flexio · 2019-06-20 · flexible workspaces have been gaining popularity for a while now. they...

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Flexio Bring your Business back in business A business proposition for Entrepreneurship in action 1ZAUB0 25-06-2018 Group 28 Arthur De Volder 1085811 Maxime Dassen 0997810 Emma Goetheer 1017324 Luc Verwaal 1015974 Cecile Conrad 1016008 Marleen Weijers 1011527

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Page 1: Flexio · 2019-06-20 · Flexible workspaces have been gaining popularity for a while now. They have a market share of 2-3 percent in the Netherlands, which will grow to 5-10 percent

Flexio Bring your Business back in business

A business proposition for Entrepreneurship in action

1ZAUB0 25-06-2018

Group 28

Arthur De Volder 1085811 Maxime Dassen 0997810 Emma Goetheer 1017324 Luc Verwaal 1015974 Cecile Conrad 1016008 Marleen Weijers 1011527

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Contents Summary ......................................................... 3

1.Introduction ................................................. 4

2. Technical feasibility ..................................... 4

2.1 Technology and product description .... 4

2.2 Make – or – buy .................................... 6

2.3 Financial plan ........................................ 7

Investments in infrastructure ................. 7

Fixed costs ............................................... 7

Variable costs .......................................... 8

Economize ............................................... 8

3. Situation analysis ........................................ 8

3.1 SWOT ..................................................... 8

Strengths ................................................. 8

Weaknesses ............................................ 9

Opportunities .......................................... 9

Threats .................................................. 10

3.2 Porter’s 5 forces model ....................... 10

Competitive rivalry ................................ 10

Threat of substitution ........................... 10

Threat of new entry .............................. 11

Supplier power ...................................... 11

Buyer power .......................................... 11

Conclusion ............................................. 11

4. Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning .......... 11

4.1 Segment .............................................. 11

4.2 Target .................................................. 12

4.3 Position ............................................... 12

5. Business model ......................................... 14

Value proposition .................................. 14

Customer segment ................................ 14

Customer relationship .......................... 14

Cost structure ........................................ 14

Key partners .......................................... 14

Key activities ......................................... 14

Channels ................................................ 15

Key resources ........................................ 15

Revenue streams .................................. 15

6. Conclusion ................................................. 16

7.References ................................................. 17

Appendix ....................................................... 20

Appendix A ................................................ 20

Appendix B ................................................ 23

Appendix C ................................................ 24

Appendix D ................................................ 25

Appendix E ................................................ 39

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Summary Flexible workspaces have been gaining popularity for a while now. They have a market share of 2-3 percent in the Netherlands, which will grow to 5-10 percent in the coming five years. The ergonomics in these flexible workspaces are however far from optimal. Therefore we introduce Flexio. Flexio deals with problems concerning thermal comfort and sound levels. An app advises employees on their optimal working space, based on their preferred temperature and sound levels. These optimal spaces are determined by measurement stations placed all around a building. Additionally Flexio shows the location of colleagues that employees wish to work with. In doing so Flexio differentiates itself from competitors. In this report the business opportunities of Flexio are explored. Measuring stations consist out of a temperature sensor, noise sensor , an indication light and a board which can be connected with Wi-Fi. For the tracking of the stations and colleagues the signal strength of the Wi-Fi will be used. The data measured by the stations is sent to a shared server, on which the preferences of each user are also stored. Consequently the app will extract data from this server to advice employees on their optimal working spaces. In order to protect the privacy of users, the data is protected using multiple safety measurements. The only technical limitation of Flexio is the accuracy of the sound level measurement. The production of the stations will be outsourced, the app will be made by a software developer and the rest will be done by the founders. The outsourcing and hiring has big advantages, since the software and hardware will be developed by professionals. Therefore the quality rises, less time will be spent and the costs are reduced. The production of one station will be 19 euros and Flexio will have monthly costs of 34,666 euros.

Looking at the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for Flexio, we see that a big investment is needed. Combined with the external threats, the chance of success for Flexio is small, despite that Flexio has very little competitors. The target group of Flexio are companies which use flexible workspaces and have at least 10 employees. Flexio will be sold as a monthly subscription, with a minimum of six months. The price of Flexio is set on 15 euros per month per station. This price is based on market research, with primary and secondary sources, and on the production costs. Flexio will be personally promoted, possibly using pricing strategies. The estimated net profit after three years is 663,916 euros. With a required investment of 70,000 euros this leads to an ROI of 948 percent. From the business model we can conclude that this is not the ideal financial situation. The cash flow is likely to be negative which will lead to not being able to pay the bills. Finding investors is not easy with an estimation like this, and we will not have money left for our own salaries. Overall it can be concluded that Flexio is not financially stable. The risk of acquiring not enough customers is large, which makes Flexio unattractive for investors. Before Flexio could be implemented a lot of additionairy research would have to be done, to possibly tackle those issues that would cause bankruptcy.

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1.Introduction Millennials currently make up the largest share of the US working force (Fry, 2018). This is similar in the Netherlands and their mind-set and working methods ask for a new way of working. 77 percent of the millennials believes that flexible schedules are beneficial for their productivity (Bentley, 2014). This generation does not only want to decide when to work, but also where to work. The idea of office spaces where every employee works at their personal spot from 9 am to 5 pm no longer fulfils the wishes of the new working generation. The new generation combines working at home, on the road and at the office. This makes a personal office space for each employee expensive and redundant since it would not be occupied at all times. Flexible workspaces make it possible to use less office space for more people. Flexible workspaces are office spaces fitted with basic equipment, like phone lines, desks and chairs. They allow employees who normally work from home to have a physical office for a few hours every week or month (Prime office spaces, 2018). Today these flexible workspaces have a market share of 2-3 percent, which will grow to 5-10 percent in 5 years (Stopel, 2018). This new structure of the office space has a lot of advantages but it also comes with challenges. During our research we concluded that the ergonomics of flexible workspaces are far from optimal. People tend to go back to the same working spots, because their colleagues are working there and they do not want to lose time searching for a different working spot. However, their somewhat fixed spot is not always the best place to work. The thermal comfort and the background noise can be far from their personal optimum. Yet, searching for the optimal working place is time consuming and too big of an effort. Therefore we developed Flexio; an app that recommends

working spots to office workers, depending on their noise and temperature preferences, and the location of their co-workers. Flexio will lead to a higher productivity due to a personalized, optimal environment, with less distractions. This results in more productive and more satisfied employees. The Flexio system consist of measurement stations that are placed throughout the office building and an app on the mobile phones of the office workers. The stations gather data about the temperature and sound levels of the area it is placed in. The Flexio app will recommend the three best workplaces based on the preferences of each employee. The target group will consist out of companies with flexible workspaces, or the desire to start working with flexible workspaces, and with at least ten employees. In this report the business opportunities of Flexio are explored. First, a technical feasibility study was conducted to examine if the design and functions of Flexio are technically realistic. Based on the design of Flexio a cost analysis was made, to give a realistic price estimation. A situation analysis was done to determine the strengths, opportunities, threats and weaknesses of Flexio. Segmenting, targeting and positioning was applied to estimate the potential revenues. Finally a business model was made, based on Flexio’s unique selling points.

2. Technical feasibility 2.1 Technology and product description Flexio consists out of measuring stations and an app. The station needs to be able to measure the temperature and sound levels. For the temperature measurements a LM35 TO-92 will be used. This sensor can measure with an accuracy of 0.5 ℃. The sensor can measure between a range of 2 to 150 ℃ (Instruments, 2017). To measure the sound levels, a MAX9812 sensor will be

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used. The measured sound is amplified by 20 dB, therefore it is able to detect even the smallest changes in sound level (Robles, 2014). On the stations, a small LED is attached, which indicates if the station is working. All above components of the station are connected to a NodeMCU ESP8266 board. This board is able to send and receive data through Wi-Fi. The board has a 5V input, therefore a 5V 2A adapter is required to plug the stations into the wall outlet (Technology, sd). The casing of the stations will be made out of hard plastic with ventilation holes. Since other material can block the Wi-Fi signal (How Much & Which Building Materials Block Cellular & WiFi Signals?, 2017). The ventilation holes are required for the temperature measurement. In figure 1 a mock-up of the stations can be found. The range of the station is around five square meters (ASHRAE Recommended Procedure for Measuring Background Sound Pressure Level in a Room (Draft #9), 2005). This result in one per 4 linked desks if we place the station in the middle. The location of users and stations will be tracked using Wi-Fi. By measuring the received signal strength of the Wi-Fi signal between a router and a device its location can be determined (Rekimoto, 2007). Using the signal, that has a personal “fingerprint”, of the router and the MAC address of the device, it can easily and precisely be tracked in three dimensions in a building (Brennan Jr, 2010).

Figure 1 Back view of the measurement stations

The employees can use their app to see which working spaces meet their preferences. These working spaces are displayed on a map of the building. In figure 2 the basic screen of the app is visualized. The green coloured space represent the best option for the user to sit. In this room the temperature and the noise is consistent with the user’s preferences. The blue room is the second most suitable workspace and the yellow one is the third most suitable. The ‘X’ represents the location of the co-workers with whom the user wishes to work. This last function can be adjusted any time and switched off for privacy reasons. In the first two weeks the app will ask the users about their preferences of an optimal working environment on a daily base. In order to keep up with the preferences the user will only be asked on a monthly base about their preferences after the first two weeks. With this information and the information of the data that the stations have gathered, sent and saved in the private cloud of the system of the company, the app can give the optimal location. Additional visualisations of the app can be found in appendix A.

Figuur 2 Screenshot of the Flexio app

The measured data is protected and cannot be viewed. To ensure this, key codes and firewalls will be installed in the software.

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The users only see their own preferences, their personalized recommendations and locations of colleagues, if they/their colleagues gave their consent. To execute all of this, the users will need a personal account. The overall software will be the same for every client. Only the floor layout needs to be adjusted for different buildings. To do this an actual map of the building has to be programmed into the software. The only technical limitation of Flexio is the accuracy of the sound level measurement. The measured sound level is extremely dependent on the distance from a sound source and the surroundings the station is placed in. Flexio offers advice to its users were their optimal work environment is situated in the workspace. This is different from existing products which aim to optimize the environment. In order for these products to work, changes in the building are needed. The implementation of Flexio on the other hand is non-invasive, since the stations can be placed in any outlet. Thanks to the indication light, a broken station can easily be detected and replaced. Flexio has two unique selling points; the first is that users can give their own input. Because of this, Flexio is a more personalized product compared to similar products. The second is that users can see the location of co-workers. 2.2 Make – or – buy In order to make this service work the best way possible, we will have to work with external partners. Our core business is providing a service which helps companies to use their flexible workspaces to the fullest. Since the stations are just a tool to provide this service and making them should not be our main focus, we will outsource the development and manufacturing of the stations, this will improve their quality and lower the price. Making the app, selling the service, marketing etc. will be done in-house.

The stations will be outsourced to contract manufacturers. In this manner a huge investment in equipment, personnel and process technology is avoided. Also, outsourcing helps us to determine a fixed price that we are willing to lose for realising these stations, the affordable loss principle. The contract manufacturers have the advantage of operating on a large scale and in low-wage countries, which leads to lower production costs. So, just like for example Apple (Kanematsu, 2017), we will let our hardware be made by an external partner in low-wage countries like China. Due to outsourcing we will get a fixed number of devices for a fixed price. There will be no surprises and therefore the risk is much smaller than when the product is manufactured on our own. The downsides are the transportation costs and import taxes, but this does not outweigh the benefits. The free market makes it very easy and cheap to ship products from one side of the world to the other, especially overseas (Cargo, 2017). And import taxes that have to be paid in the EU on electronics are neglect able (Gronkvist, 2017). Making an app starts with setting a purpose and designing user friendly interface around it. Since the team of founders has experience in the field of designing apps, we are able to design the app ourselves. We will start with wire framing in order to lay out the content of the app and visualize the actions that can be made. The mock-up of the Flexio app can also be seen in section 2.3. Once a clear visualization of the app is made, our software employee will convert it in a real app. since it is a quite simple app, a software engineer should be able to make it in 4 to 6 weeks (Demi Kuit and Lars Hagendoorn (experienced app makers), personal communication, June 2, 2019). This will be significantly cheaper than outsourcing the app which would cost between 7,000 and 9,000 EUR (glamorous goat (app development company), personal

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communication, June 5, 2018). It also comes with the advantage that our own employee has a full understanding of the app and can therefore make fast adjustments when necessary. At first we will do the marketing ourselves. However nobody in the team has a professional sales or marketing background. Therefore, to make the company grow faster, we might need to hire employees with experience in marketing at a later stage. The same holds for administrational and financial tasks which we can execute on a small scale but not when the company starts growing. In time more and more specialised employees will have to be hired, or trainings should be followed by the team of founders in order to fulfil specific functions. However, this will only be necessary if our business starts booming, for now the 6 founders and a software engineer are more than sufficient to fulfil all the tasks. 2.3 Financial plan Investments in infrastructure Investments are needed to get Flexio started. Not everything can be leased or rented so some materials will have to be purchased. A laptop (Coolblue(A), 2018) for every employee is an absolute must since it is a crucial tool in order to fulfill their tasks. Also, 7 desks (Inofec(A), sd), office chairs (Inofec(B), sd), desk lamps (Ikea, 2018), waste bins (Inofec(C), sd) and a printer (Coolblue(B), 2018)should be purchased to furnish the office space. The development work for the stations will be done by an external engineering company, this will bring a cost of 7,500 euros (Meuleman electronics, Appendix D interview 6). With these plans, the product can be manufactured. An overview of all these investments can be found in table 1. Since the expected lifetime of the laptops, printer and the development of the stations is five years, those products will be laniary depreciated over 5 years. The office

materials are more durable and will therefore be depreciated over 10 years.

Table 3 overview of investments that will be made and the depreciation period

Fixed costs Fixed infrastructure costs include the rent of the office space, gas water and electricity (Verbouwkosten, 2018) at the office and internet and telephony at the office. The office space we have in mind is situated in Eindhoven and offers space for 7 employees (Funda, 2018). A standard business offer from Ziggo (Ziggo, 2018) is taken to provide the office with internet and telephony. The costs for human resources consist of one employee, a software engineer (Software Engineer worden: Competenties, Opleidingen, Vacatures en Salaris, sd), who will make the app during the first two months and will afterwards maintain the whole system and connect new customers to the system. This employee is crucial since no one in the team of founders has experience with making software. The team of founders will not have a fixed salary, but will be paid if profit is made. The operational costs include two leased cars, one for the sales team and one for the installation team. A leasing contract for two Dacia Sandero's including fuel (DirectLease, 2018) seems to be the cheapest solutions for this. The marketing costs are, according to Gartner

What Costs Depreciation time (years)

monthly cost

Development cost stations

€ 7,500

5 € 125

Desks (7) € 1,260

10 € 10.5

Office chairs (7)

€ 2,310

10 € 19.25

Waste bins (2) € 180 10 € 1.5 Desk lamp (7) € 70 10 € 0.60 Printer € 167 5 € 2.78 Laptops (7) €

6,300 5 € 105

Total € 27,800

264.63

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lay, around 10.7 percent of the yearly revenue (Mönning, 2014). Thus the marketing costs can only be roughly estimated. An complete overview of the monthly fixed costs are displayed in table2.

Table 2 overview of investments that will be made and the depreciation period

Variable costs The variable costs are determined by the material and manufacturing costs per product. Like the development costs, also the manufacturing labour costs are estimated after a conversation with Meuleman Electronics. The variable costs per product are defined by a fixed cost per hour that will be spent working on an order, this is 225 euros and we estimate that 25 products can be made per hour (Meuleman electronics, appendix interview 6) which leads to a cost of 10 euros per product. The material costs, which we calculated ourselves, are 9 euros (appendix B). This makes the total costs of the stations 19 euros. Economize Some fixed costs can be eliminated, but this will lead to suboptimal working conditions. The proposed savings should therefore only be executed if no other options are available. The accommodation for 7 people is a big cost. It entails not only the rent but also electricity, gas, office materials and internet costs. In the first stage of the company we can choose to work from home, this will lead to a saving of almost 3,000 euros, which is a huge part of our

total fixed costs. Nevertheless, saving that money has also it downsides. When not having an office it is much harder to have good communication between employees, since you are not working in the same space. In order to have meetings, a meeting room should be hired or someone should make his/her house available. The company would also be less visible and clients could not be invited in a professional work environment. The company will lose credibility because of the lack of professional means. This can also lead to the failure of hiring a good software engineer, since he might think that it is not a serious company or does not want to work at home. As a happy medium we could rent a smaller office space with a meeting room and an office for the external employee. This way, the cost for the accommodation can drastically decline without losing a professional reputation. Whether the laptops and cars are necessary is also a question that can be asked, but since they are important working tools we consider them as a necessary cost. For all the employees, a computer is the main tool in order to execute work. In extreme conditions the choice can be made to only deliver a laptop to the external employee. Also private cars can be used in order to get to clients, but that is only applicable to the team of founders since they are responsible for the company, you cannot ask an external employee to use private resources for the company's advantage without payment. So, little savings can be made here.

3. Situation analysis 3.1 SWOT Strengths Flexio has several strengths, which are favourable. First, the startup team for Flexio is quite diverse, since most team

What Monthly costs Software engineer salary € 3,000 Founders salary € 0 Office space € 1,625 Gas, water and electricity € 1,222 Internet and calling costs € 49 2 cars € 480 Marketing € 500 Total 6,866

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members have different backgrounds. This makes that we only have to hire a software developer and outsource the hardware development in order to realize Flexio. Outsourcing the hardware has the advantage of letting the work be done by professionals which saves time since they will be doing it faster than we could. Also the software developer is a professional, so the time-to-market is very short by making use of outsourcing the hardware development and hiring a software developer since they are very skilled and make Flexio saleable within two months (Demi Kuit and Lars Hagendoorn (experienced app makers), personal communication, June 2, 2019). It also saves costs because we can focus on other activities in the company. The team is relatively small, which means there is no need for big offices in the startup phase which saves a lot of money. Furthermore, Flexio allows users to give input. By doing this Flexio will become a personalized product, which is favourable for selling numbers because personalized products are more likely to be bought (Moon, J., Chadee, D., & Tikoo, S., 2008). At last, Flexio gives a recommendation for the best work spot and is not a system that creates an optimal workspace. This leads to the benefit of not having to change the building and invest in expensive systems, but the employer can leave the building as it is and use Flexio to improve the satisfaction and efficiency of the employees. Weaknesses Some of Flexio’s strengths can also turn out to be weaknesses in the end. Although the Flexio startup team has a diverse skill set, we lack the experience of software and hardware development. Because the development of the app will not be outsourced, a software developer needs to be hired. This employee needs to have experience in app development and maintenance. Another weakness of Flexio is

that the production of the measuring stations needs to be outsourced. Therefore we will always rely on the company which we will be outsourcing to. Even though we have a small team and no big office space is needed, the biggest weakness of Flexio is the high startup costs. Before Flexio can be sold, the measuring stations have to be produced, the app should be developed and all other fixed costs (see section 2.3) have to be paid each month. In order to pay the startup costs, the company needs an investment of 70,000 euros. Getting a loan is unlikely since we have no guarantees. After one year, we should be able to pay all costs with the money earned from selling Flexio. Additionally, there will be a low marketing budget at the start, which means Flexio will have trouble getting publicity and this makes it harder to find new customers. The team of founders will not have a fixed salary, but will be paid from the profit that is made. If there is no profit, there is no income, so this is another weakness regarding the negative financial predictions. Opportunities One of Flexio’s opportunities is that it is different from its competitors. Products that already exist for flexible workspaces are primarily focused on giving recommendations where to sit depending on which desk is available. An example of such system is iospot (questionnaire 4, W. van Schie). These products fail to include the personal preferences about the work environment of the employees combined with a notification where their co-workers are. Other competitors are trying to create a perfect workspace by for example thermoregulation which is not only one-size-fits-all, but also requires office spaces to invest in very expensive systems to regulate air quality, temperature and light for example. Flexio does not require any changes to the building and advices users depending on their personal preferences.

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Since Flexio’s concept does not exist yet, a patent can be applied on it, which again decreases the amount of competitors since they will not be able to copy the exact concept. This is a threat at the same time since patents are very expensive. Another opportunity is that the global market for flexible workspaces is worth 19 billion euros and is still growing (Swift, 2018), which shows that the market for Flexio is also growing since we are targeting companies with flexible workspaces. Threats However, the rapidly growing market will also result in threats. Because of the huge market, more businesses will come up with creative solutions for the problems that flexible workplaces encounter. Therefore Flexio should try to grow fast and needs to keep innovating and be aware of the competition. Applying for a patent would belittle this problem but is very expensive so the investment needs to be bigger for this. Another threat is the willingness of the customer to pay for Flexio. From the questionnaires it resulted that most customers would be willing to pay 20 - 50 euros a month, which does not match the price of 19 euros per month per stations (companies will be needing 12 stations on average). Even if we would find enough customers this will be no guarantee for success, since the threat of not meeting their expectations and losing customers also exists.

Figuur 4 Over view SWOT analysis

3.2 Porter’s 5 forces model Competitive rivalry The largest operators in providing services for flexible workspaces, like Cushman & Wakefield, control more than 34 percent of the market (Instant, 2018). It is a case of a market with big market leaders, so it will be tough to enter and get a share of the market. These big leaders offer flexible workspace related products which are personalized for their customers. Our services can be easily executed by them and added to their own services, a partnership would therefore be beneficial for us. One disadvantage that the big market leaders have is that most of their services have to be bought or hired for at least five years. We want to lower this threshold by offering the possibility to rent our product for a minimum of six months. The six months are needed in order to earn back the investment we made to set up the service at the customer's office and making the app work for that company, this includes making accounts for all users. Furthermore, this time is also needed to let employees experience the benefits of our service, this can’t be done in one month. Threat of substitution The threat of substitution consists out of two threats. Firstly, Flexio can easily be obtained in other products or services. When a company let’s one major market leader build their flexible workspace and they want the service that Flexio offers, the builder might include the service himself. Because their business is larger they might be able to deliver the same service but cheaper. Another threat is that employees will learn which room they find the most pleasant, and meet up with their colleagues in that room. So basically a situation where office workers would go back to a situation of fixed places in offices. This would make Flexio unnecessary.

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Threat of new entry The threat of new entrants is big. Even though some startups stagnate because of the high startup costs and the knowledge that is required, a lot of companies will be trying to compete with the services that Flexio delivers. The number of flexible workspaces is growing fast and its market is growing along with it. This makes it an interesting topic for other designers and companies to work on and create products for. Especially large companies can easily compete with Flexio since they have more assets and can therefore even beat Flexio’s services. Supplier power The supplier power is relatively small. For the production of the measuring stations Flexio is dependant on contract manufacturers. The concept is also not very complicated which gives suppliers the possibility to become a competitor, but we can protect ourselves from that by patents and having the Intellectual Property. The sensors can be easily switched from one brand to another. It is a possibility to have contracts with the sensor producers, so the sensors can be bought cheaper and in larger amounts. When buying big amounts of sensors and having contracts with sensor suppliers, the supplier power will increase since the switching costs get high due to the contract. When switching costs are high, the supplier can easily increase their price since they do not expect us to switch to another supplier (Swift, 2018). Buyer power The buyer power consist out of several components. Every buyer needs different amounts of measuring stations. This might result in buyers negotiating about the prices, when they purchase large amounts. Buyers might also not see the relevance of Flexio, which results in low sales numbers. From our questionnaire we see that 90.24 percent sees potential in Flexio, but even that number is depending on the price they

would have to pay (Appendix D). The buyers might also already be the customer of other flexible workspace products providers. If they offer the same service the buyer might be inclined to stay their customer, because they are familiar with doing business with them. Mister M. Dassen (CEO), stated that he has very personal and strong relationships with all his partners, and that he would only switch if there would be a very big difference in quality or price of a replaceable product (Appendix D, interview 5). Conclusion From the SWOT analysis combined with the Porter’s 5 forces model, it can be concluded that Flexio’s strengths are subjected to its weaknesses. The startup costs are so high that large investments are needed. Combined with the external threats that are quite big, the chance of success for Flexio is small. The service which Flexio delivers can easily be delivered by the current market leaders. They have bigger budgets and more customers, which increases their chances at success and makes their position more stable.

4. Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning

4.1 Segment Flexio brings benefits to the working environment of companies. Therefore the

Figuur 5 Porter's 5 forces model

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only parties interested in our product will be companies. They can benefit from our product since it will improve the productivity of their employees. The market can be segmented into companies with and without office spaces. For companies with an office space it is important to specify the size of the office and where their employees work. Office size will be segmented based on the amount of employees. Their employees can have either fixed or flexible desks. Some companies also allow their employees to work from outside the office. 4.2 Target The companies will need an office space were the employees are free to choose their work space, otherwise Flexio’s service cannot be used. The more employees companies have, the larger the office building. If an office building is larger, our product will be more useful. Since the employees have a larger variety of working areas to choose from and it is more difficult to find colleagues. These companies will also need to purchase more stations and thus we will gain higher revenues from these companies. Therefore we have decided to focus on companies with at least ten employees. Since companies with less employees have almost no need for our product. These companies are so small that almost all working spaces are in the same room and thus there is no significant difference in the temperature and sound level. By handing out questionnaires to employers and employees, see Appendix D, it can be seen that both experienced difficulties in working with flexible workspaces. They have problems finding co-workers and free workspaces. Most do however see the benefits of flexible workspaces. Therefore they are interested in Flexio, since it deals with a lot of their difficulties. They are however not willing to pay more than 50 euros per month for our

service since it is an extra and not a necessity. In the Netherlands our target group has a market share of 2 to 3 percent which will increase to 5 to 10 percent in the coming 5 years (Briskmagazine, 2018). Thus in the coming 5 years the total amount of targetable companies can be almost 6,598 companies in the Netherlands alone (statistiek, 2018). On average each company will need about 12 stations and thus the total market will exist of 79,176 stations which can be rented (M, 2017). In the startup phase, only Dutch companies will be targeted since we can easier relate to these companies, and fulfil their needs. According to our questionnaires these companies are interested in Flexio. They are however not willing to pay a lot of money for the service. 4.3 Position Flexio will be positioned as a kind of subscription to our service with a minimum of 6 months. Customers will rent the stations and the app will be free to use. If any of the systems malfunction, companies can contact us and we will fix the problem. We have chosen to offer our product in this manner since it will enable companies to try out the product without needing a big investment. Also, it will give the client a better service since they can always count on us and Flexio as a company will have a more reliably income. As explained before, the Netherlands counts 6,598 potential customers and sequentially 79,176 stations. According to our questionnaires 90.24 percent of the employers/employees are interested in Flexio but only 65 percent is willing to pay around 20 euros for it. This reduces the amount of customers to 3,956. We are however not able to deliver our product at this price and at such a large scale. Companies will on average need around 12 stations, which will add up to be more than 50 euros. Since for lower prices our

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company will not be profitable. According to the questionnaire only 2 percent of the companies is willing to pay more than 50 euros. Therefore, our goal is to acquire this 2 percent of the market in the first two years. This will correlate to 133 customers and thus 1,596 stations. Based on these numbers and the costs, discussed in section 2.4, Flexio will cost 15 euros per stations per month. We will assume that we will linearly acquire more customers. After five years we will have a market share of five percent if we take into account that not all customers will maintain their subscription so therefore the increase of customers will be less after two years. But on the other hand the number of new customers could increase due to the growth of the market and brand awareness, but to make this happen, more money would have to be invested in marketing. In appendix A figure 2 an estimation of the amount of customers of Flexio for the first five years can be found. In order to fulfil our goal and get a loyal base of monthly paying customers without running out of cash, we need an investment of 70,000 euros. Without this money the company will not be able to survive the first year. During the first two months, all fixed costs will have to be paid, but no profit will be made, because the app still has to be developed by the software engineer. Potential customers can however already be contacted. Thus the first subscriptions will be signed in the third month. Since the product will not be sold but rented, the product has to be rented for more than two months before the variable costs are earned back. All this causes the first profit to only be made in the 10th month. In appendix A figure 3 the estimated revenues and net profit are displayed. By calculating the estimated total net profit after three years and knowing the invested amount of money, the return on investments (ROI) can be determined. An

investment of 70,000 euros is required and after three years a total net profit of 663,916 euros will be made. Therefore the ROI is 948.45 percent. So this investment can be very lucrative, but also holds risks, there are no certainties about the amount of customers that Flexio will be able to get and unexpected costs can always occur. Also salary has to be paid to the founders with the net profit and therefore the remaining profit will be lower. More customers can be acquired by using pricing strategies. The first strategy which we can adapt is to give discounts if customers decide to purchase Flexio for longer periods of time or if larger amounts of stations are rented. A second strategy is to have sale actions in which the first e.g. three months are cheaper or even free. Finally instead of selling Flexio as a monthly price per station it can be sold as a monthly price per employee or room which uses Flexio. In doing so the customers can become more aware of the actual use of our product. These pricing strategies will not immediately be used but can later on be adopted if more customers need to be acquired. Flexio will be promoted using social media and by personally approaching businesses. In the beginning of the startup personal connections to companies will be used to acquire the first customers. In order to acquire more customers, construction companies can be offered a discount on our product if they suggest using our product to their customers. If we start making profit, 10.7 percent of the revenue will be invested in marketing (Mönning, 2014). This way our amount of customers keeps growing. Flexio differentiates itself from almost all competitors. In contrast to other products in this branch, our product advices employees instead of optimizing the office conditions. Flexio is also one of the few products which deals with the sound levels of the working environment. It also shows

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the locations of colleagues, which no other products really do.

5. Business model

Value proposition Flexio helps companies with flexible workspaces who want to create the best possible work environment for their employees by measuring noise level, temperature and locating colleagues in order to propose and optimal workspace for each employee. We can split this value proposition into two separate propositions for employer and employee. We offer employers more satisfied employees that make efficient use of the office spaces. To employees we offer the optimal work environment depending on their preferences and selection of colleagues. Customer segment We will be targeting medium to large companies with office workers that have flexible workspaces. These companies do not require the presence of thermo- and sound regulating systems in the office. Our stations can measure these things themselves, our goal is a recommendation, not regulation. So the temperature and sound level will not be actively changed, but employees will be directed to the

optimal spot according to their preferences. Customer relationship The service will be sold business to business. The employers are the paying customer. They want productive and happy employees who use the flexible workspace as efficiently as possible, these advantages are their incentives to implement and pay for Flexio. So, we do not sell our product to our end user, the employees of companies with flexible workspaces, but instead we have to convince the employers that our product has value for them through their employees. In contrast to many everyday products, the paying customer is not the same as the user. Cost structure The variable cost price is 19 euros per station. Next to that also fixed cost are made. The salary of the software developer takes a big stand in the cost structure since Flexio will not be realized without this person. The office including all office materials is also part of the costs structure. At last, the marketing costs are very important. To take a big stand in the market, promotion and therefore an increasing number of customers will be needed, so we will have to invest in marketing. A more detailed overview of the costs can be find in the technical feasibility section. Key partners Hardware developers and contract manufacturers are the key partners for Flexio. They are necessary in order to get the stations developed and built. Also investors will be needed to get Flexio started. Key activities The key activities of the company will be to find new customers, sell our product to them and keep them satisfied by providing an excellent service. Also, the app has to be built and maintained. When new customers

Figuur 6 Business model

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are signed, stations has to be installed in their office space and they should be connected to the system and linked to the profiles in the app of their employees. Channels The channels through which we will be reaching the customers will mostly be personal contact. The reason for this is customer satisfaction and building a strong relationship with them in order to make them choose our company whenever competitors show up. We want to build trust to take a bigger stand in the market. We can also be found through a website which will also provide more information on the product and company. Besides that we will be making use of social media such as LinkedIn since this is a cheap way of gaining brand awareness and new customers in the period that we have low budget for marketing. Key resources Flexio’s main key resource is a software engineer. He or she is very important in order to develop and maintain the service. Also the knowledge about the stations and their functionality, but also on design and sales is a key resource. These expertise’s are all needed to get Flexio to market and maintain the services. Revenue streams The revenue from the product/service comes from a monthly fee, this will be 15 euros per station. This monthly fee will result in a constant incoming flow of money. This is necessary since we do not only provide a product, but also the app which will need regular updates. If we would choose for a one-time payment instead, this would lead to the risk of earning no money in months that we do not have any new customers and earning too little money to maintain the service. Since we can only make rough estimations of our market, we do not want to take the risk of not finding multiple customers every

month and therefore have no income. The monthly fee will be sold as a subscription with a minimum of 6 months. These six months are needed to earn back the investment of adjusting the app for that specific company, and for the placing of the stations. The subscriptions contain packages that depend on the number of stations that are bought. For every space there is a recommended amount of stations depending on the square meters of the space. With the money that lasts after paying all the costs and our salaries, cash flow can be created. Cash flow is the incoming money minus the outgoing money. It is very important for a business to have an accurate cash flow because it gives an overview of the amount of money a business receives above the amount it spends, so how economically stable the company is. Receiving more money than you spend means you can pay all your bills. Besides that you can also make use of cash flow by paying your suppliers in cash and ask interest for this. The price will be 15 euros per station per month, and depending on the size of the office, the customer will buy a specific amount of stations. The price of the app downloads and usage is included in this amount. This will lead to an income of 15*X euros (X=total amount of rented stations) per month. As shown in the calculations which can be found in Appendix C, the net profit during the first years will be negative, so no salary will be paid to the teams of founders. In the second year, a net profit of 238,546 euros is estimated situation. We are with 6 people in our team, so that means we would be able to give ourselves a salary of maximum 3,313 euros per month. In the following years the net profit keeps increasing (Appendix C). Although it is not realistic to distribute all the profit between the team of founders as salaries, since the investor

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has to be able to make money out of his investment.

6. Conclusion From the exploration of the business opportunities of Flexio, multiple conclusions can be made. First of all there is just one technical limitation for Flexio, which is the accuracy of the sound level measurements. Secondly it is more beneficial to outsource the production of the stations and let the app be developed by an in-house software employee. Thirdly the strengths are subjected to the weaknesses and external threats are quite big. For existing bigger companies in the field of flexible workplaces, it is relatively easy to implement our idea; with far bigger funds, a customer base and more knowledge and experience in the development of new products. Besides, the budget that is left for advertisement does not suffice, which could be solved by door to door advertisement, directly targeting the target group. This is still very costly though, and incredibly time consuming. On the other hand the estimated return on investment is very high. Finally it can be concluded that the risk of having a negative cash flow is highly present because the chance on not acquiring the estimated customers is quite large. Since the sources on which the estimated customers are based are not very accurate. Overall we can conclude that our product would not be financially stable. If the estimated two percent of companies we aim to reach within the first two years is not exceeded, it will take too much time and money to make profit on a longer term. This makes it risky for investor to invest in Flexio and without the investors, Flexio cannot get started. Another problem is that the service delivered by Flexio is an extra, not a necessity, which lessens the probability of gaining clients. Furthermore the profit made, will be used to pay a salary to the

team of founders, if this happened only a small part of the profit will be left and that will make it less interesting for investors. Having no salary as a founder of a startup in the first year is not rare. Before Flexio could be implemented a lot of additionairy research would have to be done, to possibly tackle those issues that would cause bankruptcy. To improve the quality of the research, and to support the estimated 2 and 5 percent, several startups can be contacted. To ask them about their experience on company growth and the challenges they encountered during the starting phase. More research can be done in general; the amount of interviewees improves the quality of research. Also, a field-study can be be done, where office workers in flexible workspaces are thoroughly analysed, to map all the downsides that come with working in such an environment.

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Bentley. (2014, November 11). Millennials at Work. Opgehaald van Bentley University: https://www.bentley.edu/newsroom/latest-headlines/mind-of-millennial

Brennan Jr, T. E. (2010). Influence of Vertical Sensor Placement on Data Collection Efficiency from Bluetooth MAC Address Collection Devices. Journal of Transportation Engineering, Vol. 136, Issue 12. Opgehaald van http://www.enoisecontrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/sound_survey_HVAC_noise.pdf

Briskmagazine. (2018, June 6). Flexibele kantoorconcepten gaan kantorenmarkt structureel veranderen. Opgehaald van https://www.briskmagazine.nl/nieuws/5366/flexibele-kantoorconcepten-gaan-kantorenmarkt-structureel-veranderen.html

Cargo, F. C. (2017, June 15). China Sea Freight Shipping – Everything You Need to Know. Opgehaald van https://cargofromchina.com/sea-freight/#cost

Coolblue(A). (2018). Lenovo Thinkpad E580 i5-8gb-256ssd-1tbhdd. Opgehaald van Coolblue: https://www.coolblue.nl/product/813674/lenovo-thinkpad-e580-i5-8gb-256ssd-1tbhdd.html

Coolblue(B). (2018). HP OfficeJet Pro 8715 e-All-in-One (K7S37A). Opgehaald van

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DirectLease. (2018). Dacia Sandero 1.0 SCe 75 Sandero (5d) 73pk. Opgehaald van https://directlease.be/DLBe/nl/contractconfig.do?carTypeId=202491

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Funda. (2018). Poirterslaan 26 Eindhoven. Opgehaald van https://www.fundainbusiness.nl/kantoor/eindhoven/object-49272577-poirterslaan-26/

Gronkvist, F. (2017, February 5). Customs & Taxes When Importing from China: A Complete Guide. Retrieved from chinaimportal. Opgehaald van https://www.chinaimportal.com/blog/customs-taxes-importing-china-ultimate-guide/

How Much & Which Building Materials Block Cellular & WiFi Signals? (2017, October 10). Opgehaald van Retrieved from signalbooster:: https://www.signalbooster.com/blogs/news/how-much-which-building-materials-block-cellular-wifi-signals

Ikea. (2018). Tertial. Opgehaald van https://www.ikea.com/be/nl/producten/verlichting/bureaulampen/tertial-bureaulamp-wit-art-70355455/

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http://www.inofec.be/bureaustoelen/bureaustoel-lightup

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Instant. (2018). Annual US market summary. Opgehaald van Instant group: https://www.theinstantgroup.com/media/1603/us-flexible-workspace-review-2018-final.pdf

Instruments, T. (2017). Dallas: Texas Instruments. Opgehaald van LM35 Precision Centigrade Temperature Sensors: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm35.pdf

Kanematsu, Y. (2017, July 13). Foxconn, Apple and the partnership that changed the tech sector. Opgehaald van https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Foxconn-Apple-and-the-partnership-that-changed-the-tech-sector

M, D. G. (2017, July 20). Hoeveel m2 kantoorruimte heb je nodig? Opgehaald van https://www.flexas.nl/blog/hoeveel-m2-kantoorruimte-heb-je-nodig

Mönning, P. H. (2014, November 5). Hoe bepaal je je marketing budget voor 2017? . Opgehaald van Dutchmarq: https://dutchmarq.nl/hoe-bepaal-je-je-marketing-budget-voor-2017/

Moon, J., Chadee, D., & Tikoo, S. (2008). Culture, product type, and price influences on consumer purchase intention to buy personalized products online. Journal of Business Research, 61(1), 31-39.

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Robles, R. (2014). Tiny, Low-Cost, Single/Dual-Input, Fixed-Gain microphone amplifiers with integrated bias. San Jose: Maxim Intergrated products, inc:. Opgehaald van https://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/MAX9812-MAX9813L.pdf

Software Engineer worden: Competenties, Opleidingen, Vacatures en Salaris. (sd). Opgehaald van Nationaleberoepengids: https://www.nationaleberoepengids.nl/Software_Engineer

statistiek, C. b. (2018, April 20). Bedrijven; bedrijfstak. Opgehaald van https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/81589ned/table?ts=1528741301381

Stopel, P. G. (2018). De opkomst van flexibele kantoorconcepten.

Swift, P. (2018). Why is there so much more choice in flexible workspace and what value does this represent to your business? Instant group.

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Verbouwkosten. (2018). Energiekosten kantoor | Vergelijken en besparen op de energie bedrijfspand (kengetallen per m2). Opgehaald van https://www.verbouwkosten.com/energiekosten-kantoor/

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Ziggo. (2018). Zakelijk alles in 1. Opgehaald van https://www.ziggo.nl/zakelijk/alles-in-1/

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Appendix Appendix A

Figure 1 shows the pop-ups the users get in the first two weeks. They can enter their preferences by simply selecting one of the three options. There will be both notification for the temperature as the noise level.

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Figure 2 is an estimation of the amount of customers of Flexio is displayed for the first years.

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Figure 3 Estimated revenue and net profit during the first 5 years.

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Appendix B

What Costs per product MAX9812 Microphone Amplifier Module with microphone € 1.24 LM35 TO-92 Thermometer Temperature Sensor € 0.50 Plug adapter € 4.00 WIFI board € 3.28 ABS black for case € 0.01 Production costs € 10 Total € 19

Table 3 The variable costs. Consists out of noise and temperature sensors, a plug adapter, a Wi-Fi board, ABS black for the case and the production costs per product.

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Appendix C

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Appendix D

Interview 1

Name: David Young (employer) Date: 28 may 2018

This questionnaire concerns working with flexible workspaces. It is part of a research of students of the TU/e to improve working with flexible workplaces.

The company you work for uses flexible workspaces;

Do you experience benefits of flexible workspaces? If yes, which ones?

Yes, we work with a lot of freelancers and they feel themselves less ‘awkward’ in the company when nobody has fixed spots.

Do you experience downsides of flexible workspaces? If yes, which ones?

Yes, sometimes there is not enough room for everybody because there is no clear overview of the amount of places.

How often do you change your working place/desk? (This can be daily, but also less frequently)

Almost never.

For which reasons do you change your working place?

Because my regular spot is already occupied.

What are your reasons to not change working places?

My coworkers, with who I need to work, are located nearby.

Do you have a fixed group of people who you need to work with? If yes, do you always sit near to each other?

Yes and we always sit near each other.

Concerning the amount of noise and the thermal comfort around your office;

Are you satisfied with the amount of noise around your working space? Think about chatter, background noise etc.

In our office it is always very quiet. For communications/meetings we have separate meeting rooms.

Are you satisfied with the temperature in your workplace?

The temperature is fine. We have thermal regulation.

Do you prefer working in silence, with minor background noise or with a lot of background noise?

I prefer silent rooms. I sometimes use headphones to cancel background noise.

Which temperature you find comfortable to work in? Do you like warm or cold spaces?

I prefer a temperature around 20 degrees.

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If there is an app which would give recommendations at which desk, within the company, you can sit best, based on your preferences of temperature, noise and locations of coworkers. Would you use this? Why?

The idea seems nice, but in fact I already always sit with the same coworkers. I would like to use the app to determine if there are enough desks for freelancers to use that day.

How much would you be willing to pay for the service?

Not much, because it is an extra and it is not really necessary. Maximal 50 euros a month. It is difficult…

Thank you for filling in this questionnaire.

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Interview 2

Name: Maxime Dassen (Employee) Date: 28 may 2018

This questionnaire concerns working with flexible workspaces. It is part of a research of students of the TU/e to improve working with flexible workplaces.

The company you work for uses flexible workspaces;

Do you experience benefits of flexible workspaces? If yes, which ones?

I think it is nice to have a different division of workplaces every week.

Do you experience downsides of flexible workspaces? If yes, which ones?

Yes, sometimes there is not enough room for everybody because there is no clear overview of the amount of places. Also sometimes people who work together are mixed which is inconvenient.

How often do you change your working place/desk? (This can be daily, but also less frequently)

Every time I come to work. (which is ones a week)

For which reasons do you change your working place?

Because my regular spot is already occupied.

What are your reasons to not change working places?

I find it annoying to adjust my chair and the desk in height.

Do you have a fixed group of people who you need to work with? If yes, do you always sit near to each other?

Yes, I am working in the marketing/sales/design team. So I am working more with them than with for example the engineers.

Concerning the amount of noise and the thermal comfort around your office;

Are you satisfied with the amount of noise around your working space? Think about chatter, background noise etc.

In our office it is always very quiet, but personally I like if there is some background noise.

Are you satisfied with the temperature in your workplace?

No, it is always very cold. When it is very warm outside I need to wear a jacket, because it is so cold. The thermal regulation is set at the optimal temperature, but that is not optimal for me.

Do you prefer working in silence, with minor background noise or with a lot of background noise?

I prefer a little bit of background noise.

Which temperature you find comfortable to work in? Do you like warm or cold spaces?

I prefer a temperature around 22 degrees. I am often cold.

If there is an app which would give recommendations at which desk, within the company, you can sit best, based on your preferences of temperature, noise and locations of coworkers. Would you use this? Why?

It seems handy, because I am always cold and I like working with certain coworkers.

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How much would you be willing to pay for the service?

Difficult to say. Not much because it is something extra, maximal 20 euros a month.

Thank you for filling in this questionnaire.

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Interview 3

Name: Willeke Wissink - Seevinck (Employee) Date: 28 may 2018

This questionnaire concerns working with flexible workspaces. It is part of a research of students of the TU/e to improve working with flexible workplaces.

The company you work for uses flexible workspaces;

Do you experience benefits of flexible workspaces? If yes, which ones?

Much contact with all the departments in the office.

Do you experience downsides of flexible workspaces? If yes, which ones?

Every time I need to adjust my chair/desk. Not every desk has a appropriately working docking station.

How often do you change your working place/desk? (This can be daily, but also less frequently)

Daily.

For which reasons do you change your working place?

To maintain contact with different disciplines within the company. It is handy to keep the contact ‘warm’.

What are your reasons to not change working places?

Not having to adjust my chair/desk every day.

Do you have a fixed group of people who you need to work with? If yes, do you always sit near to each other?

Yes, our group (web team consisting out of 7 people) works together every day and we change rooms daily. We work two days a week in a big office space and three days in a somewhat smaller space.

Concerning the amount of noise and the thermal comfort around your office;

Are you satisfied with the amount of noise around your working space? Think about chatter, background noise etc.

I work in flexplaces in a big office space, this is not very quiet. However, the workplaces are arranged in such a way that background noise is not too annoying. On top of that are our coworker social, we take each other into account.

Are you satisfied with the temperature in your workplace?

No I am not satisfied. The installations were originally in small office spaces but some walls are removed…

Do you prefer working in silence, with minor background noise or with a lot of background noise?

I appreciate both situations, no preference.

Which temperature you find comfortable to work in? Do you like warm or cold spaces?

I am sooner warm than cold. 20 degrees is a fine temperature.

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If there is an app which would give recommendations at which desk, within the company, you can sit best, based on your preferences of temperature, noise and locations of coworkers. Would you use this? Why?

It seems handy. But all members in the team adjust to each other. There are clear rules where we sit on which day.

How much would you be willing to pay for the service?

I prefer a free app, I understand the developers want to make money out of it. It is difficult, I have no idea…

Thank you for filling in this questionnaire.

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Interview 4

This correspondent did not fill in the questionnaire, but he did indicate why he stopped working with flexible workplaces.

Hoi emma Flexibel werken gaf veel onrust en gedoe. De meeste mensen die hier werken hebben een vaste taak en vaste uren. Dit werkt het best op een vaste plek is onze ervaring. Daarnaast wilden we niet meer alle verschillende functies door elkaar heen, maar weer clusters waar afdelingen samen zaten. Dus commerciële mensen bij commerciële, financiële bij financiële etc. etc. De buitendienst en directie hebben geen vaste plekken, die schuiven gewoon aan waar plek is. Onze collega’s van Drente hebben wel systeem om flexibele werkplekken te reserveren. Dit is: https://iotspot.co/ Hier worden wel bijvoorbeeld vergaderruimtes gepland en gereserveerd. Met vriendelijke groeten, | With kind regards, | Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Wim van Schie (Eromes)

Translated:

Hey Emma,

Flexible working places resulted in a lot of agitation and hassle. The people who work here have fixed tasks and hours. In our experience this works best when everyone has a fixed place. Besides we did not wanted people with different functions working together, we wanted clusters with all a separate division. So commercial people with each other, financial people with each other etc. The direction members do not have fixed places, they can go sit where there is room. Our colleagues in Drente do have a system to reserve a flexible workspace. See: https://iotspot.co/ Here meeting rooms can be reserved.

With kind regards,

Wim van Schie (Eromes)

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Interview 5

Name: Marc Dassen (employer, CEO Sitech Services) Date: 26 may 2018

This questionnaire concerns working with flexible workspaces. It is part of a research of students of the TU/e to improve working with flexible workplaces.

The company you work for uses flexible workspaces;

Do you experience benefits of flexible workspaces? If yes, which ones?

Yes I do. I like my employees to mix up which automatically happens with flexible workspaces. I don’t like them to work with the same colleagues every day.

Do you experience downsides of flexible workspaces? If yes, which ones?

No not really.

How often do you change your working place/desk? (This can be daily, but also less frequently)

I am not that often in the office but my employees switch every day.

For which reasons do you change your working place?

I just sit at the first sport that I find.

What are your reasons to not change working places?

Sometimes I leave my stuff on a desk, and then I want to sit at the same desk the day after.

Do you have a fixed group of people who you need to work with? If yes, do you always sit near to each other?

No.

Concerning the amount of noise and the thermal comfort around your office;

Are you satisfied with the amount of noise around your working space? Think about chatter, background noise etc.

There are always people chatting but I think this has to be like this because you are a team and have to collaborate by talking.

Are you satisfied with the temperature in your workplace?

We have temperature control systems, so yes.

Do you prefer working in silence, with minor background noise or with a lot of background noise?

With minor background sound.

Which temperature you find comfortable to work in? Do you like warm or cold spaces?

I think about 21 degrees.

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If there is an app which would give recommendations at which desk, within the company, you can sit best, based on your preferences of temperature, noise and locations of coworkers. Would you use this? Why?

Yes I think I would but I would still encourage my employees to mix up because they learn a lot from each other. For temperature it won’t really work for us since temperature is regulated but I like the idea.

How much would you be willing to pay for the service?

I think about 100 per month, max. Besides this I think you have to be very careful with this because I know other companies that already use apps for their flexible workspaces but they will not easily change to another system since it takes a lot of time. If I would be using one already I would only change if there is an enormous difference in price or quality since I have very close relationships with my partners which makes that I will not switch services very easy.

Thank you for filling in this questionnaire.

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Interview 6

Gijs Meuleman (CEO Meuleman Electronics) Date: 06-06-2016

-Explains Flexio concept- “Would your company be able to develop the hardware for this?

Yes for sure! This is our expertise so we could definitely do this.

How many time would you be needing to develop this and how much would it costs?

This is very hard to answer but if I compare it to other projects we did I can make some estimations. The development would be around 7500 considering the hours for testing, development and producing a prototype. After this we charge 225 euros per hour in which also material costs are included. To make a rough estimation we expect that 225 euros will be enough for producing 25 stations.

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Online questionnaire results

People who answered yes were asked to give an reason for this. The most common reasons where:

• Flexible workspaces are more interactive. • It is cheaper. • Less space needed. • Nice to be able to sit everywhere. • Easy to cooperate with other people. • Changes in working space. • Stimulates creativity when rotating the people you work with.

People who answered yes were asked to give an reason for this. The most common reasons where:

• Not enough room to sit with colleagues. • Not having your own place, need to move all your stuff around. • Not enough desks available.

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• Hard to find colleagues. • Sometimes to loudly. • Need to adjust my seat every time.

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Appendix E Interview 1 Interview with Demi Kuit and Lars Hagendoorn, both students who have experience in developing apps. We first told them about the Flexio and the app specifications. We explained all the functions the app should be able to fulfill. After that we asked them a couple questions: How long do you indicate that developing the app will take? Summary of the answer: The development of the database and API should be possible to realize within a week or two. However it depends on how much data there needs to be in the databases. Also a week or two is necessary for the visualization of the app, but you indicate that you want to design the app yourself so the software engineer should be able to finish this quite quickly. After the development of the app a week of two should be taken into account for testing and debugging. However this would be in a perfect world. I think two months is a realistic estimation. Are there costs which need to be taken into account when developing an app? Summary of the answer: It costs money to have an playstore/appstore account, so your app can be downloaded. The costs for the playstore are 25 dollar ones and for the appstore around 99 dollars a year. And of course the software engineer.

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Interview 2 This was an interview with glamorous goat, an app developer. The interview was done by email: Dear sir/madam, For a school assignment I need to calculate what it would cost to develop an app. The app should be available on android as well as on IOS. People should be able to create an individual profile, in which they can implement their preferences. After this a map should be created witch shows the user the best working spot. Can you give me an estimation on how much hours of work this would be and what the cost would be? Thanks. Kind regards, Arthur. Respond: Dear Arthur, Thank you for your message. I made a rough estimation and I would say the costs would be around 7 – 9 thousand euros for such an app. Kind regards, Jelle.