Team:UTPreneur/Executive Summary

We aim to develop a business model working as Physical and IP Brokers. Our model is based in the idea of being able to connect the projects developed in the iGEM competition to real life applications. We want to provide solutions to different companies through our services as IP or Physical Brokers performing as consultants for SynBio products.

A broker is an individual that arranges transactions and brings together a buyer and a seller, and gets a commission when the deal is executed. It’s an independent agent that may represent either the seller (most of the time) or the buyer but not both at the same time.

To offer our service, we will contact the I+R Department´s Manager and thought them into us, providing solution for problems in fields such as food and energy, manufacturing, environment, health and medicine and other applications following the lead of iGEM's College Competition tracks. The service is valuable because we deliver biobricks, consulting and training. We will reach, acquire and keep customers through internet, direct contact, follow up, campaign, attractors and marketing.

Brokers can furnish considerable market information regarding prices, products and market conditions. They know their market; have already established relations with prospective accounts and have the tools and resources to reach the largest possible base of buyers.

The revenue will be generated by trading fees (commissions), retailing, consulting, following up + training + maintenance. And the profit margin depends on saving because there is no price for this service on the actual national market.

Justification of our business model

Panama's economy is one of the most stable in America. The main activities include financial services, tourism and logistics, which represent 75% of GDP. From 2003 to 2009 the GDP doubled, fueled by high foreign and domestic investment, tourism and logistics industry. The World Bank, IMF and the UN have qualified Panama as the highest per capita income in Central America, also as the largest exporter and importer at the regional level according to ECLAC. The GDP has more than twenty years in a row of sustained growth. The country is classified in the category of investment grade by credit rating companies: Standard and Poors, Moody's and Fitch Ratings. According to the lists of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and CIA World Factbook, Panama, with an estimated growth of 5%, is the number 89 as its GDP in recent years.

Panama depends on its conglomerate of transportation and logistics services-oriented world trade, whose epicenter is the Panama Canal. About the Panama Canal coalesce container transshipment ports, trade zones, rail hub and the largest airline hub in Latin America. It also has the largest financial center in Latin America. The services offered are very well connected with the world market and interconnected. These services account for about three quarters of its GDP. Panama has great facility creating companies, and since 2007 has initiated a policy of creating businesses that seek to promote the rapid creation of companies, both domestic and foreign capital, creating a business climate by utilizing appropriate technology, based on greater public confidence.

Is important to know, industrial growth is very poor in Panama, and as we see in the chart below, the growth rate of industrial production ended in -1% for 2011, one of the most important indicators that we will take into consideration in our business model, because it gives us the idea that this Central American country is not competitive for the production or manufacturer sector (as mentioned earlier), but instead is one of the most competitive for logistical purposes, such as distribution and transportation of all kind of merchandise.