Plan
methods as 3 factor user authentication are crucial. Although access control is a
major issue within the company, it is important to bear in mind that the company
will only have five individuals working in year 1. As the organisation grows, access
control will become a greater issue that must be taken into account to avoid major
data breaches.
Financial transactions: xTrack’s core business operations will focus on financial
transactions, these transactions will mainly consist of credit card payments made by
customers in order to avail of the service of offered by xTrack.
We will employ asymmetric encryption methods to protect the financial information
in transit, a successful form of security for numerous years. By utilising this form of
encryption in addition to the use of digital certificates, we will guarantee that the
sensitive information is secure.
Steps to take to mitigate technological risk include:
1) Targeting malware with automated defence: Deploying gateway defences prevent
viruses, worms, spyware and Trojans to name a few. Turning off the PCs at night also
prevents constant exploits and allows scanning for malicious software at reboot.
2) Patching vulnerabilities immediately: Automate patching, run Windows update
automatically. EATS should employ dedicated patch management software alongside
Microsoft’s services.
3) Effective passwords: This is almost obvious. Don’t use passwords such as Christmas
day, your name, or obvious words related to you. Dictionary attacks are
commonplace which use software to generate 1000s of words to guess a password
making ease of online identity theft and fraud.
4) Plan and react: Educate employees to react positively when something goes wrong.
Plan for attacks and make sure staff knows what to do when it happens. Be aware of
data-breach compliance procedures should the need to store customer information
arise
5) Budget security education: A learned work force is just as good as the security
software they are using. If they can detect the risk and know what it looks like less
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xTrack Business Plan
reliance will be placed on the software. Knowing obvious factors like password
safety, wifi tracking and social engineering threats will save 3rdi a significant amount
of money. Organisations that lack education are without awareness of the risks and
the technologies used to defend against risk can be deemed useless (Chen et al,
2006).
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xTrack Business Plan
DESCRIPTION OF TECHNICAL DELIVERY
PREFACE
The purpose of this section of the document is to give a comprehensive account of
the technical and creative considerations involved in this project. Provided is a description
of our product’s features, design rationale, capabilities & limitations, technical
requirements, and plan for development.
As the construction of the system we propose is beyond our own technical
capabilities, we have chosen to provide a detailed plan of what such a development would
require, and how the finished product would look and function. This will enable the
application to be developed by professional programmers should the venture go ahead. It
also allows us to estimate development costs, assess functionality, and better explain our
business idea to potential investors and other interested parties.
To this end, one part of our technology plan involved creating a mock up website
which we will use to give visual demonstrations to others of how our system would appear
and operate. While this website is not functional, it is a useful tool for bringing our
practicum idea across to others in a clear and tangible way which is more quickly
understood than a description. Screenshots from the website interface will be included later
in this section, and the website is also available online for reference at xTrack.atspace.eu
1.1 DOCUMENT OVERVIEW
This technology plan is presented in the following way:
In section 1.3 a basic overview of the system will be given, outlining its uses, capabilities,
and the technologies it utilises.
Section 2 looks more closely at how various functions are performed with the software,
using our demonstration interface as a reference point. The design process and rationale
are also discussed.
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xTrack Business Plan
Section 3 gives a detailed description of the technical plan for development, including the
system architecture, languages and protocols used by the back and front end applications,
and dataflow between elements.
In section 4 a schedule for the development activities required to construct this system is
proposed, along with an assessment of the resources needed.
1.2 S YSTEM OVERVIEW
The purpose of our system is to enable sales representatives and other ‘field
employees’ to easily send information about their expenses and activity back to their office
while ‘on the road’, and to present this information in a manner in which it can be analysed
and interpreted to the company’s benefit.
The data is gathered using a smartphone device, and then sent to a backend
database which populates an interface where users can work with the data ; categorizing,
comparing, correlating and consolidating information on their employees’ expenses and
activity, in order to improve budgeting and efficiency. This process is illustrated in the
diagram below.
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xTrack Business Plan
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xTrack Business Plan
The system will be provided as software as a service, hosted entirely online with no
need to install any software other than the mobile phone application. Administrators can
set access levels for the various users of the system. For example, employees might only be
allowed to view their own data while team leaders can see and compare data for all team
members.
2 SYSTEM DESIGN
2.1DESIGN RATIONALE
This site is designed to accommodate end users who are not necessarily highly
proficient in using software systems, rather novice users. As such, we have followed design
guidelines which maximize simplicity and affordance. All the main features of the interface
are designed to be intuitive and easy to learn, while more advanced options and
customization are grouped on the settings page for experienced users.
Some of the most important design goals we strove towards when developing this system
were:
Consistency:
Keeping font type, colour schemes, icons etc. consistent across pages makes the interface
sensible and predictable to end users. Central to our interface is the toolbar at the top
which stays the same across all pages, allowing easy navigation around the site.
Visibility:
Making elements as clear as possible avoids confusion and requires less mental effort from
users. Key principles which we followed here were to use dark text against a light
background, and a sans serif font for easy readability.
Simplicity:
While many of the competitors’ systems we analysed provided good features, they were
over complex and would require considerable training to use. For our interface, simplicity
was a major guiding principle- colour, fonts, the language and terms used, icons, and the
grouping of elements, were all chosen to be as simple and understandable as possible.
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2.2D ESIGN PROCESS
As previously mentioned, while we were without the necessary skills to build a fully
functional system, we did feel it prudent to create a mock up demonstration of the website.
This not only allowed us to refine the layout and features of the site, but is also useful in
pitching our idea to others. The technologies required to create a functional system are
described in detail in section 3. To create the demonstration interface however, from which
screenshots will be included in the next section, we used a mixture of Adobe Dreamweaver,
Fireworks, and Photoshop. This mock up is available online at xTrack.atspace.eu
2.3 SITE OVERVIEW
SITEMAP
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HOME
This is the landing page for a user accessing the system, providing an overview of the
expense data collected by employees using their smartphones. The bar chart at the top by
default shows total expenses for all employees over a one year period. However, the drop
down menus above it allow the graph to be customized by expense status (approved,
pending, denied, all), the time period to be changed (daily, weekly, monthly), and individual
or all employees to be shown.
On the bottom left of the page some overview statistics are given. Which statistics
appear by default, indeed the defaults for most elements of the interface, can be changed
on the settings page. The pie chart on the bottom right breaks down expenditure by
category, as selected by the user on submission of their receipt using the mobile app. The
time range of this pie chart and other settings are controlled by the same drop down menus
as the bar chart.
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RECEIPTS
This page is where individual receipt submissions can be viewed. In the top left of
the page a number of expense submissions can be seen, with the basic details of date,
category and amount. Submissions can be set as approved, pending or denied by an
administrator by clicking on the coloured circles. The dropdown menus on the right allow
submissions to be viewed by date, employee, category or status. The export section at the
bottom the page allows the contents of the receipts section to be exported in a range of
common formats. The digital copy of a receipt can be seen by clicking on its entry in the
receipts section, which will show a page such as the one below.
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ACTIVITY
This page presents the data on employee activity which is collected using the
smartphone - login/logout times, location from GSM triangulation, and activity from
accelerometer readings. The main feature is the map, which shows the route taken by an
employee. Hovering over any point on the route will show at what time the employee was
at that location. Driving is represented by a red line, walking by a green line, as detected by
the accelerometer. Also highlighted on the map are any purchases submitted, and hovering
over these points on the map will show the amount, time and category of the purchase.
Points at which the employee is stopped (in the same location for <20 minutes) are also
marked on the map, and hovering over these will show how long was spent stopped.
A summary of activity statistics are shown below the map, and the pie chart shows the
breakdown of activity as per the accelerometer readings. These follow the same employee
and time range as selected for the map using the dropdown menus at the top of the page.
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ANALYSIS
The analysis page is used to create detailed and customized reports, allowing
selection and grouping of employees, and a wide choice of metrics. On the left side of the
page the user can choose which employees they want to compare by adding them to the list
on the left. Groups can also be created for comparison by selecting a number of employees
and clicking the create group button. Clicking the analysis button on the left of the page will
return a standard report as per default settings, such as the one on the next page.
More experienced users may wish also to use the right side of the page, which allows the
metrics to be included to be chosen from a list. Custom metrics can also be created using
the box on the right- For example here we see a user who wishes to compare his employees
by their fuel expenses/miles driven.
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Here we see the standard report produced by a basic analysis of the expenditure and
activity of two groups of employees. The time range can be changed at the top, and the
default metrics to be included in the report can be changed on the settings page if wished.
The maximum number of columns which the page will divide into is three, for the purpose
of keeping the graphs legible. If the user selects more than three employees or groups to
compare they will be arranged below one another, in two columns on a scrollable page.
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SETTINGS
This page allows the basic settings and defaults to be reconfigured, and is also used
for managing account and payment options.
Account:
Add/Remove users, manage access rights, change passwords.
Billing:
Contact Details, payment options, statements.
Layout:
Default currency, date range, colours, categories, reporting metrics.
Notifications: Set budget limits, notification limits & method.
Mobile:
Add/Remove handset, category settings.
Export:
Default format, destination folder.
HELP
Here help is available to users through the user guide, frequently asked questions,
and a contact form.
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2.4MOBILE APPLICATION
As a crucial requirement for our system to function correctly is that users scan
their receipts immediately after a purchase, it was necessary that the mobile application we
created was quick and easy to use. As such, we kept the number of pages to a minimum,
with little detail on each page and clear instruction given.
Login
The first screen users of the app come
to. By logging in at the beginning of
their shift, their start time is recorded.
Category
The default screen once users have
logged in, with large buttons for quick
selection.
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Amount
Users enter a value for the item they
have just purchased, and an optional
note if desired.
Scan
A simple camera function allowing a
picture of the receipt to be centered
and captured. An option for no receipt
is also provided.
Confirm
Accept the photo or reject and take
another.
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Finished
End of the process.
We estimate that once logged in, users can submit an expense comfortably in less
than 30 seconds, with this time decreasing further with experience. As such, this satisfies
the requirement for a quick and easy submission process.
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TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
3.1SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
3.2F RONT END
The front end interface is accessed by users through a web browser. It is written in
HTML with an attached CSS file which controls page layout. Embedded JavaScript is used to
allow users to interact with the dynamic elements of the interface, such as dropdown
menus or the hover over on the activity page. Due to the fact that each page is different for
each user, the front end pages must be dynamically generated. When a user opens a page
or changes settings, a page request is sent to the web server for fulfilment.
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3.3M IDDLEWARE
The web server hosts the program API and standard HTML files. When a page
request is received, the web server passes the relevant page to the PHP interpreter. The
function of the interpreter is to retrieve data from the database, and use it to dynamically
generate the HTML file, which is then passed back through the web server to the client’s
browser. As PHP is a server side CGI language, the user requires no special software other
than a standard browser to read the HTML code it generates.
3.4 BACK END
The database server stores the information sent by users using their smartphones.
Tables are constructed for each user, with entry fields for each variable, such as miles
driven, food expenses and so on. As a database management system we have chosen
MySQL, which controls the requests to read and write to the database. MySQL also provides
AES encryption of data for security.
3.5 HOSTING
Both web server and database will be hosted with Amazon Web Services. The main benefit
of their service is its flexibility, with pay by usage charges and instant scalability - Suitable for
a start up which will initially have low usage.
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3.7 M OBILE APPLICATION
HTTP packets containing user data are sent via Wi-Fi 802.11 to the web server, and from
there written to the database. Expense submissions are sent immediately, while user coordinates and accelerometer data is sent periodically.
ACCELEROMETER
(Qiu , Doherty, Gurrin, Smeaton: 2010)
Using the built-in triaxial accelerometer in the smartphone, the user’s activity can be
identified with high accuracy. Readings will be taken every 30 seconds, and sent in a packet
along with the GSM location co-ordinates to the web server.
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GSM TRIANGULATION
By comparing round trip times of transmissions between the smartphone and a minimum of
two GSM radio towers, the location of the smartphone can be calculated. This process will
be repeated every 30 seconds. The advantage of GSM tracking over using GPS is that line of
sight to a satellite is not required.
CAMERA SETTINGS
To ensure adequate image quality, while keeping a relatively low file size, we require images
to be taken at 100 ppi. For a standard sized receipt this would produce a file size of around
300kb, appropriate for transfer over Wi-Fi considering the data transmission charges.
3.8 CHALLENGES & LIMITATIONS
While the accelerometer has very high accuracy in identifying driving and
walking, for sitting/standing the accuracy, at 94%, is not quite as reliable.
However, this is not a major problem. As long as the sensor detects that the
user is not walking or driving, whether they are sitting or standing or lying is
inconsequent- for showing where users were stopped on the activity map, or
for calculating the time spent in a certain activity (as for our purposes, users
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sitting/standing/lying are all regarded simply as stationary, with no intention
to break this down further).
In remote areas, GSM location may drop in accuracy as the distance from
radio towers increases and their density decreases. While there are not many
areas were this would occur, it would be prudent to check with new clients
whether they may work in remote areas, and provide a method to correct
any distorted data on a case by case basis.
In general, the activity functions of our system are meant to provide a guide
to clients in their analysis of expense data. Thus, slightly less than 100%
accuracy is acceptable- if this is made clear to customers, and as the more
important expense data is fully accurate.
In the initial stages of this project, we considered whether optical character
recognition could be used to automatically extract expense data from
scanned receipts. We found that the accuracy of this technology is not yet
suitable for such use, and thus excluded it from our plans. Hence, with
regards to maintaining the value proposition of saving time in submitting and
processing expenses, we subsequently focused on making the mobile
application and interface as simple and streamlined as possible.
There is one small glitch with the demonstration site that we were unable to
fix. Using Firefox, when hovering over the activity map, the information that
pops up is sometimes unformatted.
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DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP
4.1 ESTIMATED DEVELOPMENT COSTS (EXCLUDING LABOUR)
Adobe Dreamweaver, Photoshop & Illustrator:
€1325
MySQL Standard Edition (with transaction services support):
Amazon Web Services Hosting:
€1190 per year
€1940 per year*
*based on 10 clients with 1gb allocated storage and 2 IOPS at 8 hours a day.
4.2 DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULE
Below is an estimation of the schedule for development of our system and product
website. As we have created a demonstration interface already, much of the preparation
and design stages do not require a large amount of work. We aim to be ready to launch the
product after a 16 week development time.
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APPENDIX 1: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
PRACTICUM GROUP – TEAM SIGNATORY C ODE
The following are a set of rules to which each group member has agreed upon. These
rules must be adhered to at all times and failure to do so will lead to the below mentioned
consequences. These rules and guidelines include:
GROUP OBJECTIVE
It is the objective of each and every member of this group to achieve the highest
grade possible within our means and resources. All members have agreed to participate
fully in each aspect of the practicum to achieve this goal. Failure to contribute to the overall
objective of this group will result in the below mentioned consequences.
REQUIREMENTS
1. All members of the will have a continued direct involvement in each aspect of the project.
2. The work undertaken for each aspect should be proportionate to the number of group
members. As there are 4 members each member will contribute 25% to the overall report
3. We acknowledge the need to delegate tasks and assign work to individuals due to time
constraints. We understand the importance of such delegation and acknowledge the
consequences associated with failing to complete set work.
4. Delegation should be done so on a voluntary basis. However, in the event that no
volunteers have stepped forward the group may vote on the delegation of such tasks.
This delegation will reflect the existing contributions of members, for example the person
who as contributed the least at that time may be asked and expected to undertake the task
in question.
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5. The quality of the work submitted by each member must be to the highest quality. Lower
poor quality work will not be accepted and may need to be redone pending time
constraints. Failure to meet the agreed standard or submit work within the agreed
timeframe will result in the below mentioned consequences.
6. All work must be agreed upon by all members before being submitted. The author maybe
required to take a step back during the editing process to allow for unbiased review of their
work.
MEETINGS
1. All scheduled meetings must be attended by all members.
2. Group members must arrive on time and be in a fit physical and mental state to
undertake required tasks.
3. Agendas should be agreed upon before /during the meeting and adhered to.
4. In the event of emergency in which you can’t attend a meeting, you must e-mail the
entire group. The meeting may go ahead in your absence and it will be your responsibility to
catch up on any work.
5. The reason for absence must be agreed upon by the group. Social events are not valid
reasons for missing meetings unless agreed upon well in advance by the entire group.
6. All members must participate in group meetings.
7. All opinions will be allowed to be aired and will not be subject to intimidation, humiliation
or personal bias.
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8. Internal communication is a priority for the group and members are encouraged to
disagree and vote on ideas that they disagree with. All ideas will be respected and
considered.
SATISFACTORY PARTICIPATION AND RESOLVING CONFLICTS
1. Regular performance reviews will be carried out on an informal basis. Members are
encouraged to air any praise or complaints about other member’s performance.
2. All criticism must be given in a constructive manner.
3. Members must agree to take such criticism on board and to make amendments to their
performance where necessary.
4. Members will be given the opportunity to explain any criticism and these explanations
will be considered by all members.
5. All conflict will be handled internal. Should this fail to rectify the situation the problem
will be escalated to the below mentioned consequences.
CONSEQUENCES
1. Conflict that cannot be resolved internally will be sent to the Cathal Gurrin and relevant
parties and their decision is final.
2. Serious breaches of the above rules may result in an individual being removed from the
group.
3. Failure to follow these rules may result in the individual’s name not appearing on the
assignment resulting in them receiving no grade for the exercise.
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4. Continuous poor work or failing to meet as agreed may lead to that individual having to
take on extra work in order to substitute such shortcomings.
DECLARATION
We, the undersigned, agree the above terms and conditions. We acknowledge that failure
to follow these rules will result in strict repercussions as outlined above.
_____________________________________
Niall Hanlon
_____________________________________
Michelle O’Beirne
_____________________________________
Glen O’Donoghue
_____________________________________
Brian Turley
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MEETINGS WITH ADVISORS
Provided below are notes taken from meetings with our two project advisors and
others with whom we discussed our idea. These notes were taken for the purpose of
reminding the group of the advice received in meetings, and are included here as evidence
of interaction with supervisors, as per the project requirements.
MEETING WITH CATHAL GURRIN – 25TH JUNE
-Initial discussion of concept.
-Evidence of all interactions with advisers will be maintained throughout.
-Email Cathal if we want a dedicated computer in L125
Report due date: 20th August 2012
Practicum Poster Due: 24th August 2012
Presentation Interviews: 24, 27, 28 August 2012
Class Presentation: 29th August 2012
MEETING WITH JOHN LOONAM – 26TH JUNE
-Could use the monitoring of the product to identify a return on investment on company
employees. For example employee expenses as a percentage of the revenue they generate.
With this each employee can be the Key Performance Indicators of the company.
-It is similar to existing CRM systems but for employees. So Employee Resource
Management.
-Referred back to the geolocator, the majority of firms provide their staff with smart
phones. As John said "Big Brother is watching you". Can identify where staff are, use the
accelerometer to acknowledge time spent travelling and ideally if staff are actually working.
-Value achieved through the real time updates of the expenses in the accounts, efficiency of
scanning receipts, no longer need to hold onto receipts (no worries of faded or deteriorated
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receipts). John suggested that with the real time updates expenses for the following week
can be provided as the incentive to scan the receipts immediately.
-Another value add is improved target management, the text messages will prevent the staff
from going overboard with their expenses.
-In regards to appearance, like Moodle, management could have a different layout to the
sales staff. Administrative privileges, employee ROI and performance would be maintained
by the head management. Where the staff would just have the ability to log onto the
system, update their data and view their expense balances.
-Individual employee profiles could be implemented, ranking, rewards and performance
appraisal could be provided.
-Could still use the price comparison feature in regards to petrol.
-For foreign countries could implement currency conversion on receipts identified through
the geolocators.
-It is crucial in the report to state clearly what we perceive to be the value proposition:
fear of losing receipts gone
removing hassle of logging receipts and storing them at month end
MEETING WITH JOHN LOONAM – 27TH JUNE
-Provided a good few insights into how we should go about the report.
-Emphasized the pilot study. Primary research into potential users of the product, what they
think of the product and what they would want in the product. Loonam stressed the
importance of this research for the interviews. We will have hard data to discuss rather than
ideas. Show someone actually using the product - like software testing. Pilot research will
get buy into the idea too.
-Was a little concerned about the 6 weeks we had to complete the research, prototype and
a 40,000 word report.
-Referred to our project as a phased process, don't be afraid to discuss that we are merely in
the research stages. We only have 6 weeks. Stress that it’s a longer term process.
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-In the report and presentation we should:
Show the idea
Be clear on the product/service dimension
Where we source the technology from
The most crucial part is the value proposition of the idea, it's all companies are
interested in "how can we get value from this?"
-Break down the areas of value add, research the value types of the project and whether it
applies to our app
-SMEs are hungry for technology. Large companies may already have expensive
management software and show reluctance in providing their data to us. SAP and CRM may
not be necessary for SMEs, whereas our product could be tailored for them. More value
added to SMEs
-The plan revolves around:
the costs
the market - more than likely the UK, preferably SMEs in that market
the industry - our core external competitors
perform a SWOT as a company and a team
5 year forecasting
good strategic analysis
-We should be able to identify the business model through the forecasting.
-Plan the markets we need to focus on.
-Be simplistic and realistic in the projections.
MEETING WITH BRIAN STONE- 4TH JULY
-Brian addressed the problem of accuracy with the OCR technology. We needed to take a
step back and determine whether OCR would work for the idea. If we were to have OCR
included in the scanning system we would need a back up procedure for manual entering of
the data. Stone didn't seem too pushed on the manual entering idea as it contradicted the
automatic focus of the project.
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-We could talk about the research we did into OCR and why it wouldn't work if we don't
include it.
-Stone really wanted us to find the perfect industry. Suggesting the area of truck drivers
with distance versus fuel consumption. But there are comprehensive systems already
provided by Scania, MAN and Volvo.
-Stone highlighted the efficiency and accuracy of tracking through the phone GSM networks
rather than GPS. We are not qualified to do routing, but we just want to see the map and
the areas expenses were made. The API for GSM is readily available so that won't be.
-He referred to accelerometers being out of the question for seeing if employees were
actually in the car. He said accelerometers were merely for seeing if the orientation of the
phone changed not for continuous movement.
MEETING WITH CATHAL GURRIN – 5TH JULY
-We should have little difficulty with contacting competitors. The focus should be on
compliance.
-Cathal wants to have a meeting alongside Loonam but Loonam is unavailable in the
following week.
-We have a meeting with Cathal at 12 on Monday, we hope to meet up with Geraldine too.
-Tasks to do:
Finalise the presentation
Mock up interface development
Send out the survey to our broad sample.
MEETING WITH CATHAL GURRIN – 9TH JULY
Detect when sitting around/lingering. Keeping it running.
Turn on info to see where they are, launch GSM, says I'm walking, turn on
accelerometer.
If not plugged in, turn off locator to save battery.
1. Accelerometer - what they're doing
2. GPS - where they're going
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3. Wifi - leave location switched on
"Up in the Air"
Type of Purchase is really important
Turn on location tracking - accelerometer can tell you they have stopped.
Not done for cars - where is my car? (GSM trending)
Wifi Network can be good to identify
Get the MAC address, cache it, identify when you move MAC addresses
Location inside the wireless network
Within 20m
Wifi MAC address to identify if changed location, when it changes it turns on location
tracking every 5-10 minutes.
Don't go too far down route of checking expenses
Wifi is key to checking if location has changed
Track or wifi can say this location Harvey Norman/Starbucks, you select.
Expand beyond field staff!! - Universities, IBM, Microsoft, that send people around a
lot, would want loads of receipts for something to log.
Simple, affordance - reduce the pain of expenses
Reduce overheads of doing expenses
Check out the compliance with auditing standards
Have something to hold onto the receipts - reducing the effort - stay within the lines
SHARPNESS scan - if not clear can request it is taken again.
Functions
Balsamique
Look at surveying employees
Government expenses, enabling transparency in the government and expand it
MEETING WITH DEPUTY EMMET STAGG– 16TH JULY
Most TDs embrace technology overall
There can be a big brother fear
Could teleworkers not do their expenses during a coffee break?
Some TDs elect to receive a flat rate payment for expenses
Does society have a reliance on technology?
Poor communication skills nowadays...surely it enables constant communication
Problem of computer literacy - preference for tech users
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Personal activity monitoring - spending equal amounts of time in each part of
constituency
Dominic Hannigan
Stagg was the first TD in Kildare to have a mobile phone
TDs won't run if they're under the microscope
Some declare expenses via social media e.g. Varadkar
(http://www.leovaradkar.ie/?page_id=167)
MEETING WITH ANTHONY, PA TO DOMINIC HANNIGAN – 16TH JULY
Pierce Doherty
System since 2010
Eoin Murphy & Simon Harris
Distance vs. expenses - budget A-F Bands
TDs are organised like a collection of SMEs - autonomous
John Lyons - ex DCU
MEETING WITH JOHN LOONAM – 18TH JULY
Need for a clear strategy
Pick exact sector, concentrate on it e.g. SMEs
Select area in a sector and research it deeply, know the bugs in the system and then
go broader. It will allow you to make tendencies or generalisations.
Academia
Figures on sales rep unemployment and redundancy
Research at formative stage - start with a sector that is small, large organisations
have in house tech developers, build a catalogue of experience.
Indigenous small companies have the biggest growth and government support.
Need to do 10-20 interviews
Service provision for corporations
Stick close to home
Sales reps in SMEs in the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain
SME Agency (http://www.isme.ie/)
SME Engagement and CRM - FAQs & video tutorial? After sales - consultancy and
training
FINANCE: include prices of developers, EI grants and the retail price for the customer
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APPENDIX 2 PRIMARY RESEARCH
Research Ethics Checklist Form
Student Names and ID Numbers
Niall Hanlon - 11210590
Michelle O’Beirne - 11210714
Glen O’Donoghue - 58389594
Brian Turley - 10211839
Degree Programme and Year
M.Sc in Electronic Commerce (Business)
Project Title
xTrack Business Plan
Supervisor/Lecturer
Dr. Cathal Gurrin and Dr. John Loonam
Aims of Research
Our research hopes to discuss the viability of our Employee Expense and Activity
Management system. We hope to conduct qualitative phone interviews with small and
medium industry players being responsible for the authorisation and recording of expenses.
The aim of the questions is to measure potential interest in our product and take on
suggestions for product features, pricing and who to target. The questions revolve around on
the interviewee’s current expense recording activities, any systems in place for recording,
view on recording expenses and openness to a system like that of xTrack.
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Proposed Methods
How Potential Participants will be Approached:
We hope to interview SME businesses solely. As a result we will look for businesses through
the ISME website. We will contact them personally and ask for recommendations on whom
is the appropriate person to discuss the questions with.
Data Collection
Interviews:
As referred to we will approach industry players from small to medium sized businesses. We
will draft a fixed agenda of topics to be covered as the format will remain the same through
each interview. They will be no longer than an hour in duration as we do not wish to distract
the participants from their busy work.
Questionnaire:
We will construct a short questionnaire to be distributed to small companies with field staff
and other teleworkers to gain additional insight into systems currently employed, to gauge
interest in our product and to learn how best to add value for our clients’ needs.
Secondary Research:
We will consult the available information on the internet and from the DCU library. Statistics
will be obtained from CSO, ESRI and ISME.
Presentation of Findings:
A business plan will be prepared containing the data. We have absolutely no grievances with
showing our participants this if they are interested.
Estimated Time Commitment:
We will conduct this research throughout the 2 month process of developing the system and
writing the business plan.
Ethical Implications of Our Study and Steps Taken to Protect Participants:
Ethical Implications of Our Research
Participation in this research is up to the interviewee. We have been successfully in receiving
a healthy sum of business representatives to engage with. We have never actively interacted
with these people before. We may be at risk of the participants giving us answers that they
think we want to hear. We believe that our participants should have no difficulty in delivering
opinions to our questions due to the openness of their nature.
Steps Taken to Protect Participants:
Informed Consent
We have communicated with our interviewees about this study; they were open to engaging
with the research. However we have also received verbal consent from the interviewees to
signify their agreement to the research methods we will take using them. They understand
there is no pressure to actively engage in the study and as a result are happy to participate.
They understand it will have absolutely no effect on their own business and they are free to
remove themselves from the study at any stage.
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Interviews
The phone interviews will have an informal approach. Confidentiality will be assured and
participants will be aware that they can answer without fear any question or refuse to answer
a question. It is their free will. We will refer to individual participants again by number. Only
we will know their numbers.
Name of Students:
Niall Hanlon
Michelle O’Beirne
Glen O’Donoghue
Brian Turley
Signature of Students:
Date: 23 July 2012
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APPENDIX 2A: TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS
Below are notes taken from the telephone interviews conducted as part of our primary
research. They were taken to be used as a guide for the group in analysing our qualitative
data.
INTERVIEW 1: CHRIS MULLEN, SALES MANAGER OF DECTEK IT AND SUPPORT
"Current expense system is haphazard, We would be very interested in using this system"
"We could see ourselves using digital receipts in the future"
There 28 employees in the organisation
Could not give me exact number of employees employed outside the office, but there is a
team of engineers that work in the field. The company are also hoping to Employ a team of
reps in the near future
System currently in place for the company is as follows; Employee incurs the expense, the
expense is then filed submitted via a digital document by email. The receipt is then
submitted via post to HQ. If the employee does not send physical receipt, the company does
not pay out on the expense.
Current system is a hybrid manual and electronic system
Engineers carry smart phones. In the future, the Sales reps will be equipped with smart
phones.
Financial director collates and organizes the receipts with the corresponding expense
claims. Responsible for admin.
Managing director signs off on expenses
Chris felt that a system like this would be extremely beneficial to the company and is very
interested. Both in activity monitoring and expenses. She like the combination of both
instead of disparate systems for both functions
Was not able to discuss price
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Was not aware of issues with expense submission as the engineering team is a different side
of the business, However felt that this system would improve the chances of only correct
and proper expenses being submitted by reps
Employees submit expenses once a month
INTERVIEW 2: SHAY CULLEN OF IRISH LAUNDRY EQUIPMENT
*Side note* This interview was conducted with an employee, his main job was to keep the
office running on a day to day basis. He was not senior in the company. I'm not sure how
useful this interview is but see what you think anyway!
“This system would save time for the owner regarding expenses”
“Because we are a small company, time is money, this system would help”
The company has 7 employees currently working in the organisation Of the 7 5 work out on
the road as engineers
The system that is currently in place is a manual system. The engineers submit their
expenses via an expense sheet that is filled out, supported by receipts to ensure that the
expenses are correct
Employees are not monitored but must call in the morning to indicate start time and call in
the evening to indicate their time of finishing
All employees carry Iphones when on the road
As this is a small company the owner of the company signs of on expenses. Expense
information is also collated and organised by the owner of the company
Would be interested in this system as engineers are only allowed work a max of a 40 hour
week, thus tracking start times and end times are very important to the company. As well as
this the employee felt that it would save time if expense information was presented to the
owner in a digital format such as this one
Could not comment on the price
The company has not experienced major issues with expenses, but engineers have been
known to lose receipts while on the road.
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Employees are obliged to submit expenses on a weekly basis. It was monthly but for cash
flow reasons, this was reduced to weekly submission of expenses
Organising of the expenses is done by the owner before they are signed off by the same
person.
INTERVIEW 3: WMO H EALTHCARE, ANNE BYRNE ACCOUNTS EXECUTIVE
*Side note* To say Anne was enthusiastic about this idea is an understatement. She has
been and accounts executive for 27 years. She felt that as an experienced individual
regarding expenses in companies that this system would revolutionize the admin involved
with expense systems
“This system would be very helpful to me and the organisation as storing receipts can take
up a lot of office space and space is at a premium in this office”
“Your system would make my job much easier as I would not have to spend hours
comparing receipts to credit card statements”
“I could spend more time doing my other work instead of dealing with receipts”
WMO healthcare currently employees 27 staff in the field of Healthcare sales and
marketing.
8 of these staff members are currently on the road as sales representatives covering four
territories in the Republic of Ireland.
The system that is currently in place was described as “Not ideal” by Anne as it can be very
time consuming giving her extra work to do in addition to her other tasks.
Currently, the sales representatives have to arrive at the office and physically hand in the
receipts in order to claim back expenses.
Each member of the sales team is issued with a credit card that is used for all out of office
expenses. Two administrators then compare the receipts against the charges on the credit
card statement that is sent out by the credit card company.
If the receipts match the credit card bill, the expenses are then signed off as legitimate
expenses.
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The employees submit physical receipts but are not obliged to fill out expense forms as the
credit card statement is used as “The expense form”
Employee activities are currently not monitored by the company, however, monthly sales
reports are used to keep track of employee performance. If sales dip dramatically in a
certain month, the MD can sometimes view this as a rep not working as hard as they
originally have been. “Smart phone tracking is can be used to verify that the employee was
working and not on the golf course”
Employees all carry company Smart phones. They are equipped with the new Sony Erickson
Smart phone.
The managing director is responsible for signing off on the expenses incurred by field staff.
Speaking for the Organisation, Anne Byrne felt that there would be a keen interest to
employ an expense and activity tracking system like this within the organisation. As it would
save time on admin costs and it gives a better view of what the sales representatives are
doing on a day to day basis
Could not really discuss the price. However she did feel that if the system was charged on a
monthly basis there is a high chance that the system would be used.
The company have experienced no issues with regards to illegitimate expenses as the
expenses are tracked using credit card statements
Employees must submit their expenses on a monthly basis. Anne felt that this sudden influx
of receipts and expense information put great strain on the admin team in the accounts
department
Anne herself is in charge of collating and collecting the expensed receipts that are submitted
by the sales representatives. She feels that this system would make her job far easier
because the information is stored in a central database
INTERVIEW 4: T OM MURPHY, PAMEX, GENERAL MANAGER
*Side note* Tom was interested in the idea but felt that expenses and map tracking was
not viable alone. He felt that full daily written reports should be generated for the director.
He felt the system should take in all aspects of a sales reps job (At this point I explained that
SAP and sales force are there for that). In many ways Tom slightly contradicted himself
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during the interview eg "I don’t have the time or interest in tracking my reps" but then
remarked "I am interested only if the reps are selling and not messing, this is why I use daily
reports"
Tom Murphy Sales manager at Pamex
Pamex has 10 employees in total. Of these 10 employees, Pamex will have a total 4
representatives on the road full time
The Expense system that is currently in place is paper based. The sales representatives incur
their expenses and keep the receipts. The rep then fills out an expense form and sends it
back into the office accompanied by the receipts for vouched expenses
This system is totally paper based and has no backing from electronic systems
Out of office employees are monitored via the method of daily and weekly reports. The idea
of using these reports is to gauge the activity of the out of office employees on a daily,
weekly and monthly basis. In these reports, the reps must report on the calls they made
with information such as:
Where they called to
Who they spoke to during the call
What products they sold in the call
The duration of the call
Start/end time of each day
These reports are sent electronically via a system that has been put in place. The system is
very complicated and has been considered to be a nightmare for the company. It is web
based
Admin/restricted access
Would be interested in scanned receipts but is not sure how the revenue would deal with
this system
Would be interested in using the system, however instead of map tracking he would rather
see all of the information submitted in report format.
Employees carry smart phones and in addition carry tablets. The tablets are used in each
sales pitch and are used to submit reports
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Price should be kept to the lowest possible, Did not like the idea of monthly payments.
Would prefer a system that can be delivered locally on their own computers. He feels
customer should be given an option of monthly bi monthly or once off payment(Prefers
once off payment)
Has not really come across any expense issues to date
The expenses are organised and collated by the General manager who is also responsible for
signing off on the employee expenses. There is no admin team.
INTERVIEW 5: LORRAINE CAREY, MARKETING MANAGER, O'FLYNN MEDICAL
*Side note* Lorraine very interested in the idea and our project. Feels that it would be
successful but price point is very important
"This system would give us a good view of how much revenue we actually generate from
one individual sales rep"
O’Flynn Medical currently employees 20 people within Dublin and the UK. The company also
has two other subsidiaries that are considered to come under the umbrella of O’Flynn
medical.
Of the 20 employees there are 7 employees based out of the office(These employees are
sales representatives
The system that is in place for collecting expenses is manual. The employees fill out physical
expense sheets and then submit the sheet in addition to the receipts that have been
collected
She did also mention that there is a CRM system in place but it does not handle employee
expenses, this system is targeted directly at the sales pipeline.
Employees are not officially monitored when out of the office however, the CRM system in
place tracks every stage of each individual stage. The organisation uses this system to take a
view of the activity of the rep.
Al employees carry smart phones, in addition the employees are being given PDA handheld
devices so that they can constantly feedback information to the CRM system in the office.
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Financial Director is responsible for signing off on the expenses of the company and the two
subsidiaries.
Speaking as the marketing manager, she felt that the system would give the representatives
a chance to concentrate on their jobs “selling” rather than having to deal with the admin
involved in filling out expense sheets at the end of the month
Expenses are submitted once a month to the Financial director
The financial director is responsible for collecting and collating the expense sheets and the
receipts that are with the expense sheets.
INTERVIEW 6: PAT BUCKLEY , SALES DIRECTOR AT WMO HEALTHCARE
*Side note* This interview was extremely helpful to our research, it got a bit unstructured
as Pat kept going off on tangents but the tangents were very informative, He is a big fan of
the idea and spent nearly an hour on the phone! He gave a lot of advice on how to pitch our
product”
“SME’s are the right market for your business when starting out. SME’s are very flexible
when adapting new systems. When implementing a new system, Multinationals are
extremely slow to move where as SME’s can act fast.”
“The difference in IT implementation is the difference between a speed boat turning in the
water and an oil tanker making the same turn.”
“I personally hate expenses, Many times I have just not claimed expenses for things like
parking because they are only 1 or 2 euro, but this builds up over the year. Your system
could help an individual like me claim back lost expense money”
“The fact that your system will save time regarding admin is areal benefit to your service”
“Multinationals will not take on a system like this unless they have seen it tried and tested
successfully in smaller market such as the SME community”
The system that is currently in place is paper based at WMO. He feels that the system is
outdated and needs to be revamped. As a company they do not have the money to spend
on expensive CRM software, provided our system is kept low cost he could see it being a
very important part of the organisation.
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All employees carry smartphones, and the phones are upgraded on a yearly basis.
Pat Buckley is responsible for signing off on sales representative’s expenses, however,
regarding his own expenses he will go to the Managing director to sign off his because he
cannot sign off on his own expenses. He feels that this is something that maybe be factored
into the system eg.
Sales reps have restricted access
Directors have admin access
Managing director/CEO has Master admin access
Generally Pat Buckley is extremely interested in the idea as a business. He felt that the
system will add value to any SME in any industry. However he did voice some concerns
about the fact that it is a web based application. He felt that if he were to implement this
system in his organisation that he must be guaranteed that it does not crash and that it is
secured to the highest level with the most up to date security methods as he feels that the
information that is being dealt with is extremely sensitive.
In addition he feels that the system must be able to take a clear picture of the receipts in
order to avoid any dispute over the receipt.
He also felt that the regulatory issues with the business must be looked at carefully with
regard to revenue and tax
Regarding price he felt that the cost for his organisation must be on a lower end of the
scale. His suggestion was an initial sign on fee followed by a yearly fee that is charged per
rep(user) This yearly fee should be broken up into monthly or bi monthly payments. He felt
that 120yearly fee that is charged per rep(user) This yearly fee should be broken up into
monthly or bi monthly payments. He felt that 120 euro per user per year was a fair price for
this service.
He thinks that the system should be offered in three tiers. Basic, advanced and premium.
At the basic level the system should just offer expenses data to the customer, at the
advanced level, the service should offer a small amount of charts and graphs with reports.
“Reporting on a weekly and daily basis would be a great value add element to your
business”
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The advanced level should also offer the basic tracking system to the customer, i.e. sign
in/out of work
The premium level should offer all of the services that are available from the system, as well
as offering discounting when more employees are added to the system.
Has experienced minor problems and disputes over expense claims, mostly because the
receipt had been lost. “This system would minimise disputes”
Employees submit expenses monthly, however some reps are submitting bi monthly which
is not helping with the cash flow of the company. Further to this the company is not able to
measure its cost of sales correctly as some months cannot account for the actual expense of
keeping a rep on the road.
Expenses are organised and collated by the accounts team and the sales director himself.
He felt that the system will offer the company the opportunity to put the exact cost of sales
under the microscope and reduce the loss of unnecessary costs. Thus increasing revenues.
INTERVIEW 7: LARRY MACKEN , FINANCIAL CONTROLLER AT PROTEK
*Side note* Very interested in the system. Interviewing a financial controller will give a
great basis to the research as he is the person who would deal with expenses on a daily
basis. Although their sales team is based largely on key account managers, they will
eventually have a full sales team on the road
“This system sounds very innovative and could really help accounts departments deal more
effectively with expenses”
“I believe that by targeting SMEs in the early stages of the business, you are giving
yourselves the chance to iron out bugs and produce an extensive track record before
attempting to break the multinational market.”
Protek currently employs 110 individuals, the majority of these employees are employed
within the office.
There are 10 out of office employees. However it must be noted that these employees
works between the office and the being out on the road. They are not considered officially
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to be sales representatives, these individuals are known as key account managers. Key
account managers are responsible for larger business eg. chain of pharmacies, shops etc.
Although Key account managers are not on the road on a daily basis the system could still
be used to organise the expenses of the employees. Activity tracking would not apply here
Employees submit expenses by use of a manual system that involves the collection of
physical receipts and the submission of expense sheets. The system is paper based.
Out of office employees are not monitored as there is no real need to monitor key account
executives when they are on the road.
The employee expenses are signed off by the employee’s line manager which is then sent on
to the finance/accounts department which is then collated by an admin team. The funds are
then repatriated back to the employee.
Would be very interested in using such a system for a large sales team, but as key account
managers do not have to submit a large amount of expenses, the small volume of expense
receipts may not warrant the use of such a system on a large scale. However when the large
scale sales team is built up this system could become the core of the expense system.
Employees all carry smartphones but they all are carrying their own smart phones. (This
raises the question of Bring your own device)
Although he could not put a price on the service he felt that entering the market as simple
and low cost would be a good way of generating interest in the system. As a financial
controller he felt that this system should be offered as a monthly payment. “Annual
payments stick out too much on the balance sheet at the end of the year”
The only major issue that is experienced regularly is the loss of receipts for claiming back
expenses. It has been known to happen quite regularly in the office and some people do not
get payed for the expense that is incurred.
There is no set time that employs have to submit expenses but in many cases the expenses
are submitted on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
The admin team in the accounts/finance department collate and collect all of the expenses
that are about to be claimed by the employee.
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“This system could give us huge time savings when we eventually operate a full sales team
in addition to account managers”
INTERVIEW 8: SEAN MACMAHON, OWNER AND MD OF ROAT INDUSTRIES
*Side note* Sean was altogether quite positive about our idea, but with regards to his own
company it was not viable. When talking to him, I got the sense that this was an individual
that was still trying to cope with the near collapse of his company. He did bring up one or
two things I hadn’t thought of myself
“I am left with the hardcore of staff that were here from the start, I could not use the
activity tracking as it would be taken very badly by my staff”
“We have a high volume of receipts in our company, this system could help us organise the
rep’s expenses”
"Your idea is clever but I’m afraid we are too small to use such a system"
The organisation currently employs 8 people. It was a much larger company in the past(5
years ago) however it has since shrunk due to the economic slowdown. The company used
to employ upwards of 30 people.
There are currently 5 people that are on the road full time. 3 of these employees are
international sales people. Sean felt that being able to track the international employee
expenses was very useful as he could get a better insight into the company’s expenses on a
day by day basis
The system that is in place is paper based. The representatives incur the expenses and keep
the receipts. The rep then fill in an expense sheet and post all of the information back to the
office in on envelope. Quite a slow system.
The company does not have any method of monitoring out of office employees and does
not want to monitor employees either. Sean made the point that since the company has hit
hard times, the employees that are left are working above and beyond what is usually
required from them. He felt that by utilising some kind of tracking system that he would be
insulting the effort the employees that work outside of the office. He felt that the tracking
element of the system would only be suited to larger organisations. His company is too
small to have use for such a system.
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All employees carry smart phones. His main reasoning behind equipping the employee with
smart phones was to ensure that employees could receive emails etc. while over seas.
Sean was not able to discuss specific prices on the service, but felt that the system should be
moulded around the needs of the company. E.g. Activity tracking for medium size business
and just expenses for smaller business. The service should also be offered in a tiered format
so as to encourage smaller companies to adapt and buy the system.
Sean himself is responsible for signing off on the employee expenses. Another member of
staff in the office handles the collection and collation of the expense data that is submitted
by the employee.
Has not really faced issues with employees claiming false expenses but has had issues with
lost receipts back in the office
Employees submit expenses on a monthly basis. He added that he would prefer to keep a
better track of expenses rather than just receiving them at the end of the month. It was at
this stage he felt that there were benefits to the system.
Outside of the interview questions, Sean felt that the system was clever and could really
help companies get a handle on the issue of expenses. However felt that company of his size
was just too small to have a need to adapt all elements of the service.
INTERVIEW 9: MARTIN HIGGINS, FINANCIAL CONTROLLER AT SEALED AIR NELIPACK
*Side note* It was only half way though the interview that Martin mentioned that the
company is actually owned by an American conglomerate. This ownership plays a major role
in expense keeping, as you will see below. Although it can’t really be taken as an SME as it is
a subsidiary company, I felt that counting this as an interview gave us good insight on one of
our biggest competitors. The SAP expense App.
“This sounds like a very good idea, had we not had a system in place we would be very
interested in using this”
There are currently 58 individuals working in the organisation. The company does turnover
of over $11 million a year. Of the 58 people working within the company there is 4 sales
representatives on the road. In addition there is also account managers that travel regularly
on international visits.
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There is currently an electronic expense system that has been put in place at the company.
Sealed air Nelipack is only a subsidiary of an American company named Sealed Air
Corporation. Sealed Air Corporation have invested heavily in the latest SAP ERP software in
order to connect the parent company with its subsidiaries. This system has been rolled out
recently in Sealed air Nelipack.
The SAP system has an expense section, where the employees update and fill out their
expense sheets electronically. Following the electronic submission of receipts the reps must
then also submit the receipts physically by dropping them into the finance department.
The receipts are then collected and collated and sent to the central sealed air finance centre
in Oxford, where they are again checked. When it has been confirmed that all receipts
correspond to the expenses submitted, the finance department in Ireland is given
permission to credit the reps expense account. The entire process takes 5 days.
The expenses are controlled by the central finance department of the parent company.
Although Nelipack operates as an Irish SME it is owned by a larger conglomerate which
affects how employ expenses are handled.
All staff carry smartphones. They cannot access the system via mobile as it is prohibited or
the system is not set up for mobile.
Employees submit expenses once every two weeks. The reason for this is because the
process of actually getting expense money back takes so long.
Martin could not really comment on price, but felt that 20 euro per month per rep is
certainly a fair price to pay for such a service. Also mentioned using the tiered approach to
the revenue model. Basic, premium etc.
There is an admin team in accounts that deals with the expenses, there is also a second
admin team in the Oxford offices which collates and reorganises the expenses for sign
off. The expenses are first signed off by the financial controller, then they are sent to
Oxford where they are signed off on again.
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APPENDIX2B: QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
PROMOTION OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE VIA LINKEDIN
128
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PROMOTION OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE VIA TWITTER
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xTrack Business Plan
PROMOTION OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE VIA EMAIL
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xTrack Business Plan
QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS:
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132
xTrack Business Plan
133
xTrack Business Plan
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xTrack Business Plan
APPENDIX 3: COMPETITOR PROFILES
Solution
Expenses
Activity
Additional Features
Pricing
Monitor
xTrack
Degree of
Simplicity
Location of each
Low cost
Excellent
Specific ‘TripIt’ Tool
Low cost
Poor
Route Planning
Midrange
Very Good
Mileage tracking
Expensive
Good
Manage Field
Report Scheduling
Midrange
Poor
Staff
&GPS Tracking
expense made
Route mapping
Concur
Transpoco
X
X
Driver Identification
Filexpenses
X
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APPENDIX 4: PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNTS
Year 1
Revenue
Basic
Advanced
Premium
Prof Services
Cost of Sales
Gross Profit
Expenditure
Salaries
PRSI
Rent
Gen
Expenses
Prof Fees
Marketing
Depreciation
Bank
Interest
Other
Expenses
Total
Net Profit/
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Total
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1290
600
300
0
2,190
(555)
1,662
430
200
100
20
750
(185)
554
430
200
100
0
730
(185)
554
430
200
100
0
730
(185)
554
430
200
100
20
750
(185)
554
430
200
100
0
730
(185)
554
430
200
100
20
750
(185)
554
430
200
100
20
750
(185)
554
430
200
100
0
730
(185)
554
430
200
100
20
750
(185)
554
5,160
2,400
1,200
100
8,860
(2,215)
6,645
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
9,792
958
119
375
117,500
11,494
1,428
4,500
0
1,083
0
0
0
1,083
0
0
0
1,083
0
2,538
0
1,083
0
786
0
1,083
0
786
0
1,083
0
786
0
1,083
0
786
0
1,083
0
786
0
1,083
0
786
0
1,083
0
786
0
1,083
0
786
2,500
1,083
500
786
2,500
13,000
500
9,433
1,000
994
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
11,994
(13,327) (13,321) (15,865) (14,113) (14,113) (14,113) (14,113) (14,113) (14,113) (14,113) (14,113) (16,613) (172,349)
(13,327) (13,321) (14,203) (13,559) (13,559) (13,559) (13,559) (13,559) (13,559) (13,559) (13,559) (16,059) (165,704)
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xTrack Business Plan
Year 2
Revenue
Basic
Advanced
Premium
Prof Services
Cost of Sales
Gross Profit
Expenditure
Salaries
PRSI
Rent
Gen Expenses
Professional
Fees
Marketing
Depreciation
Bank Interest
Other Expenses
Total
NetProfit/(Loss)
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Total
2,150
1,150
650
200
4,150
(747)
3,403
2,150
1,150
650
0
3,950
(747)
3,203
2,150
1,150
650
100
4,050
(747)
3,303
2,150
1,150
650
300
4,250
(747)
3,503
2,150
1,150
650
0
3,950
(747)
3,203
2,150
1,150
650
100
4,050
(747)
3,303
2,150
1,150
650
0
3,950
(747)
3,203
2,150
1,150
650
0
3,950
(747)
3,203
2,150
1,150
650
0
3,950
(747)
3,203
2,150
1,150
650
0
3,950
(747)
3,203
2,150
1,150
650
0
3,950
(747)
3,203
2,150
1,150
650
300
4,250
(743)
3,503
25,800
13,800
7,800
1,000
44,800
(8,960)
35,840
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
0
11,250
1,020
119
375
3,250
135,000
12,238
1,428
4,500
3,250
1,438
1,438
1,438
1,438
1,438
1,438
1,438
1,438
1,438
1,438
1,438
1,432
1,000
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
145
145
145
145
145
145
145
145
145
145
145
149
(15,133) (15,133) (15,133) (15,133) (15,133) (15,133) (15,133) (15,133) (15,133) (15,135) (15,133) (18,383)
(11,730) (11,930) (11,830) (11,630) (11,930) (11,830) (11,930) (11,930) (11,930) (11,930) (11,930) (14,880)
137
17,250
1,000
9,433
1,744
(185,843)
(150,003)
xTrack Business Plan
Year 3
Revenue
Basic
Advanced
Premium
Prof Services
Cost of Sales
Gross Profit
Expenditure
Salaries
PRSI
Rent
Gen
Expenses
Professional
Fees
Marketing
Depreciation
Bank
Interest
Other
Expenses
Total
Profit/(Loss)
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Total
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
400
59,650
(11,933)
47,717
32,250
17,250
9,750
500
59,750
(11,933)
47,817
32,250
17,250
9,750
500
59,750
(11,933)
47,817
387,000
207,000
117,000
5,000
716,000
(143,200)
572,800
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
15,417
1,468
119
667
185,000
17,613
1,428
8,000
4,225
4,225
25,063
2,800
9,433
8,175
2,089
2,089
2,089
2,089
2,089
2,089
2,089
2,089
2,089
2,089
2,089
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
786
2,089
2,800
786
681
681
681
681
681
681
681
681
681
681
681
684
(21,407) (21,407) (21,407) (21,407) (21,407) (21,407) (21,407) (21,407) (21,407) (21,407) (21,407) (28,255) (261,737)
26,310
26,310
26,310
26,310
26,310
26,310
26,310
26,310
26,310
26,310
26,410
19,562
311,063
138
xTrack Business Plan
APPENDIX 6: CASH FLOW FORECASTS
Year 1
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Total
Cash Inflows
Revenue
Bank Loan
Capital
Total
0
25,000
70,000
95,000
0
0
0
0
2,215
0
0
2,215
738
0
0
738
738
0
0
738
738
0
0
738
738
0
0
738
738
0
0
738
738
0
0
738
738
0
0
738
738
0
0
738
738
0
0
738
8,860
25,000
70,000
103,860
0
0
958
9,792
119
375
0
0
958
9,792
119
375
555
0
958
9,792
119
375
185
0
958
9,792
119
375
185
0
958
9,792
119
375
185
0
958
9,792
119
375
185
0
958
9,792
119
375
185
0
958
9,792
119
375
185
0
958
9,792
119
375
185
0
958
9,792
119
375
185
0
958
9,792
119
375
185
1,500
958
9,792
119
375
2,215
1,500
11,494
117,500
1,428
4,500
0
1,083
0
0
(12,327)
82,673
0
1,083
0
0
(12,327)
(12,327)
0
1,083
0
2,538
(15,420)
(13,205)
0
1,083
0
786
(13,298)
(12,560)
0
1,083
0
786
(13,298)
(12,560)
0
1,083
0
786
(13,298)
(12,560)
0
1,083
0
786
(13,298)
(12,560)
0
1,083
0
786
(13,298)
(12,560)
0
1,083
0
786
(13,298)
(12,560)
0
1,083
0
786
(13,298)
(12,560)
0
1,083
0
786
(13,298)
(12,560)
2,500
1,083
500
786
(17,798)
(17,060)
2,500
13,000
500
9,433
(164,070)
(60,210)
Cash Outflows
Cost of Sales
Fixed Assets
PRSI
Salaries
Rent
General
Expenses
Prof Fees
Marketing
Depreciation
Bank Interest
Total
Period
Inflow/Outflow
139
xTrack Business Plan
Year 2
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Total
Cash Inflows
Revenue
Bank Loan
Capital
Total
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
3,733
0
0
3,733
44,800
0
0
44,800
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
0
1,020
11,250
119
375
747
1,500
1,020
11,250
119
375
(8,960)
(1,500)
(12,238)
(135,000)
(1,428)
(4,500)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
0
1,438
0
786
(15,735)
(12,002)
3,250
1,438
1,000
786
(21,485)
(17,752)
(3,250)
(17,250)
(1,000)
(9,433)
(194,559)
(149,759)
Cash Outflows
Cost of Sales
Fixed Assets
PRSI
Salaries
Rent
General
Expenses
Prof Fees
Marketing
Depreciation
Bank Interest
Total
Period
Inflow/Outflow
140
xTrack Business Plan
Year 3
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Total
Cash Inflows
Revenue
Bank Loan
Capital
Total
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
59,667
0
0
59,667
716,000
0
0
716,000
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
0
1,468
15,417
119
667
11,933
18,000
1,468
15,417
119
667
(143,200)
(18,000)
(17,613)
(185,000)
(1,428)
(8,000)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
0
2,089
0
786
(32,479)
(27,188)
4,225
2,089
2,800
786
(57,504)
(2,163)
(4,225)
(25,063)
(2,800)
(9,433)
(414,762)
301,238
Cash Outflows
Cost of Sales
Fixed Assets
PRSI
Salaries
Rent
General
Expenses
Prof Fees
Marketing
Depreciation
Bank Interest
Total
Period
Inflow/Outflow
141
xTrack Business Plan
APPENDIX 7: BALANCE SHEETS
Year 1
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Total
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
(500)
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
(500)
1,500
500
1,000
Current
Assets
Cash at Bank 0
0
(15,053) (5,018)
(5,018)
(5,018)
(5,018)
(5,018)
(5,018)
(5,018)
(5,018)
(5,018)
(60,210)
Current
Liabilities
PRSI
0
0
(2,874)
(958)
(958)
(958)
(958)
(958)
(958)
(958)
(958)
(11,494)
0
0
(17,926) (5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(71,704)
1,500
0
(17,926) (5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(5,975)
(6,475)
(70,704)
25,000
70,000
(13,809)
81,191
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
25,000
70,000
(165,704)
(70,704)
Fixed Assets
Cost
1,500
Depreciation 0
Net Book
1,500
Value
Working
Capital
Net Assets
Long Term
Liabilities
4.40% Loan
Capital
Accum Loss
Capital
Employed
(958)
0
0
(13,809)
(13,809)
142
xTrack Business Plan
Year 2
Fixed Assets
Cost
Depreciation
Net Book
Value
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Total
3,000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3,000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3,000
(1,500)
1,500
(1,500)
(1,500)
Current
Assets
Cash at Bank (17,497) (17,497) (17,497) (17,497) (17,497) (17,497) (17,497) (17,497) (17,497) (17,497) (17,497) (17,512) (209,969)
Current
Liabilities
PRSI
Working
Capital
Net Assets
Long Term
Liabilities
4.40% Loan
Capital
Accum Loss
Capital
Employed
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,020)
(1,018)
(12,238)
(18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,520) (222,207)
(15,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (18,517) (20,017) (220,707)
25,000
70,000
(26,309)
68,691
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
143
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
0
0
(26,309)
(26,309)
0
0
(26,308)
(26,309)
25,000
70,000
(315,707)
(220,707)
xTrack Business Plan
Year 3
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Total
Fixed Assets
Cost
Depreciation
Net Book Value
21,000
0
21,000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
(4,300)
(4,300)
21,000
4,300
16,700
Current Assets
Cash at Bank
7,606
7,606
7,606
7,606
7,606
7,606
7,606
7,606
7,606
7,606
7,606
7,603
91,269
Current Liabilities
PRSI
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,468)
(1,465)
(17,613)
Working Capital
Net Assets
6,138
27,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
6,138
1,838
73,656
90,356
Financed by:
Long Term Liabilities
4.40% Loan
25,000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
25,000
Capital
Accum Loss
Capital Employed
70,000
(387)
94,613
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
0
(387)
(387)
70,000
(4,644)
90,356
144
xTrack Business Plan
REFERENCES
Central statistics office. (2010). Business in Ireland 2009. Available:
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/services/2009/
businessinireland2009.pdf. Last accessed 1/8/12.
Deloitte Predicts the Top 10 Technology Trends for 2012
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/press/PressOverview of Location Technologies, 2002, Openwave. Available at:
http://www.ipcgps.com/uploads/docs/Intro_to_Location_Technologies-1.pdf
Porter, M. 1980. Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and
Competitors. New York: The Free Press.
Qiu, Zhengwei and Doherty, Aiden R. and Gurrin, Cathal and Smeaton, Alan F. (2010)
Turning raw SenseCam accelerometer data into meaningful user activities. In:
SenseCam 2010 - second annual SenseCam symposium, 16-17 September 2010,
Dublin, Ireland. ISBN 1872-327-915
The Top 10 Tech Trends, Straight From 5 Top Tech VCs
http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2012/05/22/the-top-10-tech-trendsaccording-to-5-top-tech-vcs/
145