Steam valve

So, I thought that two was hard. Then I worked on 3, and continue to work on 3! I am sick and tired of spread sheets!!!
R4 was okay, but it wasn't my favorite. It is going to be harder not being employed. But I think that I will make it work. I made 1 work in the same boat. Anyway, 5 is also kinda difficult, mainly because I am working with a partner for the business, and it is difficult keeping him on task. And that may never change, and I don't think that it needs to, or at least not a lot, because he has the fire for this business and gets excited over all parts of it.

Sky-net summary

There is a lot that has been learned from this eight quarter experience. The number one lesson that was learned was to take the time to read, interpret, and try to understand all the information that is given. There is a deadly danger in relying on only a handful of numbers. Another terrible habit that was followed was the ignoring of the competitors. If at least Sky-net had followed their examples of introducing more brands to the market sooner, that alone made a huge difference.
Another error that was over looked was not truly paying attention to the effectiveness of the different cities. London was a money pit, and that office should have been closed, the North American cities were the most effective and profitable cities for Sky-net.
Paying attention to all the factors and the small but important decisions that were made is also a learned lesson. In one case a city was open, but the brands in the new city were not listed as available for sale in that city until the following quarter. That meant that for an entire quarter Sky-net was paying for the office space, employees, and all other fees, with not even the opportunity to make any money on the sell able items. This was a very small mistake that had huge financial consequences. An old quote comes to mind when thinking about some of the behaviors of this experience: haste makes waste.
Over all this was a very useful two years for Sky-net. Not only did they stick to their original business plan and not make any money, but they learned some very valuable lessons as were detailed above.

Sky-net 8th $.25

Again, we'll let the numbers do the talking:
Total market share: 4%
North America prices: Cyberdyne - $3,200. - rebate $50.
T-1000 - $3,000. - rebate $0.
Connor - $1,900. - rebate $0.
Asia prices: Cyberdyne - $3,200. - rebate $100.
T-1000 - $3,000. - rebate $0.
Connor - $1,900. - rebate $0.
Europe prices: Cyberdyne - $3,200. - rebate $200.
T-1000 - $3,000. - rebate $0.
Connor - $1,900. - rebate $0
The total quantity of computers sold: 1373, that is an increase of 811 computer over last quarter.
The advertising costs have remained the same. Yes we introduced a new brand to the market, but the cost of marketing it was way outside out in the hole budget, so we tried to make it as close to our other computers but more basic as possible so that the ads would cover the Connor as well.
We know that this is our best chance to really try to catch up as far as sales go, and profit, but, we understand that there is no way that this last quarter is going to bring us out of our ($8,476,918) hole.

Sky-net 7th $.25

I am going to let the numbers do all the talking to start here:
Total market share: 2.9%
North America prices: Cyberdyne - $3,200. - rebate $150.
T-1000 - $3,000. - rebate $100.
Asia prices: Cyberdyne - $3,200. - rebate $100.
T-1000 - $3,000. - rebate $100.
Europe prices: Cyberdyne - $3,200. - rebate $200
T-1000 - $3,000. - rebate $150.
Total quantity of computers sold in all three offices: 562 that is -241 as compared to last quarter
Advertising costs: $296,300. That is the cost as the last quarter.

The market share number and the total quantity number are killing us. Our prices are right in the average of our competitors, but one major area that we are currently working on is creating and developing another brand to add to our two. Our competitors have between three and five brands on the market. We are working on a more basic computer that we are hoping is going to help us get back some desperately needed market share. The name of the computer is Connor, named for one of our founders, John Connor.
This new computer and a new office in Toronto we are hoping for a great turn around.

Sky-net 6th $.25

It appears that the 4th quarther numbers may have been the high point as of now. Our over all market share again fell. We are now holding 6.1%. That is a drop of 2.5%. We opened in London, but that hasn't spiked our numbers as we had hoped. In fact our numbers only improved by approx. 200 computers. This is not what we need.
The prices in North America: Cyberdyne $3,200. with a $150. rebate, T-1000 $3,000 with a $100. rebate. In Asia: Cyberdyne $3,200. with a $100. rebate, T-1000 $3,000. with a $100. rebate. In Europe: Cyberdyne $3,200. with a $200. rebate, T-1000 $3,000. with a $150. rebate. And according to the price judgement research numbers that we have, these prices are all accepted at 100% except for the Cost Cutter segment, who are looking for a very inexpensive computer with basic components.
And because we opened an office in Europe, London our advertising costs have again gone up by $190,400. We have remained constant with our two original ads: Future is Now, and Welcome Future. The Future is Now ad is being shown four times in North America, two times in Asia, and five times in Europe. The Welcome Future ad is being shown twice in North America, once in Asia, and seven times in Europe.
If things don't start to turn for us I am afraid that we are going to all be working on our resumes very soon.

Sky-net 5th $.25

Well we are still in the red, and deeper than last quarter, but that is okay. We are going to be making some big changes this quarter. We are going to open an office in London! Again this city is full of our target segments.

As for our exciting market share, we need to make so changes to get back what we just lost. In the Innovators segment we are now holding 21.1%, in the Workhorse segment we are holding 6.4%, and our golden egg of the Mercedes market share got fried, we are now at 20.4%! Huge losses! Our over all market share is currently 8.6%! We are really relying on London to help us get back to where we were.

And we are again going to play with the prices of our two computers. In North America the Cyberdyne is going to be sold for $2,700. with a $150. rebate. The T-1000 for $2,500. with a $100. rebate. In Asia the prices will be $2,500. for the Cyberdyne, $2,300. for the T-1000, each with a $100. rebate. These are not the only changes that we made, we also upped our advertising by $52,417.

Sky-net 4th $.25

Sky-net sales are in full bloom! Our numbers are better than expected! Though our bottom line is in the red by 1.2 mil. we are not worried. We understand that we have to spend some money to make some money. Some of the pleasant surprises that this quarter has brought us are the market share numbers. As was stated our target markets are the Innovators, in which we achieved a 48.1% market share; they Workhorse, in which we achieved a 17.6% market share. But in addition we have 80% of the Mercedes market share! Over all, in North America and Asia we are holding a quarter of the market. Having four other competitors, we are holding our heads high with those numbers. But as we are very aware of, next quarter may be very different.
In hopes to keep our numbers where the currently stand, we are also adjusting our prices some. In North America our Cyberdyne computer is now selling for $3,700.00 with a $500.00 rebate. Our T-1000 is selling for $3,300.00 with a $500.00 rebate. In Asia the Cyberdyne is selling for $3,500.00, the T-1000 for $3,300.00, both with a $500.00 rebate. We made these changes because we were giving way to much money away with the previous rebate prices.

Sky-net 3rd $.25

Now that we have our target segments, our locations, the brands named and designed it is time to price these computers, hires a sales staff and get the advertising out in the open for these computers.

Because we know that there are four other computer companies that are entering this market at the same time we are, we are going to be very aggressive with our prices, but we are going to pull as many customers to our stores as possible with outragious rebates. In North America our prices for the Cyberdyne is going to be $3,700.00 with a $1,500.00 rebate. This computer is going to be the first priority in North America. The T-1000 is set at $3,300.00 also with a $1,500.00 rebate and is set as the second priority. In Asia the Cyberdyne is the second priority computer and set at $3,500.00 with a $1,500.00 rebate. The T-1000 is also set at $3,300.00 with a $1,500.00 rebate and is the first priority.

We have hired four people for each office. They are devided according to the priority level of each computer and in service support.

As for advertising we have come up with two different advertisments. The first "Future is Now" is focused on the Cyberdyne computer and the "Welcome Future" ad is focused on the T-1000 computer. The "Future is Now" ad's top three focuses are that Sky-net has the most advanced processing on the market, mentioning the brand name, and the manufactures rebate. The "Welcome Future" ad's top three focuses are having the most advanced processing on the market, mentioning the brand name, and every day low prices-less than average.

We feel that we are going to have some high numbers after our first quarter of sales with these rebates and these advertisements.

Sky-net 2nd $.25

In the second quarter here at Sky-net we have made the decision as to where we are going to set up our shops. We have decided New York in North America and Tokyo in Asia are going to be our initial sales shops. We have picked these places because they are the largest areas that our targeted markets reside in.

With our targeted segments in mind, and with our shops about to open, we are also designing the computers that will be focused in these markets and toward these segments. First we decided that we wanted the names of these different brands to be consistent with the name of our company. Sky-net is an idea that will help companies and individual continue to work and operate in their limited area: the sky in the limit.
The names of our brands are first Cyberdyne. This name was chosen because as the cyber world continues to grow and expand into, almost into it's own life, this brand of computers is going to bring about a new dynasty. The second brand is the T-1000. This is a more difficult connection to the name of the company, but it is more of a liquid computer that is going to really make a difference in how the world believes what it sees.
The Cyberdyne was created with the Innovators in mind, and the T-1000 is designed for the Workhorse. Both computers are excellent computers and we are excited to see how they effect the markets.

Sky-net 1st $.25

Here at Sky-net we initially targeted the Workhorse and Mercedes customers. But after some research we changed that to the Workhorse and Innovators. These two segments for us are the most versatile. The Workhorse is the largest segment, and with this being a new market we wanted to get our name and the quality out to as many people as possible. Innovators were also targeted because they are a high end customer that is willing to pay for a more powerful computer at a higher price. These are not the only reasons that they were chosen. Another very important reason they were chosen is because we can easily market to the segments that are close to these segments with out to much extra advertising.

Before we went public with our computers we did a bit of market research. The main source of our information came from a market research firm that we hired. Out of a wide variety of options that this firm offered in the amount of information we can obtain, we chose to purchase the plan of 900. This is not the largest plan, but for the amount it was a good deal. Not only did we save some money on it, but we were able to get a 4.3% error rate, as compared to a 13% error rate in the 100 plan. The total price for the plan we purchased was $81,000.

We feel that we are getting ourselves started off on the right foot here and that we are going to be a long lasting competitor in this market.