Economical View
The economical considerations regarding our project were carried out according to the motto:
Make the world a better place - Open access for scientific progress
In the center of every economic analysis are the customers and their needs and desires. Every commercial company is interested in satisfying and dealing with all customer needs for better sales figures, in order to maintain regular clientele. Both measures aim for higher financial profits. On the global seller’s market of technical laboratory equipment there is a permanent competition between the existing providers. On the one hand, this competition depends on the mentioned financial profits and, on the other hand, on the following factors: technical improvement followed by price wars. Due to globalization products from the Asian market are increasingly competing with the American and European market resulting in intensitief price wars. On the Asian market personnel and production costs are much less and thus the same product can be sold with higher profits. Some of these products are less expensive but are often of lower quality, too. However, for a company it is important to chose a good price-performance ratio because this factor always catch customers and influence their purchase decision.
Take a look at cost calculations for technical laboratory equipment including development, production, transport, warehousing and sale. Usually, you will find that in this branche there are really low costs for research and development, restruction and amorthilisation. In contrast, general expenses and costs for administartion, revenues, and sales are high. Lastly, financial profit is a big cost point cause businesses have to be self-financing. In general, these factors are making technical equipment for labs really expensive, and therefore unaffordable for low-budget instutions.
One of the world's biggest producers of laboratory products is [http://www.thermofisher.com/en/home.html Thermo Fisher Scientific]. They also offer photometers and other equipment. The image on the left side shows all costs and operating expenses listed in the [http://ir.thermofisher.com/investors/financial-information/annual-reports/default.aspx Annual Report 2013] from Thermo Fisher Scientific.
We follow a strategy to circumvent unnecessary costs for customers by realizing a social vision. In accordance with the principle of open source including both open hardware and open software, information where to get the necessary components, quantities, step-by-step technical construction manuals and circuit diagrams are published online for free. Potential customers can follow our provided instructions and acquire information from our Engineering page. Therefore, our profit is not of financial nature but is instead based on recognition and on motivating other iGEM teams and companies to spread the idea of open hardware, too. In accordance with the motto "Do it yourself!" (DIY) we offer low-budget versions through reducing costs at as many points as possible, except for the basic costs for material. Customers with a little technical dexterity, motivation to try something new and who are keen to experiment can follow our step-by-step construction manual to create their own custom-made devices.
To make our product more user-friendly, we considered offering device kits. When offering kits customers do not have to order a lot of separate device parts from different suppliers. However, this introduces the disadvantage of a loss of flexibility. Yet it is very important to have the opportunity to modify the devices, for example, by choosing alternative parts or including add-ons, because research requiring novel techniques advances quickly in the natural sciences. With our concept, improvements and adjustments are thus immediately realizable.
Lastly, we want to mention that our vision is limited because it is incompatible with capitalism which rules the global market. Generally, companies are profit oriented and follow a different economical strategy than our iGEM team. As non-profit concept, our idea is therefore limited to a group of customers with lower budgets.
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