6A – Identifying Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends
Economic Trends
1)
The decline
of Pine Tree planting in Florida.
a. Where You Found It: I work for a
company that is the largest pine tree planting company in North Florida. I am
involved at an executive level at managing the planting of over 8000 acres a
year. These are the trends I have observed.
b. What Leads You To Believe That An
Opportunity Might Exist: Pine trees have to be planted at a certain time of
the year and at certain temperatures in order for them to grow properly. We
have found that the climate condition for this has been slowly eroding for many
years. This will cause less viable healthy trees to be able to be grown and a
shortage of Pine straw, the main product of pine trees.
c. The Prototypical Customer: Customers of
pine straw exist at every level so the Prototypical customer would be another
company that resells the pine straw to the final consumer. This opportunity would
be in a supplier role to a large company that uses pine straw.
d. Is The Opportunity Relatively Easy Or
Relatively Difficult To Exploit? Why? This opportunity would take a large
investment to pursue as you would have to create a connection in Georgia with landowners
and labor companies to take advantage of the shortage in Florida.
e. Why Did You See The Opportunity? Simply
put, it's my job. I am involved with a large company that operates every day with a large amount of Pine straw. Observing macro trends as a way of risk management is
important to my position. I have observed firsthand the challenges of Climate
change on the Florida environment.
2)
Driverless
Trucking/Maintenance Company
a. Where You Found It: Macroeconomic trends
of automated driving show that trucking will be one of the largest affected. Class
Lecture.
b. What Leads You To Believe That An
Opportunity Might Exist: These drivers will need to work in a transitional
position between totally driverless and automated driving. At first, drivers
will still be required to be in the vehicle while the vehicle is operating.
Parking and Loading will still require driver assistance.
c. The Prototypical Customer: Truck driver
that is out of work driving due to automated drivers but can be retrained to
provide maintenance and road service to the automated trucks. Trucks will have an
on-board mechanic.
d. Is The Opportunity Relatively Easy Or
Relatively Difficult To Exploit? The opportunity is relatively easy to
exploit as the mechanic training would be done in groups and would take 6-8
weeks. These drivers would then be paid to pilot the automated trucks.
Automated trucks would require a large investment.
e. Why Did You See The Opportunity? I have a family member who does road service
for truckers. He gets paid very well to drive to the broken down trailer and
change tires or other servicing. This is
due to the service requiring special licensing and tools.
Regulatory Changes
3)
Change in
the Size of Potatoes
a. Where You Found It: Current regulations
as to what qualifies the correct size of a potato.
b. What Leads You To Believe That An
Opportunity Might Exist: Many potatoes that are under the correct size will
be undervalued and will be sold at a cheaper price.
c. The Prototypical Customer: Companies
that create potato products such as mashed, or tots. They use potatoe but they don’t
need them to be whole.
d. Is The Opportunity Relatively Easy Or
Relatively Difficult To Exploit? This is an easy opportunity to exploit.
You would have to know someone growing these potatoes and sell them to a
consumer. Transportation costs would be a factor.
e. Why Did You See The Opportunity? Farming
is a great free market business that creates an opportunity to leverage
connections and other factors.
4)
Florida will
not allow dog racing. Dog racing in Georgia or Alabama.
a. Where You Found It: I was first made aware
of this change during the last election when I was researching the ballot.
b. What Leads You To Believe That An
Opportunity Might Exist: Professional Dog breeders and Racers will continue
to where it is allowed as they have sunk thousands of dollars into their animals
and will not stop.
c. The Prototypical Customer: Dog breeders
or racers racing out of state.
d. Is The Opportunity Relatively Easy Or
Relatively Difficult To Exploit? Easy, you could exploit it by running dog
tracks, to creating kennels near dog tracks. There are many possible
opportunities to take advantage off.
e. Why Did You See The Opportunity? I have
a friend that complained to me about the dog racing law because it only allowed
the practice and not the act itself, with breeding and sale not included.
Hey Robert! I really enjoyed how you literally put your own working experience into this assignment. For the first one you clearly knew every scope of that business and was honest with yourself at the end with the opportunity and how it can be challenging if you do not have land or money. Also, I agree with topic 4 just because dogs should not be used as a sport anymore, they have horses that do the same thing. Great job can't wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteHi Robert! Nice job pulling from your own work experience on the first one. I didn't think to analyze the trends I observe at my own job, but I'll keep it in mind for future assignments. I'm not sure what the opportunity is for the law against dog racing. Are you saying that one could repurpose tracks in Florida into pet care businesses like kennels? Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteHey Robert! Its really cool that you decided to take your own prior experience and integrate it into the economic trends. Blogs seem to be a lot more interested when you can tell that the author is truly invested in the topic that theyre talking about. In my list of economic trends I had one that was also about the environment. I think its important to tackle problems that will help our planet so Im happy to see that im not the only one doing so! Great Work!
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