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Write Answers of following Comments in the paper: MKM32MKM33MKM34MKM22MKM23MKM13MKM7MKM8 and all cite references where asked Competitor’s website is swipesense.com (here you can take help)..first read whole paperto get the context
Fighting for a Healthier, Happier, Tomorrow
FEASIBLE
Comment by Michele: Since the analysis is not yet complete, it is too soon to determine this.
Healthy Hands, LLC
Business Feasibility Study
Eric Reinert
Yagiz Over
Benadeta Burroughs
Tuan Huynh
An Nguyen
Raymond Dharmadipraja
Drexel University
August 7th, 2013
Why the blank page?
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 5
Business Concept
6
Industry Analysis
7
S.W.O.T. Analysis
7
Market Analysis
10
Market Size, trend and growth
10
Product Distribution and Sales
10
Estimated Market Share and Sales
11
Founding Team
12
Product/ Service Development Plan
13
Financial Plan
15
New Venture Development Timeline
16
Appendices
17
Why the blank page above?
Executive Summary Comment by Michele: Good! You are one of the very few teams that knew not to write this yet.
Business Concept
Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, also known as MRSA, is the bacterial strain responsible for causing staph infections. There are approximately one million infections every year because of these bacteria. MRSA is also responsible for 20% of all hospital infections. The main mechanism for the transfer of these bacteria is through direct skin-skin contact. The contraction of this disease is not only painful and potentially life threatening, but it can lead to an extra five days in the hospital and an additional average of $6,400 in hospital fees. This is outrageous, especially considering the fact that the cause of the infection is usually due to improper hygienic practices by the hospital staff. There is an easy solution to preventing the spread of MRSA and most other diseases spread through skin-skin contact – washing your hands. Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to ensure that hospital employees are practicing proper hygiene, until now. Comment by Michele: Cite. Comment by Michele: Cite. Comment by Michele: Always put a blank line between paragraphs in a single-spaced document.
Healthy Hands is an innovative new way to help ease the on-going difficulty employers face, whilst trying to ensure their employees maintain a clean and safe environment. The best part is that hospitals are not the only businesses that can benefit from Healthy Hands. Restaurants, schools, and even households can all benefit from this service. The concept is simple. It is a wireless system set up within a series of soap and/ or hand sanitizer dispensers that keeps track of how often employees wash their hands. Using an innovative new identification wrist band, the Healthy Hands dispensers will wirelessly transmit the ID information provided by the wrist band to a wireless service. This service will keep track of the amount of times each employee washes, or sanitizes their hands in real time! This will provide a means by which employers can incentivize and monitor the hygiene of their employees. Comment by Michele: Don’t use exclamation points in business papers.
Healthy Hands dispensers will also monitor and send out alerts when soap runs low. We will also develop a large variety of hand soaps and hand sanitizers for a multitude of uses from kitchens, to hospitals, or even households. The distribution of the product will be through a multitude of mechanisms, including purchasing through our website or contacting us via mail order, phone, or email. The beauty of this concept is that we intend to take full advantage of repeat sales for the refilling of our dispensers. This will allow us to maintain a strong and loyal customer base.
One of the setbacks is the possibility of spin-offs, but we intend to combat this threat by providing an excellent product and service at an affordable cost. We also intend to patent our ID bands, Tracker Software, and our easy easy-reload soap cartridge system. This will deter any knock-offs from copying our system of establishing a captive customer base which will provide for Healthy Hands a steady and reliable source of revenue to support production, advertising, free trials and distribution costs. The price of the dispensers and ID bands themselves will be close to the cost of their production. This will give the dispensers an affordable price so they can be purchased in large quantities and to allow Healthy Hands to break even upon the sale of these units. The repeat sales from the soap cartridges and the monthly cost of the Tracker Software service will allow Healthy Hands to make a constant, reliable, and steady source of revenue. Comment by Michele: Why is this a setback? Because you can’t think of any potential spin-offs? I don’t understand the issue.
Industry Analysis
Healthy Hands is in a unique position that is quite rare for many businesses. Healthy Hands’ suppliers will include the suppliers of our soap dispensers, and wrist bands. The cost for the production of hand soap dispensers is not high, even with the wireless routers. Also, since our reload cartridges and the soaps within them will be made by us, we will be able to provide the dispensers at a reduced price, while still making a profit through repeat sales of our cartridges as well as the small monthly fee for our tracking service. This will significantly lower the supplier power since the production of the dispensers and wristbands is not very advanced and there are many suppliers out there to choose from. Comment by Michele: Why? And what industry are you entering? Comment by Michele: But as a startup, most suppliers aren’t really going to let you bargain.
The customer base also does not have very much power considering the fact that if a restaurant or hospital wants to maintain a good reputation with their customer base,they will want to do everything in their power to maintain a clean facility, which is why they will want our products and services, especially with the great deals and prices we will be able to provide. Comment by Michele: But as a startup and not a known quantity, hospitals in particular will bargain hard.
Healthy Hands is a relatively unique company with only one real competitor that can provide a service even remotely close to what we have to offer. This company is called SwipeSense. They provide a very similar product and service to ours. However we feel that our business model will significantly outperform theirs. This is due to the fact that we are incorporating a more accurate way for tracking employees as well as the fact that our quick and easy reload cartridges will allow us to maintain a stable and constant revenue. We are also going to provide unique soaps and sanitizers, which means we will not be at the mercy of our suppliers.
SwipeSense will be at the mercy of the people who make their hand sanitizers and soaps. This will essentially take a significant chunk out of their revenue stream and will mean they won’t be able to provide their dispensers OR their refills for a price as low as ours. Therefore, in the long run, they will not be able to compete. Any substitutions or new entries will also not likely be able to compete; this is due to the fact that we will ensure that our product is top quality and that it is as affordable as possible. This, coupled with how aggressively we intend to breech enter the market, no new companies will be able to establish a customer base as large or as loyal as ours due to our patents and our long term goals and strategies.
S.W.O.T. Analysis
We have a great amount of confidence in Healthy Hands, due to our great number of foreseeable strengths and the limited number of future weaknesses. Healthy Hands’ strengths start with our control over our suppliers, and buyers. While our service is not required, any self-respecting business such as a hospital or restaurant will want our products and services. Comment by Michele: You don’t have control over either. Comment by Michele: Not necessarily. For one, their employee base is going to rebel, citing privacy concerns. That complaint might not hold sway, but trust me, it’s going to happen.
Our suppliers do not need any state-of the art equipment in fact the minute we have the funds we intend to build our own facilities to construct our products on our own. To even further limit the supplier power to next to nothing. Since our suppliers can’t require anything extraordinary to create our product they will have many competitors of their own and every client counts. Our products are also affordable and will only be compatible with our reload cartridges; this means if our customers want to use their our soap dispensers they will have to buy our refills. This provides several benefits, : first of all, our customers will have to continue to purchase our cartridges from us. Second, since we developed the soaps and the cartridges, we don’t have to give money to any other companies other than the ones that provide our raw materials. Lastly, we will be able to provide the dispensers and wrist bands at a lower cost to encourage companies to purchase in bulk, allowing us to establish a large customer base rapidly and effectively.
Another strength is that the science behind our concept already exists; it is very well known how important hand washing and proper hygiene is, especially in businesses models such as hospitals and restaurants. It is only logical to assume they are looking for a way to make sure their employees follow the proper procedures. Moreover, our software, which will be provided for a very affordable monthly fee, this will essentially be enough to cover the technical support and help provide for the other costs of running this service and even providing these products to ensure the company is making a profit through its consistent and steady revenue stream. Comment by Michele: This sentence is extremely long and doesn’t flow.
These products and services are also capable of improvement and upgrading to ensure that as technology continues to advance so do we. Having a loyalty upgrade service to allow a discount to existing customers for the purchase of new products and services this will ensure customers remain loyal and that they are happy giving us their business.
The culture of the United States has become very interested in proper hygiene and this sociocultural climate will help facilitate our product. Another environmental factor that will benefit Healthy Hands is the fact that everything is wireless, and on the internet, which is another trend Healthy Hands is taking advantage of. Also from a legal stand point, restaurants and hospitals are obligated to keep up with a proper code of sanitation; with the release of Healthy Hands the bar to a new level of proper hygiene which will result in pressure to invest in our technology. From an economic stand point every customer counts; if restaurants and hospitals are going to want to keep their customer base and beat their competition they are going to need to maintain proper conditions and investing in Healthy Hands will enable them to reduce infection rates and help maintain good reviews. Comment by Michele: This doesn’t make any sense.
Our weaknesses while there aren’t many do exist and have not been overlooked. First of all SwipeSense has already begun their product development and have even begun product testing. How can we overcome this? Simple, we take advantage of the fact that they have already proven the success of this concept and business model and then one one-up them. Sometimes being the first one in isn’t the best option. We have identified many of the hardships this type of a company will have to face and have developed ways to overcome them, and now thanks to SwipeSense the product and service concepts are now proven to be efficient. Comment by Michele: Since this is out of your control, it is a threat, not a weakness.
Another weakness is the possibility that people don’t actually wash their hands but instead just go to the dispenser and “pretend” to wash them. This too has been overcome by our ID bands, which will have sensors to detect how efficiently employees wash their hands by using an adapted accelerometer to monitor the employee’s actual hand movements. Comment by Michele: Again, out of your control, so it is a threat.
Some opportunities that Healthy Hands will face are the fact that there really isn’t currently any business that has fully launched its product line into the market yet. This means that despite SwipeSense’s head start with product trials, Healthy Hands will still be one of the first into the industry and will have an optimum opportunity to compete and possibly beat our main competitor.
Our main threat will be SwipeSense’s early jump on the market testing of their product; if we are not careful, they could just as easily beat us and prevent us from establishing a customer base.
Our main competitor is SwipeSense the only company which that currently plans to release a product anywhere near what we intend to offer. We intend to out out-compete them through our business model. We are aiming to establish a captive market and to take advantage of repeat sales to develop a reliable revenue stream. We also intend to limit supplier power by utilizing our own production facilities and by developing our own soaps and sanitizers. Another way we intend to beat SwipeSense is with our new ID bands, which will allow us to obtain more detailed and accurate data for use with our product. The only threat SwipeSense can provide for Healthy Hands is the fact that they are already well into their product development, which means they will likely release their product first and will establish some customers before we will be able to. This will provide them with a unique but limited opportunity to outperform us. We intend to counter this threat by releasing into the market quietly and then aggressively developing a customer base. As mentioned earlier, once we establish our customers, the revenue will be steady and consistent, will allow us to bring our product to the market for a more affordable price, and will allow us to grow rapidly, which for this particular business model is key. Comment by Michele: These do not naturally flow from a steady revenue stream.
Clean up all blank space.
Market Analysis
Our market strategy is to sell our products for a cheaper price than our competitors. Our only major competitor currently in the market is SwipeSense. This is an advantage to us because we are the only two companies who sell somewhat similar products in the market. We will have high supply power because customers will have fewer choices to pick from.
Market Size, trend and growth
Market research done by Global industry analysts showed that the US market for Hand Sanitizers is projected to reach US$226.3 million by the year 2018, primarily driven by continued rise in health awareness, increasing disposable incomes, availability of easy-to-use and convenient product options, and increasing demand for non-alcoholic products. Comment by Michele: Cite.
A newer trend emerging in the antibacterial sanitizers is the availability of surface-cleaning products in travel packs. With today’s fast paced lifestyle living, customers need for easy to use and convenient product s on the go increases. Global threats in the past such as SARS, avian flu, and the more recent H1N1 influenza or swine flu, led to a surge in demand for hand sanitizers. Growth was also propelled by the findings that gastrointestinal illnesses are reduced by about 60 percent in households that used hand sanitizers, compared to non-users, the report says. Comment by Michele: But you aren’t selling to consumers; you are selling to hospitals, where employees are limited in their ability to be “on the go.” Comment by Michele: Cite. But we don’t care about households.
The best time to sell Healthy hands will be during the fall and winter season .We have scheduled the launch of Healthy hands in fall of 2014 because this is the season where a large population suffer from cold and flu. Comment by Michele: Why? Do hospitals buy more then? Comment by Michele: Do they go to the hospital for these viruses?
Potential Market
Our potential markets are Hospitalshospitals, schools, Restaurantsrestaurants, Day day cares care centers, homes and office buildings. Although a person can catch germs almost anywhere, but we believe these are the most congested areas where germs can be spread easily. Comment by Michele: Too much for a startup. Focus first on hospitals.
Product Distribution and Sales
A survey was conducted by healthy hands personnel for customers who buy and use hand sanitizers. The results were 7/10 were likely to buy our product compared to other. Regardless of whether the market is a niche or traditional market, the hand sanitizer sales will still be handled in the same manner. Customer satisfaction is our number one priority. Comment by Michele: There is no business yet, so there cannot be any personnel. Comment by Michele: Might be good if consumers were your primary target market. But they aren’t. Also, 10 responses is not nearly enough. You need to talk to hospital personnel, restaurant owners, and the like.
Types of sales include:
· By mail order
· Via Internet
· Door-to-door sales and delivery
· Coupons and discounts
Estimated Market Share and Sales
A Nielson Co. report showed the retail market of hand sanitizer during a 52 week period of the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic generated as much as $180 million, a 70 percent increase from the previous year. Comment by Michele: You aren’t selling at retail.
Some key differences of our product include:
· It is a natural product, alcohol free.
· It is available in different sizes, different quantity and different scent.
· Quality is assured as all products are raised to an audited quality system.
· Doorstep delivery is available where possible.
Founding Team
Product/ Service Development Plan
Healthy Hands will release a series of products, all of which revolve around the concept of providing subscribers with data on their employee’s hygiene habits. The data will be display the number of times each employee has washed their his/her hands as well as a digital rating on how effectively they washed their hands. This software will be available wirelessly through the internet and will be available to employers and employees. Employers will be able to access all of their employee’s employees’ information and data and will be automatically alerted if some of them don’t wash their hands as frequently as the employer likes. The employer will optionally be able to set the preferences for how often on average they would like to see their employees wash their hands. Employees will be entitled to view their own records and the records of any co-workers who are supervised by said employee. The software will also be available as an app eventually.
The software, while important, will not work without the dispensers. These dispensers will have built built-in sensors and transmitters to sense which employee is using the dispenser. These units will also monitor the amount of soap left within the dispenser and will send out an alert when it needs to be refilled. The dispensers will also only be refillable through our easy reload cartridges, which will contain our soaps or sanitizers. The dispensers will also contain light panels to help maintain their charge as well as batteries, which will also be monitored on their charge,. When the batteries are low, the unit will send out an alert so they can be changed. The dispensers will also have the optional feature of radius sensors. These sensors will monitor when a band wearer is within a set radius or leaves the set radius of each dispenser. This will send an alert to the ID band, which will alert it’s wearer to sanitize their hands after leaving a room, which often involves the touching of a doorknob. Dispensers will also have a portable option and will allow employees to have the option of carrying one with them.
While the dispensers are keys to the services, they will not work without our unique ID bands, which will emit a signal when in close contact with the dispensers. These bands will also contain an accelerometer, which will monitor the movements in the band when the user is washing their hands. This information will be compared to what the signal should look like when properly washing one’s hands. This information will be available to employers,’ with which they will be able to make decisions on whether or not the employees are taking care to effectively wash their hands. These bands will also be water proof, and we will also develop a small clip, which will be reusable and will attach to the hospital wrist bands of patients and will be paired with their room. This will allow staff to monitor patient sanitation practices and will even be an effective way to track patient interactions. This information will be useful in cases of locating patient zero and preventing infection spreading during infectious outbreaks. These ID bands will also have internal batteries and will have an alert mechanism to remind wearers to wash or sanitize their hands after entering or leaving rooms or, to change the batteries or even to send the band in for maintenance.
Faucet sensors will also be an optional feature and will allow for more accurate readings on how effectively users wash their hands as well as ensuring proper tracking of when an employee washes their hands. These will be waterproof and will be easily attachable to faucets in sinks. They will be waterproof and have light panels to aid in their powering.
As mentioned earlier, dispensers will require the easy reload cartridges to refill them with their respective soap or sanitizer. These will be produced within our own production facilities and will come with a large variety of different types of soaps and sanitizers for all manners of uses. These will be optimizing optimized for the needs of every type of user we may encounter. , From from households use to prep rooms for surgeons before surgery.
The production of our dispensers will most likely be done by a separate company possibly outsourced to maintain low costs.
We will likely need to obtain patents for our ID bands as well as our unique new dispenser designs. As, as well as for our software as well as and our easy reload cartridges
We intend to prototype and test by offering free trials to several hospitals; we will provide them with our units as well as a supply of our cartridges. This testing will give us input on what needs to be altered on each unit as well as give us more accurate data to help make better predictions on what our revenue would be due to sales of refills and units themselves. This data will be very useful when establishing the final price of our product. We will also receive information on what technology will be needed to establish a reliable and accurate software and service.
Financial Plan
The assumption for the first year is that our group is going to develop the prototype for our product and try to test the product in Drexel Hahnemann University Hospital. The reason for this move is we want to introduce this product in during the flu seasons. Because of the limited times we do not think that is enough time for us to make and introduce the product for this year. Moreover, we could use this to collect data on the machine and fix any bugs and understand how effectively does the machine works. In addition, how what the hospital and the user thinks of our products and where we can improve to make it better. Comment by Michele: This is not a complete sentence.
We are going to start our business as an LLC (Limited Liability Company) for tax and liability reason, with the advantage of LLC it protect our own person assets and less recordkeeping and lower startup cost. There are also fewer restrictions on profit sharing within an LLC, as members distribute profits as they see fit. Members might contribute different proportions of capital and sweat equity. Consequently, it is up to the members themselves to decide who has earned what percentage of the profits or losses. We will file form 2553, which will make our LLC Tax as an S-Corp. In addition, Pennsylvania state Law going to tax the company 9.99% corporate income tax. Comment by Michele: Not as an LLC it won’t.
The Startup startup Cost cost For for our Company company would be around $1,000,000 for labor and materials and legal matters such as like patents, taxes and any other legal issues. We plan to finance our research by applyly for government grants and get loans from the (SBA )Small Business Administration, and we go to will present this idea to Drexel University to get help and aid from the university with the production and development of our product. The resources and ability of Drexel University we should able to cut down our costs like such as providing engineers and servers to collect data. Comment by Michele: Taxes aren’t legal issues. Comment by Michele: If you do this, Drexel will own the technology. You’ll have to license it from the university.
We are going to develop the WIFI WiFi Device device and ID scanner on these products, ; we going to will buy the dispenser and bracelet from the retailer or wholesaler and just installing our WIFI WiFi devices into them until our company can sustain itself, then we will think should we still going to buy or make the dispenser ourselves. Depend on with method would reduce of the overall cost of the product. Comment by Michele: Which one? Comment by Michele: ? Comment by Michele: I cannot figure out how to fix this sentence.
The Dispenser dispenser we found online from a wholesaler; the cost is around $15 Per per Dispenserdispenser. The Bracelet bracelet was around $5 per Bracelet bracelet and $2 per clip. We are planning to make our own soap and hand sanitizer. also the The material for the WIFI WiFi device for dispenser will cost $10 per device, and the ID band scanner will cost $8 and the ID Clip will be $5 The assumption of doubling our production every year our company will able to sustains itself by the fourth years. The first year of Development for the trail with Drexel Hahnemann University Hospital, our Company expects to make 200 hand soaps dispenser and 300 hand sanitizer pricing at $30 per dispenser. we plan to make 600 the ID band bracelet for doctor and Nurses pricing at $150 each and 2000 reusable ID clip for patients and other selling at $8 each. In addition, we plan to sell our Hand Soaps at $25 per Gallon. Our profit on the dispenser and ID band are very little. What we goal is to make money on the hand soap and hand sanitizer from repeat customer. After the prototype test in Drexel Hahnemann University Hospital is complete, we plan to double our production and sale this product to the hospital nearby and slowly expand out to other market.
Change all of the assumptions to simple bullet points. This was far too difficult to read.
New Venture Development Timeline
Months
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Stage 1: Market Research and Technical Feasibility Comment by Michele: The technical feasibility would probably take longer, but all the rest of these items should be complete with this feasibility analysis.
Assess competition and market share
Assess Customer Needs and Preferences
Identify Target Market
Develop product definition
Determine Project costs
Obtain initial round of financing
Stage 2: Product development and Testing
Detail the product development plan
Develop the prototype
Refine product based on feedback
Testing and trials
Obtain regulatory approvals Comment by Michele: Seems like a short time for this.
Apply for patents
Update business plan
Secure final stage financing
Stage 3: Production and Market Launch
Develop Production Plan
Purchase and set up equipment
Conduct trial production run
Develop Management Reports
Develop Distribution Systems
Establish Prices & Terms of Sale
Develop Trade Names & Trademarks
Develop Customer Relations Program
Develop Technical Support Program
Develop Supplies & Parts Program
Develop Internet Site
Set up Board of Directors
Production Launch
Market Launch
Appendices
17
