Identifying Opportunities in Economic and Regulatory Trends

Assignment 6a - Identifying Opportunities in Economic and Regulatory Trends

1.     Regulation change: H.R. 695: Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2018

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr695/summary

-       I believe that an opportunity exists because many volunteers are being hired for child-serving non-profit organizations, despite having criminal records. This means that organizations could be hiring criminals to work with children.

-       The protypical customer would be these non-profit organizations as if they had access to criminal records, could be sure that the volunteers had not committed crimes, especially do to with children.

-       I think this opportunity would be relatively hard to exploit, because getting information about criminal records is a difficult task unless you are part of the FBI.

-       I think I saw this regulatory trend opportunity because a regulation about criminals volunteering with children without organizations knowledge really surprised me as I feel passionate about children being in safe environments.

2.     Regulatory change: Community Broadband Act would protect cities’ abilities to create their own broadband internet networks.

https://govtrackinsider.com/community-broadband-act-would-protect-cities-abilities-to-create-their-own-broadband-internet-1ea6b0ce72bb

-       I believe that an opportunity exists here because if the bill is passed to allow broadband to be available to everyone, so there will not be gaps.

-       The protypical customer would be companies, or even cities, needing high speed internet but that would come from the government.

-       I think that the opportunity would be relatively easy to exploit if the bill is passed, as then there would be broadband available but there would be opportunities with setting up this whole system.

-       I saw this regulatory change due to living in society today. In this modern age it is obvious that we need internet to connect and complete business. The idea that this is not possible for some companies makes everyday living for these businesses very difficult.

3.     Economic trend: 6 Reasons That Pay Has Lagged Behind U.S. Job Growth

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/01/business/economy/wages-salaries-job-market.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness&action=click&contentCollection=business&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

-       I believe that an opportunity exists due to the numbers and statistics presented in this article showing that wages have been low.

-       Protypical customers could be nonunion members in the private-sector, companies with noncompete clauses, companies that have moved to cheaper locations, and contractors. However, this article also talks about low wages affecting millennials as baby boomers, who earn more, retire.

-       I think this opportunity would be relatively difficult to exploit as it is such a large scale problem.

-       I believe I found this article due to the recession and my interest in being an international student and thinking about the differences in wages in the United States compared to New Zealand.

4.     Economic trend: The Super Bowl could cost employers $3 billion

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2018/02/02/the-super-bowl-could-cost-employers-3-billion/?utm_term=.45b4afffae0e

-       I believe this opportunity exists because a new study was released predicting that the loss of productivity after the Super Bowl will exceed $3 billion.

-       Protypical customers would be companies, especially in the Phladelphia region, affected after the game due to the lost productivity to the economy as employees do not show up to work the Monday after the Super Bowl.

-       I believe this opportunity would be relatively difficult to exploit as many employees after the game will not go into work due to game day celebrations the day before. Due to the whole city and a lot of the country being affected by this, it would be hard to provide incentive to everyone to go to work.

-       I think I saw this opportunity as the Super Bowl is a new concept to me, we are rugby fans in New Zealand, rather than football, so I was interested to see how the game would affect the economy.