Activities OETIC

INDEX

Table of contents
“SAMSUNG” CASE 1

TELEMEDICINE CASE 3

“GOL TELEVISION” CASE 7

“DIGITAL BUBBLE” CASE 10.

“RO-BOTICA” CASE 12

“ALBEDO TELECOM” CASE 15

“SAVIOKE” CASE 18

“UNIVERSAL ROBOTS” CASE 21

“SADAKO” CASE 24

CLASSIFICATION OF ECONOMIC FACTS 27

BASIC EXERCISE 29

TREASURY EXERCISE 30

“BUSINESS PLAN” CASE 31

AMORTIZATION EXERCISE 35

CLOSING EXERCISE 36

BREAKEVEN EXERCISE 37

STAGES EXERCISE 38

1
Activities OETIC

“SAMSUNG” CASE
On January 15, 2004, the South
Korean consumer electronics
company Samsung Electronics
announced that on March 31 it will
close the plant in Palau-solità i
Plegamans, where it produces flat
screens, overhead projectors, DVDs
and combos.

The announcement also reported on

the closure of similar plants in England and Hungary and the relocation of production
to Slovakia and China.

Samsung had started operations in Palau in 1990. On June 22, 2000, a new plant
was inaugurated, with the presence of the King, the President of the Generalitat and
the President of Samsung Electronics. The aim was to produce mobile terminals and
the planned investment was € 60 million in three years.

As a forecast for the mobile market that faced a saturation and reduction in sales in
Europe, the destination of 80% of production, in September 2001 the investment
plan was revised, reducing it to € 3 million, and later the manufacture of mobile
terminals was interrupted.

In the last quarter of 2003, Samsung Electronics raised revenue by 38% to a record
$ 1,800 million, increasing profits by 24%. The overall pace of investment remains
strong, with investments in new factories worth € 60 million in Slovakia and € 70
million in China. The day after the news broke, the listing on the Seoul Stock
Exchange rose 1.1%.

This is the second relocation announced in 15 days in the consumer electronics

sector in Catalonia, in the middle of the inauguration of the new Government
(transfer of CiU to the tripartite (PSC+ERC+IC)) after the announcement of Philips to
close the La Garriga plant.

QUESTIONS

1. What environmental factors affect the company's decision?

2. Which actors can play an active role in the case?
3. Which interactions can be established between the actors?
TELEMEDICINE CASE

2
Activities OETIC

European Telemedicine Clinic (ETMC)

On May and June 16, 2003, several

newspapers in Spain published a story that
began as follows:

Barcelona is launching today the first advanced

virtual hospital, which will serve the whole
Europe and allow radiological medical
diagnosis without the need for direct contact
with the patient and without space barriers.

At the moment, this company has an

agreement with the Swedish public health
system that will send, through a computer
system, image tests (x-rays or MRIs -Magnetic
Resonance Imaging-) of several hospitals along
the country. The specialists in radiological
diagnosis, located in Barcelona, ​will evaluate those tests and, together with the
patient's medical record, will make a report that will be sent back to their home
hospital. ”

Founded in Barcelona in 2003, European Telemedicine Clinic (ETMC) currently

provides diagnostic services in radiology for public hospitals in Sweden, Norway and
the United Kingdom. In just two years, ETMC has become the largest telemedicine
center in the world with agreements exceeding 300,000 MRI images over the next
five years and a network of more than 30 specialists.

Taking advantage of the current state of new technologies, which allows stable
broadband solutions to transmit information, especially radiographic images, ETMC
aims to create a pan-European, and possibly worldwide, system of use of medical
resources based in Barcelona.

And why Barcelona? Because apart from the lower costs, in Catalonia and Spain
there is a surplus of good level specialists. It is worth mentioning, though, that even
though the base of the professionals will be Catalan and Spanish, the plans were to
incorporate worldwide specialists to train local ones and issue radiological diagnosis.
The first diagnoses will be in the field of radiology, but it is expected to be able to
expand to other medical specialties.

In this type of service, the information is established among doctors; patients do not
intervene. Doctors in other countries turn to this company for services they do not
have in their own country or in their Healthcare National Systems.

3
Activities OETIC

The operations of this type of service are established as follows. A doctor, whether
private or belonging to a public hospital, asks a patient for a radiological examination
to diagnose what disease he or she has or what type of treatment needs to be given.
The patient is given an X-ray or MRI and a doctor specialized in radiology must
interpret the image obtained and make a radiological diagnosis. ETMC provides the
equivalent service to the radiologist. The radiological diagnosis is sent to the doctor
who requested the examination so that he or she can continue with the patient's
treatment.

In late 2004, ETMC signed an agreement with Alliance Medical to provide

radiological diagnostic telemedicine services. Alliance Medical has a 5-year contract
to provide the British Social Security (National Health Service) with the service of
performing radiologic examinations using MRI scanners1.
Alliance Medical can capture the X-ray or MRI image but does not have the ability to
make a radiological diagnosis. Based on the agreement, Alliance Medical will send
radiology images to ETMC. It has been agreed that ETMC will perform a minimum of
300,000 radiological diagnosis during this period. The aim of this agreement is to
increase the UK's MRI healthcare capacity. According to the UK Audit Commission,
around 500,000 people are waiting for a radiological examination in the UK.

ETMC specialists will perform double-checking diagnoses2 which will be forwarded to

Alliance Medical for distribution to the relevant UK public hospitals. ETMC General
Director David Bäckström states: This agreement reflects the ability of telemedicine
to improve the distribution of medical resources and globalize the quality of care for
patients.

The work carried out at ETMC is the result of the work of a whole team of
professionals. The first to intervene is a digital image processing specialist who
evaluates (with the help of an advanced signal processing program) whether the
quality of the received image is within the tolerance range to be diagnosed. It also
records the information it identifies in the image in the company database.

If the image is accurate enough, it goes to the first phase of diagnosis. If it is not
correct, it is tried to improve using the options of the signal processing program. If
this is not achieved, another referral is requested by the requesting hospital.

In the first phase of the diagnosis, a radiologist sits in front of the computer screen
and can see the image. He or she performs the diagnosis and encodes it using an
international code to record it in a database. The day and time it was performed as
well as the name of the doctor who performed it are also reported.

1
This saves the British Social Security from having to acquire and maintain expensive MRI equipment.
2
Double checking means that there are two radiologists making the diagnosis. The Double checking is done to
ensure a more accurate result.

4
Activities OETIC

In the second phase of the diagnosis, another radiologist who does not know who
issued the first diagnosis, makes the second diagnosis. If both diagnoses match, a
report is issued and sent to the hospital that requested it. If there is a discrepancy in
the diagnosis, this circumstance is recorded in the company database and the image
is sent to the service supervisor to determine which of the two diagnoses is more
appropriate. If the supervisor was unable to do so, more information would be
requested from the requesting hospital.

It should be noted that continuing education is one of the contributions that define
the company. ETMC has been able to detect, for example, the need for training, due
to a lack of technical means, in an area that has gained weight in diagnosis over the
years, such as magnetic resonance imaging. Another line of activity is research and
development based on the mass of analysis that is done, which will allow you to
choose unique cases to undergo in-depth studies.

In ETMC's strategy, the important thing is not so much to establish links with many
hospitals as to have few clients but with large volumes of diagnosis, so that we
become a daily occurrence in the usual flows of the hospital. Bäckström believes that
with a large number of examinations in referenced hospitals the quality of diagnosis
can be maintained in regions suffering from severe professional shortages.

From the experience they have already had with the areas currently most in need,
the British and Swedish hospitals, ETMC has been able to verify that doctors receive
joint work well, they consider that they gain added value with the second opinion.
There is no possible patient reluctance, according to Bäckström, We have been able
to observe in Sweden that patients feel more important and better cared for because
their diagnosis travels from one country to another. It should be added that the
economic cost for the hospital is very similar to the cost of doing the x-rays or MRIs
themselves but, in addition, they have the second opinion and the fact of having
diagnoses issued by very experienced and with continuous training professionals.

Although the classic competitor of ETMC is the hospital’s own radiology department,
these departments have not been able to cope with the high specialization that new
radiological techniques require. On the other hand, private radiological offices in the
countries where ETMC works do not have suitable professionals in their countries.
Finally, there is talk of the emergence of other telemedicine centers located in India
or Eastern countries. The big problem with these centers is the cultural and social
remoteness of the countries in Western Europe where the diagnosis is to be made.

This business project, which was launched throughout Europe in May last year, is
aimed at public health services, which explains why, despite the possibility of
financing with private venture capital, ETMC has chosen to use a public fund,
CIDEM's Invernova, to have a financial cushion.

5
Activities OETIC

QUESTIONS

1. Identify and explain the Idea, Competitive Advantages and Value of ETMC’s
business initiative.
2. Explain ETMC’s Strategic Marketing.
3. Explain and reason about which outsourcing initiatives are mentioned in the
text. Specify who does the outsourcing, which are the reasons why they are
doing it, and who gets the outsourced order.
4. Out of the three types of equipment we studied in the course, explain which
type is used at ETMC to perform the radiological diagnosis and why you
discard the others.

6
Activities OETIC

“GOL TELEVISION” CASE

Gol Televisión, is a private Spanish television channel, owned by Mediapro, which is

dedicated exclusively to pay-per-view football.

Its programming is uninterrupted, that is, 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It includes a
total of more than 1,400 matches a year (it has the rights to, among others, the
Champions League, First and Second Division of the Spanish League, Copa del Rey
and various international leagues), two 30-minute daily news, 5 daily bulletins,
summary programs of all leagues, reportages and special reports.

The origin of the channel lies in the fight for the rights of Spanish football teams
between Mediapro and Sogecable, practically the only competitors in this market.
Football clubs transfer the exploitation rights of the images of the matches they play
to companies specialized in the management of these assets. With this system,
clubs ensure a high amount of income. Mediapro's investment so far has been more
than 2.5 billion euros.

Gol Televisión was born on September 19, 2008, initially part of the offer of three
cable operators (Orange TV, Euskaltel and Telecable) with a price of 18 €/month.

Sogecable immediately announced the launch of Canal+ Liga, its specialized football
proposal, with the same First Division, Second Division and Copa del Rey matches,
as well as the UEFA Europa League and various international leagues, such as the
Italian or German, to a price of 15 €/month VAT included, with antenna and free
installation, without the need for a decoder, along with 40 television channels.

Mediapro reacted by announcing that the final price of the channel would be 14.90
€/month (plus indirect taxes) and recalled the exclusivity of the Champions League
and many foreign leagues.

7
Activities OETIC

In October 2009, it expanded the distribution channel with a new broadcasting

platform: mobile operators. Both Telefónica and Vodafone incorporated Gol
Televisión into their mobile TV offer.

In order to access the contents of the DTT channel, those interested must have a
state-of-the-art television set that has a “Common Interface” slot for connecting a
CAM module (card adapter) or purchasing a decoder (set top box or STB). In both
cases, a subscriber card must be inserted. STBs and cards are available at
department stores and electronics stores. STBs are compatible with future channels
that will be incorporated into pay-TV. Its price is around 60 €.

The communication of the channel began with the logo, made with typography
designed specifically for its mark, and that tried to be the fundamental identity sign
transmitting force, dynamism and forcefulness. The color palette is resolved over the
range of metallic grays and an orange red.

Undoubtedly, this was the star logo of the months of August and September in the
media, given the intense advertising campaign that took place: it could be seen
every day in television and press ads.

Mediapro hoped that the government would approve paid DTT long enough to be
able to provide distributors with decoders and cards. The short time between the
approval and the start of the League meant that the decoders and cards did not
arrive on time, so that in the first day of the League, Gol Television had only captured
300 subscribers via paid DTT against the 270,000 Canal Plus Liga subscribers.

By mid-November, it had reached 930,000 subscribers. 11% are through paid DTT, a
mode that is growing at a rate of more than 15,000 subscribers per week; 16%,
through cable platforms (Ono, Euskaltel, Telecable, Grupo R, Aotec, Iseca); 66% via
IPTV ADSL television (Imagenio, Orange, Andorra Telecom and Jazztel); and 7% by
mobile phone (Movistar, Vodafone and Orange). In addition, eight manufacturers
currently use decoders or CAM modules to watch the DTT channel.

Gol Televisión's human team, led by José Joaquín Brotons, is made up of more than
200 professionals, grouped into three departments: Retransmissions, News and
Rights.

The Retransmissions Department is made up of the Technical Units (installation of

cameras, microphones, mobile unit and signal transmission to the central studios),
Image (camera operators), Speech (commentators) and Realization (editing of all
camera signals and microphones in a single signal that the viewer will receive).
News includes the Audiovisual Units (mobile camera and sound operators) and
Writing (journalists). Rights are not divided into Units.

8
Activities OETIC

Unlike Retransmissions, where each Unit performs its function autonomously, the
staff of the News Units work cooperatively: each information (either brief for a
newsletter or extensive for a report) is considered an autonomous element, being
able to give the opinion of the journalists in questions of accomplishment and
participating the cameras in the editorial boards. For its part, Rights is a small team
that jointly is responsible for acquiring the rights to external events and productions.

QUESTIONS

1. What does Gol Televisión need to be a sustainable company?

2. Indicate the information provided by Gol Televisión's tactical marketing
statement.
3. What forces influence each Gol Televisión price proposal?
4. Propose different communication actions (one for each communication
instrument) that you could carry out if you were hired as Marketing Director of
Gol Televisión.
5. What kind of work teams exist at Gol Televisión?
6. Based on Porter’s scheme for analyzing the attractiveness of a market, justify
whether being in the market for football streaming payment platforms is
interesting for Mediapro.

9
Activities OETIC

“Digital Bubble” CASE2

Olesa de Montserrat is a town with steep slopes. Marc and Pau, two 17-year-old
boys who were studying high school and liked to program, each one lived far away
from the other. To avoid getting tired of forgetting a file at home, they propose to
develop an application so that they could save all their files and work on them
regardless of their physical location.

Six years later, that idea was transformed into eyeOS, a web operating system
(WebOS) that follows the Cloud Computing model and is distributed as free
software. The initial goal remains: to allow a user to access, view and edit their files
(text, photos, audio, video ...) and share them with anyone comfortably, only with a
web browser and regardless of the device (computer, mobile phone, wii...).

Files are not stored locally, they are stored on the network, but a user can install a
server and save the data wherever they want, privacy is guaranteed. This is the main
difference with other ubiquitous alternatives (which allow access to documents from
anywhere and device) such as GoogleDocs. eyeOS also competes with Live Mesh
from Microsoft.

From the beginning, the inventors opted for a product that was easy to install and
use, so everyone could have an account without depending on a computer or a
technical knowledge to be able to use it. Many programming efforts are aimed at
keeping the product simple: an intuitive and easy-to-use desktop.

eyeOS is built on a PHP language with some OpenOffice binaries, and with
XML/JavaScript for client communications. It does not depend on any database as
by default it uses the eyeVFS (Virtual FileSystem) independent from the applications.

The platform comes with more than 70 applications and utilities, including eyeOffice
(which allows you to create, read, and edit documents in MS Office and OpenOffice
formats), collaboration applications, and a developer toolkit.

The application is free, downloadable at www.eyeos.org. The business model is

based on three axes:
- Customer services, this model includes technical support (zero technical
concerns).
- Solution Developments, to customize eyeOS to the specific needs of
customers.
- Partner networks support and its platform operating model.

Digital Bubble S.L., the company that supports eyeOS, employs 30 people in
Barcelona, ​has an office in France and a community of users in 45 countries around

10
Activities OETIC

the world. Beyond simply being employees, the people who make up eyeOS feel
identified with the project. In addition, being an open source product, the community
is very important, because they develop applications and translations.

QUESTIONS

1. Identify the strategic purpose, idea, value and competitive advantage of

Digital Bubble S.L.
2. List the information related to the eyeOS Tactical Marketing that you will find
in the case.
3. Digital Bubble has decided to include a photo edit program in the applications
Their Package included in eyeOS and you have been assigned as a project
manager of this project. You decide not to do the development with your own
resources, you will outsource it. What stages and sub-stages will you need to
manage the project?
4. What needs does Digital Bubble stimulate to get its employees to work
motivated?
5. At what level of moral judgment would you place Digital Bubble?

11
Activities OETIC

“RO-BOTICA” CASE

RO-BOTICA was born in 2007 when Toni Ferraté, a robot enthusiast, decided to turn
his passion into his profession. He initially created an online store,
www.ro-botica.com, the first in the country specialized in educational and personal
robotics. Shortly afterwards, in 2008, he opened in Barcelona what is still the only
face-to-face store in Europe dedicated exclusively to robotics.

Toni conveyed from the outset that RO-BOTICA should encourage personal robotics,
bringing robots closer to both schools and homes.

For the market of educational robotics, RO-BOTICA complements the distribution of

a selected range of scalable and flexible platforms (LEGO, Ollo, Bioloid,
Fischetecnik, VEX ...) with advice to schools and institutes in the introduction of
robots in the classrooms as a teaching tool, and the offer of training courses for
teachers.

As for leisure robotics, in addition to distributing the most significant robots in the
world (Bioloid, Robonova, Robobuilder, Kondo ...), it has an extensive catalog of
components and accessories, and promotes and sponsors robotic competitions.

The world of educational robotics is an emerging market, very recent and rapidly
expanding, in which there are still few competitors: a couple of traditional distributors
of educational products, for whom robots are one more box, and a company focused
on the LEGO world, without a doubt the current reference in this sector. Indeed,
many service companies have started to appear that offer training for boys and girls,
but none of them consider RO-BOTICA as a competitor, on the contrary, most of
them buy the business the products they need for their activities.

Robotics as a hobby has been around for a few more years, but in Spain it has not
spread that much, among other reasons due to the few options available to purchase
products, until its appearance only on foreign websites. Apart from being in its own
language, RO-BOTICA offers lower transport costs.

One of the factors that is growing educational robotics is the interest of parents to
offer maximum training to their children, either at home with toys with educational
values, as in school, selecting those centers that offer better methods, tools and
results.

Initially, RO-BOTICA supported its web store with strong activity on social media.
Currently, it is maintained (manages a specialized forum, maintains a blog, and has
an active presence on Facebook and Twitter), but complements it with more
traditional actions. Thus, there is a person in charge of carrying out a direct

12
Activities OETIC

commercial task in schools and various robot contests and technical seminars on
this field are sponsored.

When the company reached a minimum volume, Toni saw clearly that what he liked
was being up to date with the latest developments in the sector to see the trends and
adapt by identifying new products and services, so he hired a General Manager (a
good professional with no experience in robotics but in the direction of several small
companies) to manage the activity of RO-BOTICA.

Despite the general crisis situation, RO-BOTICA maintains a continuous annual

growth rate of around 25%. It works with an average margin of intermediation (sale
price with respect to the purchase) of 35%. Overhead expenses are very low (10% of
sales). The staff structure has been adjusting to the pace of revenue growth, so that
it does not make a profit, but it does not generate losses either. In order to offer
excellent customer service, it has a high level of stock. Most sales are cash or
prepaid, so it only has a small balance of outstanding bills from customers. Loose
cash allows the business not to have to resort to any kind of bank financing. Toni has
not made any investments in fixed assets. To get the best possible purchase price,
he pay suppliers shortly after making the purchase.

QUESTIONS

1. Justify whether RO-BOTICA can be a sustainable company

2. You have just been hired as the marketing manager of RO-BOTICA and you
intend to increase your sales volume. List the communication tools you have
and give a possible example of possible action for each one.
3. Graphically represent a possible structure of the RO-BOTICA balance sheet.
4. Prepare the income statement of RO-BOTICA (structure and values) if the
sales volume of the last year was € 1,000,000.
5. RO-BOTICA decides to present a proposal to a school book publisher to
complement the content of digital books with the use of educational robots.
List the stages and sub-stages that RO-BOTICA must take into account if the
project finally goes ahead.
6. What kind of direction do you think Toni should apply in relation to the General
Manager (justify the answer according to the boss-subordinate behavior
scheme). What does Toni need to, beyond his position, be perceived as a
good leader?
7. What environment elements are described in the text?

13
Activities OETIC

“ALBEDO TELECOM” CASE

Albedo Telecom (AT) is a Catalan company that designs and manufactures test,
measurement and control solutions for the telecommunications industry. It began
operations in 2008, with a professional team that came from ICT Electronics and
which left the company when it was acquired by the American group Trend
Communications.

Its products make it easier for mobile and telecommunications operators to install,
troubleshoot and maintain infrastructures that support voice, video, Internet and data
services. Its product range includes WAN emulators, portable testers and monitoring
systems.

AT teams are located in more than 30 countries thanks to agreements with local
distributors. From the beginning of the activity the conditions of the various technical
legislations that exist in different countries are incorporated as an element of the
design process of a team.

The main customers are Telefonica, British Telecom, France Telecom, Ericsson and
Abertis.

AT has recently launched a new product: the

Ether.Genius, a tester for the maintenance of
telecommunications networks that supports 6
technologies (Gigabit Ethernet, Synchronous
Ethernet, E1, Datacom, Precision Time
Protocol and Jitter/Wander), unlike regular
testers that only allow you to work with a single technology.

One of AT’s main competitors, EXFO, already had a multi-tech tester, but based on
the connection to external modules. Being a compact computer, the Ether.Genius
avoids connectors that can break or introduce interference. Another competitor,
VeEX, did have a compact multi-tech tester, but its range was limited to 4 hours,
compared to the 10 of the Ether.Genius. One last differentiating element of the
Ether.Genius compared to competitors is the screen size, as its 4.3" exceeds that of
other teams, which have 3.5".

All AT communication conveys the message that a high-performance product offers

a competitive price. As always, EXFO has been located in an elitist environment,
with products of very high performance but a high price. By contrast, the market
knows that VeEX has products of limited performance, but its price has always been
much lower than other manufacturers.

14
Activities OETIC

The small number of competitors and the strong differentiation between their
products has meant that companies in the sector have so far been able to make
reasonable profits. Currently this situation may change. On the one hand, the global
economic crisis has hit hard. On the other hand, although the technology needed to
produce these devices is highly complex, there are rumors that two Chinese
electronics companies want to diversify by producing instrumentation devices, so it is
assumed that the price level will have to go down.

Both the premises and the machinery used by AT are owned, and account for about
three-quarters of the total value of the asset. The rest of the assets are divided
equally between the material in stock and the sales not yet collected. In the bank
they have a small amount of money, but insignificant. Half of the investments have
been made with the capital contributed by the partners. The rest of the financing is a
bank loan. To get the best possible price suppliers pay in advance.

The development of Ether.Genius has followed the usual process of all AT products.
Initially, a market study is commissioned from an external company that analyzes
customer demands and proposes a set of functional specifications. Based on these
specifications, the engineering team develops a few units of a first prototype, which
is given to some reference customers for operational analysis. Once the valuations
have been collected, the industrial production phase begins, which, unlike its
competitors, manufactures in its own facilities, thus guaranteeing 100% of the
highest quality. All equipment produced is tested individually, with very strict quality
controls. Once an order is received, the product is shipped to the customer through a
logistics company. A multilingual customer service responds in case of initial doubts
or incidents in the operation.

Most of the AT staff consists of engineers from the design, production, testing and
customer service teams. The staff is completed by two people who support all
administrative procedures, two technicians who are responsible for the infrastructure
of systems and production, and the General Manager, responsible for strategic
aspects.

Salvador Borràs, head of the engineering team since the incorporation of the
company, commented to his team at the beginning of the project: "It has been
difficult for me to convince the General Manager to approve the necessary
investment. We must make a great product". And when the first Ether.Genius unit
came out of the production line it said, "It cost us, but we got it." One of the reasons
for this success has been that Salvador has managed to create a very cohesive
engineering team, where all members are not only excellent technicians, but work for
the good of the group's goals and to maintain a satisfactory level of personal
relationships.

15
Activities OETIC

QUESTIONS

1. Justifiably identify the strategic purpose and idea of ​AT. Identify the value and
competitive advantage of the Ether.Genius product.
2. You have just been hired as the marketing manager of AT and you are
proposing to increase your sales volume. List the communication tools you
have and give a possible example of possible action for each one.
3. Justify whether a commercial of each existing typology can suit AT.
4. Based on the information indicated in the statement, propose the extended
value chain of AT.

16
Activities OETIC

“SAVIOKE” CASE

Service robotics will soon impact our daily lives. Just as the Internet or the mobile
has changed the way we live and relate, the future ubiquitous presence of robots of
all kinds and functions will change the reality we live in today. Society is not yet
aware and reluctance will surely arise from some groups, but the process is
unstoppable.

The service robotics sector is in a very early stage: companies with more innovative
than practical products are constantly appearing, with the promise of changing the
world. There are no standards yet, but hardware is becoming a commodity and
software tools are emerging that allow people to focus on services and not on
technology.

Savioke Inc., is one of many companies that have recently come up with an
innovative proposal. It emerged as a spinoff of Willow Garage, a pioneering
California company in the industry, when Steve Cousins, the CEO of WG, decided to
leave the company to create one of his own.

Steve identified that there are sectors where a lot of unskilled labor is used to do
nearby product distribution tasks, such as hotels or hospitals. Reducing the costs of
these companies means reducing labor costs. Because wages can no longer go
down further, one way to be more competitive is to replace staff with other more
efficient systems. Thus, Savioke's idea is to offer robotic systems for distributing
products in close environments.

Savioke's first product, the SVK-1, is a robotic platform, that

is, a mobile robot without arms. It will use low-cost sensors
and the development will be based on the ROS (Robot
Operating System).

To encourage market introduction, the SVK-1 will not be sold,

but will be rented. Its cost of about $33/day will be much lower
than the average cost of a "runner" (person doing chores),
which is about $58/day. In addition, workers' working hours
are 8 hours a day and SVK-1 will be available 24 hours a day,
and SVK-1 does not make union claims.

As per Steve’s business plan to investors, it is expected to

end the first year with 400 robots hired, and the second with 1,000, with steady linear
increases during every fiscal year. The monthly rental price of a robot is $1,000 (the
above indicated $ 33/day).

17
Activities OETIC

The cost of the robot components is $1,350/robot. All raw material will go directly
from suppliers to the final manufacturing company, as the assembly will be
outsourced to a Chinese manufacturer. The best offer they have found is assembly
and transportation to the central California warehouse for $250/robot. In order to be
able to offer good customer service and have replacement robots in the event of a
breakdown, Savioke will have an additional robot for every 10 it rents.

Steve took from Willow Garage most of the technical team, 6 of the best robotic
engineers, who will take care of all the design and after-sales service. Each of them
has been offered a salary that will cost a company $75,000/year. He has assigned
himself the same salary, as he wants to set an example in front of the workers, and
he considers that when the project goes well he will already recover his effort with
the dividends given by the company. Savioke staff is completed by 5 people with
very operational profiles to perform specific tasks, with an average company cost of
$30,000/year.

The initial costs of setting up and starting the activity are expected to be $50,000.
Structure costs are budgeted at $250,000 per year. In the first year, a big investment
of $1,200,000 will be Made in communication campaigns to publicize the service. In
the second year, the communication effort will be halved. In California, the equivalent
of profit tax is 10%. In the first round of venture capital financing, Steve expects to
raise $1,500,000.

The initial goal is not to get many customers, but to be able to place many robots in
a few very large customers (large hotel chains and hospitals), this is why Steve has
decided that it is not necessary to hire a salesman but that he will take on this job
himself. The strategic decision on customer segmentation facilitates the choice of
sales channel, as it can be done directly without intermediaries.

QUESTIONS

1. Explain what Savioke needs to be a sustainable company.

2. Indicate the information provided by Savioke's Tactical Marketing Statement.
3. Prepare Savioke's income statement (structure and values) during the first
two years of the company's life.
4. The Hilton hotel chain is contacting Savioke to develop a customized version
of the robot, the SVK-H. List the stages and substages of the project that
Savioke must consider.
5. Explain what are the needs Willow Garage workers met when they accepted
Steve's offer to go to work at Savioke.

18
Activities OETIC

6. Steve Cousins ​hires you to help him organize the Savioke staff. What kind of
work teams would you suggest to create and, in each case, who do you think
should be part of it?

19
Activities OETIC

“UNIVERSAL ROBOTS” CASE

Universal Robots is an industrial robot manufacturer

based in Odense, Denmark.

The turnover in 2013 was 17.2 million euros. It has 145

employees and distributes its robots worldwide through
a network of 200 distributors in 50 countries.

The company was founded in 2005 by engineers

Esben Østergaard, Kasper Stoy, and Kristian Kassow.
While working as researchers and assistant professors
at the Syddansk Universitet of Odense, they saw that
the robotics market was dominated by heavy, expensive and difficult-to-handle
robots and had the idea of ​offering accessible robotic technology for small and
medium-sized businesses.

In 2009, the first model, the UR5, was launched on the Danish and German markets.
Since 2010, the company has been constantly expanding its activities, doubling its
sales volume every year. In 2012 a second model was launched, the UR10.

The two products are six-joint robotic arms, weighing 18 pounds and 28 pounds,
respectively. The UR5 can lift 5 kilos and has a working radius of 850 mm. The UR10
can lift 10 kilos with a range of 1,300 mm. Each of the robots' joints can rotate +/-
360° and up to 180 degrees per second. The accuracy of the repetitions of the
movements is +/- 0.1 mm.

Industrial robots can already be found on production lines since the 1960s, but they
were expensive and complex to install, so they were only in large companies in
some sectors, mainly the automobile.

With its robots Universal Robots has reinvented industrial robotics. The main feature
of URs is that they are collaborative robots, that is, they can work alongside people
without any added security system (such as metal fences) as soon as an employee
comes in contact with the robot, it stops automatically, preventing it from hurting
them. The fact that a robot can be said to be collaborative is regulated by ISO
10218.

In addition, the URs are easy to program and therefore quick to install. This, together
with their reduced weight allows them to be easily reconfigurable, i.e. they can be
easily moved within a factory, so they provide a lot of flexibility to production lines.
They can also be installed in any type of manufacturing plant, from small machine
shops to large car assembly lines.

20
Activities OETIC

The price of the UR5 and UR10 is €26,000 and €34,000, respectively. These prices
are similar to those of classic industrial robots, but the fact of not having to install
metal protective fences, that the installation can be done by operators without
experience in programming and that the setup time can be reduced from weeks
down to hours makes the total cost of implementation only 35%-40% of that of a
traditional robot.

The main competitor of UR is Baxter, of Rethink Robotics, a robot of €20,000 with

lower capacity of load and precision, but that has performed an important campaign
of communication, especially in the United States, from where the company is
originally.

Once they have seen the potential of the market, all major manufacturers of
industrial robots (ABB, Kuka, Fanuc ...) have begun to develop collaborative robots,
but continue to use traditional programming systems, so they are not easy to install
and still need specialized operators.

During 2015 Universal Robots plans to sell about 200 robots a month, half of them
UR5 and the other half UR10. Of the final selling price, the margin of the distributors
is 50%.

The main component of a robot is the engines. Universal Robots does not
manufacture them, but buys them from an external supplier. The cost of the engines
and other materials that make up a robot is €6,000.

Of the 180 employees planned for 2015, a third are engaged in the manufacturing of
robots, half are R&D engineers and technical customer service, and the rest are
general staff. The average cost for the company of a worker is €70,000 / year.

To continue growing, high communication costs are expected during 2015: €2.6
million. The total other structural costs are expected to be €3 million. During the year,
construction will begin on a new factory, to which a total investment of €10 million will
be dedicated. The total amortizations will be € 1.6 million. The corporate tax rate in
Denmark is 30%.

Of the three founders, only Esben Østergaard remains in the company, holding the
position of CTO (Technical Director). Since 2008 the CEO (General Manager) is
Enrico Krog, who was asked to lead the company as he combined many years of
management experience with knowledge in production and automation processes.

QUESTIONS

21
Activities OETIC

1. Justifiably identify the strategic purpose, idea, value and competitive

advantage of Universal Robots.
2. Indicate the information provided by Universal Robots Tactical Marketing
Statement.
3. You have just been hired as Head of Marketing at Universal Robots, and you
intend to increase the sales volume. List the communication tools you have
and provide an example of a possible action for each one.
4. Create the positioning map of the industrial robots sector.
5. What professional relationship do you consider to be the most appropriate for
Enrico Krog to have with Esben Østergaard (according to the
boss-subordinate behavior scheme)?
6. Prepare the forecast results account of Universal Robots (structure and
values) for 2015.

22
Activities OETIC

“SADAKO” CASE

SADAKO TECHNOLOGIES, S.L. was

founded in 2012. It was born for the purpose
of its founders to use technology to make the
world a better place.

SADAKO is a specialist in state-of-the-art

computer vision technology. It uses various
types of machine learning techniques
(machine learning being a technology that
has recently seen great advances), including multilayer neural networks, through the
use of high-performance parallel computing in GPU-accelerated clouds. It develops
massive parallel real-time algorithms software, with which it teaches machines to
understand real-time video images, that is, to recognize objects they had never seen
before.

Of the many options allowed by SADAKO technology, the company has focused its
first practical application in the field of the urban solid waste treatment industry.
Thus, it has developed Wall-B, an equipment that allows to recover material with
economic value (aluminum cans, tetrabrics, plastic bottles ...) from the garbage.
Wall-B consists of an industrial robotic arm and a vision system that uses artificial
intelligence to recognize valuable material.

The system is non-intrusive, i.e. it is installed directly on the conveyor belt without
requiring modifications or plant stops. It is also flexible, as it can retrieve different
types of materials simply by retraining the algorithm.

This combination of computer vision and advanced robotics allows to replace part of
the human work present in the processes of separation of material of the waste at
treatment plants as it increases the ratios of recovery of waste of the plant and in the
medium term (once recovered the initial investment) the cost is lower. It can also
complement current mechanical separation systems, which despite having a higher
processing capacity, are significantly more expensive because they use detectors
based on very expensive hardware.

SADAKO's potential customers are the operators of the waste plants. The first facility
has been located in the Maresme Waste Treatment Consortium. It was then followed
by Ecoparc4. Both value very positively the cost reduction that Wall-B entails
compared to traditional systems. In addition, Wall-B is not demotivated to work in a
dirty and boring environment, nor does it have problems with sick leave.

23
Activities OETIC

The waste treatment sector is expected to grow globally by an average of 8%

annually over the next few years. In developing countries, new plants will be built for
economic reasons, and in developed countries the increase will be determined
mainly by regulatory factors; for example, the more than 1,000 waste plants that
exist in the EU will have to adapt their systems to comply with a mandatory Directive
that requires them to reach 50% recovery of valuable materials by 2020. At the
heart of regulatory changes is the social concern for issues of sustainability and
ecology.

SADAKO has collaborated with the IRI (Institute of Robotics and Industrial
Informatics of the UPC) and the CVC (Computer Vision Center of the UAB). Its
current supplier of robots is Stäubli, although it does not rule out buying from other
manufacturers such as ABB or Kuka.

Forecasts for 2016 are to sell 5 Wall-B systems at a unit price of €100,000. The cost
of the robotic arm that incorporates a Wall-B is €25,000, and that of vision cameras,
computer processing and other additional hardware and structures for assembly,
€10,000. The first sales will be made by SADAKO directly. As of 2017, it is expected
to have distributors who will charge a commission of 20% of each team sold.

SADAKO has a human team of 13 people, of high technical skills, all of them
engineers and computer scientists. The Director constantly tries to convey to the
team the satisfaction with the work done, in order to keep their motivation high.
Internally, workers are grouped into three departments: computer vision, robotics,
and business development. The total staff costs planned for 2016 are €550,000.

Overhead costs for 2016 are expected to be €75,000. So far, investments of €80,000
have been made, with an average repayment period of 4 years. During 2016,
€25,000 will be repaid for a bank loan, of which €5,000 interests. The corporate tax
rate is 30%.

SADAKO shareholders are currently in negotiations with various industrial partners

and venture capital managers to carry out a capital increase during 2016.

QUESTIONS

1. Create the positioning map of material separation technologies in waste

treatment plants.
2. Indicate and justify what type of sales force suits SADAKO.
3. The Vallès Occidental Waste Treatment Center has decided to install a Wall-B
system in its Vacarisses treatment plant. List the stages and sub-stages that
CTR-VO must consider to manage the project.

24
Activities OETIC

4. Based on the information indicated in the statement, justify whether we can

consider SADAKO a company that is doing e-business.
5. What needs do you consider SADAKO encourages to have their employees
motivated?
6. Prepare SADAKO's forecast income statement (structure and values) for
2016. Assuming that all collections and payments were made in cash (and,
therefore, the income statement is the same as the cash-flow forecast), what
is the minimum capital increase that has to be done to be able to meet all
2016 payments?

CLASSIFICATION OF ECONOMIC FACTS

The attached table shows a series of economic events that occur in the daily life of
companies. Everyone of the facts affects one or more of the financial statements that
are used to monitor the evolution of a business initiative.

You must indicate to each column of the table the effect, if any, that the economic
event has on each of the financial statements indicated.

Treasury Count results

Economic Receipt Payment Revenues Expenses

fact

Capital
increase

Loan receipt

Payment of
loan
installment

Computer
purchase

Purchase of
components

Purchase
payment

25
Activities OETIC

Computer
amortization

Issue an
invoice

Sales
collection

Management
contracting

Staff payment

26
Activities OETIC

BASIC EXERCISE

BASICSA begins its business activity. The actions that follow list the most important
economic events that happen to you during a period.

1. It starts the activity with a capital contribution of 100 mu (money units) from
shareholders, transferred to a bank account.

2. At t=1 it buys, in cash, furniture worth 50 mm and computers worth 25 mm,

which will be amortized over 4 years.

3. At t=2 a client commissions and pays in advance a project, the agreed price of
which is 20 mm. The implementation of the project is outsourced at a cost of
15 mm, which are paid at t=3.

4. The company has structural costs due to the rent of the premises of 10 mm,
which are paid at t=3.

5. The period ends at t = 4. Corporation tax is 30%.

QUESTIONS

a) Calculate the liquid assets at the end of the period.

b) Prepare the income statement for the period.

27
Activities OETIC

TREASURY EXERCISE

TRESOSA is dedicated to the production and sale of pet locating devices. Its basic
model has a retail price of €35 and the model with advanced features €50.
Manufacturing costs are €12 and €18, respectively. Distribution is done through pet
and veterinary stores, to whom they offer a 25% margin on the sale price. In the first
month the sales forecast are 120 and 50 units for each type of model, and are
expected to grow 8% monthly for the first 18 months, and then stay flat.

The total staff costs will be €4,800/month and the general expenses €3,200/month.

Sales will be charged with a deferral of 2 months. Manufacturing and general

expenses will be paid one month from the time of the economic event. Staff costs
are paid in the month in which they occur.

The shareholder of the company makes a capital contribution of €30,000 at the time
of incorporation. If it is necessary to resort to additional funding, he plans to allow his
father to loan him some money on a temporary basis.

QUESTIONS

- According to the treasury forecast, in which month of activity will the father's
loan have to be made effective, the latest?

- If you only want to borrow money once, of how much should the loan be?

28
Activities OETIC

“BUSINESS PLAN” CASE

SECTION A

Projects in Telecommunications Infrastructures (PITSA) is a business project started

by Arnau Trullen, a telecommunications engineer who after working for seven years
in a large company in the sector has decided to venture into the world of business
and implement the accumulated experience.

PITSA wants to enter the world of process computerization projects with the support
of IP technologies aimed at medium-sized companies.

The excuse to make the leap was the request of the managers (old acquaintances)
of two companies, Cases SA and Pola SA, to develop two very similar projects. Both
Casas and Pola could not and did not want to do the development themselves and
were looking for someone to do it for them. The opportunity for PITSA to do so
seemed very appropriate to them.

Cases SA wants to have the operational project in early April and Pola SA in early
June. In both cases the projects can be developed in three months.

The projects involve computer development, the installation and parameterization of

equipment and, once implemented, will require a maintenance service.

The price of the development of each project is €20,000 which will be charged as
follows: 10% in advance and the rest in three parts during development.

In both projects a team of the two server models (A and B) is needed.

Price
Purchase Sale
Model A €2.500 €3.000
Model B €800 €1.000

The equipment must be purchased in the middle of development and will not be
charged until the project is accepted.

Maintenance will begin to be charged once the 3-month warranty period has
elapsed. The monthly price is €800.

For the development, it is planned to hire an engineering team of three people: a

project manager, a programmer and a systems technician. The administration will be

29
Activities OETIC

run by a secretariat. Arnau reserves the role of Director. All staff will join in
November of this year.

The gross annual salaries provided for staff are as follows:

Project manager €30.000

Programmer €22.000
Systems technician €24.000
Secretariat €18.000
Director €36.000

The cost of Social Security is 30% of gross salary.

QUESTION

What capital contribution do we expect to be needed to ensure the operation of the

company over the next year?

SECTION B

The analysis of the commercial possibilities of PITSA predicts that once the two
initial projects are up and running, the fact of having successful references and the
knowledge of the sector will allow to obtain a new project of the same characteristics
every 2 months.

On the other hand, scenario 1 did not take into account overheads, which need to be
considered to make a more realistic forecast. Thus, the following expenses are
foreseen:

Incorporation of the company (notary, registration, taxes ...): €1,500

Regarding investment in offices:

Purchase of microcomputer equipment (PCs and programs): €9,000
Other equipment (printer, fax, photocopier ...): €1,500
Furniture: €6,000

About supplies:
Office rent: €1,000 / month
Communications (telephones and Internet): 100 €/month
Light: €200 every 2 months (the first bill will arrive in December)
Water: €30 every 3 months (the first bill will arrive in December)

Other overheads:
Cleaning: 200 €/month
Management: 250 €/month

30
Activities OETIC

QUESTION

What capital contribution do we expect to be needed to ensure the operation of the

company throughout the coming year?

SECTION C

The Business Plan done so far shows that the project is not sustainable. It is
necessary to increase the revenue and therefore the commercial effort will have to
be increased.

An account manager will be hired in April, with a gross annual fixed salary of
€24,000 plus a variable of 5% of the sale price of each project achieved. It is
assumed that it will get the first order in June and that with its reinforcement it will be
possible to start a project a month. With the increase in activity, it will be necessary
to hire a second programmer from June, under the same conditions as the first.

Each of the two new employees will incur additional costs of €1,500 in
microcomputers and €1,000 in furniture in the month of their incorporation.

On the other hand, the capital available to start the company is €75,000. A credit
policy is taken out to cover the treasury needs. The cost of the policy is 2% per
month on the amount provided.

QUESTION

Does the account manager justify his hiring?

SECTION D

The initial analysis does not clearly show the viability of the project. Therefore, it is
proposed to extend the Business Plan until the end of two years.

QUESTIONS

In what month are the maximum financial expenses generated?

In what month are you expected to stop using your credit policy?

SECTION E

In order to know the cash needs during the two-year forecast of the project, the
evolution of the treasury must be carefully planned. In fact, not all payments and
collections are made in cash, but:

- Customers will pay our bills in 30 days, as is the practice in the industry.

31
Activities OETIC

- We have reached a special agreement with our suppliers of equipment of

models A and B, equipment (computer and others) and furniture so that they
will allow us to pay them in three months.
- The rest of the service providers must be paid in cash except for the
management that allows us to pay in 1 month.
- Social Security is paid with a one-month deferral.

Calculate the evolution of PITSA's treasury over the next two years using the
conditions expressed.

32
Activities OETIC

AMORTIZATION EXERCISE

The Chief Financial Officer of AMORSA needs to know the amount of amortizations
that must be charged this year to the company's income statement. He has lost the
amortization table in which he kept the record, so he has to do it again. Recover all
investments made since the beginning of the activity, which are as follows:

- Incorporation of the company: € 1,200

- Computers:
- Year 1: € 10,000
- Year 3: € 5,000
- Year 4: € 8,000
- Year 5: € 4,000
- Year 7: € 9,000
- Furniture:
- Year 1: € 6,000
- Year 6: € 2,000
- Van
- Year 2: € 24,000

QUESTION

What is the amount of the amortizations for year 7?

33
Activities OETIC

CLOSING EXERCISE

Arnau Trullen, a PITSA businessman (see the "Business Plan" case), wants to know
if he will be able to collect dividends in any of the first three years. He doesn’t know
how to do it and asks you for help.

In order to be able to give you an argumentative answer, calculate the forecast

income statement for the first three years of activity.

34
Activities OETIC

BREAKEVEN EXERCISE

A company has a variable cost that accounts for 60% of sales. With a structure of
500 um (monetary units) it can produce up to 3,000 um of sales. From this level it
must double its structure.

QUESTIONS

- What is its breakeven point?

- What if they doubled its structure from 2,000 um in sales?

35
Activities OETIC

STAGES EXERCISE

The owner of the company TRESOSA (see Treasury Exercise) is aware that the
initial forecast he has made for his business may not be met, as several of the
parameters he has considered may vary:

- The selling prices of the models can be adjusted according to the expected
response from customers (from a market study) and the reaction of
competitors. They could be between €32 and €40 for the basic model, and
between €45 and €60 for the advanced model.
- Manufacturing costs can vary depending on currency fluctuations, and cost
between €11 and €13 for the basic model, and between €16 and €20 for the
advanced model.
- The commission on sales that will be offered to distributors could be between
22% and 28%, depending on the company's ability to negotiate with
distributors.
- Depending on the success of the initial communication campaign, in the first
month the planned sales could be between 100 and 130 units of the basic
model, and between 45 and 60 units of the advanced model.
- Sales could grow monthly between 6% and 12%
- The monthly overhead costs could be between €3,000 and €3,400, depending
on whether the level of spending is more or less adjusted.

QUESTION

Identify how much and when the landlord will have to ask their father for money in
the most optimistic and pessimistic scenario possible

36