1. 1
United Kingdom Future Care (UKFC)
Minor Thesis
Sujith
Kumar
Anand
Candidate
Number:
HHZP5
Student
Number:
14100409

2. 2
United Kingdom Future Care (UKFC)
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1
Minor Thesis
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1
Introduction
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3
Context
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3
Company
........................................................................................................................................
3
side
of
the
UKFC
service.
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3
Personal
Offering
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3
FDP
Focus
Area
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4
Business challenge
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5
Literature Analysis
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5
Micro-level and Macro market assessment
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5
Macro-level Industry assessment
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8
Threat
of
entry
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8
Buyer
power
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9
Supplier
power
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9
Threat
of
substitutes
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9
Competitive
rivalry
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9
Micro-level industry assessment
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9
Financial
analysis
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10
Essay
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11
Reference
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14
Appendix
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15
Appendix A: Business Model Canvas
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16
Customer segment
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16
Value proposition
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16
Customer relationships
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16
Channels
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16
Key activities
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17
Key partners
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17
Key resources:
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17
Cost structure
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18
Table
of
Figures:
Goal
Model……………………………………………………………………………………………………..5
Financial
Statement………………………………………………………………………………………..5

3. 3
Introduction
Context
Company
United Kingdom Future Care (UKFC) is a vision from Microsoft Services [1]. Their
initial approach to the market is from the United Kingdom (UK), by partnering with
Kent County Council (KCC) [2], Centra group [3], and University College London
(UCL) [4]. KCC provides the ecosystem where the users test and evaluate the UKFC
product within a real environment. Central group, one of the UK’s largest providers
for affordable houses, helps in setting the necessary technology, during alpha/beta
testing phase. The students and researchers from UCL are involved in developing the
technical side of the UKFC service.
Personal Offering
Previous Offering
The development of the project started on November 2014, but my involvement with
the project started in January 2015, on a part-time basis, by providing support for the
development team during the early high-fidelity prototype stage as User Experience
(UX) designer. The service as UX designer was to help the development team is
building the right product with the right functionalities and screen layouts. This
development team involves more than 60 students from three different master
programs [5] working together for a course System Integration as part of their course
curriculum, from UCL Computer Science department. However, due to their course
deadline and the multiple hierarchies to solve or change the problems. The
suggestions were restricted towards labels, error messages, and alignments.
Future Offering
This development team involves more than 60 students from three different master
programs [5] working together for a coursework, as part of their course curriculum in
UCL CS department. However, due to their course deadline and the multiple

4. 4
hierarchies to solve or change the problems. The suggestions were restricted towards
labels, error messages, and alignments.
FDP Focus Area
Figure 1: Goal Model
The main goal of UKFC product is to facilitate elderly people independent living. The
independent living is achieved by using existing (IoT- Internet of Things) sensing
devices and wearable devices. This puts elderly people in the center of the health
system by serving as a solution and a unified base of private elderly people’s health
data and empowerment (See Figure 1).
The increasing aging population and people with long-term conditions is a major
problem in the current health care strategy. So the project addresses this problem by
collecting the health data from users regularly through integrating sensing devices.
The gathered information from monitoring elderly people is shared between elderly
people and their carers. The service also provides a facility for end users to take

5. 5
advantage of a notification mechanism, which will be initiated in an emergency
situation or when a situation is predicted, based on the data collected and its analysis.
Due to the non-disclosure agreement and the strict confidently from the Microsoft
services, the previous stage of this project is unknown. However, the current work
involves user testing the developed prototype with the end users. This process would
be performed in a user-centered iterative process, which is explained in the essay
section of this report. Later on, the future work will involve in alpha/beta testing at
Kent County Council.
Business challenge
Due to the late involvement into the project, it was difficult to identify whether the
idea is feasible or not. Additionally, the project owners forced to think, the suitable
users for UKFC are elderly people and people with long-term conditions. This
eventually stopped from identifying other customer segments, explained in Business
Model Canvas (See Appendix A). So this report would criticize and look at the
business idea impartially and identify if it’s worth the investment of money and time.
So a feasibility analysis (Innovation Frame Process) best suits this circumstance to
determine, when the idea would break-even and generate profit. During the feasibility
study, analysis of the business idea, market, and technical, competitive and financial
would be performed to determine the strength of the business idea. This would be
achieved by performing Mullin’s customer-driven feasibility study to understand the
external and internal environment[1].
Literature Analysis
This section will address the Mullins' customer-driven feasibility study to test the
UKFC product [5]. Since the idea is still at the first version of prototyping stage and
the involvement of many member teams some section in the model will be neglected.
Micro-level and Macro market assessment

6. 6
People aged 60 and above, who is depending the state pension or retired will be
considered as elderly people [6]. In 2015, 14.7 million people are aged sixty years and
above in the UK [7]. This trend is expected to increase over 20 million by 2030 [8]
[9].
Many elder people aspiration is to maintain their quality of life and to live
independently in their own homes. Successful aging and particularly whilst struggling
with one or multiple long term problems, requires them to perform independent
activities of daily living (IADL), IADL are critical for maintaining independence such
as walking, meal preparation, managing medication, and using the telephone.
However, older adults may not pay close attention to how well they perform these
tasks and the subtle errors that may signal a pattern of decline of health.
People with long-term conditions account for more than 70% of inpatient beds and
half of all General Practitioners (GP) appointments in England[2]. The National
Health Service (NHS) is the healthcare provider for all the citizens of UK. The NHS
budget allocation for the financial year is more than £100 billion[3]. NHS is forced to
spend £4 million a week on elderly patients at hospitals, who are capable of going
home. This problem is caused because the elderly people the local authority doesn’t
provide the necessary help for them, when they return to their houses[4]. A report
from BBC, suggests if the care services is organized better. There is a chance to “free
up 7,000 beds – 6% of the total – saving the NHS nearly £500m a year”[5].
With the aforesaid problems raised by elderly people, NHS is tremendously planning
to reduce 3.5% of the unnecessary hospital visits, which has been increased by 47%
during the last 15 years. But the current coalition government in thinks, with this
approach £1 billion could be saved for NHS[6].
Also, the current health care system needs to follow the tailored approach for treating
elderly people. In the current system, elderly people are having no knowledge of their
health condition unless the information is provided a doctor, nurse or a health
institute. To obtain this report, it takes ample amount of time and to follow a set of
procedures. With this approach, there are chances of under, over and miss:
treatment[7]. These increasing problems suggest there is a need for a paradigm shift
in health sector towards individual and self-care, prevention and user empowerment.

7. 7
Ubiquitous sensors or Internet of Things (IOT) in the home setting can provide a
solution to the above said problems. The current generation is moving towards smart
concepts. It is already provided sufficient advances in the field of smart cities, smart
companies, and smart transportation. During the recent years, integration of sensors in
the field of ambient assistive living[8] with the use of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) has also seen developments. In 2015, 50 billion
devices (IoT) is expected to be interconnected in this ecosystem[9].
Sensor networks started their journey from hospitals, assisted living homes, and now
it’s moving to elderly people homes in the recent years. These sensors have the
capacity to monitor ton of things from motion, when and what a person does, collect
daily habits and their current conditions. Some international bodies like Oregon
Center for Aging & Technology, AARP have already accepted the fact, elderly people
monitored all the time with the help of sensors[10].
The UKFC product is not created for elderly people alone. It’s a product that can be
used by the people who are in need of continuously monitoring their health data.
Some of the UKFC product uniqueness is:
- Integration of low cost sensors.
- Collecting and predicting health data for users.
- Providing measures for past and future health data and to suggest measures in
preventing future health conditions.
- Aggregation all the data by combining with the existing third party sensing
devices.
- Providing support for third party subscribers like research institutions and
governments to access the data for research purpose.
In 2013, the international market for IoT was estimated around $1.9 trillion and
expecting a 17.5% growth rate between, 2013 to 2020, and a estimated growth of
more than $5 trillion during these period[11].

8. 8
The AAP joint programme (AALJP) is a EU funding body aimed at improving the
elderly people quality of life and to support independent living. This body funds start
ups, medium companies, and research and user organization. At present, they have
financed more than 150 projects across Europe[12].
Due to the increasing elderly people population, the assisted living market acts a
niche market with a significant potential for growth. The combined estimated market
size for assisted living and the smart homes in Europe is valued at €152.2 million[13].
The UKFC utilizes the advantage of combining the sensors to gather health
information from elderly people. The sensor devices are connected in the home and
the data from the devices are collected and followed through a software, which
processes the information collected and provides the services of detection, prevention
and aggregation of data collected. More information about the System Architecture is
explained in the Appendix.
Macro-level Industry assessment
Threat of entry
The barrier to entry includes
Government regulations: Health Care is very critical as it involves the life of a person.
Therefore it takes high level of testing and research to introduce any health care
product and service[14][15].
Trust and Safety: The question of safety and trustworthiness of the service rises, since
elderly people haven’t had much interaction with technology.
Negative social attitude: People are not usually comfortable in showing their health
issues. This would be same with elderly people. So monitoring their data by a third
person might make them uncomfortable and irritated.

9. 9
Buyer power
With $343.82 billion market cap, Microsoft will not have a problem[16]. But, still it
needs to buy the third party sensors well ahead and conduct the process of integration
and testing. So they can are capable of setting their own terms and conditions.
Supplier power
With more than 1000 thousand companies in the world and the emerging sensing
market in china[17], the sensor industry is capable of matching the buying power of
Microsoft. Due to this competitive supplier market, they can’t put any pressure on
Microsoft over prices.
Threat of substitutes
The concept of collecting data from sensors is not new but the prediction of data from
the aggregated data, using large third party sensing devices is somewhat innovative in
this field. So this might result in potential to apply for IP protection, which reduces
the treat of substitutes. However, this doesn’t mean other big giants like Apple,
Google will not approach this idea.
Competitive rivalry
As mentioned above, other big giants can approach this idea, if Microsoft seems to
make profit or show the growth or break-even with investment very early than
prediction.
Micro-level industry assessment
The first version of UKFC product can be currently accessed from website and tablet
version but subject to copyright protection, which is owned by the Microsoft. The
technology is currently in its prototyping stage and needs extensive user testing before
the next phase towards market launch.
Currently, there is huge competition in the field wearable fitness tracker. The
companies competing are Fitbit, Nike, WithHings, Jawbone, Misfit, Sony[18]. These
companies can be considered as early competitors. Since they are already very well
established in the sensing environment. The economic viability of the UKFC is
explained below:

10. 10
Financial analysis
This report was created for a coursework in the course MSIN7008 Entrepreneurship
Theory and Practice.
Figure 2: Financial statement
In 2014/15, NHS planned a net expenditure of £112bn, out of which 3.1% would be
financed for elderly care. So a small fraction of their annual expenditure could be paid
for UKFC[19].
Route for market launch and financial forecast:
The primary market place for UKFC will be Untied Kingdom and the product will be
tested Kent County Council. Wherein, the next five financial year forecasts is pointed
out below:
Year 1 (Development and testing iterations)
Financial year 1 would be mostly towards developing the product and iterating until
the beta version is launched. The development of the product is done at UCL with an
estimated expense of £50,000. Due to its partnership with Kent County Council, the
user testing will be performed by 20-30 customers, which comprises both elderly
people and their carers, and initial implementation phase will kick start at Kent by the
end of 2015, with an estimated expense of £35,000 which includes deployment,
testing and other miscellaneous cost. Additionally, the manufacturing and
infrastructure cost would be approximately £30,000.
Year 2 (Beta production and test)

11. 11
Financial year 2 would be critical in testing the beta version, before it goes for a
regulatory pass from the government authority. This evaluation would also be carried
out in Kent due to its easy access and partnership. We expect the test would be at least
with 200-300 customers that would comprise of carers, general practitioners and
elderly people. This would give us a much better estimation of the service. This
would further bring the expenses of £30,000 in development, £17,000 in deployment,
and £130,000 in testing, manufacturing and other miscellaneous cost.
Year 3 (Government regulations and launch)
The financial year 3 will be concentrated on passing the government regulations. This
year will also lead into further evaluation with 1000-1500 customers. Based on the
regulations board the cost of regulation is a fixed cost of £100,000[20].
Year 4 (Covering Kent)
In financial year 4, we expect to the plan for expansion to other cities from Kent. This
would result in additional cost towards marketing and advertising. Besides, a more
dedicated team of people to cover the deployment, maintenance, customer service and
infrastructure cost.
Year 5 and Year 6 (Expansion Nationwide)
Until 2020, UKFC will be expanded to all over the UK even though the technology
adoption rate, would take some time. But in the next 5-10 years the business would
break-even for a positive cash flow. And the customer would be both the private and
the government, while government giving the authority of the councils to accept the
service and product to distribute it to their elderly people community members.
Essay
The UK government is investing lot of money in health care for the ageing
population, which is being increased every year. It is projected, by 2050, UK alone
will have 19 million elderly people with public health expenditure expected to be
9.6% GDP. The UKFC has a tremendous potential for growth in UK. As pointed in
literature analysis, NHS is looking for various ways of reducing the unnecessary GP

12. 12
and hospital appointments made by elderly people. This solution provided by
Microsoft not only solves the problem of NHS but also provide elderly people the
control of looking their future health condition based on their current and previously
collected health data. This will be a long-awaited solution for carers and family
members who are worried about their elderly. However, this solution may not be
scalable to other countries because, not all countries have a centralized health
provider like NHS, who pays for individual health care.
The project owners are strong-minded in believing, elderly people as the immediate
customer segment for the UKFC product. But micro-level market assessment has
showed there is a potential to grow the customer base apart from elderly people to
people who are looking for long-term health monitoring.
The customer need is widely being served by traditional care homes, wearable like
Fitbit, Jawbone and technology giants like Apple, Samsung, and Philips. Currently,
the biggest share of the elderly care market is owned by professional care homes.
Attempts are also made by a Government health care organization such as the NHS in
the form of telecare and telehealth services. However, the market is still fragmented
and mostly focused on healthy adults.
Although, technology giants like Apple, Samsung and Philips are attempting to serve
this sensing market. Microsoft will have a competitive advantage by targeting the
elderly people and allowing the integration and aggregation of third-party sensors.
The most valuable credentials created by Microsoft is its trustworthiness, connections
and their ability of buying power and the strength of creating own terms with
suppliers, for large scale, along with their capability to reach the majority of the
customers all over the world.
From the micro and macro analysis, both market and the industry are favoring the
UKFC product prediction with a positive growth for next 10 years and potential to
break-even within three years of the product launch. Microsoft can take the advantage
of first-to-entry create a presence difficult for competitors to adopt. Also, Intellectual
Property for the UKFC can also add more value and restrict too many competitors.

13. 13
The second team of developers will be introduced to UKFC project in this year
autumn, to build further more from the current prototyping stage towards the
alpha/beta testing phase.
Some of the traps which Microsoft needs to avoid
Trap 1: Large market fallacy: Since elderly people population are growing in every
country and with this created a huge market. There are chances of competitors within
a short period.
Trap 2: the better mousetrap fallacy: other competitors can copy the innovation of
UKFC if an IP (Patent) is not obtained at the right time. Also, there are high chances
the solution might not be user-centric because the target customers were not consulted
during the first version of the prototyping stage.
Trap 3: no sustainable business model trap.
From the created business model for UKFC, the proposed solution of the revenue
stream is business-to-business (B2B) but this will not the situation outside UK. So an
alternative approach for business-to-customer (B2C) need to consider if it’s scaled
outside UK.
The internship and the future work from the master thesis point of view is to be
discussed and finalized on 22nd April 15. However, the user evaluation of the UKFC
will be performed in a three-stage iterative process. During the iteration one, a semi-
structure interview will be performed to understand the elderly people perception of
technology and its uses. Due to ethical issues, an evaluation will be only performed
with active elderly people only. Later, personas and storyboard will be created in the
iteration two to better understand the interviewed elderly people. In iteration three,
UKFC product will be set-up in the elderly people for the certain period of time and a
contextual Inquiry will be performed. During the contextual inquiry, users will be
observed while they interact with the UKFC product and a structured interview will
be performed to finish the session.

14. 14
Reference
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[Online]. Available:

15. 15
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[26] Business Model Generation. .
Appendix

16. 16
Appendix A: Business Model Canvas
Customer segment
The three main customer segments are the elderly people, carers and government.
Although the end-user of the product is elderly people, both elderly people and carer
can use the service with government being the primary customer of the service. The
government can support for purchasing the service and product for elderly people and
the carers. The service of UKFC provides elderly people, the power of knowing
what's going on with their health and carers with an overview of the data and any
abnormalities that can be addressed during an emergency.
Value proposition
UKFC’s main value proposition is to improve the wellbeing of elderly people whilst
lowering the cost and allowing them to stay independent. However, with the primary
benefits, there are a lot of other benefits for family carers who manage various other
household things and sometimes, a full-time job. UKFC can provide an easy
monitoring tool by giving them valuable insights in the case of an emergency, saving
both time and money. Similarly, elderly people can monitor their health by
themselves without being burdened with others to get regular updates on their health
conditions, which in-turn provides strength for staying independent.
Customer relationships
UKFC is a product for medical significance to elderly people. Therefore, round the
clock personal assistance is required, where customer can directly interact with an
UKFC representative to have a seamless experience and avoid any uncertain
circumstances that might hamper their health. Elderly people have strong bonding
with other elderly people in their communities, as they have a lot of free time. Thus,
such communities will be used to receive feedback, exchange knowledge and solve
issues. This will be both online and offline. UKFC also has potential to collect a large
amount of health data, on how people interact with the product to improve its
customer experience.
Channels
UKFC is using sensors to monitor the elderly people interactions and movement and
delivering the aggregated data through the Website (for desktop) and Windows app

17. 17
(for Windows tablet), this is done keeping in mind the screen size, easy accessibility
and the penetration rate. On the other hand, UKFC also plans to have an active social
network presence not only for marketing and advertising, but also for sharing
information with friends and family within their social circles.
Key activities
UKFC’s main goal is to provide well being, independent living and reduce the
healthcare cost to its end users which can be achieved by implementation of these key
activities. Firstly, utilization of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and wearable to help
with monitoring, detection and prediction of health conditions by elderly people and
their caretakers. Secondly, an extensive user evaluation needs to be done by users to
make the system more robust. Finally, before launching it to the market government’s
standard regulations needs to be passed.
Key partners
At present, UKFC have strategic alliances with University College London
(UCL)[21], Kent County Council[22] and Centra[23]. In future, a partnership with
government is needed, as the government supports elderly people with compensation
and allowances[24]. Computer students and researchers from University College
London (UCL) carried out the initial stage of prototype development. Kent County
Council (KCC) is involved in providing an environment where the testing and
evaluation can be performed with the actual customer segments. Centra is one of the
UK’s largest providers of affordable houses[23] and they would provide support in
setting up sensing technology during the testing phase.
Key resources:
In any business or a startup, it is a necessity to have the resources to create and deliver
value[25] Key resources can be tangible or intangible, financial, physical or
intellectual[26].
Human resources: As the business, depends upon sensors, software and elderly
people. The need of software engineers, user researchers and user experience
specialist are some of the essential requirements to support the business grow
efficiently.

18. 18
Physical resources: These resources are very important and cost-intensive. They are
the backbone of UKFC. They include sensing technologies such as sensors and
wearable, IT infrastructure, logistics etc.
Financial resources: As a resource intensive and critical healthcare service, the
product needs huge funding for developing and testing with multiple iterations during
its early phases.
Intellectual resources: Intellectual such as the UKFC brand, copyrights and trade
secrets are important to provide intangible value such as trust and security.
Cost structure
UKFC’s initial cost would be towards developing a very scalable and robust
infrastructure. This would also include developing cost in terms of salary for their
employees. Also during the initial phase, there is a need of heavy testing, evaluation
and setup cost, as they need to deploy the technology in various scenarios and
contexts.
Figure 6: Business Model Canvas