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Executive Su�m·ary . . ·. · · · ...
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Hi from KATI Team.
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We are ready to present a remarkable and elegant solution. setting a stage for smarter cities. Our solution consists intricately designed multipurpose ground devices that can be deployed anywhere to get real time data. easily mountable low cost gateways. which we artfully designed from scratch. to cover wide areas and visually compelling state-of-art online platforms. both built for web and mobile platforms. for our customers to monitor their operations with precision and confidence. Our offering is to utilize Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology to cover vast areas. deploying our one ground device for two commonly overlooked problems of a living site. waste management and parking. and to smarten up the areas we care for.
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KAT T ground device is designed to convey insightful data for waste operations by measu ring the fill levels and temperature of waste containers. and to optimize the allocation of ., resources with the purpose of increasing efficiency of daily operations. The waste mana gement web platform. as a part of our complete solution. with its simplistic design is to drive change by predictive and descriptive analyses. facilitating monitoring process by creating opportunity to act proactively. The same device we designed. KATI ground device. can also be mounted on parking lots to give current situation of the spots. whether the spots are free or occupied. From the perspective of park owners and drivers. the software solution that we brought to the table stands out for its user friendly and data driven approach. For the car park owner. the park management web platform gives the power of real-time over monitoring the business and chance of adjusting its marketing efforts by tracking the trends. On the other side. our mobile application comes in the sight. and by coopera ting with the ground devices and the park management web platform. creates conve nience for drivers to easily spot closest parking lots in the area. Moreover. when the soluti on is applied. a win-win-win situation emerges as a consequence. since traffic congestion could be lessened by removing the lot seeker driver from the scene. Briefly. our offer is a complete modular solution for the two operational problems faced in communal areas. Our claim is to improve the efficiency rate of waste operations by %20 to %40. the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and pricing strategies by % l Oto %20. regarding parking business. The intangible effects of our solution also add tremendous value and prestige. making the cities appealing in terms of being livable and smart. Our solid network will be comprised of many ground modules on field. a few gateways located up in air. one web partal for waste management business. one web partal for car park owners. and one mobile app for drivers. The intangible potential impacts of the solution are much profound than the listed features and cannot be measured only with monetary variables. Reduced carbon emissi ons by removing detouring park seeking drivers and waste trucks. preventing overfilled bins that can be poisonous to their environment. limiting fuel consumption by optimizing the routes and increased efficiency. all of these could pose staggering impact. and result augmented value and brand awareness. upon gaining the title of acting smart and data driven. which adds competitive edge. from a prestige oriented standpoint.
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KaTT
BUSINESS PLAN
p.02
What we do? KATT offers one product to solve two mainstream problems. By its simplistic, yet powerful design, KATT ground device is developed to quickly smarten up the area that it is implemented. The complete solution is comprised of a large number of ground devices in field, several gateways to gather and transmit the real time data, and smartly crafted user interfaces to present unique insights and analyses of the operations. To walk through step by step, we’d like to shed light on each element of our solution respectively. The first step of the solution, the ground device has two ultrasonic sensors in its core and a LORA communication module. Basically, it has two primary goals, to obtain the data of fill levels for waste management and to determine the current situation of a parking lot for smart parking.
It can be mounted in any size waste container to measure its temperature and fill level, providing real time data to monitor fullness of the bins in the deployed areas, optimizing waste collecting activity by generating routes for the vehicles utilized for waste operations. All of those can be easily followed by the user through intricately designed KATT Waste Management Platform that needs no prior experience in software whatsoever. Above all, the traffic congestion in the city loses weight, less amount of carbon emission releases to the atmosphere, and once again the power of data and efficiency smartens up everything. The smart design of KATT ground device also allows to utilize it as a parking sensor. It benefits both parties of parking business with its complete design. The park owners can instantly check their occupancy level and monitor daily, weekly or monthly trends via the KATT Smart Parking Platform. The drivers, on the other side of the spectrum, can check
WHAT WE DO? p.03
free parking spots with their phones, do not lose any time detouring hopelessly in a city to find a spot. Moreover, as a consequence, the city also gets its slice from the pie, and experiences lesser level of traffic congestion. On the second step of the solution, the in-house built gateways take their part. There are numerous gateway designs with their closed end-to-end structure in the market, yet none of them is affordable enough to pave the way for the claim of seamlessly and hassle-freely implement what KATT strives to do, due to their non-modular design and high prices. Therefore, KATT is on the track for designing a gateway from scratch to overcome initial costliness of the existent solution. The concurrent engineering concept is at the center of our hardware development efforts. As the name implies, our solution is laid out
with the aim of ensuring that all the customer requirements are engineered in. Up to here, the hardware part of the solution was given out. Yet, the intention is to display the same level of artfulness and consistency on the software part as well. To cope with the gradually increasing data transmission rate and easily scale up our operation on the computational side, KATT decided make use of the cutting-edge data processing frameworks such as Apache Flink. As a striking feature of our complete solution, KATT came up with an extensive plan to present user-friendly interfaces which can be engaged effortlessly. KATT targets different service providers and end users with its solution, hence the team is getting ready to launch three user interface platforms all at once.
KaTT
BUSINESS PLAN
p.04
For the waste management solution, the designed web platform displays the key metrics of a waste operation, varying from a single container fill level to zone trends of a whole region that the solution is implemented. Our would-be client, as a service provider, can monitor a wide area of operational site, get real-time data regarding the fill levels of its containers, and allocate its resources accordingly. The subtly devised KATT Waste Management Web Platform is planned to convey the most meaningful actionable data to its user in order to prevent getting overwhelmed by continuous data flow from the containers. The client can easily check the current status of fill levels, the fill trends of districts or zones, and get route optimization for its operational vehicles. The route optimization algorithm in our software can drastically reduce the overall inefficiency that embedded in a manually handled daily operation, particularly in waste
collection. In addition, based on the historical data the platform utilizes certain machine learning algorithms and provides the user with predictive insights. To take a snapshot of current situation, a descriptive analysis is conducted, and a predictive analysis is executed to draw a cost-effective and logical route to collect the waste in the area. As a result, %20 to%40 of overall cost saving can be achieved depending on the geographical and operational inputs. This feature is one of the core values that the solution possesses, thus it requires great deal of energy to answer the needs of clients properly. KATT Software Team is dedicated to relentlessly work on breaking the enigmas of predictive analysis techniques, and presenting data-driven decisions that could double the efficiency rate of the operations. For the smart parking solution, KATT offers two online services, one is a web platform for the service provider, and the other is a mobi-
Waste Management Web Platform
WHAT WE DO? p.05
le application for drivers. KATT Smart Parking Web Platform can be employed to get a grasp of daily operations by examining daily, weekly, and monthly trends, and the most preferred length of stays to optimize pricing strategies or marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, the drivers, by using KATT Smart Parking Mobile Application, can check the closest and convenient spots that are in the vicinity of their being. By doing that, the drivers regain their valuable time back that normally is lost in search for a parking spot. Furthermore, the digitalization of parking business by LPWAN technology also positively affects the traffic in the area, by removing the detouring cars from the scene. Additionally, KATT aims to put excessive emphasis on recycling side of waste management operation, displaying fill trends of recycling bins categorized by waste type to take a clearer picture of recycling attitude, to pinpoint lacking and overfilling bins in speci-
fic areas. Contributing the development and gradual improvement of recycling mentality of the communities in the solution deployed areas is one of the binding responsibilities that KATT holds itself accountable. Recycling collection efficiency and consistency are to be monitored via KATT Waste Management Web Platform, in the recycling dashboard apart from the conventional metrics and overview page. Intensified level of applied recycling practices via the waste management service can help building environmentally conscious communities. For instance, gathered data from districts can pinpoint unfilled recycling bins that have stayed relatively empty for quite a time, and might be turn into action by carrying out awareness raising campaigns in those districts. The aforementioned user interfaces are generated through utilizing several tools, and iterated with the help of the focus groups, potential customers, and our experienced designers. The interfaces that are created can be seen below.
Smart Parking Web Platform
John Welch
KaTT
BUSINESS PLAN
p.07 KATT Team is a team of four friends from Istanbul Technical University, who individually has the same vision of fully connected cities with their products. Since 2009, the team has been actively seeking the ways to improve daily life by utilizing data analytics and M2M communication, and believes that now they have the experience and the set of skills achieve these goals.
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Business Team Lead
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EMEKCAN ARAS Hardware Team Lead
Embedded systems developer at Borda Technology
THE TEAM p.08 Prior to their entrepreneurial ambitions, the team has spent countless hours to pass engineering exams and to work on challenging projects at Istanbul Techinal University, and this continous process eventually led them to forge unbreakable bonds between each other. In a pool of talented and visionary students, there must be numerous reasons to pave the way for giving birth to KATT Team with its current members rather than anyone else . Such reasons are hard to identify sometimes; but, to us, that lays the foundation of true friendship, doesn’t it?
GÜVEN TOPRAKKIRAN Software Team Lead
ORKUN KOCATÜRK Business Team Lead
THE TEAM
KaTT
BUSINESS PLAN
p.10
As it was mentioned in the earlier section, the complete solution is formed by two types of devices. The first one is called ground device which collects relevant data from the field and sends it via LoRa radio module to a gateway device. The core of the ground device contains an ARM Cortex M0 based microcontroller to achieve low power and efficient data acquisition and Semtech LoRa Transceiver to enable wireless communication between the ground device and gateway. Additionally, ultrasonic and temperature/ humidity sensors are embedded into the ground devices. LoRa is the one of the most popular Lowpower Wide Area Network technology currently in the market. Low-power Wide Area Network technologies are designed for machine-to-machine (M2M) networking
environments. With decreased power requirements, longer range and lower cost than a mobile network, LPWANs are thought to enable a much wider range of M2M and Internet of Things applications. Bluetooth, ZigBee and Wi-Fi are adequate for consumer-level IoT implementations. The need for a technology such as LPWAN is much greater in industrial IoT, civic and commercial applications. In these environments, the huge numbers of connected devices can only be supported if communications are efficient and power costs low. Most of IoT and M2M solutions require long-range communication link with low bandwidth and are not well covered with traditional technologies. That is right time and place for LPWAN technology which is quite good for these emerging sensor applications.
TECHNOLOGY p.11
In the proportional map of the network solutions, LPWAN fills an untapped gap in the matrix. The present solutions are far away from providing low-cost and long-range implementations for IoT devices. The positioning of LPWAN can be visually seen below. In general, the advantages of LPWAN can be listed as follow:
• Range from 5 to 50 km in
different environment conditions.
• High autonomy of smart devices
with a lifetime from 10 to 20 years.
• A small portion of data transmitted with low throughput which is may vary from few bit/sec to 100s bit/sec.
• Inexpensive radio modules and chip sets depending on vendor.
• Less number of access points (base stations, gateways) to cover wide area such as city or even country.
• Good penetration in case of sub-
GHz ISM frequency used and better network coverage in the open district area.
In a nutshell, the potential of LPWAN is huge. As per analytics reports more than 20 billions of IoT devices will available by 2020 and a large portion will be connected with LPWAN. There are several wireless network technologies present, aforementioned above, on the market now. They differ from one another by frequency, bandwidth, RF modulation approach and spectrum utilization algorithms.
Yet, the beauty of LPWAN comes from its simplicity. Devices that are connected before you even pull them out of the box: no passwords, no hubs, no SIM cards. devices which never need recharging, because their batteries effectively last forever. The LPWAN market is expected to be growing rapidly during the forecast period 2016-2022. New integrated approaches by the telecom and software incumbents driving the market for new networking technologies. Also, the increase in gas and oil pipelines across the globe are fostering the growth of the market. The LPWAN market is divided into types, networks, end-user segmentation, technologies and geographical segmentation. Corporate organizations mostly use private networks because of the security reasons, and public networks are used by small organizations and start-ups. One of the major trends in the market is to reach the customer expectations while making LPWAN technology as one of the important strategy. The majority of the projects are coming from the Western Europe and Asia-Pacific region as they are ready to consider it as the main strategy for transferring the data and improve the analysis of real-time information. Some of the vendors for LPWAN market are SigFox, Semtech, Huawei, NWave, and Weightless. Some four billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices will be reliant on low power wide area networks (LPWANs) by 2025, says ABI Research. Global LPWAN market revenue to reach, rising from $1,01 billion, $24,46bn by 2021,
KaTT
BUSINESS PLAN
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a new study forecasts revenue in the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) market to grow 89.3% between 2016 and 2021. LoRa is a proprietary radio modulation technology owned by Semtech Corporation. It provides long-range connectivity by utilizing several spread-spectrum techniques, and uses chirp spread spectrum technique which is on wide bandwidth in 868-900 MHz ISM band. It offers fairly decent bandwidth compared to other LPWAN tech alternatives. Since it requires the use of Semtech’s chip, it’s not considered as an open standard entirely. As for today, LoRa has received traction in the European markets, and there is a multitude of ways in deployment applications across the region. On top of LoRa, it’s possible to utilize several different networking protocols and topologies (star, mesh etc.) for Internet of Things. The widely-spread usage of LoRa is LoRaWAN - open networking protocol mana-
ged by LoRa Alliance. LoRa Alliance, which is an open-nonprofit association of members, is working to standardize LoRa Wide Area Network protocol. LoRaWAN network architecture is typically laid out in a star-of-stars topology in which gateways are placed as a transparent bridge relaying messages between end-devices and a central network server in the backend. gateways are connected to the network server via standard IP connections while end-devices use single-hop wireless communication to one or many gateways. All end-point communication is generally bi-directional, but also supports operation such as multicast enabling software upgrade over the air or other mass distribution messages to reduce the on air communication time. Communication between end-devices and gateways is spread out on different frequency channels and data rates. On the second step of the hardware side, KATT gateways take the stage, since gateways are the indispensable parts of LoRa
KATT ground device
TECHNOLOGY p.13
networks. A gateway device collects data from 10-100 different ground devices in a field as a courtesy of their powerful processors. Therefore, the KATT gateway architecture is based on the combination of Semtech Lora Radio Concentrator and an embedded Linux computer. The radio concentrator has massive digital processing capacity and is specifically utilized to provide powerful gateway capabilities in the ISM bands. It is used with two LoRa transceivers, and can listen and receive packets from different channels simultaneously in order to collect all the data from the field and send it to corresponding servers. LoRaWAN is specifically designed for low power networked embedded systems. Moreover, LoRaWAN targets key requirements of Internet of Things such as secure bidirectional communication, mobility and localization services. The LoRaWAN specification provides seamless interoperability among smart things without the need of complex local installations and gives back the freedom to
the user, developer, businesses enabling the roll out of Internet of Things. The LoRaWAN specification provides seamless interoperability among smart things without the need of complex local installations and gives back the freedom to the user, developer, businesses enabling the roll out of Internet of Things. Together LoRa and LoRaWAN provides complete solution for Internet of Things application which requires wide-range coverage and low transmission rate. The basic architecture of our solution is as follows; ground devices communicate with gateways using LoRa with LoRaWAN. gateways forward raw LoRaWan frames from devices to a network server over a backhaul interface with a higher throughput, typically Ethernet or 3G. Consequently, gateways are only bidirectional relays, or protocol converters, with the network server being responsible for decoding the packets sent by the devices and generating the packets that should be sent back to the devices.
KATT gateway
TECHNOLOGY
KaTT
BUSINESS PLAN
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Target Customers The solution can solve several problems varying in size, at once. Whether the user is a municipal body or a housing complex, KATT could provide actionable insights and ease of control for their daily waste and parking operations. LPWAN solutions get recognition and attention due to its unparalleled competencies in its area, offering wide area networks for quite low costs comparing it to the other technologies. In the US and EU, there are numerous companies working with governing bodies to implement their solutions in the areas spanning from agriculture to water management, industrial measurement to lighting configuration. As for the local market, Turkey, there is almost no company working with LORA technology to bring forward its countless possibilities. There are several firms working with the business entities and municipal bodies on waste management at the moment, but none of them has yet to harness the power of LPWAN technologies. On the other side of the picture, even though there are numerous players acting globally to take advantage of LPWAN solutions, the EU market is yet to see a device that literally meets the definition of smart by its design. Solving two problems with one ground device is the promise of KATT that could add value to global smart city ecosystem.
The aforementioned situation points out a significant gap in the local market when it comes to the LPWAN applications. Most of the monitoring solutions in Turkey utilize GSM module in their devices, which is quite expensive and needs third party as a connection provider, unfortunately. In order to smarten up daily operations, KATT aims to work with municipal bodies, housing estate companies, resorts and hotels, and park owners. The local market target customers were identified as the governing bodies across the country, which are in charge of their daily waste and park operations. In this regard, the data that acquired from TUIK (Turkish Statistical Agency) assert that the municipal bodies in Istanbul spend considerable amount of their resources on waste management, for instance 12-14 million Turkish Liras for BagcÄąlar Municipality in 2015, and do not take care of their operations with utmost efficiency. Allocation of resources in times of limited budgets can be critical, and every penny that could be saved through optimization augments sustainability and drives growth. To exemplify further, with a population of around 620,000 inhabitants in the inner circle of the city, Rotterdam enjoys %25 to %35 cost reduction by utilizing data driven waste management systems, addition to enhanced recycling efficiency and contribution to circular economy. The backbone of the Turkish economy is the construction industry, especially for the last ten years. Therefore, the construction com-
TARGET MARKET & COMPETITION p.16
panies are competing in an almost saturated market, and looking for the ways to gain competitive edge over their rivals. Housing estate projects vary in sizes, accommodate hundreds to thousands in their periphery. And, particularly the ones in Istanbul, are lack of adequate number of parking spots, or simply do not have designated areas. At that point, KATT takes over, and come forward
with subtle and sturdy formula of creating value by its solution. On the other hand, waste management needs focus and real time monitoring, otherwise could turn into a nightmare. Especially in high priced estate projects, buyers seek for smart and less painstakingly demanding flats to avoid future hassle of their daily life.
Positioning Map
KaTT
BUSINESS PLAN
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With our solution, large housing complex projects can offer mobile apps that show parking spots in the site, and can save themselves from the trouble of manually checking litter boxes and garbage containers in every day. The indirect effect of lessening in-site traffic congestion could also be marketed strikingly to get one step ahead in the competition. In a similar vein, some holiday resorts and hotels in the region have massive daily operations due to their size and population at the peak times. KATT ground device could also be mounted in those sites to achieve what’s been lacking all of those times, efficiency and the feeling of smartness. On the global scale, the encouraging news for the smart city applications have been gaining momentum rapidly, and every other day a city or country scale smart city
framework is being announced publicly. The actual downside of the current applications is stemming from not closely collaborating with academia, and relying on third parties to get connection services. To sum up, at the first phase, KATT aims to target geographical local market, Turkey, along with European cities that have the priority of being efficient, in particular municipal bodies, building contractors of housing projects, and resorts, in order to have hands on experience in field and improve its in-house know how by working alongside with several players from different sectors. The total addressable market could be defined as every communal structure with the responsibility of managing the daily hurdles of city life.
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BUSINESS PLAN
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Market Research LPWAN technology offers low cost and power solutions in IoT friendly sectors, as industrial applications, agriculture, smart cities. As KATT moves forward to immense connectedness through multiple networks and millions of devices, the initial hurdle comes as the cost of connection for the devices. Amongst the several network solutions, LPWAN stands out with its open source structure and ease of implementation features The end users, industrial companies, private sectors, hobbyists, and anyone who possesses multiple IoT devices, are in need of feasible and viable way to connect their devices, without extra costs, in a wide range of area. In the context of smart cities, particularly in the local market, Turkey, the number of applications are quite limited at the time being. Yet, efficiency is always a must for any kind of operation varying in size. One way to help customers is harnessing the power of data starts with measuring set points of their daily operations and providing them with analytical insights. Therefore, every governing body would like to know what is going on with their operations, particularly for lighting, waste management, parking, manufacturing. Different from the present solutions in the local market, KATT outshines its rivals by deploying LPWAN technology to overcome cost and battery related problems. By covering the wide areas with only a few number of gateways, KATT presents a unique way to smarten up an area, spanning from an estate site to whole city.
The core values that lay in the foundation of the solution are to provide real-time monitoring over waste and parking operations, and drive change by boosting efficiency through its descriptive and predictive analyses. As for the global competition, KATT embraces the mantra of ‘thinking locally, acting globally’ approach, and would like to iteratively develop its solution with the local players in their location. To precisely target market needs, a constant screening must be always in place to keep finger on the pulse of rapidly changing consumer behaviors and needs. Hence, at the early stages of the prototyping our solution, the initial strategic partners/customers would shed light on the deficiencies or miscalculations in the product development. By leveraging this strategic bridges, our initial conceptions over the everyday problems might divert or take different forms according to our iterative relation with the partners. Briefly, after the idea generation, the needs of market were determined and conceptualized by primary and secondary data gathering methods, interviewing with the supervisors in the governing bodies and park owners, benchmarking the solutions that employed across the globe, surveying individuals by asking their opinions. Even though, what KATT called the first phase of market interaction led KATT to give a psychical and designable form to our solution, KATT still strongly feels the urge of forging a productive dialogue bridge to quicken the iteration phase.
TARGET MARKET & COMPETITION
KaTT
BUSINESS PLAN
p.20
Cost Projections This chapter encapsulates all the estimations have been put down into the notebook, including component costs and expected overhead expenses.
six months’ term, the cost of a ground device could reduce to €17-19 per device with the courtesy of bulk orders and increased level of operational experience.
To dissect the components of the overall system, this section, literally, starts from the ground to the top.
Each gateway for the basic pack would cost in between €120-180 according to initial estimations. Upon gaining confidence and design experience over, the would be gateway cost is expected to drop in between the €8595 range. In the lights of those estimations, for the first six months, the overall cost was estimated in between €16700 and €27200, covering all the hardware costs in aggregate, including product manufacturing, and labor expenses.
Firstly, prior to the launch of the complete solution, KATT would like to test its capabilities by offering a basic pack that has 200 ground devices, 10 gateways, and two web platforms with three core features in a six months of time. The goal is to measure the feasibility of the project and not fall into the pitfalls of creating a bulky and non-modular overall design. The solution comprises ground devices, gateways, and software interfaces. Therefore, to achieve the highest level of precision, each element in the package is calculated in terms of cost and effort to paint a financial portrait of the business. For the first six months’ period, it was considered that the initial costs would be higher than consecutive times due to the challenges of new product development hurdles. The cost of a ground device was estimated as €20-30 per device including design, assembly, case and packaging phases. The forecasted figures indicate that in the second
The hardware team is comprised of one team lead, one circuit designer, and one industrial designer. The web platforms require backend and frontend development from scratch, yet the major cost element is the needed human resource, therefore in the six months’ time, with a team of three, the cost is estimated in between €15500 and €22750. The team of software is comprised of one team lead, one full web stack developer, and one UX/Frontend designer. As for the overheads, rent and utilities were calculated around €4000 in addition to ser-
FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS p.21
ver, infrastructure and hardware tools costs of €7000-8000, again for the first 6 months’ period. During these two-time periods, first and second six months of time, marketing efforts could significantly change the budget allocation and required funding due to chosen campaigning tactics and methods. Yet, in approximate, in the first six months, the forecasted marketing budget heavily rests on the sales efforts that would be performed at sector meetings, competitions, and seminars. Digital marketing channels are to be utilized to keep the costs and effort at minimum, with taking user experience notion at the
center, since understanding web analytics and customer journey in channels, and optimizing digital platforms accordingly is the way of smartly converting the visitors into customers. To conclude in financial terms, the cost of landing and web analytics tools were estimated in between €400 and €600 per year. In addition to that, the cost of attending seminars/meetings/trade shows was considered as the major element in the marketing budget, and put in figures as in between €4000 to €6000 including the estimated travel costs. first 6 months
second 6 months
FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS
KaTT
BUSINESS PLAN
p.23
Marketing Plan and Strategy In the promotion branch of marketing 4P’s, there are numerous tactics that are predominantly utilized to reach out customers nowadays. Yet, KATT cannot turn a blind eye on digitalization of marketing discipline, since it’s become the way of performing staggering marketing strategies. The number of potential customers that KATT aims to reach are much less than a conventional end user oriented hardware company. Therefore, as a rule of thumb, KATT plans to form an aggressive team of sales with experience and acumen that could be needed in the times of introducing our offering to listed potential users. Smart city is a relatively new concept in the local market, and this comes with its advantages and disadvantages to the table simultaneously. There is always an urge of being the cutting edge to gain competitive advantage, especially in a saturated market like construction, and positive psychological effect over citizens if a municipal could be able to position itself technology friendly. Hence, the attention towards the latest advancement, like having a Iphone 7, can always be boosting element for marketing efforts. On the other side, as depicted in the diffusion innovation model, early adopters take up a small percentage, which could be more fatal when working in B2B rather than individuals.
To overcome hesitance over the dilemma, a succinct manner of expression in marketing campaigns should and will be adopted. Considering that it might be hard to convince the players utilizing not-so-efficient smart solutions for their operations to switch or dispose, the core values of our solution need refinement over and over to manifest gracely. This can be achieved through by subdividing marketing campaigns in accordance with the two main concepts, waste management and smart parking. Waste management system is a promise of efficacy and cost reduction, and is primarily designed as B2B solution. Therefore, a push strategy could be prioritized to reach out as many potential customers via door to door approach incorporated with digital means of marketing strategies. Smart Parking is the second part of our solution to create smarter cities, and its marketing campaign can be intertwined with waste management as an add-on feature, since its weight in terms of financial efficiency is lesser than waste management. But on a prestige scale, Smart Parking package can be put forward due to its broad marketable context. Ad hoc campaigns could be built on the notion of prestige that arises from being a member of the elite minority of smart cities when targeting the governing bodies. The voice of citizens or residents could be amplified by marketing efforts to drive change and exert influence over decision makers. For instance,
MARKETING STRATEGY p.24
change.org campaigns can be organized to energize masses in a specific city or site, to amend changes towards technological breakthroughs, pointing KATT solution. Growth hacking is and should be the mindset of an early stage companies, out of two reasons. First, the sole purpose of a business is to grow, grow exponentially if it is possible. Second, there are always constraints lurking around, limiting capabilities of a team to thrive astonishingly. And, since harnessing the power of data and being on tight budget is the case for KATT, growth hacking is the way to market the solution accordance with AIDA concept. The initial stage is devised upon aggressive reach out methods to lure the customers in to create awareness. As much as technology within the product can spread the product, there is something that can be even more effective, organic word of mouth. Organic word of mouth is when someone shares your product, online or offline, in ways that you didn’t orchestrate.
They are compelled to tell people whether you incentivized them or not. Organic communication can’t be measured, and it can’t be controlled, but it can be a force that propels your product forward. You can’t make someone share your product organically with their coworkers or friends and family, but you can do certain things to make it more probable. As Neil Patel asserts,
• Simple products spread organically • Beautiful products spread organically.
• Pain relieving products spread organically
• Products that make people look cool spread organically
• Unique products spread organically • Surprising products spread organically
KaTT
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Promotion Channels As a B2B solution, technically, the main goal of the promotion is to network with sector gurus, to grab a seat in the ecosystem, and to raise as many questions as possible about the product. In order to attain this goal, international meetings in regards to IoT or smart city concepts, trade fairs around the globe, and the local seminars in the region to contribute building awareness around smart city notion, are the key destinations. As explained in the earlier sections, the experience of the sales team becomes more essential to perfectly present the solution, since the main channels of the engagement are to be those destinations. Exhibiting at a trade show is an excellent way to find customers to help your business grow. According to a study conducted by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), 86 percent of show attendees were the decision-maker or influenced buying decisions, yet 85 percent had not been called on by a salesperson before the show. Trade shows are also economical ways of getting sales. The CEIR reports that closing a sale that begins with contact at a trade show runs about half the cost of closing a sale that doesn’t have the exhibition advantage: $550 and 1.4 sales calls compared to $997 and 3.6 sales calls. The meetings also serve as an incomparable marketing tool for industry manufacturers and suppliers by bringing them together with current and potential customers. KATT would like to allocate significant amount of its marketing budget to build lasting bridges between potential customers at well-known sector meetings and conferences.
Sales Forecast and Strategy The devised plan regarding the growth strategy of KATT takes aim at forging lasting bonds with customers by focusing heavily on customer relations and support in the aftermath of transactions. Therefore, for the short and medium terms, 1 to 4 years, the number of sales were forecasted modestly to fortify the idea of not losing the emphasize on customer relations. In the first 6 months’ period, KATT is willing to be ready to launch the basic package of the solution with 200 ground devices and 10 gateways. The team are also planning to acquire its first customer, build a mutual learning platform to quickly improve and refine its product, and equip with unique know-how gained through this nurturing relationship. After the lift off phase, KATT anticipates reduced manufacturing costs for its physical products, an increasing level of recognition with the courtesy of marketing strategies that planned to be employed, mentioned earlier.
MARKETING STRATEGY p.26
Pricing and Sales Strategy Pricing could determine the fate of a company itself alone, even though the launched product or service is unique, disruptive, or very-well demanded. However, at the initial stage, KATT aims to build a brand awareness and forming a loyal customer base instead of penetrating the market with its would be below market prices. KATT believes in pareto principle and emphasizes the importance of retention instead of hunting and losing customers, which is more time and resource consuming than building a nurturing relationship with existed customers. The number of ground devices and gateways are at the center of pricing arrangements. The complete package of KATT solution is comprised of ground devices in a field, gateways, and online platforms. To achieve seamless connection between the sensors and platforms, KATT plans to work on the mobile end of the package continuously. Constant maintenance and communication require a great share of resources; therefore, the one of the considered income models consists two phases. The initial upfront deployment cost and monthly subscription fee. The customer makes an initial payment to deploy the ground devices and gateways, and then follows a monthly or yearly payment plan to digitally monitor its operations
by the web platforms, get updated versions of the web services, and to access 7/24 customer support. The other considered plan is to charge a monthly subscription fee only, to eliminate the burdensome feeling of an upfront payment. This model can be possible with in depth cash flow planning and staying on the positive side of the balance sheet, at most of the time. With enough amount of funding, a company could seek an income model based only on monthly or yearly fee to acquire customers much easily. KATT would like to grow together with its customers, and offer lasting relationship to improve its platforms and enrich the insights extracted from collected data. A team of software developers and data processors are to be allocated for a constant and consistent development of the platforms. To put an end to pricing subject, KATT is eager to learn from experienced and discuss all the options as they start to contact with their suppliers. The differences between planned and actual products, the changing customer needs, the economic fluctuations in the markets can all critically have an impact on this vital subject.
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Suppliers
Team Formation
For the first phase, in order to bring the artfully crafted products alive, KATT plans to go hand in hand with several major companies whose products are perfect fit for the KATT solution. The initial version of the product set was designed by integrating Cytron sensors, Semtech LORA connection modules, and ARM microchips, along with a few prominent software tools.
To seamlessly handle the operational necessities, KATT hopes to pick A players to develop smarter and more solid end to end solutions. For the basic pack, there are a few roles that need to filled in immediately. The software part of the solution requires three separate online platforms, thus KATT needs to fortify the core with one UX/Frontend designer for overall UI design for the platforms, one full stack web developer to connect the backend system to the platforms, and one IOS designer for the parking mobile app. Addition to those listed, a circuit designer and an embedded test engineer would come in handy as the team start to iterate hardware side of the solution.
The manufacturing process of ground devices includes numerous steps, from component order to final assembly. The operation begins with the order of the components in the device from an all in one concept retailer. Then, the ordered components are directly send to the printed circuit board company to line up assembled products. Next step is case fitting that would be done either within PCB company or in house. The final step takes places at the KATT site, packaging of the ground devices to make them ready to transport. A similar set of steps are designed for the operation of manufacturing the gateways. Only difference in the process is that the number of gateways are much lesser than the ground devices required.
Prior to idea development phase, a pool of prospects was generated with the help of personal networks of KATT Team. Since the final location of KATT is yet to be determined, the list of potential team workers deliberately kept long, including experienced and new graduate engineers, from Belgium Germany, and Turkey.
OPERATIONS p.29
Task Allocation In order to manage the in house operations, KATT sketchily structured four main pillars, since one of the limited resources is person/ hour that can be utilized. The envisaged model was derived from matrix structuring model to easily combine teams when it is needed, considering the extra early stage business problems that may be faced along the road. KATT augmented the way of doing business with online project management tools, and benefited themselves by utilizing shared leadership model to solve the road bumps occurred so far. Mainly, there are two constructs forming the schematic of KATT way of doing business, technical and non-technical. On the technical side, KATT software and hardware teams hold their guard to ward off any sort of conceptual mistakes that might arise from advancing at full speed. Their dedication is to establish ground systems comprehensively while hoping not to get distracted by other
than technical issues. That is the point where non-technical, administrative team steps in and performs their duty by ensuring concern free working environment for the tech teams. The administrative team is primarily assigned to carry out daily tasks, along with sub tasks in marketing, finance, and sales operations. Infrastructure expenses and R&D process would consume a great deal of energy and resources as the time for scale up arrives. When they are combined with HR needs, the majority of funding could be tied down, and the focus and productivity levels could drop dramatically. Therefore, acting with a plan for division of tasks and strategical structure can ease those problem greatly. In this context, the need can be described as time that could be allocated to think through and go over the critical stages of the business. To illustrate the overall picture in a lean manner, the business canvas method was utilized and filled with the parameters and assumptions that have been put forward in the earlier sections.
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Time The proposed future projection has three milestone points to scale up and diversify the solution. The first six months is needed to build the team, contact the suppliers, run the product tests, and get ready to install the basic pack that comprised of 200 devices, 10 gateways, and 2 KATT web platforms. The second six months is laid out to improve the hardware side of the ground devices ad gateways, to iterate the usability of the platforms, along with scaling up manufacturing to 2000 devices and 20 gateways. In those 12 months, starting from right after the initial setup, KATT plans to put significant amount of energy to promote the solution, propel the brand awareness through engagement channels, gather information and feedback from potential customers. Therefore, the projections, especially the second six months’ period, could fairly be different than expected. In the second twelve months, the emphasis would be put on software side of the solution to boost the efficiency rates of route optimization and parking trend analysis to increase the satisfaction of customers by polishing and intensifying the value proposition of the solution. In the meantime, probable rise in demand could drop manufacturing costs, as well as HR costs, due to high volume and increasing team efficiency rates, respectively. All of these could help to minimize the core costs, and to allocate the resources into marketing efforts to positively adjust the customer acquisition cost and the lifetime value of the customers by focusing on customer support thoroughly.
The timeline below takes the attainable presumptions and listed cost parameters into account, and shows alternative scenarios regarding KATT future.
Funding The awaited section of the plan. At the risk of repeating the same sentences, a brief explanation could completely demystify the lacking or overlooked points that have been made earlier. With its ground devices, gateways, and online platforms, KATT unveils its product to remedy daily problems of waste management and parking operations. The waste management solution offers up to %20-40 cost saving due to its route optimization feature along with its side benefits of relieving traffic congestion and adding the value of prestige. The same ground device can also be mounted as a parking sensor to elicit customer behavior and trends precisely. Analytics are at the foundation of successful companies, since monitoring user experience and adjusting pricing and marketing accordingly can have profound effects on the business, and since, customer is the king. The parking solution hands over the opportunity to have real time data over the operation, even though the operations are scattered across a city. KATT offers two step plan to gradually expand its scale. It means that the solution, discussed in detail above, was broken down to two phases.
WHAT WE NEED? p.33 To save the readers the trouble of going backwards and skimming through the details of the packs listed above, once again, the same comparison chart was placed in this section to sustain contextual coherence.
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KATT presents the basic pack or, as the team calls it, Project K. This first phase of the solution has only the core features to not bother the tech teams with the details in the first place. As can be seen below, it was envisaged as a medium sized installment with two web platforms. The financial plans that carried out meticulously indicate that KATT should invest €44300 to €60950, the worst-best case figures, for the basic pack to take the leap, to concurrently take the stage to display that all of the promises in this plan can be verified in real world. With this financial support, the basic pack would be achievable in a 6 months’ time and could be deployed to anywhere desired in the EU region. To add, HR and manufacturing costs are the main drivers of the funding estimation stated above. For the basic pack, a forecasted manufacturing cost for a ground device is €25, for a gateway is €150, and the needed human resource includes four additional members. The second phase, the complete pack comes with extra features and reduced manufacturing costs, €17.25 per ground device, €88 per gateway. To raise the bar, and, in response, to drop the costs, the complete pack was introduced
with the add on features and the parking app. The value of the solution results from its efficiency and cost saving claim due to algorithm driven optimization skills. By taking a step forward to the complete pack, those claims would be fortified with increased level of know-how and hand on experience that gained during the basic pack development. The forecasted figures, calculated for 2000 devices - 20 gateways scenario, points out €69260 for the best case, €87400 for the worst case as the cost of complete pack, again covering needed HR and other expenses. As for the marketing budget, the final figures can vary greatly due to pricing and business models, yet can be considered in a range of €3000 to €9000 per year, at the first stage. All of those listed can be interpreted in a myriad of ways to stimulate an opinion towards what KATT strives to do, how KATT plans to do, and how costly would it be to see the expected results. As an exclamation point, this paragraph stresses the considered funding scheme that KATT is willing to talk over, and alleviates the pain of reading through this excruciatingly overfilled plan. KATT is eager to take an angel investor or alike institution onboard, by giving %7-25 share, in exchange for €50-200K.
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Pivot Strategies To get through the hard times, to satisfy all the stakeholders in the game, KATT believes the importance of contingency plans, as well as pivot strategies to keep the boat floating. Keeping that in mind, following sectors and scenarios were conceived after scanning the IoT sector and the attitude of customers towards the market. The target customers were identified as municipal bodies, housing estates, resorts and large sized hotels. The diversity of the customer target market could result in differing feedbacks, even though the initial marketing research contradicts, and therefore, being generic would turn out being vague in terms of different customer needs. A strategy is to change direction of the solution to meet the needs of private customers separately, working on tailor made end to end site solutions, instead of launching a generic product. The broadness of the solution stems from its promise of solving two mainstream efficiency lacked problems, waste management and parking. Yet, this same grade of broadness may trigger unanticipated glitches and delays during the product development phase. As a solution, an overall refinement would be experimented in specific to one problem focus for a certain amount of time rather
than keeping the scope wider. KATT solution could be directed to encompass the answer of only one mainstream problem, either waste management or parking. Serving a niche market with an utter minimum viable product would be more accurate in terms of handling the business in a lean manner. The smart parking system has the potential of ultimately changing the psychical parking scheme, if a pay system is incorporated to the system. By eliminating the time needed for taking an entrance ticket and then, paying the ticket, a car park could turn into touchless, no human required operation. However, a bunch of technical and legal difficulties would hinder the process of developing such solution in addition to entirely different nature of digital payment systems that KATT has not had any experience, yet. For the waste management solution in particular, the waste container manufacturers could be an alternative target customer profile, since they have the upper hand to push their products to the market. A partnership with a manufacturer could mitigate the level of hardship that may be experienced, as a door to door approach is imperative to get in touch with the aforementioned targeted customers.
FUTURE PLANS p.37
Corporate Social Responsibility KATT CSR policy focuses on ecological sustainability and environmental change, favoring renewable sources and reducing carbon emission levels. Removal of aimlessly detouring cars from the traffic scene is the first step of decreasing carbon levels. For the medium and long terms, a new product line that equipped with solar battery solutions seem achievable and desirable, encouraging customers to deploy environment friendly products while challenging the misconceptions on efficiency of the solar energy. Getting closer to infinite battery time would benefit both parties of the KATT solution, augment the value proposition, and point where KATT stands on the issue of renewable energy, in the quest for a cleaner world. A company should not make strategic planning ignoring the societal realities surrounding its business environment. Turning a blind eye on the daily life of society, from a marketing based strategical thinking, can and should not be tolerated. Moreover, in the bitter times of segregation and xenophobia, every business entity is accountable for its effort to promote the notion of unification and togetherness. KATT plans to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer, committed to ensuring equal employment opportunity to all qualified individuals.