Submitted Abstract
The increasing threat of terrorism and criminal events are having a major impact across society, with organisations from schools and petrochemical plants through the police often seeking ways to improve their training and responses to such events. As a result there is a growing demand for training solutions, either for professionals or volunteers involved in managing such events. However, to date training systems are often expensive, in many cases require the use of live sources of danger (which increases risks and health and safety requirements) and relatively difficult to customise. TARGETplace aims to resolve these problems by creating a low cost, customisable and safer solution using augmented which can be used by a wide variety of organisations and individuals. The aim being that almost any organisation or person that would wish to do so can train for such an event. This PATHFINDER project will specifically explore the potential market and customer base of two competing approaches which are: a more traditional OEM model vs a market disruptive Software as a Service (SaaS) model. While the former provides an opportunity to leverage existing knowledge and experience within the team, the SaaS approach will potentially revolutionise how training for such events can be provided. However, as it also involves potentially a different target market the project team requires assistance in order to conduct a detailed comparative market analysis for both approaches. For example an OEM approach is fundamentally targeted at the high level organisational decision makers (who make the purchase decision), is a more expensive solution and predominantly focusses on a smaller number of end users (high cost/low volume). In contrast a SaaS model involves targeting a wider range of people including volunteers and middle ranking decision makers with lower-cost product (high volume/low cost). To date though there is no information available on the comparative market potential of both approaches. The TARGETplace concept is based around exploiting an augmented reality platform and associated tools which are being developed within the EU funded Horizon 2020 TARGET project, with the core work being undertaken at The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology. The project involves technical partners and potential end users of the technologies (e.g. police and CBRN teams). As a result the project has identified real end-user needs which have subsequently been used in the design and implementation of the platform. As indicated during recent trials there is significant interest by the end users in deploying such technologies to meet their training needs. The PATHFINDER grant will allow us to understand further the potential market opportunities outside of those involved in the project from both business model perspectives.