Business start up – Term Paper

Business environment factors

Business start-up is an idea that one is gathering or already has been collected information towards a certain kind of business that they are interested in doing or have that passion in undertaking the task of starting it up. The ideas may be generated in the sense that a person has seen a problem that people in a certain area are facing and so he takes the advantage and decides to solve the problem in return he converts the ideas into business oriented and takes up the opportunity. This whereby I used to spend a lot of time on the road on my way to work and the one way of reducing this was for me to use the carpooling lane and so the idea came to my mind and so I wanted to create a ride-share for the single drivers.  

For one to start a business of any kind, they have to consider the important and relevant factors in the same business. For the start-up of the carpool services which is aimed at dropping employees at their place of work and picking them again in the evening from the same location of work to their preferred destination of commuters. Despite this idea being broad it also faces the external environmental factors that in way pose a threat to the start-up of the business. The current forces that are affecting the already existing companies that provide the same services to commuters are more of diverse in that; the time is taken while using a bus is more of more in the sense that it will have to take time going and stopping at each station although it saves money. The train services are also efficient only and only to those people working at places that are near the train stations. There are websites like zimride.com and shareride.org which are also able to provide the services, but they are not fit for the commuters who were maybe using them. 

To add on the same there are the economic factors that affect the services since some are more expensive that makes it unaffordable for other people, on top of that the social status where people place themselves in a higher rank thus cannot use one means and also not ready to use carpool services because they don’t want to share the same car with other strange people. These forces are not only exhibited in South California but around other countries and states. 

Transport industry business

The carpool services are defiantly categorised under the transport industry, in the sense that this will be involved in road transport. In every industry, each participant will work hard enough to ensure that they are the best and so this will mean that competition will be at a higher notch since the participants are all struggling for the limited resources and also to provide the best services. This force of competing for limited resources and to provide the best services is the same all over the globe. There is always the threat of new entry in business in the sense that when the existing businesses are not adequately performing and delivering the best to their customer satisfaction. This triggers another entrepreneur who knows that he will be able to come into the business and perfectly compete with the existing companies by trying to offer services that are better than them. 

The other force that will drive or also induce stiff competition in the industry is the bargaining power of the buyers of your services. Since a commuter is used to paying less with a certain company that comfortably serves him though with a hitch, he will not quickly agree to pay an extra cash on another service that maybe offering the same services, the new service to strategically place itself in a way that it will be able to fit in the budget of the customer because they are the ones to decide whether to use or not your services, and so this makes the companies be in a position to keep on adjusting their prices in the way the customers are willing and able to use their services  and not from the other company. 

The new era of industrialisation has come with so many opportunities that allow people to play around with ideas and innovate new procedures of doing on a particular item but done in a different way and performs the same function just as before. This has brought into the industry the threat of substitute products and services, this move has increased the competition amongst the industries by keeping them on toes so as to be able to ensure that they are offering the best services that there is so that their customers are contented and are not able to go for a substitute service or product over their own. Just like the transport industry in South California, there is always congestion, and this makes most people waste a lot of time on the road while commuting to their places of work, those who use train services are those who have their workplaces near the train stations, and so they may prefer the services but to those whose working places are far from the train station and do still use the train it is because they have no other means but to use the service, this are the people that will easily take to a substitute service like the carpool services which they are sure the service will ensure that they reach their place of work on time without a struggle and also pick them up at the entrance of their place of work on daily basis, most of them wouldn’t mind paying an extra amount since they are assured of the services being offered. 

Bargaining power of the supplier

Suppliers are the most important people in a business chain since they are the ones who produce and supply the necessary equipment that a company requires so as to keep on moving and also keep producing and offering services to its customers. The bargaining power of the suppliers will also induce competition in the sense that most industries will tend to lean and source from the supplier who is offering a subsidized price, and so this makes them all compete for the chance of winning the supplier who will intern have to choose the best offer that the companies are willing to buy from them, will later own make the supplier to raise the bidding amount thus making the industries to loose on their side since they all were fighting for the limited chance that was available from the potential suppliers.

The bargaining power of the suppliers induces rivalry among the competing firms since all the firms had interest in the same supplier, but at the end the supplier picks one of the firms over the other, this creates rivalry among them, and so they won’t be in a position to either work together and this will have to divide them apart and so there will be no union or say if they had a movement or cooperation together it ends up breaking thus no progressing, and the competition may now shift to individual levels. On the other hand rivalry among firms may also lead to innovations that the companies will be working on so as to overdo the other company thus new products formed. 

Environmental factors in business

The corporation is faced with many environmental factors that make it not to be in a position to perform and so being termed as a failure. To start with, customers are the immediate factor that affect the corporation in the sense that, they are the ones that are facing the challenge at hand but now they don’t take a step of realizing that there is an option that is at hand that can easily be utilized and offer best results, they are stiff from changing from one service to the other even if the services are not efficient to them. This also shows us that the local community to has the problem since no one is willing to share a car seat with the other because of his or her social status and maybe they don’t just like it because of the little congestion in a car service in the carpool services. 

The competitors on the other side are reluctant to come up with new ways of offering the services because they seem to be satisfied with the services they are offering because the customers are not complaining. And so this makes the industry to be dormant in the state that there is nothing new that is being done to raise the standards of the industry to the level that will be offering high and quality services to the customers, and also that will make the industry be in a standard that is highly admirable thus increasing the fact that services will improve on a higher level. 

The industry is also facing threats that are predicted to occur in the future which may tend to paralyse the industry in its operations. The industry may face the threat of withdrawal by most customers in that most of them will work hard so that they at list own a private car which they will be using to travel to their destinations without any disturbance and by managing their own time efficiently.    

In conclusion, the forces that affect the corporation are scattered in all the ways in the sense that they either directly or indirectly affect the corporation and its services. The environmental forces are the most important forces in the corporation that when they are not taken into keen consideration, they may end up messing up the plan and strategy of the corporation, this factors clearly show how they have to operate and position themselves in such a way that they can fit in perfectly. For the corporation to perfectly compete, it should be able to focus on the bargaining power of the buyers and also the threat of substitute products and services since for this to set in then there is something that the corporation is not doing right.