International market research for DESIGNA

DESIGNA VERKEHRSLEITTECHNIK GMBH

International market research for DESIGNA

Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH Latin America and Eastern Europe

European Project Semester

6/6/2011

Submitted by:

Heike Beckmann

Nicole Patiño

Georgi Dinev

Daniel Sandino

“The purpose of this project was to identify new and/or unexplored markets, in the car parking manufacturing field, such as the Latin American and Eastern European markets where, as a matter of fact, the presence of the strongest manufacturer groups was demanded and in some specific cases like Brazil and Ukraine, imminent...”

International market research for DESIGNA Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH 2011

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Abstract

Marketing research for DESIGNA Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH in Latin America

and Eastern Europe

The purpose of this project was to identify new and/or unexplored markets, in the car parking

manufacturing field, such as the Latin American and Eastern European markets where, as a

matter of fact, the presence of the strongest manufacturer groups was demanded and in some

specific cases like Brazil and Ukraine, imminent.

To achieve this task, a literature and online research of indicators, like number of cars per

thousand inhabitants and the GDP for those particular countries (among others), was carried out

with the purpose of creating a portfolio that, by the aid of academic business tools like the

McKinsey matrix, facilitates the decision of entry strategies for those particular cultural niches.

Additionally, a questionnaire supported by an online survey tool was written in four different

languages to create a picture of the current state of the market according to major actors in the

business; the possible future commercial partners.

The result of research shows that, between the studied countries and due to the fact that it is the

one with the biggest market size and also because it will host the next Football’s World Cup in

2014, Brazil is the most attractive market and the place where, in a short term period, companies

like DESIGNA should look.

Finally, this study will allow car parking manufacturers and more particularly DESIGNA GmbH to

orientate the efforts in a wise way, not only to generate market strategies for Sao Paulo and Rio

de Janeiro but also to study possible roads to proceed or to avoid different latitudes.


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Table of Contents List of figures ...............................................................................................................................iii

List of tables ................................................................................................................................ v

Preface ....................................................................................................................................... vi

1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... - 1 -

1.1. Relevance of the topic ................................................................................................. - 1 -

1.2. Description of the project ............................................................................................. - 1 -

1.3. Structure of the report .................................................................................................. - 2 -

2. Market analysis ................................................................................................................ - 7 -

2.1. Description of DESIGNA Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH ................................................. - 7 -

2.2. Objective 1: Development of mature West-European markets ................................ - 14 -

2.2.1. State of the art of the car parking technologies (inter-mobility) ........................ - 14 -

2.2.2. Evolution of traffic............................................................................................ - 23 -

2.2.3. Urban and architectural evolution .................................................................... - 31 -

2.2.4. Relevant legislative developments .................................................................. - 34 -

2.2.5. Problems ......................................................................................................... - 34 -

2.2.6. Conclusion 1 ................................................................................................... - 35 -

2.3. Objective 2: Analysis of developing markets ........................................................... - 36 -

2.3.1. Selection of the countries ................................................................................ - 36 -

2.3.2. Selection of indicators ..................................................................................... - 39 -

2.3.3. Detailed analysis of market indicators for each country ................................... - 43 -

2.3.4. Portfolio-Analysis ............................................................................................ - 61 -

2.3.5. Survey of potential customers ......................................................................... - 90 -

3. General conclusion and recommendations for DESIGNA ............................................. - 117 -

4. Bibliography & references ............................................................................................ - 120 -

5. Appendix ...................................................................................................................... - 125 -


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List of figures

FIGURE 1 NEW PARKING STRUCTURE ..................................................................................................... - 15 - FIGURE 2 TRAVOLUTION PROJECT .......................................................................................................... - 18 - FIGURE 3 MOTOROLA HANDHELD DEVICE MC659B ................................................................................. - 19 - FIGURE 4 THE SITRAFFIC EPOS ............................................................................................................. - 21 - FIGURE 5 I PARKED HERE ...................................................................................................................... - 23 - FIGURE 6 NUMBER OF CARS IN GERMANY FROM 2001 TO 2010 ................................................................. - 24 - FIGURE 7 CARS PER THOUSAND INHABITANTS IN GERMANY FROM 1998 TO 2009 ........................................ - 25 - FIGURE 8 SHARE OF CAR TRAFFIC IN TOTAL PASSENGER TRANSPORT IN GERMANY FROM 1999 TO 2008 ....... - 26 - FIGURE 9 NUMBER OF CARS PER THOUSAND INHABITANTS IN GERMANY FROM 2000 TO 2030....................... - 28 - FIGURE 10 NUMBER OF CARS IN GERMANY FROM 2010 TO 2030 ............................................................... - 29 - FIGURE 11 EUROPEAN POPULATION BY AGE GROUP 1950-2050................................................................ - 30 - FIGURE 12 THE BEST CITIES FOR BUSINESS............................................................................................. - 32 - FIGURE 13 FASTEST IMPROVING EUROPEAN CITIES .................................................................................. - 33 - FIGURE 14 ARGENTINIAN MAP ............................................................................................................... - 43 - FIGURE 15 BRAZILIAN MAP .................................................................................................................... - 46 - FIGURE 16 COLOMBIAN MAP .................................................................................................................. - 48 - FIGURE 17 MEXICAN MAP ...................................................................................................................... - 50 - FIGURE 18 ROMANIAN MAP ................................................................................................................... - 51 - FIGURE 19 BELARUSIAN MAP ................................................................................................................. - 55 - FIGURE 20 BULGARIAN MAP .................................................................................................................. - 58 - FIGURE 21 UKRAINIAN MAP ................................................................................................................... - 60 - FIGURE 22 BCG MATRIX ...................................................................................................................... - 62 - FIGURE 23 MCKINSEY MATRIX .............................................................................................................. - 64 - FIGURE 24 HOW TO USE THE EXCEL PROGRAM........................................................................................ - 70 - FIGURE 25 MARKET SIZES IN LATIN AMERICA AND EASTERN EUROPE ........................................................ - 71 - FIGURE 26 MARKET SIZES IN CITIES - LATIN AMERICA .............................................................................. - 72 - FIGURE 27 MARKET ATTRACTIVENESS FOR LATIN AMERICA & EASTERN EUROPE ........................................ - 74 - FIGURE 28 BUSINESS UNIT STRENGTH FOR LATIN AMERICA & EASTERN EUROPE ........................................ - 75 - FIGURE 29 MCKINSEY MATRIX - LATIN AMERICA (NATURAL WEIGHT) .......................................................... - 76 - FIGURE 30 MCKINSEY MATRIX - EASTERN EUROPE (NATURAL WEIGHT) ..................................................... - 77 - FIGURE 31 MCKINSEY MATRIX- LATIN AMERICA & EASTERN EUROPE (NATURAL WEIGHT) ........................... - 77 - FIGURE 32 MARKET ATTRACTIVENESS - EIGHT COUNTRIES ....................................................................... - 79 - FIGURE 33 BUSINESS UNIT STRENGTH - EIGHT COUNTRIES ....................................................................... - 80 - FIGURE 34 MCKINSEY MATRIX - LATIN AMERICA ...................................................................................... - 82 - FIGURE 35 MCKINSEY MATRIX - EASTERN EUROPE .................................................................................. - 83 - FIGURE 36 MCKINSEY MATRIX- LATIN AMERICA & EASTERN EUROPE ........................................................ - 83 - FIGURE 37 MARKET SIZE - SIXTEEN CITIES OF LATIN AMERICA .................................................................. - 85 - FIGURE 38 MARKET ATTRACTIVENESS - SIXTEEN CITIES OF LATIN AMERICA ................................................ - 86 - FIGURE 39 BUSINESS UNIT STRENGTH - SIXTEEN CITIES OF LATIN AMERICA ................................................ - 87 - FIGURE 40 MCKINSEY MATRIX FOR SIXTEEN CITIES OF LATIN AMERICA ...................................................... - 89 - FIGURE 41 RESULT OF QUESTION 1 ...................................................................................................... - 105 - FIGURE 42 RESULT OF QUESTION 2 ...................................................................................................... - 106 - FIGURE 43 RESULT OF QUESTION 3 ...................................................................................................... - 107 - FIGURE 44 RESULT OF QUESTION 4 ...................................................................................................... - 108 - FIGURE 45 RESULT OF QUESTION 5 ...................................................................................................... - 108 -


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FIGURE 46 RESULT OF QUESTION 6 ...................................................................................................... - 109 - FIGURE 47 RESULT OF QUESTION 7 ...................................................................................................... - 110 - FIGURE 48 RESULT OF QUESTION 8 ...................................................................................................... - 111 - FIGURE 49 RESULT OF QUESTION 9 ...................................................................................................... - 112 - FIGURE 50 RESULT OF QUESTION 10 .................................................................................................... - 113 -


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List of tables

TABLE 1 CAR DENSITY IN WESTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE IN 2008 ......................................................... - 27 - TABLE 2 MARKET SIZES IN LATIN AMERICA AND EASTERN EUROPE ............................................................ - 70 - TABLE 3 MARKET SIZES IN CITIES - LATIN AMERICA .................................................................................. - 71 - TABLE 4 MARKET ATTRACTIVENESS FOR LATIN AMERICA & EASTERN EUROPE ............................................ - 73 - TABLE 5 BUSINESS UNIT STRENGTH FOR LATIN AMERICA & EASTERN EUROPE ............................................ - 74 - TABLE 6 MARKET ATTRACTIVENESS - EIGHT COUNTRIES ........................................................................... - 79 - TABLE 7 BUSINESS UNIT STRENGTH - EIGHT COUNTRIES ........................................................................... - 80 - TABLE 8 MARKET SIZE - SIXTEEN CITIES OF LATIN AMERICA ...................................................................... - 84 - TABLE 9 MARKET ATTRACTIVENESS - SIXTEEN CITIES OF LATIN AMERICA ................................................... - 86 - TABLE 10 BUSINESS UNIT STRENGTH - SIXTEEN CITIES OF LATIN AMERICA ................................................. - 87 - TABLE 11 CONTACT LIST FOR ARGENTINA ............................................................................................. - 102 - TABLE 12 CONTACT LIST FOR BRAZIL ................................................................................................... - 103 - TABLE 13 CONTACT LIST FOR COLOMBIA .............................................................................................. - 104 - TABLE 14 CONTACT LIST FOR MEXICO .................................................................................................. - 104 - TABLE 15 CONTACT LIST FOR BULGARIA AND UKRAINE ........................................................................... - 105 -


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Preface

This project was based upon a research of new markets for DESIGNA Verkehrsleittechnik

GmbH during a period of about 15 weeks between February and June of 2011. The company

was looking for a recommendation of the best market to get in of countries from South America

and Eastern Europe.

We were a group of four students with different nationalities; Germany, Bulgaria and Colombia

who got the assignment to act as a consultants for the company by making a deep research of

some indicators related to the car parking system industry.

We would like to thank our supervisor; Ms. Ute Vanini for her help, her advices and all her

support, thanks to her we made a successful project.

We would also like to thank Dr. Thomas Waibel, Ms. Gabriela Brille, Mr. Stefan Koch and the

rest of the members of the DESIGNA staff for giving us the opportunity to work in this project

and for all their support.


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1. Introduction

1.1. Relevance of the topic

Car parking became an unquestionable need for lots of people that, for different reasons, decide

not to use public transport. As fast as the number of cars increases, the need of places to park

those cars also grows. From the simple parking space on the street to the titanic parking

buildings, the car parking industry has become a constantly growing business for the car park

operators and therefore for the producers of car parking systems.

Thus, market research and the development of business policies became a primary need for

companies producing car parking systems, e.g. DESIGNA. In that order of ideas, our project will

be focused on the research and study of the different features of this economic segment looking

up mainly to those countries involved in a developing process as the Eastern European and the

Latin American countries, then, with the aid of this obtained information, create a portfolio that

helps the company decide about the entrance into those studied markets and to create a pool of

entrance policies.


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1.2. Description of the project

The project, from the beginning, has been basically structured in three main parts as follows:

• Present and future of the car parking industry

In this first part we tried to have an approach to the car parking industry world focused at the

beginning in the technical field, the past and the future of the different products, in order to

understand how the offer has evolved as fast, and some times faster, as the client needs

changes. Then, we tried to understand how the automotive industry will evolve to derive some

expectations about the business of car parking systems. Finally, we discuss some laws that are

currently affecting this industry.

• Marketing research for Eastern Europe and Latin-America

As a main objective of our project, we start by defining some target markets in as much as the

first objective description established the whole world as research field. As impossible and

ineffective as it can result to work on a large target as the whole world, the team proposed to the

company to aim at some smaller areas where the research process can achieve some more

tangible results. That is how, as a result of a negotiation it has been decided that the main

objective of the research will be the East of Europe and Latin America, more specifically:

Belarus, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine for Europe and Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico

for America.

Moreover, cities had been chosen in each country by relevance using some indicators as

population, density, number of cars, quality of public transport, minimal national income as well

as some other indicators that can be found in the Appendix 1.


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As a next step we began the internet research of competitors and possible clients in those

specific markets; parking managers, retailers and producers, main competitors of the company,

have been the main interest of our research but also the big constructions projected in the future

that may use these parking systems. The result of the research of competitors can be found in

the Appendix 2 as a list of principal competitors and retailers.

1.3. Structure of the report

Planning

As we can see in the Appendix 3, our planning includes even the first presentation and the work

on it. We can see as well that we started our internet research for DESIGNA attacking the first

goal: Identifying future developments in the car parking industry in Central Europe, even before

our kick-off in the company.

The next phase of our planning went through DESIGNA product training. The training session

was oriented to give us an overview of the DESIGNA products and services, how they work and

how they improve them in order to respond to the customer requirements.

The third step on our planning was the kick-off. The meeting started with a presentation about

the company, from the Managing Director of DESIGNA Dr. Thomas Waibel, and ended with a

presentation of our project proposal. At that meeting the people who attended were: our team,

our supervisor Ute Vanini, Mrs. Gabriela Brille, Dr. Thomas Waibel and Mr. Stefan Koch- Sales

Manager. During that meeting we also agreed that the most convenient time for our fortnight

meetings with DESIGNA staff should be on Monday, instead of Friday like we thought at the

beginning. Those meetings were important for us because, if something was unclear we had the

chance to ask them for help, or just to give us feedback on the work that we have done so far in

order to keep us on the right way.


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The 4th activity as you can see with purple colour is our group meetings each Friday in order to

complete the weekly report for our university supervisor. Our meetings with her were for every

Monday, in order to know what we are going to discuss she wanted our weekly report (with the

progress we have done) on Friday.

With a green colour we can see when we started our second goal which was: Analysis of new

markets in the car parking system industry. Because of the fact that DESIGNA operates around

the globe, we had to focus our research on a specific region rather than the whole world. On our

kick-off meeting we proposed to the senior staff in DESIGNA and they accepted that we are

going to work on Latin America and Eastern Europe because of our place of origin we have

better understanding about those markets.

We decided every team member to research two countries. After a short briefing with some of

the senior managers we chose to work on Colombia and Mexico (Daniel), Brazil and Argentina

(Nicole) from Latin America and Romania and Belarus (Heike), Bulgaria and Ukraine (Georgi)

from Eastern Europe. We couldn’t complete that goal for our mid-term report and second

presentation, so we just had to present our progress until then. Actually the research for that

goal took more than we planned.

On our project proposal the third goal which is “Development of market entry strategies” was

optional, if we have time and we hadn’t so we had no other choice than to leave it undone.

Because of our delay with the second goal we also were behind with writing the final report.

RACI Matrix

The RACI Matrix shows responsibilities for a task or set of deliverables. For example who is

responsible for doing the work; who will be accounted for it; who will be consulted for it; and who

will be informed once it has been completed. In our RACI matrix the people concerned were:


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DESIGNA, Mrs. Vanini, Heike, Daniel, Georgi, Nicole, EPS group, Jonas Rose. The following

activities were planned: first presentation, product training, company kick-off, internal group

planning, contact with company supervisor, weekly reports, fortnight review, list of evolutions of

the car parking system industry, research of evolution graphic in the transport system, short

analysis of the expected city growth and the impact in the parking system industry, list of laws

that concern the parking industry, list and analysis of 20 to 30 cities in Eastern Europe and Latin

America, list of main competitors in Eastern Europe and Latin America and brief analysis of their

products, mid-term report, second presentation, final report, final presentation, Conflict

Management, Time Management Trouble and Organizational Trouble.

The whole RACI Matrix you can find in Appendix 4.

Weekly working plan

Our team was advised by Mrs. Vanini to write the weekly reports on excel chart, because it’s

easier to understand the information and to set and monitor our weekly objectives. Our first two

reports however, were long and written in word documents and we decided to change the layout

with chart reports where you can put the same information in one page.

In our chart reports we created six sections: Goals, Activities, Responsible, Time, Results and

Problems.

The first report, showed four weekly goals: meeting with our supervisor, research on the

DESIGNA competitors, research for new indicators and appointment with the sales department

in DESIGNA the following week.

The whole chart you can find in Appendix 5.

The second chart report, showed 7 goals: completing the indicator’s chart, Meeting our

supervisor Mrs. Ute Vanini, group discussion about the best structure for the mid-term report,


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writing the mid-term report, completing the report and sending it to our supervisor for feedback,

correcting the report thanks to the feedback we got back and as a last goal we set objectives for

the next week.


The third chart report, showed 4 goals: creating power point presentation, based on our mid-

term report, the second activity was to present our findings in front of the EPS students and the

university supervisors, the third goal was research for new indicators and the last goal was

again to clarify our tasks for the next week.


The fourth chart report, showed 4 goals: Developing a portfolio, the second goal was to

complete the indicator’s chart, the third goal was to create questionnaires for the car parking

retailers and car parking operators and the final weekly goal was to compare competitor skills

with DESIGNA skills.


The fifth chart report, showed 4 goals: the first one was the project structure, second goal was

to contact the companies who are currently operating in those new markets and who can be

potential DESIGNA partners. The next goal was to create a list of contacts to send the

questionnaire and as a last weekly goal was to send the questionnaire.


The sixth chart report, showed 4 goals: The first goal was to make the report structure, the

second weekly goal was to start writing the report, the third goal was to include some of the


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information we had on the mid-term report. The last weekly goal was to clarify task for the next

week.



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2. Market analysis

2.1. Description of DESIGNA Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH

General Description

The DESIGNA Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH is one of the market leaders in the area of

development, production, installation and service of fully-automated car parking systems.

DESIGNA is a company belonging to the Management Trust Holding AG in Wien, Austria which

has around 2800 employees and yearly turnover of approximately 500 Mio €. The commercial

activities of the MTH group are focused in:

• Industry

• Retail

• Private Equity

• Consulting

The Managing Director is Dr. Thomas Waibel, whereas the company headquarter is located in

Kiel, in the Faluner Weg 3, DESIGNA has eight subsidiaries in seven different countries. These

subsidiaries are:

• DESIGNA France S.A.S.

Cergy St. Christophe, France

• DESIGNA Italia S.r.l.

Bolzano, Italy

• AMG Impianti S.r.l.

Bolzano, Italy


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• DESIGNA UK Ltd

Sunbury-on-Thames, United Kingdom

• DESIGNA Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH

Vienna, Austria

• DESIGNA ACCESS Kft.

Budapest, Hungary

• DESIGNA Access Corporation

Tucker - Georgia, USA

• DESIGNA Parking & Access s.r.o.

Prague, Czech Republic

Since their market entry in 1951 DESIGNA established a market presence in 60 countries

worldwide. They have a turnover of 50 Mio € per year with 250 employees working for them

internationally. The field of application of DESIGNA reaches from airports, over hotels and

shopping centers, to hospitals. Their references in these fields are coming from all over the

world:

Airports:

• Dublin Airport, Ireland

• Dubai Airport, Terminal 1, United Arabian Emirates

• Hamburg Airport, Germany

Hotels:

• Hotel Radisson, Frankfurt, Germany

• Hotel Park Plaza, Wroclaw, Poland

• Hotel Mercure, Paris, France


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Shopping Centers:

• Ka De We, Berlin, Germany

• Mid Valley Mega Mall, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

• Mall of Emirates, Dubai, United Arabian Emirates

Hospitals:

• Bethanien Krankenhaus, Heidelberg, Germany

History

When DESIGNA was founded on the 11th of January in 1951 as the “DESIGNA – Signal- und

Werbemittelgesellschaft mbH” in Kiel-Projensdorf there were just three employees working for

the two company founders, Heinz Bula and Gerhard Vogel. Beginning with the production of

traffic and advertising signs, only around 30 years ago they entered the market of car parking

systems. From then until now, through constant development DESIGNA was able to match their

customers’ desires and today their systems are used for the management of parking in over

6000 complexes throughout the world.

Here are some of the major steps in the history of DESIGNA taken from their homepage

(www.designa.com):

• 1951 Establishment of DESIGNA GmbH in Kiel as a manufacturer of signs and

advertising materials

• 1956 Launch of production of mechanical parking meters at VDO in Frankfurt

• 1970 Introduction of the first automatic parking system (tickets, tokens)

• 1975 Introduction of the first fully automated parking system (Parkmaster 80)

• 1987 Introduction of the first fully automated parking system with centralized programme

download


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• 1991 Merger of DESIGNA GmbH and VDO Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH to form DESIGNA

Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH

• 1996 Takeover of their French agent, TIME S.A.

• 1997 Foundation of subsidiary companies in Italy, Austria and the United Kingdom

• 2001 Foundation of subsidiary companies in the United States and Hungary

• 2004 Introduction onto the market of the PM ABACUS system

• 2006 Introduction onto the market of SLIMPARK

• 2007 TIME DESIGNA renamed DESIGNA France

• 2008 Introduction of the MID management system

• 2009 DESIGNA sets new standards in the parking sector with the introduction of ASP. In

summer over 50 systems are connected to a central server and networked with one

another.

Products and Services

DESIGNA has two main products in the section of fully automated car park managing systems,

they are called PM Abacus and Slimpark.

PM Abacus

The PM Abacus system is suitable especially for medium-sized systems from 5 to 25 terminals.

Its open structure enables the customers to incorporate these into larger networks in the future.

To be in a market leading position in terms of technology DESIGNA owes to these outstanding

features of PM Abacus. Being the state-of-the-art car parking system PM Abacus is still

completely compatible with the Parkmaster 100, the already proven system it was based upon.

At the Entrance/Exit Control Terminals ENT/EXT 120 the entry or exit event is registered and a

new data set is generated, if necessary. A ticket is issued or withdrawn or depending on the


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chosen technology - a chip card is read. PM Abacus can operate either magnetic side-strip or

center-strip tickets and it additionally supports barcode technology as well as diverse non-

contact and contact chip cards.

There is an Automatic Pay Station APS 120 available, which supports the payment process with

an intuitive and convenient user interface in various currencies or cashless, but you can also

order the Manual Pay Station MPS 120.

The Abacus Barrier PB 120 features a compact design and high stability and is available with a

straight or an articulated barrier arm.

A PC with a Windows operating system, on which the DESIGNA software applications for the

control and monitoring of the system are installed, is working as the Database Server /

Workstation. The SQL database can be implemented either here or on a separate server.

The Data Control Center autonomously controls a group of devices within a parking area,

independent of the status of the workstation.

As ticket technologies there are available magnetic strip tickets, barcode tickets, EC or Credit

Cards, RFID (Hand-free customer identification) and LPR (License plate recognition system).

For the magnetic strip tickets you can choose between center and side strip tickets. The

advantage of center strip tickets is that they are readable from all sides, so it makes no

difference which way you feed it into the reader. This fact makes the process of ticket reading

much faster and more uncomplicated.

The barcode technology works with a printed barcode on the ticket which is being scanned when

paying or leaving the car park. It is suited the best for less complex applications and especially

for short-term parkers.


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PM Abacus also works with EC or Credit Cards, which gives the possibility of direct payment,

without having to stop at the pay station when you want to leave.

RFID (rapid frequency identification) is a system for hand-free customer identification. It works

with a RFIDtag which is put onto a smart card. This smart card is put behind the windscreen and

is recognized by the receiver while approaching the barrier. This way the barrier opens without

having to open the window the system is especially convenient for season parkers.

One of the main components of LPR (license plate recognition system) is a camera which is

installed at the entrance and exit of the car park. This camera scans the license plates and after

comparing them to a list of customers, if the permission to enter is given, opens the barrier.

Different software applications can be purchased for the PM Abacus system. With WinOperate

for example you can control and monitor all operations which are done in the system.

WebReport is a tool through which you have the possibility to access all the important statistics

and evaluations by encrypted internet access from all over the world. The tariff structure can be

configured by the car park operator through WinTariff. Furthermore, there is WinPos which is an

application for taking payments manually.

Slimpark

Slimpark is a unique, professional and economic parking system which is especially suited for

small car parks. As components it has the entry, the exit and the pay station, the system is able

to handle up to seven different components. It is quickly and easily installed and at the same

time so efficient, that it fulfills all of the requirements placed on a complete parking system.

Slimpark uses the barcode technology, which can process both short term parker tickets and

season parker cards. For the reduction of the requirement for maintenance and spares, as well

as the associated costs, Slimpark is limited to a minimum number of moving components.


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Services

DESIGNA offers customer service for their products, as well as they sell replacement parts and

consumables like tickets. Also you can book a product training, where you learn everything you

need to know about the service of your system.


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2.2. Objective 1: Development of mature West-European markets

2.2.1. State of the art of the car parking technologies (inter-mobility)

In the last years, the growth of the cities has forced the automobile sector to produce more and

more cars in order to supply people’s needs of mobility. This fact involves the evolution of the

car parking systems because the growing number of cars has to be kept somewhere. At the

beginning, parking a car was an easy task due to the small number of cars driven; the most

effective way was to leave the car in a parking lot which was controlled by the government and

there was not even a fee for it.

The increasing number of cars needed a new organization in big cities where the people drove

to the office and left the car in commercial zones during the whole day, blocking the park lots for

possible customers of the shops. Due to this fact, there were installed some mechanical

machines called “Parking Meter” which made the driver pay a small fee (only with coins)

depending on the time he/she left the car in this commercial zone. The “Parking Meters” are still

in use in certain zones of the cities and there are also some companies producing this device

but is not so common to find them.

Nowadays there are more advanced control systems for parking; the construction of buildings,

stadiums, airports, hospitals, hotels, etc. make the parking market grow and lead to the

development of new devices, providing the driver with information for more security and comfort.

For example: by a new software designed for mobile phones, the driver can easily get to know

where to find a parking, how much he/she has to pay for an hour and which types of discounts

he/she can get.

DESIGNA, with its products has found a solution for parkings with a small number of slots as

well as for parkings with thousands of slots. For the first case the company offers SLIMPARK as


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a smart solution. Starting at the entrance there is a machine which provides the driver with a bar

code ticket. Once this task is done a barrier is opened, giving the parking access to the driver.

Then, for the payment of the service there are two different ways; the Automatic Pay Station

(PAY) is a machine provided with a bar code scanner for ticket reading, it accepts coins, bank

notes and credit or debit cards, also has a receipt printer using thermal printing technology, this

receipt is printed once the driver has paid the fee and it is necessary to leave the parking by

putting it in the exit machine which has powerful bar code scanner and opens the barrier to let

the driver out.

For the second case DESIGNA has the PM ABACUS, regarding to the hardware this system

works the same way as the SLIMPARK, but it was necessary to develop complete software that

allows the administrators to have control of their parking. Every transaction that occurs during

the parking process is assigned to the respective ticket in a central SQL database and made

available for the reporting system. Statistics, warnings, general management and predictions

can be done in real time which means that the controller or even the owner can open a barrier,

be informed about a failure on the system or even program the maintenance schedule of a

technician without needing of displacement. Even the assistance call when you push the

information button in the pay machine can be answered in another country by the same person

that makes the repair command for another parking elsewhere.

Figure 1 New Parking structure

Source: Daniel Sandino


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Nevertheless, all those improvements were not made only for the parking owners, direct clients

of DESIGNA, but also for the parking users themselves often directly concerned to those

evolutions and more important even principal source of feedback.

The improvements and new features are countless but maybe the most remarkable are:

• The license plate reader camera: At the beginning only one more of the new options in

the car parking systems but now required for security reasons in a few countries. The

system is composed by basically video camera and image treatment software that reads

the license number in the front of your car and if its numbers match with a subscriber

number or to a credit card the system automatically enables the entrance of the car

without need of getting out of the car or open the window.

• Radar: It is basically composed by a radar from 0,3m to 1,5m range that reads a badge

that the subscriber to a monthly contract has in the review mirror and automatically

opens the barrier allowing the car to get in or out at will.

• Credit card direct payment: If you do not want to take a ticket and you also want to pay

with your credit card, a credit card reader is placed in the entrance and exit machines, so

you just have to put your credit card in the machine and it automatically charges the bill

to your bank account.

Source: www.Designa.com

Despite DESIGNA has such a product variety, the demand of new products and services is

growing, the companies engaged in the parking market are developing new technologies in

order to adjust their products to the drivers needs. These needs may vary according to several

factors that govern the society, depending on the location, culture, social status, etc.


- 17 -

Companies as Skidata, Audi, Scheidt & Bachmann, Siemens and Zeag are some of the

companies that are improving their products and systems. Below we list some of those new

services:

• As a result of the cooperation between Audi and Scheidt & Bachmann, there is a new

service called “Travolution Project” that offers the driver useful information via the MMI

on-board monitor regarding the number of vacant parking lots available and the parking

fees payable. The aim of this project is to enable motor cars to communicate with traffic

signals, car parking facilities and petrol stations. The advantages of this product are

showed below:

• Car drivers get useful information via the MMI on-board monitor such as the number of

vacant parking slots and parking fees payable

• Quick & comfortable without a parking ticket

• No time-consuming payment procedure

• The motor vehicle is the unique identification of the car driver

• Payment is proceeded e.g. via a credit card or direct debit mandate

• Payment is confirmed comfortably using the MMI control knob

• Receipt is automatically dispatched via email

• No loss of parking ticket

• Reduce of wait in queues

• Feeling of security enhanced

• MMI car on-board monitor is used as a communication platform for the car parking facility

and facilitates addressing customers in a targeted manner

• Payment feature at the exit enables transparent and fair billing of the parking period

correct to the nearest minute both for the car driver and the operator of the car parking

facility


- 18 -

• Favourable impact on the traffic flow within the car park: Queues at the exit reduced

• Sustained reduce of operational costs (no parking tickets, decreased number of pay

stations)

Figure 2 Travolution project

Source: www.parking-

net.com/ShowCase/34279/Cooperation-

partners-Scheidt---Bachmann-GmbH-and-

AUDI-AG-in-the-Travolution-project

• The company ZEAG has designed an automatic Pay Station In-lane, it is a friendly and

easy station that accepts payment from parking customers while they are in their cars.

This machine should be installed at the exit of the parking and it offers the possibility to

pay with prepared cards, bank cards, credit cards, pre-coded tickets and tokens, it also

counts with the lost tickets option and it is provided with a security system to avoid

fraudulent operations.

Source: www.zeag.ch/Pay+Station+In-Lane+-+APL/d7f397bf71a6886676f41d6c1fc40b76.html

Skidata developed a contactless entry and exit for parking, it is one of the favourite car driver

products, it is the easiest way to access to a parking, no waste of time, no windows to open and

no tickets. The system consists of a scanner and transponder that adhere to the vehicle’s

windshield for hands-free access. This product is environmentally-friendly because it avoids the

use of tickets and reduce the maintenance cost that other technologies carry on with. Many car

parking companies are using this technology due to the facility. Depending on the company, the


- 19 -

scanner could use Ultra High Frequency reader or a Radio Frequency Identification System.

Skidata is also offering a mobile service called “Mobile.Gate” it is a phone and at the same time

a ticket dispenser and cash register. The technical description of this product is showed below:

Hardware: Symbol/Motorola Handheld Device MC659B including Bluetooth

Zebra belt printing device RW220

Figure 3 Motorola Handheld Device MC659B

Features:

o Flexible handheld solution for parking facilities.

o This device can be used for entrance, payment and exit at SKIDATA parking

systems

o The handheld device functions as a ticket dispenser and cash register combined

in one device

o Enables wireless mobile ticket issuing and payment collection upon exit

o Complete overview and monitoring similar to permanently installed devices

o Full integration into Parking.Logic

o Mobile.Gate is seamlessly integrated into Parking.Logic

o System extensions and mixed operations are possible

o Login with normal parking system credentials

o No additional user administration for Mobile.Gate


- 20 -

o Normal parking system user credentials can be used

o User dependent language

o The application language can be switched depending on user properties during

login

o Easy to use also for multi-lingual staff

o Facility comprehensive usage

o One Mobile.Gate device is not bound to one single parking facility; it can be used

for multiple parking facilities.

o Choose the facility to connect with during login procedure

o Entrance mode

o In this mode short term tickets can be printed at the mobile printer

o The short term tickets are containing all the necessary information like normal

short term tickets issued on a normal entrance column including a machine

readable barcode

o In the background the transaction will be treated as normal short term ticket

entrance by the parking system

o Counting can be activated or deactivated.

o Mobile short term ticket production and occupation counting as usual

o Different entrance ticket types

o Up to 6 different ticket types are available and can be chosen during ticket

production e.g. for normal cars, trucks, motor-bikes, busses.

o The right ticket for every customer - Mobile.Gate

o Customizable tickets

o Customer CI logo can be printed on every ticket produced

o Let Mobile.Gate be part of your corporate identity

o Exit Cashiering Mode

o In this mode the handheld can be used for scanning the barcode on the short

term tickets

o The serial number of the ticket can be entered manually too

o Afterwards the tariff is calculated online and displayed at the handheld

o Mobile cashiering of short term tickets with built in barcode scanner on the move

o Convenience counts - give your customers the possibility to pay the parking tariff

everywhere.


- 21 -

Source: www.skidata.com/fileadmin/user_upload/corporate/downloads/products/parking/mobile-

gate/Mobile.Gate-en.pdf

• To contribute against global warming, greenhouse effect and support the use of electrical

cars, Siemens has developed a charging station called “The Sitraffic Epos”, besides

offering a charging plug for electric cars; it also provides a payment system and an info-

terminal. This is a modular system which can be configured as a sole charging point or

as a station with up to ten satellite connections, it can be installed anywhere where

multiple electric cars need to be charged, i.e. in public places, where it can be combined

with car park ticket machines.

Figure 4 The Sitraffic Epos

Source: www.parking-net.com/News/32669/Park---charge--Smart-electric-charging-with-Sitraffic-

Epos-from-Siemens

• I PARKED HERE: This service is made for those car drivers who do not remember

where they have parked their car; it records their parking place, showing the information


- 22 -

in the moment when they decide to look for it. With this application it is also possible to

add a parking meter alarm and search-find a car park near from your location. The

application works by Skyhook system using Nokia maps or Google maps it was designed

for Nokia mobiles but now is able to all kind of phones. There is a short explanation of

this service and the phones which can use this service below:

I Parked Here finds your current location in seconds. No more waiting on slow

GPS. The coordinates of you parking place will be automatically saved in

seconds. I Parked Here gives you the Skyhook Wireless location system. This

means I Parked Here works like an ultra super-fast GPS.

Supported Phones:

• Nokia N95

• Nokia N95 8GB

• Nokia N96

• Nokia N78

• Nokia N82

• Nokia E90

• Nokia E71

• Nokia N79

• Nokia N85

• Nokia N86 8MP

• Nokia E75

• Nokia E55

• Nokia 6710 Navigator

• Nokia E71x

• Nokia 5800

• Nokia N97

• Nokia N97 Mini

• Nokia X6

• Nokia 5530 XpressMusic

• Samsung I550

• Samsung G810


- 23 -

2.2.2. Evolution of traffic

To analyze the evolution of traffic in the future in Europe, we first started to search for

information about the car density and the expected development of it in the future. We could find

data about the expected evolution in Germany, but unfortunately we didn’t find this kind of data

for Europe. Therefore, we decided to have a look at the expected demographic development for

Europe instead.

2.2.2.1. Current traffic status in Germany and Europe

First we will have a look at the current status in Germany, which is described in the Figure 6 to

Figure 8.

Figure 5 I parked here


- 24 -

Figure 6 Number of cars in Germany from 2001 to 2010

Source:

http://www.kba.de/nn_191172/DE/Statistik/Fahrzeuge/Bestand/FahrzeugklassenAufbauarten/b_

_fzkl__zeitreihe.html

In the Figure 6 you can see, that in 2001 there were 43.7 Mio cars in Germany, that means over

the half of the people in Germany had a car. This number steadily increased until 2007, when it

reached 46.5 Mio cars. This means an increase of 6.4 % in 6 years. Between 2007 and 2008

there was a huge drop in the number of cars to 41.2 Mio because the rules of calculation were

changed in this year and temporary laid up cars weren’t taken into account anymore. So the

numbers of 2007 and 2008 are not comparable. After 2008, there is again a rise in the number

of cars, so that in 2010 it reaches 41.7 Mio cars, which is an increase of 1.2% in 2 years. This

shows that the trust in the economy is still there and the number probably will rise more in the

next years.


- 25 -

Figure 7 Cars per thousand inhabitants in Germany from 1998 to 2009

Source:

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=de&pcode=tsdpc340

&plugin=1

In the Figure 7 is shown the number of cars per thousand inhabitants from 1998 to 2009 in

Germany. In 1998 there were 508 cars per thousand inhabitants, which means more than every

second person in Germany had a car. The following years the number increased more or less

steadily until 2006 to 565 cars per thousand inhabitants. Then there is again the big decrease of

cars between 2006 and 2007 to 500 cars per thousand inhabitants, as we already saw it in

Figure 6. The difference in the decrease, compared to Figure 6, is because in Figure 6 the data

was collected at the first of January every year and in Figure 7 it was collected at the end of the

year. Like in Figure 6 as well, you can also see an increase of the numbers here in the last 3

years, to 509 cars in 2009.


- 26 -

Figure 8 Share of car traffic in total passenger transport in Germany from 1999 to 2008

Source:

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=de&pcode=tsien090&

plugin=1

Figure 8 shows the share of car traffic in total passenger transport, if you look at the chart you

will see a big decrease of the percentage after 2004, which in fact is not as big as it looks,

because it depends on the label of the axis. When you look at it you will see that in the overall it

just changes in 1.2 %, between 85 and 86.2 %, that means the share is on a quite constantly

high level.

To get to know the current status in Europe, we have a look at the car density in Western and

Central Europe, which can be seen in


- 27 -

Table 1. As you see most of the Central and Western Europe countries are above the average

of the European Union (470 cars /1000 inh.). This shows that the density of cars is already very

high in this part of the world, what implicates two results. The first is, there are already many

cars which means a high need of car parks also and therefore a big market for DESIGNA. But

on the other hand it also implicates that there is not so much potential to develop because the

market is almost saturated.

Table 1 Car density in Western and Central Europe in 2008

Source:

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.d

o?tab=table&init=1&language=de&pcode=ts

dpc340&plugin=1


- 28 -

2.2.2.2. Traffic development in Germany and demographic changes in

Europe

The Figure 9 and Figure 10 contain the information about the future development in car traffic in

Germany until 2030, whereas Figure 11 is about the demographic changes in Europe until 2050.

In Figure 9 you see the estimated development of cars per thousand inhabitants in the next

years, there a steady grow to see until 2030. In 2015 it should rise to 558 cars per thousand

inhabitants, increasing even more to 568.5 cars in 2020. From 2020 to 2030 it should increase

by 5 cars to 573.5 cars per thousand inhabitants, but the numbers stagnate more and more

coming to 2030.

Figure 9 Number of cars per thousand inhabitants in Germany from 2000 to 2030

Source: http://www.shell.de/pkwszenarien


- 29 -

Figure 10 Number of cars in Germany from 2010 to 2030

Source: http://www.shell.de/pkwszenarien

Figure 10 shows the development of the number of cars in Germany in millions, here we see

also a rise until 2020 to 45.1 Mio, but after that in 2030 the number of cars decreases to 44.8

Mio. This fall wasn’t seen in chart 1, because the population of Germany will also decrease from

2020 to 2030.


- 30 -

Figure 11 European population by age group 1950-2050

Source: United Nations Population Division, DESA (2007): World Population Prospects: The

2006 Revision (http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2006/wpp2006_ageing.pdf)

The demographical changes in Europe are most visible in the group between 15 and 59 years,

where you can see a huge decrease after 2010. This group also is the main target group,

because they are most likely to have a car. The decrease in the group from 0 to 14 years is

without relevance for us because they are not permitted to drive a car. The only group with

increasing numbers is the one of 60 years and older. Since there is no age limit for driving


- 31 -

permits in Europe, and the mobility of older people is increasing this leads to a bigger number of

people driving a car. If this is enough to compensate the loss of people in the overall, we have to

see.

2.2.3. Urban and architectural evolution

The urban evolution is strongly related with the current and future demographic and economic

change which could also be seen as a potential challenge, because driving force in this

competitive world are the people and a key goal for the business is to attract and retain the

human resources. The economic crisis and uncertainty lead many companies to go bankrupt

and otherwise in industrial cities jobs are reduced and unemployment rises. As a result of that

more and more young people are moving from the affected areas to areas where they can find

personal and professional realization. This leads to shrinking of the population in some areas

and growing in others.

The Urban Evolution in CEE predetermines city expansion which must face the demand of new

residents such as: building houses, hospitals, hotels, airports, stadiums, transport

improvements, supermarkets, schools/universities and etc. As you can see in the Figure 12

below the best cities for business are either European capitals or either other big and important

centres. The success of those places is hidden in their strategy of finding, attracting and

managing investments.

On a leading position in this survey stays London, which continues establishing strong positions

into the global picture especially after the heavy banking crisis which affected the city. Also as

it’s shown in the chart London, Paris and Frankfurt occupy the first three places over eighteen

years, this makes them not only profitable business places but also save and secure in terms of

working and living.


- 32 -

The internal migration to those cities brings many problems for solving as well. One of the main

challenges that the local government is facing in this megacities is their transportation

infrastructure. The constant growth of people leads to increasing vehicle usage and huge traffic

jams especially during the peak hours. The local train and bus interchanges are often crowded

and busy making the time travel route almost impossible to predict. The city centres usually face

problem of not enough parking spaces which makes the anyway difficult to pass area blocked by

parked vehicles.

Figure 12 The best cities for business

In Figure 13 below a statistic of the fastest improving European cities is shown. This chart tells

us the names and the speed of the development of the cities. As we can see the best business

cities (ranked by companies asked which city they think is doing the most to actually improve

themselves) doesn’t mean fast improving at the same time. The progress vary trough the years

affected by economical and political changes.


- 33 -

Figure 13 fastest improving European cities

The measurement (at Figure 12 and Figure 13) is made upon comparing 4 main factors: Easy

access to markets, customers or clients, replacing the availability of qualified staff, the quality of

telecommunications and transport links with other cities. Overall those four factors are very

important and essential when it comes to the decision of locating a business.

The local government also plays a huge role in this process because it often has limitations in

financial and human resource plans, and could be affected by private or political interests. The

financial problems influencing the local government could be subsided by the European fund

program which usually just partly helps to solve the difficult situation. But in order to acquire

those funds, the local governments have to integrate an action plan which in most of the cases

seems like formality rather than difficult application. Millions of Euro constantly help, different EU

members to stabilize their politic and subsidize internal development programs such as

improvement of road network, farming, studying and so on. Also in this process the local

authorities have a role of middle organization linking the executors (which could be private

actors) with the EU funds. The local government in that case feels great pressure trying to


- 34 -

ensure that the money is spent in a correct manner and at the same time usually have limited

control on the private shareholders.

2.2.4. Relevant legislative developments

Thanks to the help of experts from DESIGNA, we found two main legislations concerning the

company in the central European market. The first one is called “CE” which is a certificate

indicating that the product meets the legal requirements described in the applicable directive(s).

Also “CE” could be used for product testing. All products with “CE” marking have free access to

the entire European Economic Area. Products without “CE” marking can’t be legally traded

within EEA. For more information see Appendix 13

The second Law concerning DESIGNA is called “ISO 9001:2008” and is for the scope:

development, production, distribution, installation, service and support and support of automatic

systems for car park revenue control management and have implemented and maintained a

quality management system. The whole information about “ISO 9001:2008” you can find here:

http://www.praxiom.com/iso-9001-standard.htm. 13/04/2011

2.2.5. Problems

• We did not find recent information. Some of the information is from 2009 even 2005.

• Sometimes we didn’t know even the date of the publication and the source of this

information.

• Due to the lack of information accessible about the future development of traffic in Europe,

we had to concentrate on the prognosis of population instead.

• Heike tried to make a library research but it was not successful because of the date of

release of this information.


- 35 -

2.2.6. Conclusion 1

• The car parking system technologies are evolving fast, DESIGNA, with its range of

products can offer an excellent service but should also look up to the new technologies

development. The competitors are offering a range of attractive services and DESIGNA

should not stay behind.

Concerning to the advanced technology of electrical vehicles, designed to contribute

against global warming, the necessity of chargers around the city will increase during the

next years. DESIGNA should think in the possibility of producing hardware able to let the

driver park and recharge the car at the same time. In order to reach this goal, it is

necessary for the company to invest in R&D, so that, they could also be at forefront of new

products and services.

• Looking at the evolution of traffic there is to say, that even if there will be less young

people living in Europe, the amount of cars is not dropping considerably, because of the

higher mobility of the old people. Nevertheless, a change in requirements to car parking

systems has to be considered. For older people it is more important that systems are easy

to use, for example wider entry and exit lanes or guided ways to free parking spaces, as

well the parking spaces should be bigger. Furthermore, the pay station should be provided

with larger buttons and writing, for a more comfortable use even if the sight or the motor

activities are getting worse.


- 36 -

2.3. Objective 2: Analysis of developing markets

2.3.1. Selection of the countries

As has been told in the project description, we had to decide which countries should be studied

in order to reduce the aim of the research, hence, there is a short analysis/description of those

chosen countries and the reason why they have been chosen:

Brazil

We decided to make our research in Brazil because it is the largest country in Latin America,

consequently; there should be more possibilities to develop a market strategy for DESIGNA. The

main cities in Brazil are always improving, for example: during the past two years there was a

construction of a new metro station in Sao Paulo also, there is an incredible number of projects

to construct in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador de Bahia like skyscrapers, museums, residential

towers with shopping centres, office buildings, etc. this fact could be mentioned as our first

result, additionally we found some companies which could be possible partners, but that will be

considered in the next phase of our project.

It is important to mention the fact that Brazil will host the Fifa World Cup in 2014, the whole

country is involved in this event, the airports, stadiums and hotels will need to be constructed

and reconstructed, put simply there is a huge opportunity for DESIGNA to enter in this market

and establish their position in South America.

Argentina

Following the order, we chose Argentina, the second largest country in South America. In our

research we found that this country has the highest number of cars (1 car per each 4

inhabitants) in Latin America and is the one producing the biggest amount of cars per year since


- 37 -

2007 in South America. The public transport in big cities like Buenos Aires and Cordoba is well

organized but still, the people prefer to drive the car. As a result, the parking market is growing,

giving DESIGNA the opportunity to commercialize their products there.

There is also a notable evolution in Argentina on account of their recover from the devaluation

money crisis they suffered in 2002; this fact makes the country a potential market for every kind

of business.

Colombia

This country has been chosen not only because it has a very important position in the centre of

America, what makes of it a neuralgic point for business and off course for the real estate

market, but also because two of the team members are originally from there, which is a very

important card for the cultural analysis of the research and the future development of entry

strategies. Colombia is also an important country because it is placed in a high developing zone

where enormous malls and skyscraper are projected for the next ten years.

Mexico

As one of the largest countries in Latin America and one of the biggest producers of cars of the

continent, Mexico is for sure essential for this segment of the economy. As well, there are cities

in these countries like Monterrey where, due to an inefficient public transport system, most of the

people have decided to use their own vehicles; this particular phenomena makes of Monterrey

the city with the highest number of cars on the street and, for sure, one of the cities where

parking areas are really needed, a big and non completely satisfied market.

Bulgaria

During the market research on Bulgaria and Ukraine, our group found very interesting data

concerning the parking industry. Using English, Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian languages for


- 38 -

gathering information began PESTEL based analysis of the current situation in those markets.

We stopped our attention on Bulgaria because of the fact that the country is a new member in

the European Union and one of the EPS students actually is from there and could give better

image of the current practices in the country. As a result of urbanization more people are moving

to the big cities, trying to find better conditions for living. The traditional way of transportation in

the country is by car, which the people find more reliable and convenient. In fact Bulgaria for the

first part of 2010 was on first place from Europe by construction of shopping centres which again

tells us about the growing investments in the cities. The three biggest cities there are Sofia (the

capital), Plovdiv and Varna. The capital and Varna really have necessity of building new car

parks, because at the moment those cities feel great need of such places.

Ukraine

For that market research Ukraine was chosen because of the fact that DESIGNA doesn’t have

much information about their parking system market and also because of the fact that the

country is a potential new member of the European Union. Ukraine also has big population as

well with growing demand in the automobile industry as a general. Important centres are Kiev

(the capital), Lviv, Odessa, Kharkiv and Donesk. The focus here also is in the closer future

(2012) and particularly the European football championship which will take place in Ukraine.

Currently this event brings lots of investments to those cities in order to improve their

infrastructure such as: transport network, airports, stadiums and hotels. Those projects are seen

from DESIGNA as good news for a possible market entry from the company and also

establishing strong positions in the country.

Romania

We have chosen Romania for the Eastern European countries because it is the seventh largest

country of the European Union measured by population. Budapest, where 1.94 Mio of the almost


- 39 -

22 Mio inhabitants of Romania are living, is the sixth largest city of the EU. Therefore, and

because the next smaller city, named Timisoara, has just around 312 thousand inhabitants, we

should concentrate on Bucharest in our project. Furthermore, Bucharest’s GDP per person is

around 92% of the EUs average, hence more than twice of the GDP of Romania in average.

This good working economy is one of the reasons why there are planned many projects, like

commercial centres and amusement parks, for the next years.

Belarus

The main reason for choosing Belarus was that for the DESIGNA Staff it is more or less an

empty patch on the map, which they would like to have more information about. From the over

9.5 Mio inhabitants of Belarus almost 19% are living in its capital Minsk, and even more in the

surroundings of it. Other big cities in Belarus are Gomel, Mogilev and Vitebsk, but in comparison

to Minsk they have less than one third of its population. Talking about Belarus, of course the

political situation has to be considered, on the one hand the government sticks to Soviet-era

policies like, state ownership of the economy, but on the other hand it forces prestige projects

like stadiums, especially in the capital Minsk.

2.3.2. Selection of indicators

In order to analyze the chosen countries we decided to look for indicators which should help us

judging the size of the market and the market growth. The reasons for choosing these indicators

were as follows:

• Population: With the population of the cities we have the opportunity to judge the

possible size of the market. The more people are living in the cities the more possible


- 40 -

users for car parks exist. Furthermore, bigger cities need more airports, hospitals, hotels

and shopping malls which are the main customers for a car parking system producer.

• Area: The area indicates the need of cars in a city. If there are many people living in a

small area, like in Manhattan or the city of London, they tend to use more the public

transport system than buying a car. On the opposite there are other American cities

which are located in a much bigger area, where it is more convenient to use a car

because of the long ways to go.

• Population per km²: To look at the population per square kilometer helps to compare

the cities with each other even if they have huge differences in population or area.

• Public transport: Also, we had a look at the public transport system to judge the

possibilities of the population to use public transport. The better the public transport

system is the more people are using it, which reduces the need of car parking systems.

• Passengers in public transport: The number of passengers in public transport shows

the efficiency of the current transport system. How many people are already using it and

even more important how many people are therefore not using it and need to park their

car when they go into the city.

• Price per travel in public transport: The price for the public transport system is a good

indicator for the availability of the public transport. If the bus rides, for example, are

cheap, you would rather use the bus than buying a car.

• Number of commuters: The number of commuters, this means the number of people

that work in the city but live in the surroundings, influence directly the needed parking

spaces in the center. A high number of commuters goes along with many cars which

need to be parked safely during the day.


- 41 -

• Number of cars: Of course, the number of cars is the most important indicator to look for

when you are interested in the market for car parking systems. It is a direct indicator for

the size of the market.

• Cars per thousand inhabitants: Again, like for the population, to look at the cars per

thousand inhabitants is a more objective way to compare the number of cars for cities

with high differences in the size of the population.

• Density of cars (cars / km²): The density of cars is important because it measures the

cars per square kilometer, and gives a good overview of the car parks needed in a

certain area, and therefore the possible size of the market.

• Price for parking: We looked at the price for parking because it indicates which kind of

systems would be possible to sell. If you earn more with operating a car park, you can

install a more expensive system.

• GDP: The Gross Domestic Product is an indicator for the productivity of the city and

therefore, the money which is available for new construction projects, which most of the

times means new car parks needed.

• GDP/Person: With the Gross Domestic Product per person we can compare the GDP for

cities of different sizes, to have a more objective view on the strength of the economy.

• Per capita income per month: The per capita income per month defines the money the

people have to spend for a car and for parking it. The less they earn, the more

improbable it is that they will earn their own car.

• Minimum wages: The minimum wages are not only an indicator for the money the

people have to spend, but also for the kind of system the customers are likely to buy. If

the price for a working hour is low, the car park owners prefer not to buy a high

technological system instead they will buy just a basic system and hire more people to do

the rest of the job.


- 42 -

• Number of existing and planned airports: The more airports a city has, the more car

parks they will need. Furthermore, airport car parks are prestige projects for the car

parking system producers because they often use the latest technologies and are always

open for new ideas.

• Air traffic volume: The size of an airport is measured by the air traffic volume, meaning

the number of passengers per year. And of course, the more passengers use the airport,

the more have to park their car there.

• Parking lots at airports: The number of parking lots at the airports also gives us a

better overview of the size of the airport and the car parks needed.

• Land use plan: In the indicator land use plan we have a look at the planned new

constructions in the cities. For Example if there are big events in the next years, for which

there have to be build new stadiums or hotels with parking facilities.

• Competitors: And of course we had a look at the competitors because a big presence of

competitors indicates a good market. Furthermore we have to compare DESIGNA to its

competitors to judge their chances for a successful market entry.


- 43 -

2.3.3. Detailed analysis of market indicators for each country

Argentina

Figure 14 Argentinian Map

Source:

http://www.inta.gov.ar/bordenave/contactos/

contactos.htm

After Brazil, Argentina is the second largest country in South America; it is also the second

producer of cars and the second with the highest number of cars in the area. Argentina suffered

the worst crisis of its history in the years 2001/02. Since then, it has experienced a strong

recovery, which even surpassed the highest levels of GDP before the fall, creating a cycle of five

years of recovery and growth as never before throughout the twentieth century. Nevertheless,

for DESIGNA, to open a market there has advantages and disadvantages.

Sources: http://www.forocoches.com/foro/showthread.php?t=2123753

http://www.adefa.com.ar/v2/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=57

&Itemid=77&lang=es


- 44 -

For the company, the more partners around the world they have, the better it is for their

references, however, when it comes to Argentina we are talking about a difficult market to reach.

It does not mean that there are not possibilities there; it only means that the car parking market

is growing slowly.

The analyze of the indicators has shown us how, for instance, that the public transport in

Argentina is quite cheap but the quality in cities like Rosario or Mendoza is not the best they

could have and in a city like Buenos Aires, where the public transport service is in fact well

organized, the people still prefer to drive their cars.

In regard to the land use plan, we can say that Argentina, as the rest of the countries in South

America is a country with a constant development but we could not find qualitative information

except, for some news which told about the construction of skyscrapers, residential complex and

the reconstruction of Mendoza’s airport. It may be that they are not publishing this kind of

information on the internet and this fact can be an indicator for DESIGNA of the obstacles.

In addition, by the evaluation of the competitors, we found a huge number of companies

producing car parking systems. These companies are also selling their products in some Latin

American countries. This fact, could be taken as an advantage for DESIGNA if they want to find

partners there but could also be an impediment to get into the market if these companies are not

interested in becoming partners. However, we recommend DESIGNA to get in contact with them

and for this assignment we prepare a list with the main competitors that can be found in the

Appendix 2 List of competitors.

To sum up, Argentina is a country where DESIGNA can find partners for the car parking systems

but they will face many difficulties because there are many competitors and the fees for the

public transport are cheap. Besides, Argentina is still recovering from its 2002 crisis and it will


- 45 -

take a few years until economy gets regulated, in this case, it will be better to wait for a couple of

years and focus in the opportunities they may have in Brazil.

Brazil

From all the indicators we have searched for, we can get to the conclusion that Brazil is the

country with the highest opportunities for DESIGNA. It is the largest country in South America,

with the highest number of cars, its GDP occupies the 10th position in the world ranking and it is

the 4th in economical. Its economy is the major in the American continent after USA and Canada,

its currency; “El Real” keeps 15 years of stability above the dollar and the euro.

During the past five years, Brazil has developed a tourist policy, providing the country with new

infrastructure. The tourism has become a rapidly expanding sector and one of the principal

income sources. Besides, its political stability influences its economical growing process.

Due to the World Cup in 2014, there is a reconstruction plan for 13 airports around the country.

To reach this objective, there will be an investment of 3.500 million of USD. Below, there is a list

of the cities hosting the World Cup and a map pointing them to have a better view of the

geographic situation:

• Sao Paulo

• Brasilia

• Rio de Janeiro

• Porto Alegre

• Curitiba

• Ciuabá

• Manaos

• Fortaleza

• Salvador de Bahía

• Recife

• Natal

• Campinas


- 46 -

Figure 15 Brazilian map

Source: http://patricia-tic.blogspot.com/2010/04/mapas-fisicos-de-brasil.html

Equally important is the reconstruction of the stadiums in these cities, with capacity between

45.000 and 87.000 spectators, there will be an investment of 1.830 millions of USD. Regarding

the shopping centers, there are more than 80 constructions to be inaugurated during 2011 and

2012. Also, the construction and reconstruction of hotels will carry an investment of 544, 5

millions of USD. Finally, the construction of residential buildings, administrative centers,

skyscrapers and museums are indicators of new parking that will be build from now until the next

3 years.

Furthermore, the public transport is another important indicator that we analyzed; compared to

the other countries we researched for, Brazil has the highest fee, besides, the quality and

quantity in some cities are not the best and it makes difficult the access to the cities for those

who live in the suburbs and must go to work or to study in the city every day. It lead us to the

conclusion that the people prefer to drive by car than paying this amount of money for an


- 47 -

insufficient service and at the same time, increases the number of cars, leading to the necessity

of constructing new parkings or to habilitate some places for this purpose.

Concerning the competitors, we found in our research some producers of hardware and

software of car parking systems, there are some national producers but there are also big

companies from Germany and Switzerland which sell their products there.

It does not represent a huge problem; there are still some cities where foreign companies have

not arrived yet, subsequently, the possibilities to find partners there are higher.

Moreover, there are many companies from the whole world which want to invest in Brazil and

surely, the country is open to negotiate.

More important and interesting for DESIGNA, is the parking system into the cities i.e. how they

operate. The new technologies in car parking system are arriving fast to Brazil; nevertheless,

there is still a huge percentage of valet parking. This system is quite common in South America

because it generates jobs and that could be one of the problems that DESIGNA has to confront.

To become this kind of parking in a parking operating automatically, the company should make

sure that the employees find another job before they install the machines and the employees are

not needed anymore.

Despite the difficulties DESIGNA may face, we still recommend them to try to find partners in

Brazil; it is the best time to make business in this country not only because of the World Cup in

2014 and all that it entails, but also for its swift development and growth and the fact that the

competitors are not so strong due to the size of the country.

Source: http://www.brasilcasas.net/porquebrasil.htm: Reasons to invest in Brazil (in Spanish).


- 48 -

Colombia

Figure 16 Colombian map

Source: http://www.knietzsch.com/travel/co-

map.gif

Placed in the center of the American continent, sharing frontiers with Ecuador, Peru, Brazil,

Venezuela and Panamá and with access to two oceans, Colombia has a privileged position in

the continent and a high developing market that grows every day as fast as its population and

the per capita income. Therefore, there is in Colombia, at least in the ten biggest cities, a culture

of big malls and shopping centers, like the Centro Mayor mall with 248.000 m² and the Santa Fé

mall with 215,000 m², which requires the construction and management of enormous paying

Parkings.

In the list of renovation we have also Bogotá’s international Airport, El Dorado, under a project of

renovation and expansion that includes the parking areas around the airport where, for sure, it

will be needed a renovation of parking systems. We know that one of the three parking operating

in this moment there is managed by Parking International.


- 49 -

Accordingly, Bogotá, main focus of our Colombian research, has a population over the

8’000,000 of inhabitants and as much as Medellin, Santiago de Cali and Barranquilla (and most

of the capitals of Colombia), the city is composed also by some small cities added to the capital

for the expansion of this one, e.g. in Bogotá, cities like Soacha, Chia and Suba has been added

to the capital. The main problem with these phenomena is that most of people living there, work

in the commercial pole placed in the center of the capital producing an important number of

commuters and raising the demand of parking and the price/hour of theme; however, providing

this problem, the government decide to regulate the price of parking/hour in 10 USD per hour

max.

On the other hand, due to the lower minimum salary, in Colombia there is a culture of service,

that makes that services like valet parking, where the need of performing electronic parking

systems is not required, are provided by the biggest Car Parking Operators like Parking

International and City-Parking, the biggest parking groups in Colombia. Nevertheless, the proof

that there could be a potential market is that those big groups use technologies of Amano and

Skidata in their parking.

It has to be said also that, at the moment of writing this project, there have been already a

primary contact between DESIGNA and the Car Parking Operator placed in Medellin Olé-

Parking but there is not actual feedback from this first contact.

To conclude, even if there is hurry to enter into this market, there are some of the most important

manufacturer groups of Car Parking Systems like Amano and Skidata selling their products in

the biggest cities and there are some other local producers like Global Control Systems LTDA

among others. It may be wise to contact directly the big Car parking operators like Parking

International, City-Parking SA and Aparcar SA because they are those who can actually need

the company’s product.


- 50 -

Mexico

Figure 17 Mexican map

Source: http://www.kokhavivpublications.com/help/maps/images/mexico_map.gif

This is, without any doubt, one of the most developing countries from whole Latin America;

Cities like Mexico City with a population of more than 20 million of inhabitants and other like

Monterrey where the density of cars is almost of 2 thousand cars per square meter, the biggest

from our whole research. At the same time we found that Mexico and Brazil are the biggest car

manufacturers in the continent, something really attractive for a Company like DESIGNA.

On the infrastructural field, we discover that Mexico is, from the Latin American countries, the

one which has the biggest number of projected skyscrapers in the biggest cities, Mexico City,

Guadalajara, Monterrey and Puebla. From this it can be implied that the need of high performing

parking systems is an obvious need and that it can be the factor that may support the entrance

of the company in this market.


- 51 -

It has to be said also that the presence of big American groups in Mexico is a fact but also it is

important to notice that Skidata and Amano are present in this market which means that this is

not a closed market and that the entrance is an option.

We consider, however, that the entrance into South American markets should be a priority

before considering the entrance in the Center of America because of the actual opportunities

that may facilitate the entrance in those markets i.e. the World Football Cup 2012 in Brazil and

the project of renovation of the Colombian International airport “El Dorado” among others.

Romania

Figure 18 Romanian Map

Source: http://www.welt-

blick.de/landkarte/rumaenien.html

Searching for the indicators for Romania was challenging dew to the language barrier. Despite

being a member of the European Union since 2007, much information weren’t accessible in

English which made the search for it quite difficult.

Romania has a population of almost 22 million people, from which 1.9 million are living in the

capital city, Bucharest. The three next smaller cities, which we choose for our research, are Iasi,


- 52 -

Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara, they all have about 300.000 Inhabitants. Looking at the population

per square kilometre, you can see that Bucharest isn’t only the largest city in Romania but also

by far the most crowded one. With 8.528 inhabitants per km² it is more than twice as densely

populated as Iasi with 3.289 inhabitants per km². Timisoara and Cluj-Napoca are following with

2.416 and 1.707 inhabitants per km².

The public transport system is one of the largest in Europe; it contains a metro, buses, trams,

trolley buses, light rails, a private minibus system and taxis. Only with the metro, trams, trolley

buses and buses around 2.5 million passengers get transported everyday. In Iasi there are two

main operators for public transport, which are named RATP Iasi and Unistil, they provide about

150 buses and 150 trams for the transport of approximately 128.000 passengers per day. The

public transport network in Cluj-Napoca includes 321 km, where 3 tram lines, 6 trolley bus lines

and 21 bus routes are used, additionally there is the service of private bus companies. In

Timisoara the public transport system consists of 10 tram lines, 8 trolley bus lines and 20 bus

lines.

Romania has a total number of cars of around 4.2 million, which makes 197 cars per thousand

inhabitants, the density of cars, which is measured in cars per km², is 17,7. More interesting are

the numbers for Bucharest, unfortunately the most actual number we found was from 2008 with

985.000 cars. Consequently, in Bucharest are 514 cars per thousand inhabitants and the density

of cars is 4320 cars/km². The only other numbers which were available were from Cluj-Napoca

with 175.000 cars in total, leading to a density of cars of 975 cars/km². The high number of cars

per thousand inhabitants of 571 shows that in not so densely populated cities more people are

owning cars, because of the longer ways to go. The average price for parking in the city centre

of Bucharest is 123 USD per month.


- 53 -

The average income per month in Romania is about 487 USD, in Bucharest it lays above the

average for the whole country with 513 USD. Whereas, in the other three examined cities the

monthly income is below the national average, with 360 USD in Iasi, 401 USD in Cluj-Napoca

and 396 USD in Timisoara. These numbers are calculated for the regions and not for the cities

themselves. The minimum wage in Romania is around 165 € per month.

The Gross Domestic Product was just available for Romania in total, for which it was numbered

with 253.300 million USD. Whereas, the GDP per person for the whole country is just 11.500

USD, the number for Bucharest is much higher with 27.344 USD and thereby almost reaches

the average of the European Union (approximately 30.500 USD). Also, in the Regions of Cluj-

Napoca and Timisoara the GDP per person is significantly higher than in the national average

with 26.934 USD, respectively 25.121 USD.

Bucharest has two airports, the Henri Coanda Airport with 4.9 million passengers per year and

the Aurel Vlaicu Airport with 2.1 million passengers per year. The other three cities all have one

airport each; the Iasi International Airport had 164.000 passengers in 2010, whereas the Cluj-

Napoca International Airport and the Timisoara international Airport had both around 1million

passengers in 2010. With 500 parking spaces at the Henri Coanda Airport and 300 at the Aurel

Vlaicu Airport in Bucharest there are 800 parking lots at the airports in total. In Timisoara they

have around 600 parking lots at the airport, which is a quite high number compared to the

numbers in Bucharest.

As the capital city and the biggest city in the country Bucharest is certainly the most evolving city

in Romania. For example, they are building the “Divertiland” near Bucharest, which is an

amusement park containing a 40.000 m² water park, a 40.000 m² adventure park, a 37.000 m²

sports club and a 20.000 m² indoor park. For this facility with 30 hectare in the overall 2000

parking places will be needed. Another building project which is planned is a commercial centre


- 54 -

called “Galleria Bucharest” which should include an area of 54.000 m² and will be completed in

2012.

The competitors of DESIGNA which are already present in Romania are SWARCO TRAFFIC

Hungary KFT, FAAC S.p.A. from Italy, Villa Pro from the Slovak Republic and Metric Group LTD

from the UK.

SWARCO TRAFFIC Hungary KFT is the result of merging SWARCO SIGNELIT and VILATI-

SIGNALBAU HUBER. It is part of the SWARCO Group which fields of application are urban

traffic management, interurban traffic management, parking and detection.

FAAC S.p.A. is a company from Italy with 860 employees, which is present in the market for 46

years now. It has 13 subsidiaries and is selling its products in 100 different countries.

Villa Pro is a small company from the Slovak Republic founded in 1994, which is present in the

market of seven different countries.

The Metric Group Ltd from the UK have installed more than 60.000 parking machines in over 45

countries worldwide. In more than thousand towns and cities around the world more than one

million car parking spaces get controlled by their systems.

Considering all the indicators, there is to say that if you want to invest in Romania it is definitely

recommended to start in Bucharest. The huge gap of population between the capital and the

other Romanian cities leads to the conclusion, that there are much more building projects in the

capital than in the other cities. But Bucharest also has one of the best working public transport

systems in Europe, which a lot of people are using. Romania is an open developing European

country and the competitors which already entered the market show that there is a market.

However, the size of the market is the question because there are these huge differences


- 55 -

between the cities. However, a market entry in Bucharest could be worth considering, but there

are not many possibilities to widen the business to whole Romania.

Belarus

Figure 19 Belarusian map

Source:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-

world-factbook/geos/bo.html

While searching for the indicators for Belarus, we had the big problem that most internet pages

didn’t give any or just very few information in English.

Belarus is a country with around 10 million inhabitants, because of its size the density of

population is just 46 per square kilometre. The capital city Minsk with 1.8 million inhabitants is

considerably bigger than the second largest city Gomel (Homyel) with 483.000 inhabitants. The

other two cities looked upon were Mogilev (Mahilyow), which has 358.000 inhabitants, and

Vitebsk (Vitsyebsk) with 348.000 people living in it. The density of inhabitants in Minsk is 5.964

inhabitants per square kilometre, whereas in Homel it is about 4.274 inhabitants per km², in

Mogilev it is 3.240 inh./km² and in Vitebsk it is 3.620 inh./km².


- 56 -

The public transport system of Minsk contains of 8 tramway lines, over 70 trolley bus lines and

over 100 bus lines, this way 4.3 million passengers get transported per day. In Gomel they have

over thousand city buses and trolley buses, which are enabling the 210 million passenger rides

per year (2006). 115 buses, 102 trolley buses and 575 taxi cabs are providing the 134.6 million

passenger rides per year in the public transport system of Mogilev. The only information

obtainable for the public transport in Vitebsk was that they have a tram and trolley buses.

In 2005 there were 170,5 cars per thousand inhabitants, if you consider the population of 2010 it

would lead to a total number of cars of about 1,6 million. The average price for a day of parking

is 6 USD and for a month it is 120 USD.

The per capita income in Belarus is 313 USD per month, but the minimum wage is just about 90

USD per month. The Gross Domestic Product of Belarus is 128.400 million USD, what makes a

GDP per person of 13.400 USD.

Minsk has two airports, the Minsk National Airport and the Minsk-1 Airport. The Minsk National

Airport had around 1 million passengers in 2009 and it offers 743 parking lots. The other three

cities all have one airport, but there was no information to be found about the passenger

numbers or the parking facilities.

Most of the new constructions in Belarus are located in Minsk, its capital. In 2014 the Ice Hockey

World Championship will take place in Minsk, therefore Ice Hockey Arenas have to be build and

reconstructed. As well, there will be constructed a sports and entertainment complex called

“Yelnitsa”, which will cover a total land area up to 75 hectares.

The competitors in Belarus are Green Center from the Czech Republic and FAAC from Italy,

FAAC is represented through KOR Ltd a subsidiary of them.


- 57 -

Green Center is a small company with 30 employees, being 19 years in the market, they have

two subsidiaries and are selling their systems in 15 different countries.

As already told for Romania, FAAC S.p.A. is a company from Italy with 860 employees, which is

present in the market for 46 years now. It has 13 subsidiaries and is selling its products in 100

different countries.

As we experienced during our research, getting information about Belarus is quite difficult,

therefore, the results we got are not very meaningful. But even with this few numbers we can

conclude, that the market for car parking systems in Belarus is not very big. Furthermore, the

political situation in Belarus has to be considered, with the political way President Alexander

Lukashenko is taking, new sanctions of the European Union and the USA against Belarus are

probable to come. On the one hand, there are many prestige building projects especially in

Minsk, but on the other hand the government is likely to support their state-owned companies to

get the contracts. Overall, we wouldn’t recommend entering the Belarusian market.

Bulgaria

Bulgaria is a country, which recently joined the European Union and as such great opportunities

are open for it. With a population of 7.351.234 the country is ranked on the 16th place in Europe.

The three main cities, which we have researched, are also the three most important for the

country: Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna. Many people by internal migration are currently moving to

those cities in order to find jobs, and also the salaries are higher than in the rest of the country.


- 58 -

Figure 20 Bulgarian map

The capital of the Republic of Bulgaria is Sofia. The city plays not only an important role for the

region but also for the whole country. The estimated population by the official census for 2011 is

1. 317. 672 million people, in one statement of the Bulgarian Prime Minister, there are a few

indicators showing in fact that in the capital live around 2 million people, which is more than 20%

of the whole country population.

The public transport is well organized with regular bus lines, fast and cheap metro service, taxis,

and traditional tram and trolley lines. The total passengers using public transport per day is

around 1.6 million, which makes it reliable and convenient for many citizens. In fact in Bulgaria

most of the people prefer to drive a car rather using other options for transportation, but

regarding the travel spending, many people garage their vehicles in front of their residence.

An interesting fact is that in Sofia there’re around 950 000 cars or in other words on every one

thousand inhabitants there are 721 cars. With a density per square kilometre of 1930.00, this for

the city infrastructure is too high. During the peak hours many people stuck in kilometres of

traffic jams. On top of that there are around 50 000 people, who live outside Sofia and come to

work during the day and go on the night, which puts additional weight on the road system.


- 59 -

For the first six months for 2010, Bulgaria was on the leading position of mall construction in

Europe.

Bulgaria is an attractive country for business, and currently brings a lot of money from foreign

investments. In those three main cities, there is a demand for car parking’s; planned four

constructions of big car parking’s in Sofia for the next few years.

When we have a look on the competitors, in Bulgaria there is just the Italian company “Beninca”,

having a subsidiary there. The rest of them operate through retailers, which on one hand is good

for DESIGNA, because potentially can find strong distributor to sell its products.

As a general recommendation I say that Bulgaria is not an attractive market for DESIGNA GmbH

because:

There are not planned any airport constructions in the future.

In the last 5-6 years there were built too many shopping centres and there is not such a demand

at the moment. As you can see in Appendix 1, the national minimum salary in Bulgaria is 120

euro, and this money is barely enough for food and bills. The unemployment rates are very high

also exceeding 10%. The petrol prices are very high, compared to the lifestyle and how much

the people earn; many people prefer to use public transport instead of their private cars. The

parking prices especially in Sofia are so high, leading many people to keep their cars in a

garage and travel by public transport.

Ukraine

Ukraine is a high motivated country to join the European Union, which means that during the next

few decades the country will require intensive economic and infrastructural development. With a

population of 45.939.820 the country is one of the biggest in Europe. The five cities described in


- 60 -

the report are not only the largest, but also the most business attractive: Kiev, Kharkov, Donetsk,

Lvov and Odessa.

Figure 21 Ukrainian map

The most attractive city in case of Business and also an important center for Ukraine is the

capital Kiev, with almost 2.8 million people population, which predetermines the city as a high

complex in case of urbanization and internal planning. There is a very fast increasing number of

cars in Kiev with over 1.000.000, which leads to a demand of constructing new car parking’s as

well. The average price of parking in Ukraine is around 0.50 euro cent.

There is a high percentage of people using public transportation: around 1.38 million people a

day in Kiev. We can find explanation for that fact in the cheap fares like: $8 a month ticket for

buses and trolleybuses.

The national minimum salary barely reaches 81 euro a month, which place the country on one of

the last positions in Europe by this indicator.


- 61 -

The road network is in a very bad condition, built during the Soviet Union. Thanks to the EU

2012, Ukraine is in a re-construction process of the infrastructure: the roads are getting better,

which mean that the people will be more comfortable using cars than before.

When we have a look on the competitors in Ukraine, their way of working is mainly by retailers

instead of subsidiaries, which from one hand is good for DESIGNA, because potentially can find

strong distributor to sell its products in the region.

Thanks to the Football Cup, thirteen stadiums in Ukraine are either under re-construction or

construction to meet the demand of the visitors. Improvements are seen on the Airports and the

hotel industry.

Look at Appendix 14 about details for future construction in Ukraine and the preparations for EU

2012.

here you can find The European 2012 investment plan:

http://www.google.bg/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDAQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukrchicago.com%2Ftem%2FInves

tments%2FEuro2012_web%2Fukraine-

EURO2012.ppt&rct=j&q=reconstruction%20and%20construction%20in%20ukraine%202012&ei=PTPnTa66GcqAOqPv2dwJ&usg=A

FQjCNGGQRK9GJ6ZK8HXrDoaXLwswYCHFQ&cad=rja

2.3.4. Portfolio-Analysis

At the beginning of the project, we decided to focus the research only in Latin America and

Eastern Europe; nevertheless, we still have a group of eight countries with particular features

that we have to score and range, in order to define the ways to approach (or not) to those

markets. Accordingly, it is important to find a tool to measure and compare them as a way to

highlight the strengths and weakness of each business unit. Therefore, we decide to create a


- 62 -

portfolio of countries using one of the two most widely used charts, the Boston Consulting Group

and the McKinsey matrix:

2.3.4.1. The BCG Matrix

Developed by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the BCG Growth Share Matrix is a popular

approach to product portfolio planning. The matrix is defined by two factors: Relative Market

Share (the company's market share relative to the competition) and market growth. To use the

matrix, place each individual product in your company's portfolio into one of the four quadrants

and then do the same for your competitors' products. The result has implications for brand

positioning and market share.

Figure 22 BCG Matrix

BCG Growth Share Matrix

The matrix has four distinct quadrants:

• Stars. A star is a product in a high growth market that controls a sizeable share of that

market. Stars tend to generate strong revenues. Over time, as growth slows, stars

become cash cows if they hold their market share and dogs if they don't.

• Cash cows. A cash cow commands a large share of a slow growth market. The more the

company invests in cash cows, the greater the return. Cash cows tend to pay the

dividends, the interest on debt and cover the corporate overhead.


- 63 -

• Dogs. A dog has a low share of a slow growth market. Dogs often report a profit even

though they are net cash users. They are essentially cash traps.

• Question marks (sometimes called wildcats). A question mark is a product with a low

share of a high growth market. Their cash needs are great because of their growth, but

generate little in return because their market share is low. Question marks are difficult to

turn into stars because the cost of acquiring market share compounds the cash needs.

They may be big winners if backed to the limit, but most often, they fail to develop a

leading market position before growth slows and become dogs.

The purpose of this tool is to help you balance your product portfolio. Ideally, you would

eliminate any dogs, while keeping the others in a kind of dynamic equilibrium. The cash

generated by cash cows can then be used to turn question marks into stars, which, in turn, may

become cash cows. As noted above, many of the question marks will become Dogs, which

means you'll need to compensate for these failures by improving margins on the stars and cash

cows.

One of the underlying assumptions of this model is that higher rates of profit are directly related

to high market share. This isn't always the case, as indicated by the low cost leader position on

Bowman's strategy clock.

Source: http://www.zanthus.com/databank/strategy/business_strategy.php

The BCG Matrix is the most common and widely used tool to compare different business units;

nevertheless, we decided to use the McKinsey Matrix due to the fact that in the BCG Matrix, the

market attractiveness is not directly visible and because the measure of the market growth is not

a direct result of the analysis of the studied indicators.


- 64 -

2.3.4.2. The McKinsey Matrix

The GE/McKinsey Matrix was developed in the 1970s by the management consulting firm

McKinsey & Co. as a tool to screen General Electric’s large portfolio of strategic business units

(SBUs). The idea behind the matrix (a.k.a., the GE Business Screen or GE Strategic Planning

Grid) is to evaluate businesses along two composite dimensions: industry attractiveness and

industry strength. Conceptually, this matrix is similar to the BCG Growth-Share Matrix in that it

maps SBUs on a grid of the industry and, at the same time, marks their competitive position. The

GE/McKinsey Matrix improves on the BCG approach in two ways: 1) it utilizes more

comprehensive axes (the BCG matrix uses market growth rate as a proxy for industry

attractiveness and relative market share as a proxy for the strength of the business unit); and 2)

it consists of nine-cells rather than four, allowing for greater precision.

Figure 23 McKinsey Matrix

GE/McKinsey Matrix

Industry attractiveness and SBU strength are calculated by first identifying the criteria for each,

determining the value of each parameter in the criteria, and multiplying that value by a weighting


- 65 -

factor. The result is a quantitative measure of industry attractiveness and the SBU’s relative

performance in that industry. The industry attractiveness index is made up of such factors as

market size, market growth, industry profit margin, amount of competition, the degree of

seasonal and cyclical fluctuations in demand, and industry cost structure. The industry

attractiveness index consists of factors like relative market share, price, competitiveness,

product quality, customer and market knowledge, sales effectiveness, and geographic

advantages.

Each SBU can be portrayed as a circle plotted on the matrix, with the information conveyed as

follows:

• Market size is represented by the size of the circle.

• Market share is shown by using the circle as a pie chart.

• The expected future position of the circles is indicated by an arrow.

The sample diagram shows the relative position of an SBU with a market share of 65%. The

arrow in the upward right position indicates that the SBU is expected to lose strength relative to

competitors, and that the business unit is in an industry that is projected to become increasingly

less attractive. The tip of the arrow indicates the future position of the centre point of the circle.

Both axes are divided into three segments, yielding nine cells. The nine cells are grouped into

three zones:

� The Green Zone consists of the three cells in the upper left corner. If the SBU falls in

this zone, it’s in a favourable position with relatively attractive growth opportunities. This

position indicates a "green light" to invest and grow this SBU.


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� The Yellow Zone consists of the three diagonal cells from the lower left to the upper

right. A position in the yellow zone is viewed as having medium attractiveness.

Management must therefore exercise caution when making additional investments in

this SBU. The suggested strategy is to protect or allocate resources on a selective

basis rather than growing or reducing share.

� The Red Zone consists of the three cells in the lower right corner. A harvest strategy

should be used in the two cells just below the three-cell diagonal. These SBUs

shouldn’t receive substantial new resources. The SBUs in the lower right cell shouldn’t

receive any resources and should probably be divested or eliminated from a firm’s

portfolio.

There are strategy variations within these three groups. For example, within the Red Zone, a

firm would be inclined to quickly divest itself of a weak business in an unattractive industry,

whereas it might perform a phased harvest of an average SBU in the same industry.

While the GE/McKinsey Matrix represents an improvement over the relatively simplistic BCG

Growth-Share Matrix, it still encompasses a limited view of the competitive landscape. The

matrix doesn’t take into account interactions among SBUs or the core competencies that lead to

value creation. For these and other reasons, some believe the matrix is better suited for

providing an overview of the current market rather than serving as a resource allocation tool.

Source: http://www.zanthus.com/databank/strategy/business_strategy.php


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2.3.4.3. Input

As this chart is basically built by the score of some indicators to evaluate the market

attractiveness, the comparison of the company with the main competitor in each particular

market and one specific indicator that represents the size of the market. Each dimension was

measured as follows:

2.3.4.3.1. Market attractiveness

The attractiveness of a market is the result of comparison of different indicators (features) in the

group of countries of study, i.e., the score, from 0 to 5, of a group of indicators using as a

reference for each indicator the best country in this field. Some of those indicators are objective

and some others are the result of a subjective analysis. In the same way, even if we had the

information of at least four of the most important cities for each studied country, we only used

the information from the biggest cities because we decided that it would be in general the most

representative value. Accordingly, we are actually measuring the market attractiveness of the

biggest cities assuming that it is representative of the market attractiveness of the countries.

The chosen indicators are:

→ Population

→ Inhabitants/km²

→ Percentage of passengers using public transport

→ Number of cars

→ Cars per 1000 of inhabitants

→ Density of cars

→ Gross Domestic Product

→ Per capita income

→ Land use


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→ Average price/Hour of Parking

→ # of airports

→ # of passengers/year

→ # of slots in airport’s parking

→ Price of public transport

It is important to know that, even if we tried to use all of these indicators for each country, it was

impossible to find the all those indicators, i.e., we use, for some countries 14 indicators and for

others only 13 or even 9, hence, it is important to give the correct weight to each indicator so the

score remains balanced. Thus, even if we accord the same relevance to every feature, we have

to assure that we will have a perfect balance at the end, which means, 100% of weight.

2.3.4.3.2. Business unit strength

This dimension has been obtained from the comparison between the company, DESIGNA

GmbH and the strongest company in the market. This comparison was made using the following

criteria:

o Number of employees: Represents often the size of the company

o Turnover: indicates the financial health of the company

o Internationalisation: Shows the presence of the company in other countries.

o Technical Strength: Which kind of technologies are they producing in the present

o Number of references: all those big projects where the name of the company has

been involved on as an indicator of the strength of the company’s image.

o Number of subsidiaries companies: Present the number of companies that depend

on the as an indicator of economical strength


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o Number of years in market: This indicates not only that the company is sound and

that it has been well managed but also, the more the company has been on the

market, the more the company can be recognized by the potential clients.

Alike, those indicators will be also affected by a weight that should be defined, as before, by the

DESIGNA’s marketing team as follows:

2.3.4.3.2.1. Weights

As each indicator is different, its relevance is different also and so, the weight that it has should

be different as well. That is the reason why, with the aid of the DESIGNA’s marketing team, we

choose the appropriate weight for each indicator, however, for experimental purposes we made

also the portfolio giving the same weight to each indicator.

Accordingly, a weight of 80% should be divided between the next indicators:

� Market Attractiveness:

o Cars per 1000 of inhabitants

o Density of cars

o Per capita income

o Average price/Hour of Parking

� Business unit strength

o Number of employees

o Turnover

o Internationalisation

o Technological strength


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For this purpose, we create an Excel chart that allows us to modify the weights automatically

only changing some parameters in the dynamic table. Following, in the Figure 24, it can be

found the description of the different parts of the table and the way to use it:

Figure 24 How to use the Excel program

2.3.4.3.3. Market size

Between all the possible indicators, The number of cars was the one that represent the most the

size of the market because the need of parking is proportional to the number of cars, i.e., the

bigger the number of cars, the bigger the need of parking. Of course, because we are comparing

only the market attractiveness of the biggest cities, the market size is the one of those cities.

Consequently, the markets sizes are:

In Latin America and Eastern Europe

Table 2 Market sizes in Latin America and Eastern Europe


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Figure 25 Market sizes in Latin America and Eastern Europe

In the more important cities - Latin America

Table 3 Market sizes in Cities - Latin America


- 72 -

Figure 26 Market sizes in Cities - Latin America

We can see from the Figure 25 & Figure 26 that:

o Sao Paulo has the biggest market size.

o Cities in Latin America have bigger Market size than cities in the East of

Europe.

o In Latin America, the cities with biggest Market size are those from Brazil.

2.3.4.4. Output

From the analysis of the indicators and the size of the market, we create two groups of charts,

one with the “natural” weights and another one with the balanced weights. In each group of

charts there are three charts: the Easter European portfolio, the Latin American portfolio and the

international portfolio. We decided to split this charts because we know that it is impossible to


- 73 -

find resemblances between the countries from Europe and those from America, nevertheless,

we also made the chart with the eight countries to support that thesis.

The charts and the analysis of those charts can be found below:

2.3.4.4.1. Not balanced portfolio

Before having the balanced charts we made a portfolio that will be used as a reference to

compare the balanced portfolio and conclude about the incidence of the weights.

All the tables can be found on the Appendix 15 or in the Excel program named “McKinsey

matrix- natural weight”

Market attractiveness

Table 4 Market attractiveness for Latin America & Eastern Europe


- 74 -

Figure 27 Market attractiveness for Latin America & Eastern Europe

In the Figure 27 we can see that Sao Paulo has the most attractive market (with the natural

weight) but Bucharest and Kiev have also an attractive market. Nevertheless, Latin American

and Eastern European Markets should be analyzed separately.

Business unit strength

Table 5 Business unit strength for Latin America & Eastern Europe


- 75 -

Figure 28 Business unit strength for Latin America & Eastern Europe

It is important to say that: being the third most important group in the business in Europe and

considering the fact that the presence of the company in Latin America is almost zero, to find

Minsk and Bucharest in the first position in the Figure 28 is not a big surprise and proves

somehow, that the results obtained with this method are correct.


- 76 -

McKinsey Matrix

Figure 29 McKinsey matrix - Latin America (Natural weight)


- 77 -

Figure 30 McKinsey Matrix - Eastern Europe (Natural weight)

Figure 31 McKinsey Matrix- Latin America & Eastern Europe (Natural weight)


- 78 -

From the Figure 29 it is possible to say that the Brazil (Sao Paulo) is the most attractive Market

because it has an enormous market and because of its position in the matrix and even if in

Argentina (Buenos Aires) the company seems to be strong, the market needs a strong

investment to improve the attractiveness, the problem with this investment is that the profits of

this investment is not only for DESIGNA but also for the competitors.

On the other hand, in Figure 30 it is shown that Romania is an interesting old known market

where the company is strong enough and the market is attractive, however, the size of the

market is not outstanding and it can result in a problem because of a future extinction of the

market. Also it is important to say that the East of Europe is the field for other European and

especially German and Czech groups, fact that can result in a very competitive market.

2.3.4.4.2. Balanced portfolio

Once the weights have been defined, we made again the McKinsey Matrix for the eight chosen

countries (the biggest cities from those countries) but also, as a request from the DESIGNA’s

marketing team during the last meeting in the 23rd of May, for the sixteen studied cities from

Latin America.

Eight countries (biggest cities)

All the tables can be found on the Appendix 16 or in the Excel program named “McKinsey

matrix-Balanced Chart”



- 79 -

Table 6 Market attractiveness - Eight countries

Figure 32 Market attractiveness - Eight countries



- 80 -

Table 7 Business unit strength - Eight countries

Figure 33 Business unit strength - Eight countries

Once the balanced Matrix has been created, it is easy to see comparing the that the main

implication of this change take place in the market attractiveness where, the city of Kiev lose all

the attractiveness and falls from the third position to the seventh position. That can prove that, in

this particular case, the indicators that indicates an attractive market were the wrong ones and

that they may probably lead the company to mistake it as a good choice when, in reality, it was a

dangerous one. i.e., before the application of those weights, the way forward regarding this

particular country was to invest directly when in reality, the wisest decision may be to wait and


- 81 -

follow the evolution of this market that may be either, in an evolutionary process or in recession

period.


- 82 -

McKinsey Matrix

Figure 34 McKinsey matrix - Latin America


- 83 -

Figure 35 McKinsey matrix - Eastern Europe

Figure 36 McKinsey Matrix- Latin America & Eastern Europe

Sixteen cities of Latin America

As told at the beginning of this chapter, it was asked to make a chart only with the sixteen

studied cities in Latin America; however, it was not possible to find information about the number

of cars for Puebla and Barranquilla, the indicator used to define the market size, therefore, those

cities had to be excluded from the matrix but the results of Market attractiveness and Unit

business strength can be found in the Figure 38 and Figure 39.

All the tables can be found on the Appendix 17 or in the Excel program named “Natural

Portfolio-McKinsey matrix - Latin America”


- 84 -

Market Size

Table 8 Market size - Sixteen cities of Latin America


- 85 -

Figure 37 Market size - Sixteen cities of Latin America

It is possible to get from the Figure 37 that the number of cars in Sao Paulo is at least three

times bigger than the number of cars in Mexico City, a city with a bigger population. From a

statistic point of view, this enormous difference may reflex a problem of source in the research

either for Sao Paulo or for the rest of the cities (Improbable).



- 86 -

Table 9 Market attractiveness - Sixteen cities of Latin America

Figure 38 Market attractiveness - Sixteen cities of Latin America

The distribution of the Market attractiveness in the Figure 38, even if it shows also the high

attractiveness of Sao Paulo, has a more normal behavior face to the Figure 37 where, as

discussed before, there is a clear problem of information.


- 87 -


Table 10 Business unit strength - Sixteen cities of Latin America

Figure 39 Business unit strength - Sixteen cities of Latin America

Because it was a difficult duty to find information about competitors for each city, we

assumed, like in the Figure 39, that the main competitor for the biggest city is also the


- 88 -

main competitor for the rest of the cities in the country. The reason for this assumption is

that, in a presence of lack of suppliers in the smallest cities, normally it will be the biggest

from the main city the one who will take these new markets.

The previously mentioned fact is also the reason why the score for the Business unit

strength is the same for all the cities of the same country.


- 89 -

McKinsey Matrix

Figure 40 McKinsey Matrix for sixteen cities of Latin America

To summarize, from the Figure 40 we can imply that, obviating the vertical distribution between

cities from the same country, it remains Brazil and especially Sao Paulo, the city that attracts all

the attention, because it is in the optimum spot to initiate a deeper research of commercial

partners (maybe another EPS project for the next semester). Alike, as it was explained in the

description of the country, Brazil will host the next Football World Cup, and for this reason, it is


- 90 -

and will be the centre of biggest investments in infrastructure in airports, hotels, sport centres

and so on.

2.3.5. Survey of potential customers

2.3.5.1. Competitors

For our marketing research project for DESIGNA it has been strictly necessary for us to get to

know the competitors of the company. They gave us a brief description of their major national

and international competitors but, this information was not enough for us, we wanted to go

deeper and get to know all the competitors DESIGNA might have in the countries we chose.

While we searched for the competitors we realized that there are some companies which might

become DESIGNA retailers, they are small companies with knowledge in parking systems and it

would be interesting to contact them in order to get to know the products they are using. For the

company, this is a valuable information so that, if in a certain country or city there are

competitors, that means that the market is open and the possibilities to enter could be higher or

lower depending evidently on the competitors.

It has not been easy to find this information for the Eastern European countries, but so far we

know that there is a developing market, regarding the Latin American countries, the competitors

are controlling the area, but there are still some regions to cover. We have made a list with more

than 50 competitors for the 8 countries we are researching for and you can find it in the

Appendix 2.


- 91 -

2.3.5.2. Construction of questionnaire & contact

Construction of questionnaire

For DESIGNA, it is quite important to know which kind of market they will face up to. As we

mentioned before, there is a current market in the Southern American and Eastern European

countries where we focused our research but there are certain conditions which make the

market attractive or not attractive. For example, depending on the number of cars in the cities

and in their infrastructure, there could be a higher number of parkings, giving more opportunities

to DESIGNA.

Perhaps, these parkings are using technologies provided by the competitors or simply, they do

not have any kind of technology, they can make the whole parking process manually, we mean;

tickets made by hand and payment directly to a person. These, for instance, is information that

DESIGNA must know, in order to evaluate their possibilities inside those markets.

For this reason, we searched for this information in the big cities where we thought it would be

easier to find. Unfortunately, this was not the result and we had to look for a different method of

research. Consequently, we designed two questionnaires with 12 questions. These

questionnaires have been separated in two main fields with the purpose of being send to:

• Car parking operators

• Car parking retailers

It was necessary to separate them because, from each one, we need to have different

information. We have consulted the DESIGNA staff about our ideas and they gave us a positive

feedback about them. As a result, we wrote the following questions:


- 92 -

Questionnaire for car parking operators:

1. What kind of technology are you currently using?

a. Manual

b. Semi-automatic

c. Automatic

d. Other: _____________________

With the results of this question we have made a statistic of how many parkings use some kind

of technology or any. For the countries where the statistic shows a major number of parking

operating manually, the possibilities for DESIGNA are higher.

2. Who is the manufacturer of these systems?

a. Amano

b. Federal APD

c. Scheidt & Bachmann

d. Skidata

e. Other (Please specify): __________________

This question gave us an idea of how the main competitors of the company are situated on the

markets we analyzed. For DESIGNA, this indicates the possibility to enter those markets in the

same manner the competitors did.

3. From whom do you purchase those systems?

a. Direct from the manufacture

b. Through their head office or subsidiaries

c. From a local distributor


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d. Other (please specify) __________________

This question provided us with information about existing retailers in those places or the

methods the competitors are actually using to sell their products there.

4. What are the main reasons for purchasing these technologies?

a. Price

b. Quality

c. Easy contact with distributor

d. Another reason: __________________________

It is necessary to know the strengths of the competitors, in order to improve DESIGNA’s

strengths (if they have to) and to compare their products with DESIGNA’s products and services.

5. For how long have you been using these technologies?

a. 0 – 5 years

b. 6 – 10 years

c. 11 – 15 years

d. More than 15 years: __________________

As a result of this and the last question, we were able to evaluate for how long have the

competitors been into those markets and how the car parking operators response to their

products.

6. How many parking do you operate?

a. 1- 3 parking

b. 4 – 5 parking

c. 6 – 10 parking

d. More than 10 parking: ______________


- 94 -

With the results of this question we got an idea of the size of the market

7. What is the average size of the parking you operate?

a. 0 – 50 slots

b. 51 – 100 slots

c. 101 -150 slots

d. 150 -200 slots

e. More than 200 slots: _______________

This is one of the most important questions, depending of the size of the parking, DESIGNA will

offer a certain product of their brand, for example, if the parking has less than 50 slots then the

best option is SLIMPARK, otherwise, PM ABACUS will be the right option.

8. For how long have you been in the market?

a. 0 – 5 years

b. 6 – 10 years

c. 11 -11 years

d. 16 – 20 years

e. More than 20 years: _____________

With this question, we could see the evolution of the car parking in the different countries, if the

majorities are between 0 and 5; it means a growth on the market.

9. Do you know DESIGNA and its range of products and services?

a. Yes

b. No

In case of negative answers, DESIGNA should start making a marketing campaign in those

countries they decide to open their market.


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10. Are you interested in getting information about DESIGNA and its range of products and

services?

a. Yes

b. No

This is a way to let the car parking operators know about DESIGNA, their products and their

services.

11. For feedback purposes please indicate the name of the company you represent. (Optional)

There are many companies which prefer not to give the name. But, the ones which wrote it, have

been registered in a data base we prepared for DESIGNA

12. Finally, if you have any question, please write it down and leave us a contact address or

number and our team will be happy to answer it as fast as possible.

The last part of the questionnaire gave the car parking operators the possibility to ask us about

DESIGNA.


- 96 -

Questionnaire for car parking system retailers

1. What kind of technology are you currently selling?

a. Semi-automatic

b. Automatic

With the results of this question, we got to know what kind of technology is more common in

those countries.

2. Who produces those systems?

a. Amano

b. Federal APD

c. Scheidt & Bachmann

d. Skidata

e. Other: _______________________

This showed us which of the main competitors is selling more products in South America and

Eastern Europe.

3. For how long have you been selling these technologies?

a. 0-5 Years

b. 5-10 Years

c. 10-15 Years

d. More than 15 Years

The answer of this question indicates quality of products, client satisfaction and shows how good

the association between producers and retailers is.


- 97 -

4. What is your target market?

a. Big parking (more than 5 units/gates)

b. Small parking (less than 5 units/gates)

Just as the question number 7 in the questionnaire for car parking operators, this has clarified

the products DESIGNA should offer.

5. For which kind of projects are you selling these products?

a. Airports

b. Hospitals

c. Malls

d. Hotels

e. Other: ________________________________

Comparing the retailer’s references with DESIGNA’s references, we could evaluate their

possibilities into those markets.

6. Could you please name some big projects you have been involved in?

� __________________________________

� __________________________________

� __________________________________

These are also references that helped us to know what kind of clients this company has and

analyze if it worth for DESIGNA to make business with them.

7. How many products do you sell per year?


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This is one of the most important questions for us; it gave us an idea of how big the company is

and have an idea of their turnover.


a. 0-10 Years

b. 10-25 Years

c. More than 25 Years

The answer of this question indicates the growth of the market.

9. What are the main reasons for selling these technologies?

Comments:

__________________________________________________________________

As a result of this, we had evaluated the competitor’s strengths.

10. Are you interested in getting some information about DESIGNA, its technologies and

services?

a. Yes

b. No

We had offered some information about DESIGNA, due to the fact that is “new company” in

those markets and most of the companies have never heard about it.

11. Do you have any questions for us? Please do not hesitate to contact us


- 99 -

To conclude the questionnaire, we gave the companies the possibility to contact with us, in case

they want to have more information or want to know the results of our statistics.

In order to make some successful statistics, we have used a website which allows us to have a

register of all the answers online, offering 15 different types of graphics for each question. Also,

it also makes easier for the companies to give an answer because they do not have the

necessity of printing the questionnaire, scan it and send it again.

http://www.freeonlinesurveys.com/welcome.asp

With the purpose of send both questionnaires to the different countries, it was necessary to

translate them in different languages:

• Spanish

• Bulgarian

• Portuguese

As a consequence, we have six questionnaires for all the possible contacts.

We have sent a letter of presentation attaching the link to the questionnaire. Those letters are

available in the Appendix 18 and Appendix 19. Also, the following links are the different

questionnaires in each language:

Car Parking Operators, English

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=l03nqpsdei9qb04914456

Car Parking Operators, Spanish

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=jr1b9ghj5eank49914480

Car Parking System Retailers, English


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http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=f9yfh8tnnknwv5b914474

Car Parking System Retailers, Spanish

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=uvgsrby2q6589wf914496

Car Parking System Retailers, Bulgarian

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=f9yfh8tnnknwv5b914474

Car Parking Operators, Portuguese

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=4sli24gr4qfmitm916259

Contact

More important than preparing the questionnaire, was finding enough contacts in order to send it

to the car parking operators and the car parking system retailers. We have searched for possible

contacts in the eight countries we chose and this research was basically made via internet,

searching in the yellow pages and the official websites of the main cities of each country.

Once we finished the research, we prepared a list with possible contacts and presented it to the

DESIGNA staff. It was necessary for us to have their feedback before we send the questionnaire

and for them it was equally important to have knowledge about the contacts because we had to

use the name of the company and in some cases that would not be convenient for them.

As a result, they advised us not to contact companies which may actually be competitors

although, we can get some answers, they could provide us with wrong information on purpose to

make our research unsuccessful.


- 101 -

However, in the list we got from the yellow pages, there were many companies without a contact

email, the only possibility of contact was through telephone calls and as we knew how difficult it

is to have a conversation for more than 3 minutes with someone from a company, we decided

that the best way to reach them was calling, in order to ask for an email. Afterwards, we sent a

letter of presentation with the link directly to the questionnaire in the corresponding language of

the country.

In total, we have sent 60 emails to the different contacts. To have a register of those emails, we

made a database, separate by countries, including the name of the company, the telephone

number and the contact email. Besides, it includes the companies which whom the contact was

not possible to reach.


- 102 -

Table 11 Contact list for Argentina


- 103 -

Table 12 Contact list for Brazil


- 104 -

Table 13 Contact list for Colombia

Table 14 Contact list for Mexico


- 105 -

Table 15 Contact list for Bulgaria and Ukraine

2.3.5.3. Result of the questionnaire

As a result from the 60 questionnaires we have sent, we got 12% of answers from the car

parking operators. This percentage is not the best we could get but it is enough it has provided

us with invaluable information. Below, we split those answers in graphics:

1. What kind of technology are you currently using?

Figure 41 Result of question 1


- 106 -

Through this chart we can see that there are many parking working without any technology, that

means those parking are operated manually. On the other hand, there is a 33% of semi

automatic parking and a small percentage of totally automatic. This results is a good indicator for

DESIGNA, they could take advantage of this fact to sell their products in those parking where

the technologies will be needed.

2. Who is the manufacturer of these systems?


The result of this question has given us information that we did not have before. It is clear that

the main competitors like Amano and Skidata are in those countries and it proves that there is

an existing market there.


- 107 -

3. From whom do you purchase those systems?


The car parking operators can buy their hardware directly from the manufacturer but it is more

common and easy to buy them from a local distributor. Accordingly, there are possible retailers

which might be interesting for DESIGNA to contact.

4. What are the main reasons for purchasing these technologies?


- 108 -


This result shows the facilities that the car parking operators have to contact the distributors. As

a consequence, the distributors must have a qualified selling system and knowledge of the

market.

5. For how long have you been using these technologies?



- 109 -

On the other hand, the car parking operators have not used the technologies for more than ten

years, this means that the competitors have not been into those markets for a long time.

6. How many parking do you operate?


This answer helped us to get to know the size of the market. From these results we can deduce

that, in those countries, there are many parking build as a family business, reason why they do

not manage more than three parking.

7. What is the average size of the parking you operate?


- 110 -


This is one of the most important indicators for DESIGNA, it shows that 50% of the parking have

less than 100 slots, in consequence, they have possibilities to sell more products from

SLIMPARK than from PM ABACUS.


- 111 -



Despite the fact that there has been parking for more than 20 years, is also possible to see that

there is a growing market in those countries.

9. Do you know DESIGNA and its range of products and services?


- 112 -


As we knew before, DESIGNA had not made any contact with those countries, as a

consequence, this is an unknown company for them.

10. Are you interested in getting information about DESIGNA and its range of products

and services?


- 113 -


As mentioned previously, the car parking operators who answered this questionnaire, have their

parking as a family business, reason why they do not want information from DESIGNA but there

is the possibility to get to them by making a marketing campaign and having direct contact with

them.

11. For feedback purposes please indicate the name of the company you represent. - City car

- Rodriguez y compañia

- Aritec SA

- Eduardo Sanchez & Asoc

To conclude; the most important is the knowledge of the growing market in those countries. The

main competitors have already set a business there but there are possibilities to find retailers

which might be interested in some other technologies. Despite the difficulties to contact them,

the data base we gave to DESIGNA will be useful in case they decide to go into those countries.


- 114 -

Regarding DESIGNA’s possibilities, we can say that SLIMPARK will be the most successful

product there; nevertheless, DESIGNA needs to show its services and references to be known

as one of the most important companies in the car parking systems industry.

2.3.5.4. Problems

• Language barrier: During our research we faced language problem because of the fact that

our research included gathering data from countries using 6 different languages, and all that

information that we were trying to find is written in the following languages: English,

Bulgarian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and Belarusian. When we attacked the second

objective of our plan, which is analysis of Eastern European and Latin American markets for

car parking systems, Nicole found some difficulties during her online research and the

phone interviews in Brazil because of the fact that she speaks English and Spanish, but in

Brazil spoken language is Portuguese. Heike faced many difficulties with the research on

Romania and Belarus and as a result of that she couldn’t find some of the indicators. Georgi

also was in a similar situation about Ukraine. Like the others, he couldn’t find some of the

indicators even when he speaks Bulgarian which is quite close language to the Ukrainian.

• Not enough information on the matter in Google, for example missing few indicators: The

East European countries are not used to publish information about the infrastructure and

city planning online, which made our research very slow and even with a lot of missing

indicators. Also it is not easy to find information about cities with population less than 1

million, and only 2 cities out of 16 in our research for Eastern Europe have more inhabitants

than 1 million.


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• Different time-zones: causing difficulties making phone interviews with Latin America. In

order to contact potential car parking operators and retailers Nicole had to stay in the office

until 18:00 because at that time in Latin America is morning.

• To contact car parking operators for Nicole it was possible only in Argentina, where she

made approximately 30 calls and just got 8 e-mails back to send the questionnaire, most of

the people didn’t have time, didn’t have an e-mail and also the majority didn’t answer the

phone at all.

• No recent information. Some of the information is from 2009 even 2005.

• Different data on the matter in the different sources.

• We had to use information from unofficial sources like forums and news articles.

• Incomplete information and missing information. For example when we tried to find the

number of commuters.

• Sometimes we didn’t even know the date of the publication and the source of this

information.

• During our research for the company strengths, Georgi could not find the indicators online

for the biggest potential competitor in Ukraine called CAME S.p.A. That’s why he had to

phone them and ask but he got rejected again, telling him that they don’t have time to

answer questions such as how many people work within the company and so on. That

problem led him to leave CAME S.p.A. and analyse FAAC S.p.A.

• Sometimes no web-sites at all, for example the smaller airports in Belarus and some

parking in Latin America especially in Argentina.

• A lot of the people that we have contacted (around 30 questionnaires sent and 7 answers

received) during our research phase refused to give information. ( This problem was

expected)

• Occupied with English lectures: Heike, Daniel and Nicole,


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• Occupied with German course: Daniel, Nicole and Georgi.

• Occupied with additional lectures (Strategic Management and Marketing): Georgi. All these

extra activities, we have to agree that take huge amount of time and energy, which in real

scenario, could be spend on project work.

• Old Microsoft version in DESIGNA leading to problems and making the team to use their

own laptops. All the computers in our office are with Microsoft office packet 2003 which is

very different from 2010 which all know how to use. Having this office also reflected if we

were working from home, at the beginning we were forgetting to save the document in 2003

version and we couldn’t open them at work.

• Our own laptops cannot be plugged in DESIGNA’s internet network.

• We received a flip chart a month after our kick-off in DESIGNA and before that it was

difficult for us to draw our weekly plan on small pieces of paper.


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3. General conclusion and recommendations for DESIGNA

• Due to the analysis result of the portfolio by the McKinsey criteria, Brazil is the most

attractive country between the studied countries, because it is the one which has the

biggest market size, it is the most attractive and apparently it is a market where the

company is strong. For more and detailed information about those results, please read the

chapter “Detailed analysis of market indicators for each country”.

• Even if Ukraine is not, from the McKinsey matrix, the best placed country for investment,

we think that, because of the European Football Cup in 2012 and the big investments

oriented to the renovation in infrastructure in this country, it should be also a target market

for DESIGNA, but, there is only one year remaining for developing an entry strategy. It is

important to consider that there is not much time remaining to enter, but if they do, they will

have strong references, becoming a more attractive car parking systems manufacturer

worldwide.

• We recommend to read the whole chapter “Detailed analysis of market indicators for each

country” but here there are the main conclusions about each country:

o “Argentina is a country where DESIGNA can find partners for the car parking

systems but they will face many difficulties because there are many competitors and

the fees for the public transport are cheap. Besides, Argentina is still recovering

from its 2002 crisis and it will take a few years until economy gets regulated, in this

case, will be better to wait for a couple of years and focus in the opportunities they

may have in Brazil.”

o “Despite the difficulties DESIGNA may face, we still recommend them to try to find

partners in Brazil; it is the best time to make business in this country not only


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because of the World Cup in 2014 and all that it entails, but also for its swift develop

and growth and the fact that the competitors are not so strong due to the size of the

country.”

o “It has to be said also that the presence of big American groups in Mexico is a fact

but also it is important to notice that Skidata and Amano are present in this market

which means that this is not a closed market and that the entrance is an option.”

o “We consider, however, that the entrance into South American markets should be a

priority before considering the entrance in the Center of America because of the

actual opportunities that may facilitate the entrance in those markets i.e. the World

Football Cup 2012 in Brazil and the project of renovation of the Colombian

International airport “El Dorado” among others.”

o “Even if there is hurry to enter into this market, there are some of the most important

manufacturer groups of Car Parking Systems like Amano and Skidata selling their

products in the biggest cities and there are some other local producers like Global

Control Systems LTDA among others. It may be wise to contact directly the big Car

parking operators like Parking International, City-Parking SA and Aparcar SA

because they are those who can actually need the company’s product”

o “As a general recommendation I say that Bulgaria is not an attractive market for

DESIGNA GmbH because:

There are not planned any airport constructions in the future.

In the last 5-6 years there were built too many shopping centres and there is not

such a demand at the moment. As you can see in Appendix 1, the national

minimum salary in Bulgaria is 120 euro, and this money is barely enough for food

and bills. The unemployment rates are very high also exceeding 10%. The petrol

prices are very high, compared to the lifestyle and how much the people earn; many


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people prefer to use public transport instead of their private cars. The parking prices

especially in Sofia are so high, leading many people to keep their cars in a garage

and travel by public transport.”

o “Considering all the indicators, there is to say that if you want to invest in Romania it

is definitely recommended to start in Bucharest. The huge gap of population

between the capital and the other Romanian cities leads to the conclusion, that

there are much more building projects in the capital than in the other cities. But

Bucharest also has one of the best working public transport systems in Europe,

which a lot of people are using. Romania is an open developing European country

and the competitors which already entered the market show that there is a market.

However, the size of the market is the question because there are these huge

differences between the cities. However, a market entry in Bucharest could be worth

considering, but there are not many possibilities to widen the business to whole

Romania.”

o “As we experienced during our research, getting information about Belarus is quite

difficult, therefore, the results we got are not very meaningful. But even with this few

numbers we can conclude, that the market for car parking systems in Belarus is not

very big. Furthermore, the political situation in Belarus has to be considered, with

the political way President Alexander Lukashenko is taking, new sanctions of the

European Union and the USA against Belarus are probable to come. On the one

hand, there are many prestige building projects especially in Minsk, but on the other

hand the government is likely to support their state-owned companies to get the

contracts. Overall, we wouldn’t recommend to enter the Belarusian market.”


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4. Bibliography & references

State of the art of the car parking technologies(inter-mobility)

• http://staron.mobi/index-3.html 21.03.2011

• http://www.parking-net.com/ShowCase/34279/Cooperation-partners-Scheidt---

Bachmann-GmbH-and-AUDI-AG-in-the-Travolution-project, 21.03.2011

• http://www.zeag.ch/Pay+Station+In-Lane+-

+APL/d7f397bf71a6886676f41d6c1fc40b76.html 23.03.2011

• http://www.skidata.com/en/parking-management.html 22.03.2011

• http://www.skidata.com/fileadmin/user_upload/corporate/downloads/products/parking/mo

bile-gate/Mobile.Gate-en.pdf 23.03.2011

• http://www.parking-net.com/News/32669/Park---charge--Smart-electric-charging-with-

Sitraffic-Epos-from-Siemens 24.03.2011

Evolution in the transport structure

• Shell Pkw-Szenarien bis 2030, Shell Deutschland Oil GmbH, Hamburg, 2009

http://www.shell.de/pkwszenarien

• Eurostat, 21.03.2011

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home/

• United Nations Population Division, DESA (2007): World Population Prospects: The 2006

Revision, 04.04.2011

http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2006/wpp2006_ageing.pdf

• Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, Flensburg, 25.03.2011

Urbanisation and legislation

• http://www.citymayors.com/business/euro_bizcities.html, 21.03.2011

• http://www.cesolutions.eu/, 22.03.2011

• www.cesolutions.eu/ce-products.html, 22.03.2011

• www.cesolutions.eu/ce-mark.html#5, 22.03.2011

Romania and Belarus

• http://www.kba.de/cln_007/nn_124584/DE/Home/homepage__node.html?__nnn=true

• www.belarus.by , 28.03.2011

• https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html , 28.03.2011

• http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home/ , 28.03.2011

• http://belstat.gov.by/homep/en , 28.03.2011

• http://www.belarus-

magazine.by/en.php?subaction=showfull&id=1146836586&archive=1152188222&start_fr

om=&ucat=4& , 29.03.2011

• http://minsk.gov.by/en/ , 28.03.2011


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• http://www.insse.ro/cms/rw/pages/index.en.do , 29.03.2011

• http://www.green.cz/en/stranka-home-page-1 , 06.04.2011

• http://www.metricgroup.co.uk/ , 06.04.2011

• http://www.villapro.eu/ , 06.04.2011

• http://www.faac.it/ita/faac-home-page/home-page.html , 06.04.2011

• http://www.swarco.com/sthu-en , 06.04.2011

• http://www.pmb.ro/ 30.03.2011

• http://www.invest.belarus.by/ 30.03.2011

• http://www.insse.ro/cms/rw/pages/index.en.do , 29.03.2011

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucharest#Public_transport (Public Transport Bucharest),

27.04.2011

• http://clujeanul.gandul.info/saptamanal/ce-masini-conduc-clujenii-2333338 (Number of

cars Cluj-Napoca), 27.04.2011

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluj-Napoca#cite_note-201 (Public Transport Cluj-Napoca),

27.04.2011

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ia%C5%9Fi#cite_note-33 (Public Transport Iasi), 27.04.2011

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timi%C5%9Foara#Transport (Public Transport Timisoara),

27.04.2011

• http://www.wall-street.ro/articol/Auto/36242/In-2012-vor-fi-peste-1-6-mil-de-autovehicule-

inmatriculate-in-Bucuresti.html (Number of cars Bucharest), 27.04.2011

• http://www.bucharestairports.ro/index.php?lang=en (Bucharest airports), 27.04.2011

• http://www.ziaruldeiasi.ro/local/aeroportul-a-ramas-de-caruta-si-in-moldova~ni71ah (Iasi

Airport), 27.04.2011

• http://www.airportcluj.ro/index.php?set_lang=en (Cluj-Napoca Airport), 27.04.2011

• http://www.aerotim.ro/index.php?pg=evolutietrafic&lang=en (Timisoara Airport),

27.04.2011

• http://airport.by/en/transport (Minsk National Airport), 27.04.2011

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk (Public Transport Minsk), 27.04.2011

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomel#Transportation (Public Transport Gomel), 27.04.2011

• http://region.mogilev.by/en/taxonomy/term/1933/0 (Public Transport Mogilev),

27.04.2011

• http://vttu.by/main.jsp?tag=struktura (Public Transport Vitebsk), 27.04.2011

• http://www.ratb.ro/statistici.php (Public Transport statistics Bucharest), 27.04.2011

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucharest_Metro (Bucharest Metro), 28.04.2011

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RATP_Ia%C5%9Fi (Public transport Iasi), 28.04.2011

• http://www.estis.net/communities/est-east/default.asp?community=est-

east&page_id=C8BA0B54-89B8-49CE-B8DA-5B094A80A5E5 (passengers public

transport Minsk), 28.04.2011

• http://www.region.mogilev.by/en/taxonomy/term/110/all?page=1 (passengers public

transport Mogilev), 28.04.2011

• http://www.region.mogilev.by/en/node/2588 (public transport Mogilev), 28.04.2011


- 122 -

• http://www.colliers.com/content/ColliersInternationalGlobalParkingRateSurvey2010_L.pdf

(parking prices), 29.04.2011

Bulgaria

• www.mee.government.bg, 31.03.2011

• http://www.kadiev.bg/blog/1178/ - number of cars in Sofia, 31.03.2011

• http://news.expert.bg/?id=157319 - number of cars in sofia, 31.03.2011

• http://news.expert.bg/n121493/ - construction of a stadium in Varna, 31.03.2011

• http://www.dnevnik.bg/print/arhiv_za_grada/2007/08/16/368186_sofiianci_s_dva_puti_po

-visok_bvp_ot_sredniia_za/ - GDP Sofia, 31.03.2011

• http://money.bg/news/id_358672351 - construction of four big parking’s in Sofia,

31.03.2011

• http://www.plovdiv.bg/ - Plovdiv, 31.03.2011

• http://www.varna.bg/ - Varna, 31.03.2011

• http://sofia.bg/ - Sofia, 31.03.2011

Ukraine

Information about Kharkiv (population, city land, transportation and esc)

• http://www.kharkov.ua/region/region-e.htm, 30.03.2011

• http://www.kharkovinfo.com/, 30.03.2011

• http://www.oblrada.kharkov.ua/eng/, 30.03.2011

Information about Kiev

• http://rian.com.ua/economy/20110222/78659785.html, 29.03.2011

• http://www.go2kiev.com/view/kievtraffic.html, 29.03.2011

• http://www.go2kiev.com/view/transport.html, 29.03.2011

• http://www.kiev-ukraine-information.com/kiev-ukraine-transport.htm, 29.03.2011

• http://www.aboutallauto.com/parking-kiev-kreschatik-sidewalks-resolved/,29.03.2011

• http://www.aboutallauto.com/centre-kiev-parkings/, 29.03.2011

• http://www.aboutallauto.com/lvov-construct-multilevel-parkings/,29.03.2011

• http://www.aboutallauto.com/unsatisfactory-parking-kiev-demands-erection-multilevel-

parkings/, 29.03.2011

• http://www.aboutallauto.com/kiev-cancelled-parking-interdiction-kreschatik-sidewalks/,

29.03.2011

• http://www.aboutallauto.com/parking-system-kiev-strengthened-protection-vandals/,

29.03.2011

• http://www.pagoda.kiev.ua/en/projects/in-design, 29.03.2011

Information about Odessa


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•

• http://www.odessa.ua/, 28.03.2011

Information about Lviv

• http://ukrainetrek.com/lviv-city, 28.03.2011

Information about Donesk

• http://ukrainetrek.com/donetsk-city, 28.03.2011

• http://ua-traveling.com/en/information/donetsk-region, 28.03.2011

• http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/ebaut96a.html, 28.03.2011

Marketing research for the Eastern Europe and Latin-America

• https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html 04.04.2011

• www.eltiempo.com 30.03.2011

• www.espectador.com 31.03.2011

• www.dane.gov.co 05.04.2011

• http://www.dane.gov.co/reloj/reloj_animado.php 29.03.2011

• http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salario_m%C3%Adnimo 07.04.2011

• http://www.argentina.ar/_es/economia-y-negocios/C5337-la-produccion-de-autos-0-km-

supera-el-acumulado-de-2009.php 05.04.2011

• http://www.estacionamiento.gob.ar/ 28.03.2011

• http://www.varelaenred.com.ar/cifras.htm 28.03.2011

• http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=99109 30.03.2011

• http://www.lavoz.com.ar/ciudadanos/en-10-anos-67-mas-de-autos-para-las-mismas-

calles 29.03.2011

• http://www.revista-ea.com/argentina/-2m/m2-construccion-argentina-cordoba-p1.html

29.03.2011

• http://www.lacapital.com.ar/ed_impresa/2010/11/edicion_759/contenidos/noticia_5121.ht

ml 28.03.2011

• http://www.impulsonegocios.com/contenidos/2010/11/23/Editorial_10128.php 30.03.2011

• http://7pmix.com/2009/02/02/parque-automotor-circulante-de-argentina/ 30.03.2011


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• http://infouniversidades.siu.edu.ar/infouniversidades/listado/noticia.php?titulo=nuevo_sist

ema_para_construcciones_antisismicas&id=794 31.03.2001

• http://www.skyscraperlife.com/construcciones-y-proyectos-la/47238-rio-de-janeiro-

proyectos-y-construcciones.html 31.03.2011

• http://guiasparaviajeros.com/2009/02/06/transporte-en-rio-de-janeiro/ 04.04.2011

• http://www.skyscraperlife.com/construcciones-y-proyectos-la/30045-salvador-de-bahia-

brasil-proyectos-construcciones.html 04.04.2011

• http://www.viajeros.com/destinos/brasilia/servicios 04.04.2011

• http://www.skyscraperlife.com/construcciones-y-proyectos-la/29736-brasilia-brasil-

proyectos-construcciones-actualizaciones-2.html 05.04.2011

• http://infosurhoy.com/cocoon/saii/xhtml/es/features/saii/features/main/2010/10/27/feature

-02

• 05.04.2011

Sources without outcome for Romania and Belarus:

• http://www.gorod.gomel.by/ Official Website of Gomel, Information only in Belarussian,

28.03.2011

• http://city.mogilev.by/content/section/12/108/lang,en/ : Official Website of Mogilev,

29.03.2011

• http://w3.vitebsk.by/ : Official Website of Vitebsk, Only in Belarussian, 29.03.2011

• http://www.primariaclujnapoca.ro/ : Official Website of Cluj-Napoca, Information in

Romanian, 28.03.2011

• http://www.primariatm.ro/index.php?lg=en : Official Website of Timisoara,29.03.2011

• http://www.mintrans.by/eng/about/ : Ministry of Transport and Communications of the

Republic of Belarus, 30.03.2011

• http://www.primaria-iasi.ro/content.aspx?lang=EN&item=0 : Official Website of Iasi,

29.03.2011

• http://w3.economy.gov.by/ministry/bip.nsf/alleng.html : Ministry of Economy of the

Republic of Belarus, 30.03.2011

• http://www.cnadnr.ro/ :National Company for Motorways and National Roads in

Romania, 27.04.2011

• http://www.prefecturabucuresti.ro/ , 27.04.2011

• http://www.iasi.com/stiri/Numarul_masinilor_noi_inmatriculate_a_scazut_drastic_25_03_

2009/ , 27.04.2011

• http://www.ban.by/ :State-owned enterprise BELAERONAVIGATSIA, 27.04.2011

• http://www.minsktrans.by/ only in Belarusian, 28.04.2011

• http://www.ratuc.ro/index.php : Public Transport Company in Cluj-Napoca only in

Romanian, 28.04,2011


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5. Appendix

APPENDIX 1 CHART OF INDICATORS ..................................................................................................... - 126 - APPENDIX 2 LIST OF COMPETITORS ...................................................................................................... - 138 - APPENDIX 3 PLANNING ....................................................................................................................... - 150 - APPENDIX 4 RACI’S MATRIX ............................................................................................................... - 151 - APPENDIX 5 FIRST WEEKLY REPORT ..................................................................................................... - 152 - APPENDIX 6 SECOND WEEKLY REPORT ................................................................................................. - 158 - APPENDIX 7 THIRD WEEKLY REPORT .................................................................................................... - 159 - APPENDIX 8 FORTH WEEKLY REPORT ................................................................................................... - 159 - APPENDIX 9 FIFTH WEEKLY REPORT ..................................................................................................... - 159 - APPENDIX 10 SIXTH WEEKLY REPORT ................................................................................................... - 160 - APPENDIX 11 SEVENTH WEEKLY REPORT .............................................................................................. - 160 - APPENDIX 12 EIGHTH WEEKLY REPORT ................................................................................................ - 160 - APPENDIX 13 CE LEGISLATION ............................................................................................................ - 162 - APPENDIX 14 FUTURE CONSTRUCTIONS IN UKRAINE .............................................................................. - 166 - APPENDIX 15 NATURALLY BALANCED ANALYSIS OF INDICATORS ............................................................... - 171 - APPENDIX 16 BALANCED ANALYSIS OF INDICATORS, EIGHT COUNTRIES .................................................... - 178 - APPENDIX 17 BALANCED ANALYSIS OF INDICATORS, SIXTEEN CITIES – LATIN AMERICA .............................. - 184 - APPENDIX 18 LETTER AND QUESTIONNAIRE FOR CAR PARKING OPERATORS ............................................ - 194 - APPENDIX 19 LETTER AND QUESTIONNAIRE FOR CAR PARKING RETAILER ................................................ - 196 -


- 126 -

Appendix 1 Chart of indicators


- 127 -


- 128 -


- 129 -


- 130 -


- 131 -


- 132 -


- 133 -


- 134 -


- 135 -


- 136 -


- 137 -


- 138 -

Appendix 2 List of competitors

COMPETITORS IN COLOMBIA

• Controlar eléctronica Ltda o Web site: www.controlarelectronica.com o Address: Calle 64C N° 97a-41

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 7912566

• AC ACCESS CONTROL SAS o Web site: www.accesscontrolsas.com o Address: Calle 64C N° 97a-41

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 5447391 o e-mail: [email protected]

• Porteco o Web site: www.porteco.com.co o Address: Carrera 19C N° 86-30 Antigua Country

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 (6109200)-(6109191) o e-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: Exclusive distributor for Colombia of NICE, the Italian company

APRIMATIC and also the Italian company DITEC.

• Aparcar Ltda o Web site: www.aparcar.com.co o Address: Crr 85 N° 17-21

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 (2343434)-(7676767) o e-mail: o Annotations: They use the AUTOPARK® system which is a brand from the

Global Control Systems company

• Global Control Systems LTDA o Web site: www.globalcontrosys.com o Address:

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 o e-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: I tried to contact the company using this e-mail address but it

doesn’t work and the website is under construction (05/04/2011)


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• OleParking o Web site: www.oleparking.com o Address: Cr 43A N° 1A Sur-29

Medellín-Colombia o Phone: +57 4 (6041841)-(6041842)-(6041963)

+57 318 7070901 Bogotá +57 317 4326040 Cartagena +57 318 3118587 The rest of the country

o e-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: I have been contacting a lot of Colombian companies in the last two

days and I fall over this company OleParking in Medellín. The commercial responsible Omar Felipe Moreno answered my e-mail really quickly and seams to be interested in the DESIGNA products but he told me that they have already got contact with you and with Mr Bernd Michael Von Stumberg whom I know doesn’t work anymore in the company.

• ING DIT (ingenio digital) o Web site: www.ingdit.com o Address: Cr 38 N° 9-32

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 7319544 o e-mail: [email protected]

[email protected] [email protected]

o Annotations: The main product of this company are the biometrical systems so they can became retailers for DESIGNA

• MASENET LTDA [Related with Adceda Systems Ltda] o Web site: www.masenet.com o Address: Cr 36 N° 25-40

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 (3681814)-(3685658)-(2443373)

+57 311 8984663 o e-mail: [email protected] o Annotations:

• DITEL LTDA o Web site: www.ditelltda.com o Address: Transv. 113F N° 64-31

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 14401298 o e-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: I´ve already seen this brand on the street


- 140 -

• DIRECTLY LTDA o Web site: o Address:Cr 19 N° 7-50

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 4083787 o e-mail: o Annotations:

• JV Parking {From JV inversiones} o Web site: www.jvinversiones.com.co o Address: cr. 46 N° 93-15

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 4813750 o e-mail: @ o Annotations: They are related to Italian and North-American systems but I don’t

know the name of the companies

• ADCEDA SYSTEMS LTDA o Web site: www.adceda.com o Address: Cr 36 N° 25-40

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 (7538510)-(3440129)-(3408608) o e-mail: [email protected]

[email protected] o Annotations: ADCEDA is the agent of DATA PARK INC, the North-American

group in Colombia and is also the agent of AMANO Mc GANN, the Japanese group. The company is also related with Inger Soll Rand Co. and Acrosoft LLC, both of theme from US.

• APD de Colombia S.A. o Web site: www.apdcolombia.com o Address: Cr. 58 128 B-25

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 2719689 o e-mail: o Annotations: APD works with MABIC technologie which is an Spanish company,

it is also related with Tomsed Corporation, Gateway Ticket System and Apollo

• Securyty System Colombia o Web site: o Address: Cr. 85b N° 24-16

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 4161265 o e-mail:


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o Annotations:

• Castaliz LTDA o Web site: o Address:Cll 154 15-24 Villa Magdala

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 333333662 o e-mail: o Annotations:

• Automatic Parking Devices de Colombia SA o Web site: http://exiexplorer.nosis.com.ar/exiinformes/agentes/AUTOMATIC-

PARKING-DEVICES-DE-COLOMBIA-S-A-00000008002071231-CR-58-128-B-25-COLOMBIA-85187-EN.asp

o Address: Cr 58 128 B 25 Bogotá-Colombia

o Phone: +57 1 6208820 o e-mail: o Annotations:

• Controles Inteligentes LTDA o Web site: www.ci24.com o Address: Call 100 17°-36 of 201

Bogotá-Colombia o Phone: +57 1 6219262 o e-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: They produce apparently their own devices and more important

even is that they are the suppliers of one of the biggest parking companies in Colombia, Parking International

COMPETITORS IN MEXICO

• INTERAMERICANA DE RELOJES SA de CV o Web site: www.relijesidersa.com o Address: Calle José Frontera 2050 – A Col. Florida,

Monterrey NL CP 64810 o Phone: +52 8183597105

+528383599975 +5283587702

o e-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: They say in their web site that they sell the best devices from

AMANO, DATARK, DITEC, BESSER and others.

• ISISA {Internacional de sistemas de identificación, seguridad y administracion SA de CV} o Web site: www.isisa.com.mx


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o Address: Dr cross N° 460 Nte Monterrey, NL Mexico CP 64000

o Phone: +52 (83432002)-(83432003) +52 18002847472

o Fax: +52 83431197

o e-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: ISISA use equipments from Secom International INC from the US

� Secom International INC • http://www.secomintl.com/index.html

Los Angeles (headquarters) 9610 Bellanca Avenue Los Angeles. CA 90045 3103411290 [email protected]

• SYCOMSA o Web site: www.sycomsa.com.mx o Address: Prisciliano Elizando N° 1211 Co

Francisco Madero CP 64560 o Phone: +52 181(83549899)-(835531343) o e-mail: o Annotations: They don´t use any automatic device bur they can probably do it

because they work in the adecuation of parking areas • Access Kontroll Technology

o Web site: www.parkingsystems.com o Address 1: Vereda de tamarindos N° 320, Col Victoria

Guadalupe, NL Mexico o Phone 1: +52 8183585050 o Address 2: Javier Rojo Gómez N° 514 Col.

Guadalupe del Moral, Mexico DF o Phone 2: +52 5556866566 o e-mail: [email protected]

[email protected] o Annotations: They have made the parking of the international Airport of

Monterrey and they are the main distributors of SKIDATA in Mexico

• Sistema Nacional de Operación de Estacionamientos o Web site: www.operaciondeestacionamientos.com o Address 1: Cd. Juárez o Phone 1: +52 16566182238 o Address 2: Guadalajara o Phone 2: +52 3338232216 o Address 3: Mazatlán o Phone 3: +52 6699130061 o Address 4: Mexico DF


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o Phone 4: +52 55331528 o Address 5: Monterrey o Phone 5: +52 8183404603 o e-mail: [email protected]

[email protected] o Annotations: Use of Magnetic Autocontrol hardware

• Grupo Besser Amaro o Web site: www.amaro.com.mx o Address: Av. Niños Heroes 1102, esq. Donato Guerra

CP 44180 o Phone: +52 3336135820 o e-mail: [email protected]

[email protected] o Annotations:

COMPETITORS IN ARGENTINA

• Proytec S.R.L. o Web site: www.proytec.com.ar/ o Address: Villate 4155, Munro

Buenos Aires

o Phone: +54 11 51971583 o Address 2: ItLa Perla Malagueño

Córdoba

o Phone 2: +54 3514982847

• Sictranscore Latinoamerica Sistemas Integrados de Control S.A.

o Web site: www.sictranscore.com.ar/ o Address: Santa Rosa 1718 - Florida - B1602CKF

Pcia Buenos Aires - Argentina o Phone: +54-11-4791-1161

• Giselectronica o Web site: www.giselectronica.com/template.php?inc=home o Address: Santo Domingo 2708

C. A. de Buenos Aires - Argentina - C1293AGH o Phone: 054 - 011- 4303-6505 / 054 - 011 - 4303-6436 o Email: [email protected]

• Ingesys


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o Web site: www.ingesys.com.ar/ o Address: Francisco Acuña de Figueroa 544

Buenos Aires – Argentina

o Phone: (+5411)4863-5700

• Desarrollo Especial S.R.L. o Web site: www.desaespe.com.ar/index.php o Address: Galicia 361 (C1414EBE)

Buenos Aires – Argentina

o Phone: (5411)4854-5125 o Email: [email protected]

• Inexcel S.R.L. o Web site: www.inexcel.com.ar o Address: Viamonte 1716-5º Piso of.24 o 1055-Buenos Aires o Phone: (+5411)4373-4584 o Email: [email protected]

• Dinap SRL o Web site: www.dinapsrl.com.ar/index.html o Address: Perú 1042

Buenos Aires

o Phone: (+5411)4300-3217 o Phone 2: (+11)14-5637-3630 o Email: [email protected]

• ADD SP o Web site: www.addsp.com/documents/inicio.html o Address: Hipolito Yrigoyen 1516 Piso 6

Buenos Aires

o Phone: (+5411)5415-7807 o Email: [email protected]

COMPETITORS IN BRAZIL

• NEW Sistemas e Equipamentos para Comércio, Estacionamiento, Segurança. o Web site: www.e-new.com.br/site o Phone: (+55)(21)2656-2043 o Phone 2: (+55)(21)3770-6143


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• Magnetic Autocontrol LTDA o Web site: www.ac-magnetic.com o Address: Rua Lauzane, 599

04782-010-Sao Paulo

o Phone: +55 11 5660-8500 o Phone 2: +55 11 5668-9613 o Email: [email protected]

• Brasilpark o Web site: www.brasilpark.com.br o Address: Rua Padre João Gonçalves, 131

CEP 05432-040 - Pinheiros

São Paulo – SP

o Phone: (11) 3812-2002 | 2ª a 6ª, das 8h às 17h

o Phone 2: (11) 9286-2292 | Apoio 24 horas o Email: [email protected]

• Flora Park o Web site: www.florapark.com.br o Address: Rua XV de Novembro, 229

Sl.32 - Centro, Sorocaba-SP o Phone: (15) 3232-2555 o Email: [email protected]

COMPETITORS IN ROMANIA

• Swarco Traffic, Hungary o Web site: www.swarco.com/sthu-en o Address: H-1103 Budapest, Gyömrői út 150.

HUNGARY o Phone: +36-1-8830924 F. +36-1-8830960 o Email: [email protected]

• GREEN Center s.r.o. :

o Web site: www.green.cz/en/stranka-home-page-1

o Address: Zenklova 39

180 00 Praha 8

Czech Republic

o Phone: +420 266 090 090 Fax: +420 266 311 069


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o Email: [email protected]

• FAAC S.p.A.

o Web site: www.faac.it/ita/faac-home-page/home-page.html o Address: Via Calari, 10 o 40069 Zola Predosa(BO) Italy o Phone: +39 051 61724 Fax: +39 051 758518 o Email:

• Villa Pro s.r.o.:

o Web site: www.villapro.eu o Address: Chrapčiakova 1 o 052 01 SPISSKA NOVA VES o Slovakia (Slovak Republic) o Phone: +421 (0) 534196171 o Annotations: Romania representative: D I E X I M E U A R S.R.L . , o Email: [email protected] o Phone 2: 40 722711638

• Metric Group LTD: o Web site: www.metricgroup.co.uk o Address: Westmead Industrial State

Westlea, Swindon

o Phone: +44 (0)1793 647821 Fax: +44 (0)1793 647821

COMPETITORS IN BELARUS:

• FAAC S.p.A. o Web site: http://faacen2.concresco.net/ita/company/mission.html o Address: Via Calari, 10

40069 Zola Predosa (BO) o Phone: 0039 051 61724 Fax. 0039 051 758518 o Email:

• KOR LTD o Web site: www.barieri.com o Address: гр. ПЛОВДИВ

ул. Богомил 30


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o Phone: 032/ 63 55 67 GSM: 0888/ 630 840

o Email: [email protected] COMPETITORS IN BULGARIA AND UKRAINE

• FAAC S.p.A. o Website: www.faacen2.concresco.net o Address: Via Calari, 10

40069 Zola Predosa, Bologna – Italy

o Phone: +3905161724 o Fax: 0039051758518

• KOR LTD

o Website: www.barieri.com o Address: 30 Bogomil Street,

Plovdiv- Bulgaria

o Phone: +359 888 630 840 o E-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: Official representative for Bulgaria of the Italian company FAAC

SPA

• BENINCA o Website: www.beninca.com o Address: Via Capitello, 45

36066 Sandrigo (VI), Italy

o Phone: +39 0444 751030 o E-mail: [email protected] o Fax: +39 0444 759 728

• BESIDE LTD

o Website: www.beside.bg o Address: 102 Oborishte Street, Sofia

Bulgaria

o Phone: +359 29442236 o E-mail: [email protected] o Fax: +359 29442256 o Annotations: Subsidiary of Beninca in Bulgaria.

• SAAV- Bulgaria

o Website: www.saav-bg.com o Address: Boulevard “P. Qvorov” 60, Sofia- Bulgaria o Phone: +359 896 693 159 o E-mail: [email protected] o Fax: 02 962 78 78


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o Annotations: Distributor of Beninca products in Bulgaria.

• BFT S.p.A o Website: www.bft.it o Address: Via di Vico, 44

36015 Schio (VI) – Italy o Phone: 0445 696511 o E-mail: [email protected]

• Rimpex

o Website: http://rimpexgroup.com o Address: 23 A Liublqna Street, flat 1 o Phone: (02) 9559296 o E-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: BFT SPA partner in Bulgaria

• Came Group- Italy

o Website: www.came.com o Address: Via Martiri della Liberta, 15

31031 Dosson di Casier

Treviso- Italy

o Phone: +39 04224940

• Assist- Bulgaria o Website: www.assist.bg o Address: Sofia 1331, Boulevard Europe 176, Bulgaria o Phone: (02) 824 1 824 o Annotations: Distributor of Came in Bulgaria.

• TOB “CAME Ukraine”

o Website: www.came.com.ua o Address: 03141, Kiev, “M. Amosova 2, office 4 o Phone: (044) 270 48 18 o E-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: Official representative in Ukraine of the Italian company CAME

Cancelli Automatici

• Syntech- Ukraine o Website: http://syntech.kiev.ua o Address: 02002, Marina Raskovoi, 21, floor 3, Kiev- Ukraine o Phone: (044) 531-93-23 o E-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: Distributor of parking systems ORION ZAEG in Ukraine ( FAAC

company took over ZAEG)

• VIrtech- Ukraine o Website: www.virtech.com.ua o Address: 03127, Kiev


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o 150 A Zabolotnogo Street o Phone: (044) 222 664 35850012 o Annotations: Works with Came systems , NICE systems and BFT

• OOO Lemus

o Website: www.avto-parking.com.ua/ooo-kontakti.html o Address: Kiev o Phone: (044) 353 66 70 o E-mail: [email protected] o Annotations: Operates with CAME AND NICE systems

• Parking Bud Service

o Website: www.pbs.org.ua o Address: Autoparkova 7 street, Kiev- Ukraine, 02121 o Phone: 044 563 9165 o Annotations: Waiting for more details.

• GREEN Center s.r.o.

o Website: www.green.cz o Address: Zenkova 39, 180 00 Praha 8

Czech Republic o Phone : +420 266 090 090 o E-mail: [email protected]

• REQUEST OOD

o Website: www.request-bg.com o Address: 227 Botevgradsko shoes boulevard,

1517 Sofia- Bulgaria o Phone: +359 2 945 4885 o E-mail: [email protected]

• STEELARM

o Website: www.steelarm.ua o Address: 03680, 72 Qmskaq street,

Kiev- Ukraine o Phone: +380 (44) 461 79 69

Annotations: FAAC and CAME products.


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Appendix 3 Planning


- 151 -

Appendix 4 RACI’s Matrix


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Appendix 5 First weekly report

This report will be divided in two parts which are a brief summary of the Friday’s training session

and the new program proposed by the team to face the objectives of the project.

1. Friday’s training session

The training session was oriented to give us an overview of the DESIGNA products and

services, how they work and how they are improving them in order to respond to the costumers

requirements. In that order, we will first of all describe the basic car parking structure to get

finally into the detail of each one of the company products.

The car parking structure:

For the naked eye there is nothing incredibly strange in the way we park every day; you arrive to

the parking entrance, take the ticket from the machine and before leaving, if you are one from

the 95% of good people, you will probably go to the pay point (or pay machine) and pay the

fares to make the barrier to open (as you can see in the figure 1), but as a matter of facts, there

is always a 5% of people that will try to leave the park yard without paying the ticket and some

employees from the parking that will happily help them to leave it for a few Euros.

Figure 1: Traditional Parking structure


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There is nothing more problematic if you are a parking owner, than people using your business

for free, but fortunately there are some improvements made not only to avoid that to happen but

also to offer clients a better, faster and more comfortable service thanks to a whole new

structure showed in the figure 2.

Figure 2: New Parking structure

This new structure is linked by a TCPIP net (standard communication web) to have a normalized

and cheap connection and to let the main server to be connected to the WWW (Word Wide

Web) so it can be controlled in a virtual plane. Furthermore, thanks to the telecommunication

improvements there can be park fields all over the word controlled by a main master server

working under the command of really useful and approachable software.

Statistics, warnings, general management and predictions can be done in real time which means

that the controller or even the owner can open a barrier, be informed about a failure on the

system or even program the maintenance schedule of a technician without needing of

displacement. Even the assistance call when you push the information button in the pay


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machine can be answered in another country by the same person that makes the repair

command for another parking elsewhere.

Nevertheless all those improvements were not made only for the parking owners, direct clients

of DESIGNA, but also for the parking users themselves often directly concerned to those

evolutions and more important even principal source of feedback.

The improvements and new features are countless but maybe the most remarkable are:

• The license plate reader camera: At the beginning only one more of the new options in

the car parking systems but now required for security reasons in a few countries. The

system is composed by basically a video camera and a image treatment software that

reads the number of license in the front of your car and if its numbers match with a

subscriber number or to a credit card the system automatically enable the entrance of the

car without need of getting out of the car or open the window.

• Radar: It is basically composed by a radar from 0,3m to 1,5m range that reads a badge

that the subscriber to a monthly contract has in the review mirror and automatically

opens the barrier allowing the car to get in or out at will.

• Credit card direct payment: If you do not want to take a ticket and you also want to pay

with your credit card, a credit card reader is placed in the entrance and exit machines, so

you just have to put your credit card in the machine and it automatically charges the bill

to your bank account.

Furthermore, those advances in the industry have not been made only in the technical level but

also in the way these services are offered to the costumer. Below we list some of those new

services offered by the owners to the costumers thanks to the DESIGNA and other companies in

the market:


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• Parking reservation: Now the clients can make the reservation of a parking slot by

calling or by internet and can link the reservation to a license plate or to a credit card.

• Parking slot available: Siemens create and put in the market a small gadget, that can

be placed over each parking slot, to show the controller of the parking how many and

which parking slots are available.

• iPhone Apps ™: The user can now find their cars or a free slot in a big parking, using

these new and common tool.

Finally but maybe most important improvement is the controlling software development that has

evolved from the point of opening and close the barrier to a full control over the parking structure

and production of statistic analysis to help the owners to identify the source of different results

that normally would be impossible to recognize.

2. New program proposed by the team to face the objectives of the project

First Goal:

Identify the future developments in the car parking industry

Objectives:

1. Evolution of the car parking system industry

• New technologies

• New services

• Change in costumers needs and values

2. Evolution in the transport system in a 5-10-20-50 years horizon

• Number of Vehicles

• Number of new parking requested

3. Urban and architectural evolution

• Urban development program


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• Big constructions in the future

4. Changes in law that affect or may affect parking system industry

• Future laws {in term of application}

• Current laws

Mile-stones:

1. At least five of each {with a brief analysis}

2. Evolution graphics with analysis

3. Short analysis of the expected city growth and the impact in the parking system industry

4. List of laws that concern the parking system industry

Second Goal:

Analysis of new markets in the car parking system industry

Proposal: To focus the research in the Latin America and Eastern Europe market due to

the nationalities of the team members.

Objectives:

1. Cities

• Which cities are interesting?

• Why are they interesting?

• Legislation

2. Competitors

• Who are they?

• Where are they?

• What do they offer?


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3. Clients

• What do they need/want?

• Socio-cultural and economical characteristics

Mile-stones:

1. List and analysis of 20 to 30 Cities in Eastern Europe and Latin America.

2. List of main competitors in Eastern Europe and Latin America and a brief analysis of their

products.

3. Socio cultural and economic study of client’s usage of at least 20 pages.

Third Goal:

Development of market entry strategies

Objectives:

1. Analysis of the target markets

• PESTEL

2. Proposal of entry strategies

• Cultural approach

• Price rates

• Size of the market

Mile-stones:

1. PESTEL

2. Approach strategy for a chosen market of at least 10 pages.


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Appendix 6 Second weekly report

This report summarizes the team work over the past week.

As we know every Monday the group has a meeting with their university supervisor in order to

inform her about the progress, any difficulties and feedback for old activities. Also the group this

week started to attack their second goal (Analysis of new markets in the car parking system

industry). During the kick off meeting on the 23 all the senior managers from DESIGNA agreed

the project proposal for focusing the research at Latin America and Eastern Europe markets. So

as follow (due the different origin) Heike and Georgi focused on East Europe and Nicole and

Daniel at Latin America. Thanks to the help of their supervisor they all agreed that like a first

step should find indicators concerning the car parking industry in those new markets and collect

the date in excel document. After this meeting the group made another meeting this time with

some of the people working in the sales and marketing department. Thanks to their help the

group found where DESIGNA has blank spots and where should be focused the research.

Georgi- doing research for Bulgaria and Ukraine, Heike- Romania and Belarus, Nicole-

Argentina and Brazil, Daniel- Mexico and Columbia. They had to search vie internet indicators

(Population, size of city area, density, public transport, number of cars, cars/1000, GDP, Land

plan and Competitors) concerning the parking industry in the main cities of those countries. In

order to get this information the group interacted with the local languages and had to deal with

Portuguese, Ukrainian, Spanish, Belarusian and Bulgarian.


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Appendix 7 Third weekly report

Appendix 8 Forth weekly report

Appendix 9 Fifth weekly report


- 160 -

Appendix 10 Sixth weekly report

Appendix 11 Seventh weekly report

Appendix 12 Eighth weekly report


- 161 -


- 162 -

Appendix 13 CE legislation

CE approval and CE certificate

Products that are brought onto the European market must meet the essential requirements of

the European product CE marking certification directives. The manufacturer or European

importer of products is responsible to follow the essential requirements that are implemented in

the European product directives. Only if the product complies with the essential requirements of

the applicable directive (s) and carried out according the process of CE certification, the CE

mark can be legally affixed to a product.

CE certification experts provide information with regard to the European directives that are

applicable for a product. The CE certification experts can indicate the most efficient manner for

carrying out the CE certification, CE marking and CE approval of a product. After following this

advice the CE mark can be brought onto a product.

Within one day a free quotation can be made for carrying out of complete CE marking

certification, part certification or product testing. (19)

CE Books and CE Software

The CE marking is a mark that should be legally applied to products that must comply to the

European New Approach Directives. The CE marking logo (CE) indicates that the manufacturer,

his authorized representative (situated in the European Union) or importers products from

outside the European Union) of products meet the statutory requirements described in the


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applicable European directive (s). All products with a CE marking have free access to the entire

market within the European Economic Area (EEA). Products that do not comply with the

European directives and are not affixed with the CE marking cannot be legally traded within the

EEA. (20)

CE marking by manufacturer or notified body for CE mark

What is CE marking?

CE marking is a certification mark that must be legally affixed to products that must be in

compliance with the essential requirements out of the European New Approach Directives. 'CE'

stands for 'Conformité Européenne'. With the mark, the manufacturer, his authorized

representative or the importer (also for products imported from outside the European Union)

indicate that the product meets the legal requirements described in the applicable directive (s).

All products bearing the CE marking have free access to the entire market within the European

Economic Area (EEA). Products that are not in compliance with the essential requirements out

of the European Directives and further have no CE marking cannot be legally traded within the

EEA.

Which countries belong to the European Economic Area (EEA)?

The following countries are part of the European Economic Area (EEA): All EU members.

Who applies the CE-marking?


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This is different for each product. For a large number of products with a low safety risk, the

manufacturer can determine whether it meets the essential requirements out of the related

Directives as long as the procedures are correctly followed.

Products with a higher risk should be tested and verified by an external examination institution,

also known as a Notified Body (Notified Body).The Technical File

The Technical File (TF) contains relevant information that must indicate that the essential

requirements out of the applicable directive (s) have been met. The TF must be available for the

competent authorities of the Member States for at least 10 years after the date of construction of

the machine or, in the series production, the last unit produced. For the manufacturer, his Page

authorized representative or the importer, the TF also is used as technical evidence that can

offer possibilities of defence during a liability claim. The contents of the TF must be in

compliance and in accordance with the directives established for the products. In general a TF

includes the following:

• A general description of the product;

• A risk assessment to identify health and safety requirements on the applicable product;

• Design and fabrication drawings;

• Detailed technical information on key aspects of the product;

• A list of standards and essential requirements that are met;

• reporting of calculations and tests;

• Certificates and test reports;

• User Manual;

• In series production, the internal rules that are adhered to ensure accordance with the Directive


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What penalties exist for non-compliance with the CE marking?

If a product unlawfully is affixed with the CE marking the government has the power to take

economic measures as well as criminal measures. Products can for example be withdrawn from

the market and penalties can be imposed. Based on the law on economic crime the Prosecutor

even imposes imprisonment of manufacturers, importers or its authorized representative. (21)

Planning Chart


- 166 -

Appendix 14 Future constructions in Ukraine

PECHERSK ARISTOCRAT

Project information

Site area: 8100 sq. m.

Total apartment living area: 12883 sq. m.

Number of apartments: 90

Non-residential area: 4598 sq. m.

Parking area: 6580 sq. m.

Number of car parks: more than 177

Class of construction: “Premium-class”

While aristocrats may no longer be a part of our everyday lives the aspiration to the best that life

can offer is in everyone’s dreams. For this reason a new elite hous¬ing development set in the

prestigious centre of Kiev is called the «Aristocrat». This project was worked over labori¬ously

with many adjustments, each fine detail designed to perfection. Pechersk Aristocrat is a luxury

complex of some 90 exclusive apartments set within an ideal location.


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The Pechersk district is situated in the business area of Kiev with panoramic views of the city

and Kiev hills. The district has a developed infrastructure, whilst the development is close to all

amenities such as the children’s cafe, dental clinic, beauty parlour, laundry and dry-cleaning

centre, residents club, billiard hall, children’s game room; elite lady’s wear boutique, exercise

room, even a room for washing dogs and is within walking distance of mainline metro stations.

For leisure time with family or sport activities a quiet internal court yard with wonderful landscape

gardening may be used. The grounds are closed and guarded round the clock. In the court yard

of the house there will be a large children’s game complex, dog exercise area, tennis court and

volleyball court which during winter period turns into a skating rink.

Project design provides that at the lower floors on the Schorsa Street side will be office

premises, including bank and notary office. Parking area will be placed near the office premises.

Residents will be able to put their cars in two-level underground parking (two car places per

apartment are provided for).

Aristocrat provides a range of one to five room apartments featuring 3 meter high ceilings,

stained windows and large glazed verandas to create that open feeling. Each apartment will

have a utility room with washing machine/dryer and ironing board, several storerooms, fitted

wardrobes, at least two bathrooms (three bathrooms for four and five room apartments).

Special attention is paid to the design of the Master bedroom each of which is fitted with

spacious wardrobes and en-suite bathrooms. The Master Bedroom is partitioned somewhat by a

separate door. Moreover, an additional water cleanup system, garbage shredder in the kitchen,

multi-zone air-conditioning system, «intelligent home» service system, integrated multi level

security system, are just some of the advantageous benefits.

Experts in the residential real estate market agree that the main characteristics that determine


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the attractiveness of investments in real estate lie in the location and quality of construction of

the property. Traditionally, property in the Pechersk district are considered to be the most

attractive in Kiev due to the historical and cultural monuments, largest business centre and the

proximity of governmental bodies, museums, theatres, and parks.

High demand for deluxe class housing is caused, on the one hand, by a lack of real estate at such level

(city analysts estimate that only 40-50 % of the segment buyers needs are presently met). Therefore when

we understand that these developments by Pagoda are unique in Kiev and that in a few years from now

there will be no such offers in the market at all then the potential for investors is clear.

BUSINESS CENTER AMONG GREENERY

PROJECT INFORMATION

Location: Street Timirjazevskaja, 36, Pechersk district, Kiev

Site area: 0,27 hectares

Total building space: 15 660 sq. m. Useful area: 13 213 sq.m.

Number of floors: 9 floors plus under¬ground parking

Number of parking places: 106

Right of site use: contract of rent for 5 years

Is it possible to combine the business dynamics of a major city, the sound of foliage beyond your

window and a blossoming garden? Yes, if this is the Timiriazevsky Centre.

Timiriazevsky – a class A Business Centre will be located in the prestigious Pechersk district of

Kiev at Street Timirjazevskaja 36. This is one of the most respected areas of the capital’s centre,

characterized by its sense of tranquillity. The luxury private residences and the magic beauty of

the Botanical Gardens will surround your business and create the very best working conditions

for your staff.


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Timiriazevsky Business Centre is located on a hill with panoramic views of the Botanical

Gardens of the National Academy of Sciences. Timiriazevsky Business Centre lies on Street

Timirjazevskaya in close proximity to the business hub and with low traffic volumes while at the

same time being close to the main highways of the capital: Street Kikvidze, Avenue Druzhby

Narodov, highway Naddneprovsky. The Business Center has split-level parking located on the

first floor.

The business centre has eight floors of office space offering approximately eleven thousand

sq.m. The open plan lay-out allows maximum flexibility and the rational use of floor space. Each

floor houses five separate office premises with an area ranging from 190 to 500 sq.m. and

equipped with toilets, kitchens and their own reception rooms. Individual terraces enable

employees to enjoy fresh air during working breaks. Total area of office premises on a floor

comprises 1450-1600 sq.m.

Conferences and seminars are held in the main conference hall situated on the ground floor.

Leisure facilities include a billiard hall, spacious cafe, fitness-centre, and SPA complex.

Sophisticated control systems are installed to ensure safety and comfort in the most effective

way and thus achieve minimum consumption of energy and resources.


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Timiriazevsky Business Center will be equipped with fully automated engineering systems as

well as installation of telephones, fiber-optic telecommunication channels, high-speed Internet;

safety and security systems, fire-prevention parking systems, elevators and all premises of the

business center, installation of cold and hot water, heat and electric power consumption meters

in all premises; integrated air conditioning ventilation systems

Source: http://www.pagoda.kiev.ua/pages/1487


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Appendix 15 Naturally balanced analysis of indicators

Market attractiveness Charts


- 172 -


- 173 -


- 174 -


- 175 -

Business Unit Strength


- 176 -


- 177 -


- 178 -

Appendix 16 Balanced analysis of indicators, eight countries



- 179 -


- 180 -


- 181 -

Business strength


- 182 -


- 183 -


- 184 -

Appendix 17 Balanced analysis of indicators, Sixteen cities – Latin America

Market attractiveness Charts


- 185 -


- 186 -


- 187 -


- 188 -


- 189 -

Business Unit Strength


- 190 -


- 191 -


- 192 -


- 193 -


- 194 -

Appendix 18 Letters and questionnaire for Car Parking Operators

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Daniel Sandino and within my studies, a practical semester is required. I am

preparing a marketing research for DESIGNA GmbH (designa.com), one of the biggest car

parking system manufactures in the world. I prepare this within a team of international students

from Bulgaria, Colombia and Germany at the University of Kiel The goal of our student project is

to find new markets for DESIGNA. In order to complete our research, we would like to ask some

questions regarding your actual car parking system:

1) What kind of technology are you currently using?

• Manual

• Semi-automatic

• Automatic

• Other (Please Specify):

2) Who produces those systems?

• Amano

• Federal APD

• Scheidt & Bachmann

• Skidata


3) From whom do you purchase those systems?

• Direct from the manufacture

• Though their head office or subsidiaries

• From a local distributor


4) What are the main reasons for purchasing these technologies?

• Price

• Quality

• Easy contact

• Another reason? Please let us know:

5) For how long have you been using these technologies?

• 0-5 Years

• 6-10 Years

• 11-15 Years

• More than 15 Years

6) How many parking do you manage?

• 1-3 parking

• 4-5 parking

• 6-10 parking

• more than 10 parking


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7) What is the average size of the parking you manage?

• 0-50 Slots

• 51-100 Slots

• 101-150 Slots

• 151-200 Slots

• more than 200 slots

8) For how long have you been in the market?

• 0-5 Years

• 6-10 Years

• 11-15 Years

• 16-20 Years


9) Do you know Designa and its products?

• Yes

• No

10) Are you interested in getting more information about Designa and its products?

• Yes

• No

11) For feedback purposes please indicate the name of the company you represent. (Optional)

____________________________________________

12) Finally, if you have any question, please write it down and leave us a contact address or


____________________________________________

If you prefer, we will also be happy to answer your question via a conference call.

Thanks for your attention, have a nice day.


- 196 -

Appendix 19 Letter and questionnaire for Car Parking Retailer

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Daniel Sandino and within my studies, a practical semester is required. I am

preparing a marketing research for DESIGNA GmbH (designa.com), one of the biggest car

parking system manufactures in the world. I prepare this within a team of international students

from Bulgaria, Colombia and Germany at the University of Kiel The goal of our student project is

to find new markets for DESIGNA. In order to complete our research, we would like to ask some

questions regarding your actual car parking system:

1) What kind of technology are you currently selling?

• Manual

• Semi-automatic

• Automatic


2) Who produces those systems?

• Amano

• Federal APD

• Scheidt & Bachmann

• Skidata


3) For how long have you been selling these technologies?

• 0-5 Years

• 6-10 Years

• 11-15 Years


4) What is your target market?

• Big parking (more than 5 units/gates)

• Small parking (less than 5 units/gates)

5) For which kind of projects are you selling these products?

• Airports

• Hospitals

• Malls

• Hotels


6) Could you please name some big projects you have been involved in?

____________________________________________

7) How many products do you sell per year? (optional)

____________________________________________

8) For how long have you been in the market?


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• 0-5 Years

• 6-10 Years

• 11-15 Years

• 16-20 Years


9) What are the main reasons for purchasing-selling these technologies?

• Price

• Quality

• Easy contact

• Another reason? Please let us know:

10) Do you know Designa and its products?

• Yes

• No

11) Are you interested in getting more information about Designa and its products?

• Yes

• No

12) For feedback purposes please indicate the name of the company you represent. (Optional)

____________________________________________

13) Finally, if you have any question, please write it down and leave us a contact address or


____________________________________________

If you prefer, we will also be happy to answer your question via a conference call.

Thanks for your attention, have a nice day.


- 198 -

Señor/ Señora:

Mi nombre es Nicole Patiño, estudiante de la Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas de Kiel

(Alemania) y para finalizar mis estudios debo realizar un semestre de prácticas. Estoy

preparando una investigación para DESIGNA GmbH (http://www.designa.de/) una de las

empresas más grandes en cuanto a producción de sistemas de aparcamiento. Con la

colaboración de un equipo de estudiantes de Bulgaria, Colombia y Alemania desarrollamos un

proyecto con el fin de encontrar nuevos mercados para DESIGNA. Para completar nuestra

investigación, nos gustaría formularle algunas preguntas con respecto a su sistema de

aparcamiento actual.

Para responder este cuestionario, por favor ingrese a la siguiente página web:

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=jr1b9ghj5eank49914480

Si usted lo prefiere, también podríamos llamarle para responder las preguntas vía telefónica.

Gracias por su atención, que tenga un buen día.

Atentamente:

_____________________________


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Estimados Senhores,

Estimadas Senhoras,

Eu me chamo _______________ e sou estudante em_______________. Parte integral de

meus estúdios é um semestre prático.

A presente estou preparando uma investigação de mercadotecnía para a empresa DESIGNA

Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH ( http://www.designa.de/ ) uma das maiores empresas no mercado

mundial para sistemas de gerência, contrôle e cobro de estacionamentos.

Estou conduzindo esta investigação em uma equipe de estudantes internacionais de Bulgaria,

Colômbia e Alemanha na Universidade de Sciências Aplicadas de Kiel / Alemanha.

O objetivo do projeto é encontrar novos mercados para a empresa DESIGNA.

Para poder completar nossa investigação de marketing, gostariamos submeter um questionário

de perguntas em relação à seus sistemas de gerência, contrôle e cobro de estacionamentos

atualmente em uso na sua empresa/organisação.

Para responder ao questionário, por favor clique no link abaixo

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=4sli24gr4qfmitm916259

Seríamos muito agradecidos se os estimados senhores nos podriam ajudar nesse projeto

preenchendo o mencionado questionário.

Cordialmente,

__________________

Documents

International market research for DESIGNA