Solving The Problem

For the issue that I am trying to solve, I have selected people trying to find parking spots in places where parking is limited, and especially the fact that finding one of those spots oftentimes depends on luck, rather than in the amount of time someone has been waiting for it. This issue has been identified in different places and situations, including but not limited to shopping centers, college campuses, arenas during concerts, sports events, or other events in general.

As to this matter, my solution is to place little cameras, that already exist, in front of the parking spots so that they can know if the spot is being utilized or not. This will also be synced to a mobile application that will keep a waitlist for people looking for parking spots, placing people that have been waiting for longer on top. After the cameras detect that a parking spot is being freed up, it will assign it and reserve it to the person that has been waiting for longer and give him directions on how to get to it. People will also be able to customize if there is a certain section of the parking lot that they are interested in, or if they want to only use one that is within a radius of their desired gate of entrance. This will assure that the assignment of spots occurs in a just manner and therefore, relieving some of the madness in people within parking lots.

Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

As I have talked about in previous homework, I have noticed that there is an issue when people go to places that have congested parking like, for instance, malls during Black Friday, finding parking is an absolute hassle, and it is very unfair how some people are lucky and get a parking spot right away, while others have to wait and wait.

Who: People going to places with congested parking. This includes every single person who go to a place where there are more people looking for spots than there are spots available.

What: Finding a parking spot might be a matter of luck, instead of who has been waiting for longer. My what includes every place that has this issue, and focuses on people who dislike waiting, which in my opinion is most people.

Why: The way finding parking spots is very unpredictable, and when there are more parking seekers than spots, it all depends on who is lucky enough to find someone heading out close to them at that moment.

Interview 1: my first interviewed is a person who has had this issue in multiple places in the past but focused on shopping malls during sale days. She stated that she dislikes the level of madness that invades people looking for spots during those days, as she feels they become rude, they cut people off, and sometimes even park in illegal places. She agrees that it would be convenient to have a method of distributing the spots as they become available.

Interview 2: my second interviewed has also found this problem in the past, especially in concerts. He said that parking staff sometimes do a bad job at directing traffic, as they have taken him to places with no spots available, while somewhere else there were plenty to use. He also stated that the most he has been waiting for a parking spot is about a full hour, and he starts disliking it after 10 minutes.

Interview 3: the third person told me that he only gets anxious for a parking spots depending on a situation. He is usually someone patient, so what he usually does is to wait in a specific place and wait until someone in that area heads out, rather than hunting for a parking spot all over the place. However, he says that after about 15 minutes he does start getting desperate, and that this has happened to him mostly in malls and on college campus.

Interview 4:  this lady actually told me she very rarely has this issue as she does everything she can via online, to avoid this issue, and when there is an event that will have a complicated parking situation, she usually uses a cab service or takes a ride. In case she has to necessarily use her car, she recommends just being early, so that you have plenty of more options to situate your automobile.

Interview 5: the fifth person I interviewed is among the people who has experienced the parking inconvenience. In his opinion, concerts, sports events, and college campuses can have very complicated parking situations, and there seems to be no order in how people get the spots that are available.

After the interviews, I could see that an issue that has constantly happened to me has also happened to multiple others. Different people also do different things to address this issue, and most recommended to get a ride or use cab services in these situations. Arriving early is also something that the people I interviewed try to do to avoid this inconvenience. In general, I learned that there actually might an opportunity in this field.

Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends

Economic Trends

According to the International Monetary Fund, Libya is currently the country with the highest GDP growth in the world, and in 2018 it scored an incredible 17.9% of real GDP growth, which is much more than any other country.

a)     I found this information in the WebAtlas blog online.

b)    Libya is a country that was recently in war, which means that most of its economic system is being rebuilt, and they lack stores offering products and services.

c)     For instance, a prototypical customer could be people looking for efficient and inexpensive grocery stores, with products not only produced locally but also imported.

d)    Exploiting the opportunity would definitely require someone to move to analyze the country’s condition and move to Libya in order to make the investment. This is why I think that it is relatively hard to exploit.

e)    I saw the opportunity because a believe that developing countries whose economies are in exponential growth, always represent a mine of opportunities. This is because people are getting more resources to be able to pay for things, but there is still a big share of the market that has not been exploited.

In the national level, Lehigh Acres, right here in Florida, was ranked the city in the United States with the highest economic growth during 2019.

a)     I found this information in the Business Insider website.

b)    Just like in the international context, places with a high GDP growth tend to be the perfect areas to invest and expect a good return.

c)     My prototypical customer would be people going to fast-food healthy places—something like Bolay, but better.

d)    Different than opportunity 1, I think this one would be relatively easy to exploit, as the only resources necessary would be the investment, and the business structure.

e)    I see the opportunity because I thing that more people are looking for places to find inexpensive healthy food to consume on a daily basis, and by going to a place that is growing economically, it might be the best option to start it out.

New regulations

The US Department of Labor has recently allowed more employees to be eligible for overtime pay.

a)     I found this information in the Fortune website.

b)    I believe that the fact that more employees are eligible for overtime is something that some smaller companies might have struggles adapting to, and it wouldn’t surprise me that some would unlawfully not stick to it completely

c)     With a law firm, my prototypical customers would be employees who might be subject to unfair compensation.

d)    I think it would be relatively easy to exploit this opportunity as there is a lot of potential customers, and the only necessary thing required would be a group of lawyers to create the firm.

e)    I see it because oftentimes I hear or read in the news about companies, especially the smaller ones doing everything they can to reduce the compensation they give to their employees, and latter ones require protection from that.

Due to new regulations, all aircrafts now require having satellite tracking systems

a)     I found this information in the Fortune website

b)    In my opinion, this shows an opportunity because now all airlines that have operations in the United States will have to install these systems in every single one of their aircrafts, and probably, within a limited time frame.

c)     In this case, I would act as a liaison between companies that offer this satellite systems, and airlines, especially smaller ones that might not have contracts with service providers.

d)    This opportunity would require some contacts both in the service provider area and in the airlines area, making it relatively difficult, yet possible, to achieve.

e)    I saw this opportunity because I have members of my family who have previously profited from being liaisons between a service and a customer.