Profit Creation

Some services may generate profits but some of them will not. Hence, before creating extra profit, one should know which kind of services is profitable. We try to analyze the profit creation methods as shown below.

Develop high level service to earn extra profit

Leverage existing channels and human resources to decrease fixed cost Encourage the clients to promote the service

Help all leaguers to earn profits and grow up simultaneously 3.2 Business Plan

The enterprise will be founded for aging care service system setup, marketing, and promotion. There are many home care medical devices’

manufacturers in Taiwan, most of them had over ten years of experiences in medical device design, ODM and manufacture experience. Yet, competition cause benefits shrink and most of them had to move the workshop to mainland china in order to minimum the direct expanse (salary). Most importantly, most of them can provide high quality home care devices. As more and more of the population getting older, the demand for aging care device has also increased.

Most of the devices have microprocessor inside it. Due to cost of the microprocessors and wireless modules are cheaper and cheaper, added communication function to theses medical devices seems not difficult at all.

Hence, using the existed device added communication function may be used to monitor the status of the clients at home. Using these device added communication function, we can establish a web based service center which continuously monitor the status of the clients at home. The cruise car will receive command from service center and visit the client home if necessary.

Most of the elders wish to stay home than hospital. Yet, they have the potential risk of falling, suddenly accident, or sickness. They may not hope disturbance by others. Yet, they need emergency assist in unconscious situation. This is the key of this service which providing service to clients in specific condition.

Besides, the service center will also call clients relative through GSM mobile phone system. This business creates value and something like insurance contract it will provide some protection against emergency or accident. Most importantly, emergency support may save elders life which very critical and valuable. This business plan tries to create this value. We illustrate the potential service items including:

1. Call Service: Provide service requested by clients.

2. Aids lease: Due to some back home patients need some aids device during recovering stage. Lease all medical devices to clients seems to be a big business.

3. Emergency handling: If emergency events occurred, visit the clients and call the ambulance to transport the elders.

4. Day care: Stay at elders home and take care the elders in day time.

5. House keeping: Clean the house if elders can not walk or too weak to do cleaning, cooking or repair the house.

6. Health monitoring: Lease the wireless modules and use the modules to monitor clients’ life signals.

7. Treatment: Some simple would treatment could be done in home than hospital. Hence, the nurse dispatches to clients home may execute the treatment periodically.

8. Consulting: Sometimes, elders need some consulting service. Hence, provide cheap consulting service may attract clients to use this hot line.

Besides, information of the clients’ status may rich the clients medical history and provide some useful diagnosis information when alert occurred.

9. The others: The items that may generate profits can be included in this business plan.

This system service items attract clients to become member of an association and make money from clients, the enterprise must collaborate with the following groups.

1. Hospital: Collaborate with hospital to leverage the expertise knowledge and facility.

2. Employees: Pay good salary to employees in order to keep the service quality and provide some friendship with the clients.

3. Third parties: Provide taxi, housekeeping, and wounds treatment.

4. Physician: Real time analysis the clients’ situation in service center.

Provide some instruction to clients and the service experts.

Figure 11 Charge items and the proposed charge price.

3.2.1 Business development forecasting

Many individuals, particularly those living-alone people are interested in self care service. Based on marketing projections, this interest increased gradually, and more and more business plans are proposed in relative fields. Yet, few of the proposals are implemented. To meet the expected demand for aging population, it is planned to establish a new enterprise focusing on the

establishment and marketing such service system. The yearly payment (annuity) on users assumed to be 10,000 NTD. System maintenance and salary payment are assumed to be 20,000,000 NTD per year. Gross margin is assumed to be 30% of revenue. The potential clients are about 10% of the population in Hsinchu area, that is 6,00,000*0.1=60,000. Since some elders are living in some remote countryside, financial restriction and some personal issues, the target number of our clients will reach 30,000 in year 5. The average cost of the wireless physiological monitor is assumed to be 15USD. The device will be modified directly from n on-invasive blood pressure meter (NIBP), while the cost of NIBP is very cheap and easy to license the OEM device. Besides, some other kind of medical device will be used to monitor clients’ specific physiological parameters. In the first year, we need to place resource in mould design and system setup. We prepare to spend 10,000,000 NTD in system fixed asset setup, another 10,000,000 NTD in system integration and running this business. No income or revenue occurred in the first year. Advertising and proper promotion will make the market size grow up gradually. The target numbers of potential clients in the following 5 years are assumed to be 0, 1,000, 3,000, 10,000, 15,000, and 30,000. Most importantly, few enterprises have experiences in this field, business opportunity is rich and waiting to be further explored.

3.2.2. Product

The hardware used in this study can be modified from the cheapest non-invasive blood pressure meter (NIBP). Bluetooth module is utilized to transmit clients’

information to telephone or PC internet system. Cardiovascular device, oximeter, and glucose meter can also be added with wireless module for transmitting

clients’ data to service center. While choosing the proper caring service, people always focus on the status of the diseases of the disabled body parts of the users.

In fact, to help the users choose the proper service, it requires considering the users’ physical conditions, mental conditions, and the social conditions around the users. Among these conditions, the physical conditions include movement abilities, stamina, coordination, disease assessments, and the types of disabilities;

the mental conditions include the users’ wishes to use, concentration, learning abilities, abilities to reflect, and the tolerance to his/her disability; the social conditions have to take the financial conditions of the users’ families, residential conditions and inter-human relationships (social connections), etc. into account.

Figure 12 Hardware used to monitor the physiological parameters.

3.2.3 Business Structure

The business structure includes clients, service center, hospital and communication infrastructure provider. Service center will visit the clients periodically and handle emergency situation. Hospital will send the ambulances to transport the clients to hospital for clinical treatment and the infrastructure providers will transmit the information to service center and call to clients’

relatives. Initial working capital of this enterprise will be about 60,000,000 NTD.

The budget will be used to set up hardware system, arrange global marketing channel and pay salary. Employee number will be around 5, 6, 20, 22, and 23 in the following 5 years after the enterprise is established. The payroll is projected to labor expenses by average $60,000 per month per worker. Because the aids have a characteristic of more varieties and fewer quantities, it is very difficult to reach the desired market values for the profit-seeking industries. However, with universal design, the products can satisfy the needs of 80% of adults (Haigh, 1993). But the products that meet the universal design shall take the universality for users with different disabilities into account (E&C, 1996). Therefore, designers shall consider the products, facilities and environments that fit the mentally and physically disabled people and elder people from the perspectives of different users (the users, families and other unspecific persons) and different places to use (at home or in public places).

3.2.4 Enterprise organization composition

The business team should include hospital, communication infrastructure provider, hardware manufacturer, IT company, insurance company, security company, and third party subcontractor. All of them are leaguer and the core team will review each team member’s performance periodically and determine if the contract will continue or not.