Looking For Opportunity

Economic Trend: Multigenerational Households

Multigenerational households have been increasing in quantity. Economic factors have contributed to this, the number began to grow with the recession that began in late 2007. Recent college graduates have moved back home if unable to support themselves, and grown children and elderly parents are also sharing households.

I heard about this economic trend in my Marketing class, and it was further substantiated by an article in The New York Times. The article is from 2013, but based on the Marketing text, this trend continues.

This suggests an opportunity could exist for developers to build homes suited for this type of family, or adjoining apartments. This could also be an opportunity for “adult-sitting”, hourly care for elderly relatives who can not be safely left by themselves, for when the adult children in the same household may be unavailable, just like babysitting, but for adults.

Families with multigenerational living arrangements or needs would be prototypical customers. The specifics could vary from family to family depending on who is making decisions about the living arrangement, why the arrangement is coming about, and whether members of the family require assistance.

The opportunity could be relatively easy for a home builder, it would involve introducing new models, which is likely something they already have infrastructure in place to do. The idea of “adult-sitting” would be even easier, even a local teenager could do it just like babysitting.

My experience with my family is the reason I can relate to this trend. I am very close to my family, and we have considered the option of a multigenerational living arrangement as some members of our family have gotten older. 

Economic Trend: Employees Gaining Power in Labor Market

According to this article in The New York Times, the labor market is slowly and gradually tilting in favor of employees. This means companies are working harder to attract good employees.

This suggests an opportunity could exist for a third party to offer competitive employee benefit packages to employers. An insurance company could introduce a new type of coverage to be covered in employee benefit packages. An entertainment company could create team building entertainment to be packaged and sold to the employers to give them a competitive advantage in offering a unique and interesting benefit to the employee. Clubs or venues could create organizational packages in which the organization (employer) has a membership for all of its employees, so the employer can offer this to potential employees as a benefit. All of these benefits could represent a savings to the employers if they offer a benefit to the employees that would cost the employer less than paying them a higher wage or salary.

This opportunity could be relatively easy or difficult depending on what type of business would like to take advantage of it, and how much infrastructure they already have in place for carrying out one of these ideas.

I am enthusiastic to see this trend beginning about a year before I am done with school. I hope this trend will continue, and companies will offer exciting benefits to employees joining their organization.

Regulatory Trend: Carbon Pricing

In this article in The New York Times the president of the World bank urged people to prepare for regulations requiring fossil fuel polluters to pay for the carbon dioxide they emit.

This could represent an opportunity for new materials and methods at companies with large carbon footprints. Such innovations could benefit the company if the savings in emissions would equate to prevention of some of those fines. I imagine this opportunity is relatively difficult to exploit, because there are large scale research and development teams, facilities and organizations dedicated to this purpose.

In this instance, I don’t think I am the only one who would have seen this as an opportunity. I think the factor preventing this solution is more a technological one, and I do believe it will continue to be solved gradually, rather than one “aha” moment.

Regulatory Trend: Legalizing Marijuana

As discussed in this article in The New York Times, more states are legalizing the substance, and lawmakers are having a challenge measuring whether a person using marijuana is too impaired to drive. 

This could be an opportunity for a test that effectively determines one’s level of impairment. It is discussed in the article this is a difficult task, as traces of THC remain in your blood much longer than the user will feel any impairment. Furthermore, regular users may not be impaired, even immediately after use. These facts make it seem difficult to exploit this opportunity.

If the customer for these tests could be police departments, and other regulatory agencies. Depending on the level of complexity and the affordability of the tests, they could be sold directly to consumers who wish to test their own level of impairment, perhaps before deciding to drive.

One reason this does not exist is likely because the cost of developing such a test has outweighed the potential benefit, especially since until recently, any marijuana use at all was an offense. However, with the changing regulations related to the substance, maybe this idea is becoming more valuable and the research can be carried out.