Strategic Market & Sales Channel Research: ESG Appraisal Products

Defined Tasks: Wenco has been undergoing research into ESG and the potential impact on its product line and customers. Initial Phase 1research focused on the overall ESG landscape, influencers and started to examine likely future standards. Phase 2 focused on defining an ESG dashboard that could be delivered by Wenco’s digital platform, focusing on three levels: enterprise, site, and equipment. The majority of the effort focused on equipment dashboards and integration with Wenco technologies (e.g. FMS). Phase 3 will look at the larger picture that will influence mining companies and the supply chain this industry belongs to. It will divide the research into two areas 1. Industry-leading influencers from the customer-demand side and other organizational influencers. For mining, these would include leading buyers such as Tesla, BMW, Tiffany and others (details listed below) as well as United Nations and other bodies. The research will examine what metrics they use to evaluate and influence suppliers along their supply chain in order to determine what operational reporting mining companies should offer in monthly/quarterly and annual reporting related to ESG. 2. The Financial market approach that includes banks, investors, auditors and standards bodies that will create the new “sustainability and social responsibility bottom line” mirrors the approach for financial profit reporting, as well as the technologies (e.g. blockchain) that may be used in such reporting. Expected outcomes: We break the task down into two areas, each area will be assigned to a student/team, respectively. Area 1: ESG management across supply chains. Student(s) assigned to this section are expected to choose six leading companies (three per 80-hour report duration) to carry out research across the supply chain, to figure out: 1. What are the ESG requirements/matrices those companies exert on their suppliers, including mining suppliers? 2. What monthly reports can be created by an ESG management system to help those companies? (Wenco will then determine if any of this data can be captured in near-real-time or by shifts to flow up to aggregated dashboards and reports) Potential supply chains to look at (minimum three per 80-hour session): a. Jewelry: Jewelers (Tiffany, Pandora, Chow Tai Fook, Cartier, etc.) --->Refineries (Johnson Matthey, HNH, etc.)-àmining companies (Barrick, Kinross, Newmont, etc.) b. Electronics: Consumer electronics (Apple, Sony, Nintendo, etc.) ---->Microelectronics (TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, Intel, STMicroelectronics, etc.) -àelectronic materials (Tanaka, Heraeus, etc.) àRefineriesàMining companies c. Electric vehicles: Carmakers (Tesla, BMW, etc.)àBattery makers (Panasonic, AESC, PEVE LG, CATL, etc.)àRefineriesàMining Companies d. Other TBD by students, including organizations such as United Nations, other leading industries. Student(s) are also highly encouraged to look at other relevant supply chains/leading companies. Area 2: ESG management through financial instruments. 1. What roles financial institutions are playing in ESG? Which will be the most influential in setting ESG standards and compelling mining and other suppliers to report/comply? 2. What kind of instruments are they using to regulate operating companies? - For example, “Green Loans” are quite popular recently. 3. Are they developing in-house solutions to appraise the ESG performance, or cooperating with 3rd parties? Which of those 3rd parties can be our potential M&A target/partners? Potential 3rd parties: a. Sustainalytics b. Refinitiv c. Envirosuite d. K2Fly e. Minetell Student(s) are also highly encouraged to find and research other targets. 4. How can the data they collect be validated? (e.g., using blockchain? A company called Minespider claimed they have blockchain technology for "green certification")

Sales Market Entry Planning: Safety Suite

Purpose: · Market research conducted to understand how safety solutions built for mining could be adjusted to gain a profitable foothold in adjacent markets. · Conducting research on a market adjacent to mining that has been deemed the most attractive based on previous analysis. · Highlighting the key go to market considerations in this new market. Assessing the competitive strengths of key competitors and providing market entry recommendations. Overview: Wenco has recently acquired a fatigue management company that measures brain activity and empowers operators with the information they need to act and avert personal harm and damage to onsite assets. In addition to fatigue management, the Wenco Safety suite also provides solutions for collision awareness, speed monitoring and shift management. As we seek to increase our market share in Safety for mining, we are also hoping to expand into adjacent markets that can also benefit from our Safety solutions. In this project we want students to analyze the safety market, highlighting the segments with the highest degree of similarity to mining. Assessing competitors in segments like underground mining, construction and transportation will provide the Wenco team with an understanding of market attractiveness and our relative competitive strength. Number of Individual Students Required: 2 Defined Tasks: 1. Market Analysis: a. Begin Analysis on the market segment assigned to you from the Wenco team including, competitive landscape, customer segmentation and market sizing that identifies an obtainable market for Wenco's safety offering. b. Point out the most significant considerations for achieving successful entry into the defined segment. In other words, how does Wenco need to adapt sales processes and leverage a new dealer network to achieve success? How competitive will our offering be? c. Create an overview of the path to purchase in these adjacent markets, drawing attention to differences in how Wenco currently secures a customer in our primary markets. 2. Final Report a. Summarize key findings from the Market analysis and provide specific, time bound recommendations for optimal market entry and product development.

Strategic Market Research: Safety Sales

Purpose: · Based on pre-defined competitive threats to Wenco’s Fatigue Management offering, identify contingencies in a go to market strategy which will facilitate our revenue goals. Overview: Wenco has recently acquired a fatigue management company that measures brain activity and empowers operators with the information they need to act and avert personal harm and damage to onsite assets. With a focus on the surface mining market, we would like the student to engage in a competitive analysis of Fatigue Management solutions directed specifically at surface mining. In the surface mining market, smart safety solutions are becoming a prerequisite to successfully winning a bid as a fleet management provider. Considering this, Wenco must leverage a deep understanding of the competitive strength of the fatigue solutions coming from our direct competition amongst FMS providers. Amongst fatigue Management offerings in surface mining there are several categories based on the technology delivered and the level of prediction provided by the product. Each of these offerings has a unique profile of advantages/disadvantages that determine competitive strength. As technology advances, Wenco’s offering will constantly face new competitive threats to be identified and needs plans to defend against them. Number of Individual Students Required: 2 Defined Tasks: · At this stage of research, we will provide students with defined competitive threats to our product. Students should expect to: · Engage in Market Research to identify best practice contingency plans for addressing threats. · Develop several alternatives to defend against each defined threat. · Select superior contingency plans in conjunction with Wenco Analysts. · Provide a final deliverable that provides actionable recommendations that Wenco can employ to effectively defend against these threats.

Strategic Market & Sales Channel Research: ESG Appraisal Products

Purpose of Research: ESG dashboard is a emerging market. A good ESG performance is believed can help companies facilitate the financial performance. Wenco, as well as its parent company HCM and even the greater Hitachi group, are trying to understand the market and generate their own strategy of engaging the market, to accelerate the sales promotion of this brand new product. Number of individual students required: 1 Defined Tasks: Our previous research shows that ESG-Sustainability scoring is an emerging business recently. There are three types of organizations, non-profit or for profit, in the market acting as providers. For-profit This is the kind of direct competitors. They have two different business models. Provide customized sustainability management solution for customers by charging development fee + licensing fee. For example, Rockwell Automation. Establish a universally accepted scoring system, and charge everyone who want to access the detail score of a specific company. For example, Sustainalytics, Refinitiv, etc. On top of what we already have looked at, there are still a lot of institutions waiting to be researched, including famous MSCI, Bloomberg, S&P and ECPI. The latter business model has a bigger customer base than the former because almost all institutional investors have their own model/solution to quantify ESG factors by dollar, all they need is data. 2. Non-Profit There are also a lot of non-profit organizations providing ESG scores and performance reports. The interval of report renewing is very long, normally from 1 year to 2 years, because of the lack of funding and limited data access. RMI and CDP are examples of this kind of competitors. 3. Affiliations/Academic Institutions Affiliations of national governments, guilds and UN are also leaders in this market. Most of them only provide guidelines for companies and investors to build their own dashboard/report, while others also established a forum/community for members to share their research. Academics institutions, especially business schools, are actively conducting research and appealing for the adoption of “triple bottom lines” instead of traditional unique economic bottom line. Some of research is quite insightful and provide comprehensive frameworks of appraising ESG performance and connecting the performance to economic bottom line. Both kinds in this category are not “pure competitors” but rather “semi-competitors” that also have high potential of becoming partners. PRI, TSM, and SASB are examples of government affiliations, while Wharton and Schulich are those of academic institutions. From demanding side, Big companies, such as Rio Tinto, and institutional investors, such as big banks including RBC, are developing their own appraisal systems, while others are proactively looking for solutions. Expected outcomes: 1. Identify Factors that are deemed most important to ESG dashboard by both supply side and demand side 2. Extra added value to companies other than improving ESG management. 3. Status quo of the competitive of the market 4. Future trends of the market 5. Wenco's GTM strategy: sales channels, partners, etc. Remarks: Students in Richmond, BC will be considered first

Quantitive Modeling - ESG & Financing Cost

Purpose of Research: Even though there are plenty of evidences that institutional investors have been considering ESG factors in their valuation models for decades, their quantitative methods still remain unclear. Wenco is aiming at creating a predictive model that can use today's ESG performance to estimate tomorrow's financing cost, to give customers' C-Suites some idea that how can their bottom lines be affected by proactively managing environmental and social issues. Number of individual students required: 1 Defined Tasks: Our previous research shows that ESG-Sustainability scoring is an emerging business recently. There are three types of organizations, non-profit or for profit, in the market acting as providers. For-profit This is the kind of direct competitors. They have two different business models. Provide customized sustainability management solution for customers by charging development fee + licensing fee. For example, Rockwell Automation. Establish a universally accepted scoring system, and charge everyone who want to access the detail score of a specific company. For example, Sustainalytics, Refinitiv, etc. On top of what we already have looked at, there are still a lot of institutions waiting to be researched, including famous MSCI, Bloomberg, S&P and ECPI. The latter business model has a bigger customer base than the former because almost all institutional investors have their own model/solution to quantify ESG factors by dollar, all they need is data. 2. Non-Profit There are also a lot of non-profit organizations providing ESG scores and performance reports. The interval of report renewing is very long, normally from 1 year to 2 years, because of the lack of funding and limited data access. RMI and CDP are examples of this kind of competitors. 3. Affiliations/Academic Institutions Affiliations of national governments, guilds and UN are also leaders in this market. Most of them only provide guidelines for companies and investors to build their own dashboard/report, while others also established a forum/community for members to share their research. Academics institutions, especially business schools, are actively conducting research and appealing for the adoption of “triple bottom lines” instead of traditional unique economic bottom line. Some of research is quite insightful and provide comprehensive frameworks of appraising ESG performance and connecting the performance to economic bottom line. Both kinds in this category are not “pure competitors” but rather “semi-competitors” that also have high potential of becoming partners. PRI, TSM, and SASB are examples of government affiliations, while Wharton and Schulich are those of academic institutions. From demanding side, Big companies, such as Rio Tinto, and institutional investors, such as big banks including RBC, are developing their own appraisal systems, while others are proactively looking for solutions. Expected outcomes: 1. Collecting data from institutional investors and banks 2. Collecting data from companies, especially mining companies 3. Create a model to quantify ESG performance has on financial factors, including but not limited to changes in financial frictions 4. Test the model with real world data Remarks: Students in Richmond, BC will be considered first

Sales Market Entry Planning: Safety Suite

Purpose: · Market research conducted to understand how safety solutions built for mining could be adjusted to gain a profitable foothold in adjacent markets. · Conducting research on a market adjacent to mining that has been deemed the most attractive based on previous analysis. · Highlighting the key go to market considerations in this new market. Assessing the competitive strengths of key competitors and providing market entry recommendations. Overview: Wenco has recently acquired a fatigue management company that measures brain activity and empowers operators with the information they need to act and avert personal harm and damage to onsite assets. In addition to fatigue management, the Wenco Safety suite also provides solutions for collision awareness, speed monitoring and shift management. As we seek to increase our market share in Safety for mining, we are also hoping to expand into adjacent markets that can also benefit from our Safety solutions. In this project we want students to analyze the safety market, highlighting the segments with the highest degree of similarity to mining. Assessing competitors in segments like underground mining, construction and transportation will provide the Wenco team with an understanding of market attractiveness and our relative competitive strength. Number of Individual Students Required: 2 Defined Tasks: 1. Market Analysis: a. Begin Analysis on the market segment assigned to you from the Wenco team including, competitive landscape, customer segmentation and market sizing that identifies an obtainable market for Wenco's safety offering. b. Point out the most significant considerations for achieving successful entry into the defined segment. In other words, how does Wenco need to adapt sales processes and leverage a new dealer network to achieve success? How competitive will our offering be? c. Create an overview of the path to purchase in these adjacent markets, drawing attention to differences in how Wenco currently secures a customer in our primary markets. 2. Final Report a. Summarize key findings from the Market analysis and provide specific, time bound recommendations for optimal market entry and product development.

Edge Research of ESG Standards and Scoring Systems

Purpose of Research: A lot of non-profit organizations are proactively engaging the improvement of ESG management, including affiliations of guilds and governments, academic institutions and NGOs. They either issuing and editing standards. or providing open source scoring systems, or doing cutting edge research. Understanding they work is crucial to getting the big picture of the future of ESG. Number of individual students required: 1 Defined Tasks: Our previous research shows that ESG-Sustainability scoring is an emerging business recently. There are three types of organizations, non-profit or for profit, in the market acting as providers. For-profit This is the kind of direct competitors. They have two different business models. Provide customized sustainability management solution for customers by charging development fee + licensing fee. For example, Rockwell Automation. Establish a universally accepted scoring system, and charge everyone who want to access the detail score of a specific company. For example, Sustainalytics, Refinitiv, etc. On top of what we already have looked at, there are still a lot of institutions waiting to be researched, including famous MSCI, Bloomberg, S&P and ECPI. The latter business model has a bigger customer base than the former because almost all institutional investors have their own model/solution to quantify ESG factors by dollar, all they need is data. 2. Non-Profit There are also a lot of non-profit organizations providing ESG scores and performance reports. The interval of report renewing is very long, normally from 1 year to 2 years, because of the lack of funding and limited data access. RMI and CDP are examples of this kind of competitors. 3. Affiliations/Academic Institutions Affiliations of national governments, guilds and UN are also leaders in this market. Most of them only provide guidelines for companies and investors to build their own dashboard/report, while others also established a forum/community for members to share their research. Academics institutions, especially business schools, are actively conducting research and appealing for the adoption of “triple bottom lines” instead of traditional unique economic bottom line. Some of research is quite insightful and provide comprehensive frameworks of appraising ESG performance and connecting the performance to economic bottom line. Both kinds in this category are not “pure competitors” but rather “semi-competitors” that also have high potential of becoming partners. PRI, TSM, and SASB are examples of government affiliations, while Wharton and Schulich are those of academic institutions. From demanding side, Big companies, such as Rio Tinto, and institutional investors, such as big banks including RBC, are developing their own appraisal systems, while others are proactively looking for solutions. Expected outcomes: 1. Interview non-profit Organizations/Affiliations/Academic Institutions to learn: a. Trends of upgrading standards and increasing regulations. b. Cutting-edge research. c. Difficulties in data collection and shortening the interval of reporting. 2. Compare existing standards and scoring systems to summarize factors they are measuring. 3. Comparing reputations of different scoring systems/standards Remarks: Students in Richmond, BC will be considered first

Next Gen real-time sustainability Dashboard

Purpose of Research: A lot of companies already have started the development of environmental dashboard to appraise their performance on GHG emission reduction. However, the next step of those dashboard remains unclear. How can it be expanded to other environmental concerns and social issues, and eventually evolve to an inclusive ESG dashboard? Number of individual students required: 1 Defined Tasks: Our previous research shows that there is no significant causal link between RMI (Responsible Mining Index) ESG performance and long-term stock prices. Nonetheless, some remarkable drops in stock prices can still be seen after major environmental scandals have been reported even though those changes still cannot be predicted quantitatively and will be compensated quickly because of strong financial performance. We believe the reason investors are not able to react to ESG failures rationally and continuously is because there is a lack of tools to do so. Currently, there are a few organizations, for-profit or non-profit, that are providing ESG scoring metrics for institutional investors to make their own decision, but none of them can provide “near real time score”, which we believe is the prerequisite of connecting scores directly to the prediction of stock prices and/or profit. Currently, almost all ESG reports are updated annually or bi-yearly. This is not helpful either to investors or to companies because they must make decisions accurately and quickly to make things right. If they do not obtain information in a precise and timely manner, the only thing they can do is exclude this information from their valuation model or their daily operational management considerations. Therefore, a more “real-time” updated ESG dashboard is imperative to achieve the ambition of “triple bottom line”, and sub-dashboard of environmental factors, especially “real-time emission” dashboard, is the priority considering the inevitable trend of emission reduction. Expected outcome: 1. Extra added value to companies in targeted industries other than improving ESG management. 2. The trend of increasing sustainability regulations and new factors to be monitored 3. The strategy of expanding the dashboard from equipment (emission) to greater environment (water, tailings, etc.) to social good (communities, aboriginals, employees’ well-being, etc.) to the final inclusive real-time ESG dashboard. Remarks: Students in Richmond, BC will be considered first

GTM Strategy for Real-Time Emission dashboard

Purpose of Research: Wenco, with an ambition of becoming a digital platform provider in the mining, quarrying and construction industries, has realized that the real-time emission dashboard could be a essential part of the platform and taking our customers management to another new level. In order to collect adequate information to guide the development and promotion of the dashboard, a strategic market research is indispensable. Number of individual students required: 1 Defined Tasks: Our previous research shows that there is no significant causal link between RMI (Responsible Mining Index) ESG performance and long-term stock prices. Nonetheless, some remarkable drops in stock prices can still be seen after major environmental scandals have been reported even though those changes still cannot be predicted quantitatively and will be compensated quickly because of strong financial performance. We believe the reason investors are not able to react to ESG failures rationally and continuously is because there is a lack of tools to do so. Currently, there are a few organizations, for-profit or non-profit, that are providing ESG scoring metrics for institutional investors to make their own decision, but none of them can provide “near real time score”, which we believe is the prerequisite of connecting scores directly to the prediction of stock prices and/or profit. Currently, almost all ESG reports are updated annually or bi-yearly. This is not helpful either to investors or to companies because they must make decisions accurately and quickly to make things right. If they do not obtain information in a precise and timely manner, the only thing they can do is exclude this information from their valuation model or their daily operational management considerations. Therefore, a more “real-time” updated ESG dashboard is imperative to achieve the ambition of “triple bottom line”, and sub-dashboard of environmental factors, especially “real-time emission” dashboard, is the priority considering the inevitable trend of emission reduction. Expected outcome: 1. Market landscape, including market size, competitors, potential customers etc. 2. Go-To-Market strategy a. Recommendation of targeted market segments. b. Recommendation of targeted regional markets c. Channels and strategies for recommendations 3. Price and pricing policy Remarks: Students in Richmond, BC will be considered first

Real-time Emission Monitoring Technology

Purpose of Research: Emission reduction is an inevitable trend and is putting unprecedented pressure on the mining industry and adjacent industries such as quarrying and construction. In order to monitor the emission in a real-time manner, a research in existing technologies is imperative. Number of individual students required: 1 Defined Tasks: Our previous research shows that there is no significant causal link between RMI (Responsible Mining Index) ESG performance and long-term stock prices. Nonetheless, some remarkable drops in stock prices can still be seen after major environmental scandals have been reported even though those changes still cannot be predicted quantitatively and will be compensated quickly because of strong financial performance. We believe the reason investors are not able to react to ESG failures rationally and continuously is because there is a lack of tools to do so. Currently, there are a few organizations, for-profit or non-profit, that are providing ESG scoring metrics for institutional investors to make their own decision, but none of them can provide “near real time score”, which we believe is the prerequisite of connecting scores directly to the prediction of stock prices and/or profit. Currently, almost all ESG reports are updated annually or bi-yearly. This is not helpful either to investors or to companies because they must make decisions accurately and quickly to make things right. If they do not obtain information in a precise and timely manner, the only thing they can do is exclude this information from their valuation model or their daily operational management considerations. Therefore, a more “real-time” updated ESG dashboard is imperative to achieve the ambition of “triple bottom line”, and sub-dashboard of environmental factors, especially “real-time emission” dashboard, is the priority considering the inevitable trend of emission reduction. Expected outcome: 1.. Define a new reporting/data renewing interval: what frequency of updating is helpful to investors and mining companies themselves, while it is still feasible. 2. A deep dive into real-time emission monitoring (because it is the most straight forward factor, the most imperative trend, and the most feasible action with available technologies): a. Indispensable technologies (including sensors, telemetry, communication, etc.) b. Existing solutions and their pros and cons c. Potential partners (including acquisition target etc.) Remarks: Students in Richmond, BC will be considered first