Títol: Building a collaboration network. A business opportunity analysis Autor: Albert Cordonet Peiró Data: 15 de Maig de 2013 Director: Dr. Pere Botella López Departament del director: Enginyeria de Serveis i Sistemes d’Informació Titulació: Enginyería Informàtica Superior Centre: Facultat d'Informàtica de Barcelona (FIB) Universitat: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) BarcelonaTech DADES DEL PROJECTE Títol del Projecte: Building a collaboration network. A business opportunity analysis Nom de l'estudiant: Albert Cordonet Peiró Titulació: Enginyeria Informàtica Superior Crèdits: 37,5 crèdits Director/Ponent: Dr. Pere Botella López Departament: Enginyeria de Serveis i Sistemes d’Informació MEMBRES DEL TRIBUNAL (NOM I SIGNATURA) President: Dr. Miguel Barceló García Vocal: Dr. Jose Ramon Herrero Zaragoza Secretari: Dr. Pere Botella López QUALIFICACIÓ Qualificació numérica: Qualificació descriptiva: Data: 15 de Maig de 2013 Building a collaboration network Architecture and business opportunity Albert Peiró 15/05/2013 Directed by Dr. Pere Botella Services & Information Systems Engineering Department Informatics Engineering (2003) Barcelona School of Informatics (FIB) Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) BarcelonaTech Derechos de Propiedad y Copia Todos los derechos reservados. La información contenida en este documento es confidencial. También puede ser propiedad o secreto comercial de Projey S.L. 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Projey is trademark of Projey S.L. “It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.” - Julius Caesar “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” - Thomas A. Edison “Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler.” - Albert Einstein “Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.” - Dale Carnegie Dedicated to my brothers Iban and Marc for supporting me on following my dreams, for listening to my ideas past midnight and for reminding me that users are people. To my mum Noemí, for believing in me more than I do and supporting everything I believe in. I love you all. Finally, thanks to all the teachers I had the opportunity to meet throughout my degree at UPC, Loughborough University and the UNITECH program. Your passion, enthusiasm and advice were humbling, inspirational and made be a better person, a proud engineer and a hungry entrepreneur. Building a collaboration network. A business opportunity analysis. Albert Cordonet Peiró Contents CONTENTS 11 INTRODUCTION 16 MOTIVATION 16 OBJECTIVES 16 STRUCTURE 17 BENEFITS 17 PLANNING 17 TIME LOG 19 TEAM 19 RESOURCES 20 APPLICATION DESIGN 22 OVERVIEW 22 DEFINITIONS 22 REQUIREMENTS 22 FUNCTIONAL 22 NON-FUNCTIONAL 22 USE CASES 23 ACTORS 23 USE CASES 23 HARDWARE / SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE 34 OVERVIEW 34 TRENDS ON MOBILE AND WEB DEVELOPMENT 34 FRONTEND SYSTEMS 35 WEB APPLICATION WITH BACKBONE.JS 35 BACKEND SYSTEMS 38 OVERVIEW 38 HARDWARE TECHNOLOGY 38 SERVER TECHNOLOGY 39 APPLICATION TECHNOLOGY 41 BUSINESS PLAN 46 PRELIMINARY DETAILS 46 CONTACT INFORMATION 46 PROFESSIONAL ADVISERS 46 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 47 THE COMPANY 47 THE PRODUCT 47 CORPORATE STRATEGY 47 FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS 47 CURRENT SITUATION 48 BASIC CORPORATE INFORMATION 48 VISION, MISSION, VALUES 48 BRIEF HISTORY AND CURRENT STATUS 48 LATEST FINANCIAL DATA 49 BUSINESS ORGANISATION 49 Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) BarcelonaTech 11 Building a collaboration network. A business opportunity analysis. Albert Cordonet Peiró PRODUCTS AND SERVICES 51 CORE COMPETENCIES 52 EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT 53 THE ECONOMY 53 MARKET ANALYSIS 54 COMPETITOR ANALYSIS 55 COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES 57 STRATEGY AND PLANS 59 OVERVIEW 59 OBJECTIVES 59 BUSINESS STRATEGY 59 OPERATING PLAN 59 REWARDS 61 FINANCIAL ANALYSIS 62 BREAKEVEN ANALYSIS 62 SALES PROJECTIONS 62 CAPITAL SPENDING 62 OPERATING COSTS 63 PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT 64 BALANCE SHEET 65 CASH FLOW AND FUNDING REQUIREMENTS 65 VALUATION 66 RISK ANALYSIS 67 SWOT – STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES, THREATS 67 LIMITING FACTORS 68 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS 69 ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS 69 SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS 70 CONCLUSIONS 72 ABOUT THE ARCHITECTURE 72 ABOUT THE BUSINESS PLAN 73 ABOUT THE PROJECT 74 TABLE OF REFERENCES 75 ANNEX A. WEB INTERFACE DESIGN 80 ANNEX A.1 LANDING 81 ANNEX A.2 MAIN STRUCTURE 82 ANNEX A.3 SEARCH HOME 83 ANNEX A.4 SEARCH LISTING 84 ANNEX A.5 PROFILE WIZARD 85 ANNEX A.6 USER PROFILE 86 ANNEX A.7 PROJECT DETAILS 87 ANNEX A.8 PROJECT APPLICATIONS 88 ANNEX A.9 PROJECT OFFERS 89 ANNEX A.10 PROJECT DELIVERY 90 ANNEX A.11 PROJECT PAYMENTS 91 ANNEX B. ARCHITECTURE DIAGRAMS 93 ANNEX B.1 CLIENT-SERVER-APPLICATION STRUCTURE 94 Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) BarcelonaTech 12 Building a collaboration network. A business opportunity analysis. Albert Cordonet Peiró ANNEX B.2 HARDWARE STRUCTURE 96 ANNEX C. DETAILED FINANCIAL DATA 97 ANNEX C.1 STATEMENTS 98 ANNEX C.2 CAPITAL OUTLAYS 99 ANNEX C.3 STAFF COSTS 100 ANNEX C.4 MANUFACTURING ACCOUNT 102 ANNEX C.5 TRADING ACCOUNT 103 ANNEX C.6 OPERATING ACCOUNT 104 ANNEX C.7 PROFIT & LOSS 105 ANNEX C.8 BALANCE SHEET 106 ANNEX C.9 INCOME 107 ANNEX C.10 INVESTMENT 108 ANNEX D. OPERATING PLAN 109 ANNEX D.1 TASKS OUTLINE 110 Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) BarcelonaTech 13 Building a collaboration network. A business opportunity analysis. Albert Cordonet Peiró Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) BarcelonaTech 14 Building a collaboration network. A business opportunity analysis. Albert Cordonet Peiró Introduction Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) BarcelonaTech 15 Building a collaboration network. A business opportunity analysis. Albert Cordonet Peiró Introduction Motivation I meet the Internet back in 1998 when my dad, a computer enthusiast, introduced it to me with Napster and Internet Explorer. I developed my first web page when I was 14 in Photoshop and Notepad. I soon realised how powerful the web was and how many opportunities it would open to people, including me. I have ever since developed websites for small businesses, universities and enterprises. I started my Informatics Engineering studies because I wanted to be a successful engineer. In 2009 I worked at start-up Socialpoint at Entrepreneurs Centre Barcelona Activa developing games for the Facebook platform. In 2010 I got admitted in a UPC partner program for a diploma in International Management UNITECH in combination with an ERASMUS scholarship. This allowed me to finish the degree specialising in Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Loughborough University, United Kingdom and to intern as an E-Business Project Manager for 7 emerging countries at HILTI, Switzerland. This project was born as an idea around June 2012 when my curiosity for business creation and computers mixed up with the idea of creating a “better collaboration tool for projects”. Of course it needed to be on-line. I contacted my friend and fellow student Marc Blando who soon became interested in the idea of creating a business together, and we started to research “what product was missing” that would involve projects. We both specialised in Software Engineering and coursed several subjects in Project Management. Projects attracted us because they are inherently difficult to tackle from any objective angle. Although in theory managing projects is just a matter of managing resources, time and goals. In our experience, it showed to be more of a craftsman “art”, where experience, intuition, knowledge, personal skills, communication and other factors came at play. Systems built around managing projects are complex too. Where there’s complexity there’s opportunity.