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Executive Summary

San Francisco State University is a commuter school with only 3,000 of its 30,125 students living on campus. Students, faculty, and staff of SFSU live all around the San Francisco Bay Area and travel upwards of two hours to arrive on campus. A huge inconvenience to all of these people is drained cell phones, PDAs, and MP3 Players. This situation provides an opportunity for a business deal between San Francisco State University and our company, Smarte Carte, Inc.

Our company can provide our product, the Charge Carte, to various locations around SFSU’s campus. The Charge Carte is a rapid cell phone, PDA, and MP3 Player charging kiosk that has already been implemented throughout airports, train stations, bus terminals, shopping centers, and entertainment facilities across the United States of America. By placing these kiosks throughout some of the more heavily populated areas and buildings of SFSU, we feel that a huge, untapped market can provide revenue for both SFSU and Smarte Carte.

Smarte Carte has a competent team that we have put together to work with SFSU, consisting of our top Sales Associate, Financial Analyst, Head Technician, and one of our best Project Managers. All of whom will provide excellent customer service to SFSU.

Smarte Carte has been in the service industry since 1976, and we base our reputation on our excellent customer service and qualified team members. We have expanded our many other cart and locker services all across the nation and world from just working in three U.S. cities in 1976 to becoming a worldwide company that now also operates in Italy, Sweden, Spain, and Australia.

Smarte Carte is proposing implementing five of our Charge Carte kiosks throughout SFSU’s campus. For a one time fee of $10,476.19, Smarte Carte will provide the five machines themselves, as well as shipping, installation, and general upkeep and maintenance. We will then provide a commission of 22.5% to SFSU based on our revenue.

We have provide a suggested action and timetable consisting of eighteen days, starting with the proposal deal and order, then moving on to processing, shipping, installation, and finally client and equipment follow up.

Introduction and Situation Analysis

At San Francisco State University, 3,000 of its total 30,125 students live within the housing facilities on campus, clearly labeling SFSU as a commuter school. Students, faculty, and staff live all around the bay area. They drive; take BART, MUNI, and/or various other modes of transportation to arrive at SFSU. It takes some two or more hours to get to campus, and they may only be there for one class. With the majority of students, faculty, and staff, if not all of them carrying cell phones, PDAs, and MP3 players, the need to recharge the batteries of these devices at universities is on the rise. Long travel hours to and from SFSU can really drain these devices, especially when they are being used the entire trip.

It has come to our knowledge that many cell phone users are faced with the inconvenience of a low battery, or worst case scenario, a dead battery. Along with call quality, a cell phone’s battery life is one of the most important considerations when choosing a cell phone. The average battery life of a cell phone can range anywhere from four to eight hours. This average is based on minimal talk time. Cell phone users at SFSU: students, faculty, and staff, have at one time or another faced issues concerning the battery life of their cell phone. We have made it our responsibility to become knowledgeable on the needs and trends of cell phone, PDA, and MP3 player use of students, faculty, and staff at SFSU. Are you aware that in 2004 census.gov reported the number of cell phone subscribers in the United States reached approximately 159 million? This number grew at a rate of 4.67 percent from 1995. It is most likely that number has doubled within the past three years due to the advances in technology and new demands for cell phones. More often than not, students, faculty, and staff have been faced with the issues concerning their cell phone battery life.

This has extremely negative effects to normal academic life for students and faculty. Students and professors are busy individuals, and they have many important meetings and appointments to keep. Their cell phones are their time manager, contact information source, and keeper of their schedules for the day, week, or month. With all this information on one little machine, it can be cumbersome to not be able to retrieve that information due to a dead battery. If students of faculty were going to be late to a scheduled meeting or if they wanted to change the time or place, they would not be able to do so because their cell phone would be inactive.

As of now, the only options for them are to bring their cell phone chargers to school, return to their car to charge their phone through their car charger, or suffer and not have a functional cell phone for the remainder of the day. SFSU has outlets to charge users’ cell phones located throughout all their buildings, but many of these are either being used or unreachable due to classes using the room or there might not be any outlets available. Professors can charge their device in their office, but they are only in their office for a limited amount of time. SFSU’s staff is working and students are busy, so they do not have the time to wait for their phone to charge in one place for so long a time.

Needs and Benefits Analysis

Our product, the Charge Carte, offers the convenience that students, faculty, and staff of SFSU are looking for. It has come to our attention that San Francisco State University could be a possible candidate for the implementation of our product, the Charge Carte, made by us, Smarte Carte. We have realized that along with our present markets, the opportunity of a new market has surfaced. SFSU has the opportunity to become our first client in a recently discovered market. Smarte Carte Charge Carte services are primarily located in airports, train stations, bus terminals, shopping centers, and entertainment facilities around the world. Although this is our first attempt at a new market, our primary markets have proven to be successful. Smarte Carte introduced its very first service, the Chrome pull cart in San Francisco International Airport back in 1980. SFO continues to use our services as well as our Locker and Charge Carte services. The Charge Carte by Smarte Carte offers a convenient way to recharge your cell phone battery.

It is a kiosk constructed of high quality steel that stands 63 inches in height, 21.75 inches in width, and 19 inches deep. Considering a campus that covers about 141.61 acres with eight different academic colleges, space is clearly not much of a concern to you, and our product would easily fit into many convenient locations around your campus. The Charge Carte is a self serve rapid charging kiosk, which provides connections for almost every cell phone available to date. It has three connectors for iPods and iPhones, two for LGs, and one each for Nextel, Motorola, Blackberry, Treo, Samsung, Nokia, and Kyocera. The Charge Carte utilizes rapid charge technology that safely charges a cell phone twice as fast as a standard outlet charger by being powered by 120 VAC 60HZ, 240 50 HZ.

By providing this service on your campus, you can eliminate the inconveniences stated above. Let us emphasize the importance of placing our product on your campus. Charge Carte is similar to that of the convenience machines you currently have on your campus. It offers students the opportunity to purchase a card at the price of three dollars that will allow them thirty minutes of rapid charging time. Customers can choose how long they want to let their device charge. The amount of charge received will vary depending upon how long the device is plugged in, specific model, and battery quality. Just like the snack convenience and school supply machines you decided to place all around your campus, our Charge Carte will provide your students, faculty, and staff with the same satisfaction.

We believe an implementation of five of our Charge Carte’s would greatly benefit all patrons whom frequent SFSU’s campus. The ideal places to put our kiosks are the areas with the most concentration of people. Your Cesar Chavez Student Center is an ideal spot. We propose placing two of our kiosks at this location. Another spot is between Hensil and Thornton Halls, as these are the biggest buildings on campus and are located on the opposite side of campus from the student center. Near the intersection of 19th Avenue & Holloway is another ideal location because of the all the MUNI and SFSU Shuttle Service stops; since every student taking BART would pass by this area. The last proposed place is the Student Services building.

Certain benefits for SFSU include revenue from the machines themselves as well as Smarte Carte’s fantastic staff willing and able to provide fast and quality maintenance should our machines malfunction. Smarte Carte is first and foremost a service company. Our main goal is to ensure customer satisfaction. It is a priority of ours to meet the needs of our customers. We have made it a point to research and discover the needs of the students, faculty, and staff at SFSU. By deciding to provide your campus with our services, we believe that you will eliminate issues surrounding your students, faculty, and staff with the inconveniences of their cell phone, PDA, and MP3 player battery life.

Company Description and Relevant Experience

Smarte Carte was created on the firm belief of “helping people help themselves.” Jim Mueller purchased the company in 1976 after realizing the demand and potential for the pull cart services that would be offered. Smarte Carte Inc was officially incorporated in 1970. Our company first offered our basic pull cart services in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles. As demand for the Smarte Carte service grew, so did automation and innovation. Smarte Carte at first only offered our pull cart services in airports, but in time started to offer services to other locations such as train stations, bus terminals, shopping malls, and entertainment facilities. The company continued to look for new ways to make the traveling experience more convenient and easier on travelers. Eventually we would upgrade our pull cart vending machines with mechanical tags, dollar bill acceptors, change making, and remote management capabilities.

Until about 1992, Smarte Carte relied solely on our push/pull cart services. Around this time is when Smarte Carte began to offer two types of new services: stroller and locker. Just like the pull cart services, these services assisted in making traveling and leisure experiences more convenient. As the first company to offer these types of services, Smarte Carte reaped many benefits. One of these benefits was becoming the first vending services to offer payment by form of credit card. This happened in 1992, a little after the introduction of the stroller and locker services. This payment upgrade also offered a form of convenience to customers. Even though it was not in the form of a service, it followed trends set by Smarte Carte. It was just another way to make things easier on our customers and provide customer satisfaction to the best of our ability.

Smarte Carte has been a constant innovator since the beginning and it continues to use innovation in technology as a driving force behind our services. This is evident when you consider the capabilities of services such as the Smarte Locke, an electronic locker that uses biometric fingerprint technology, and our most recent service, the Charge Carte. These new services once again provide customers with a different form of convenience. Smarte Carte is a company that prides itself on our reputation as an innovator. This constant innovation is one of the reasons we have been able to succeed in the product service market. By offering services such as the Smarte Locke, customers no longer have to worry about losing a locker key, or even carrying one around with them. As far as the Charge Carte is concerned, this service eliminates the inconvenience of carrying your cell phone charger around with you and experiencing a low, or at worst, dead cell phone battery. Smarte Carte is first and foremost a service company dedicated to satisfying our customers by providing convenient options by eliminating inconvenience.

Project Price and Budget

We at Smarte Carte propose selling to San Francisco State University on a per unit basis. Individual Charge Cartes can be purchased one at a time, or we can sell a couple of units at a discount. The following is a cost breakdown of one Charge Carte kiosk:

Cost of 1 Charge Carte KioskKiosk $1,900.00Maintenance/Operating Costs Cord Replacement $2.50-$3.50 Labor (1 Smarte Carte employee at 1-2 hours per month) $20.00/hr

Total Cost for 1 Charge Carte$1,922.50-$1,982.00

The kiosk itself approximately costs Smarte Carte $1,900 to assemble. Cords can occasionally be ripped out or malfunction, but only requires five minutes of maintenance to replace and are very cheap to purchase. We will provide the replacement cords to our on-site/on-call technician whom, barring any unforeseen problems, will visit the campus once a month to record the number of credit/debit transactions, which he/she will then report to SFSU for its commission. So, total costs for one Charge Carte can range from $1,922.50 to $1,982. The higher figure factors in the event in which every cord, twelve of them, would have to be replaced at $3.50 per cord, as well as the two hours of labor required.

The costs per Charge Carte definitely go up with the increasing number kiosks as we would have to have more employees on-call and on-site, as well as more replacement cords. The costs to Smarte Carte follow:

Costs of KiosksNumber of Kiosks Cost

Two $3,845.00-$3,964.00Three $5,767.00-$5,946.00

Four $7,642.50-$7,848.00Five $9,565.00-$9,830.00

Six$11,487.50-$11,812.00

Seven $13,410-$13,794.00 Our costs have ranges because of the unknown number of replacement cords and labor hours.

Smarte Carte is proposing these prices for our Charge Carte kiosks:

Price to San Francisco State University

Number of Kiosks PriceOne $2,200.00Two $4,400.00

Three $6,600.00Four $8,380.95Five $10,476.19Six $12,571.43

Seven $14,193.55

Smarte Carte is offering a five percent discount to SFSU for purchasing four to six Charge Cartes and an eight and a half percent discount for purchasing seven or more.

The commission SFSU can expect from the revenues of the Charge Cartes also depends on how many kiosks are purchased:

Commission For San Francisco State University

Number of Kiosks Commission RateOne 15.0%Two 15.0%

Three 17.5%Four 20.0%Five 22.5%Six 25.0%

Seven 30.0%

Smarte Carte is open for negotiation with these standard commission rates.