Identifying Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends

Economic Trends

1)
 -I believe there is an opportunity in creating more environmentally friendly backpacks.
 -Consumers are starting to trend toward being more environmentally conscious when making their purchasing decisions.
-I believe that this means there is market potential for a variety of eco-friendly products, especially those centered around younger generations.
-I think the prototypical customer would most likely be younger high school and college students.
-I think the opportunity would be relatively easy to exploit because of the huge increase in attention toward environmental protection.
-I believe I saw this opportunity because I am around other students and people my age. I see what people my age, especially students, care about and am able to see this opportunity based off that.

2)
-I believe there is an opportunity in creating efficient infrastructure methods.
-Infrastructure has become a huge focus of today's economy, especially with the ever increasing number of people.
-I believe this means there is market potential for any product or process that can make the infrastructure building process more efficient or better in some way, because it is becoming increasingly important to build infrastructure quickly.
-The prototypical customer would most likely be local or state governments in need of creating infrastructure.
-I think the opportunity may be difficult to exploit, because it deals more with  selling to the government than to actual consumers, and government contracts can be difficult to get.
-I believe I saw this opportunity because of the information I've seen about our country's infrastructure. I know it's a huge issue that is gaining importance, so I was able to see this opportunity.



Regulatory Changes

1)
-I believe there is an opportunity in creating construction hard hats with sensors that identify when they enter the construction site, letting supervisors know if workers have brought their hard hats or not.
-New regulatory changes have increased penalties associated with safety violation in construction, and one of the major violations includes workers not wearing hard hats.
-I believe there is market potential, because construction companies want to make sure they do not experience safety violations more than ever.
-The prototypical customer would be construction firms.
-I think the opportunity would be relatively easy to exploit, because there hasn't been anything created like it before.
-I believe I saw this opportunity because of my major. I am a construction management major and was aware of there regulatory changes.

2)
-I believe there is an opportunity in creating a glove for sanitary purposes that can be worn comfortably for long periods of time.
-New regulatory changes have caused at least three states to be required to pay workers sick leave.
-I believe there is market potential, because businesses will want to reduce the risks of spreading sickness to reduce the risk of their employees taking paid leave.
-The prototypical customer would be any business in these states.
-I think the opportunity would be relatively hard to exploit, because there is a lot of competition in this product area.
-I believe I saw this opportunity because I researched new regulatory changes, so I saw these new laws.