Tag: Study

Real Estate Growth and Investment in India – A Case Study

The Indian economy has grown rapidly during the past 15 years, which contributed to exponential growth in real estate properties across India. According to a recent article by Indian government, realty market in India accounts to a whopping 11% of the National GDP. Ever wondered why there is rapid growth in this industry, this case study gives a snapshot of factors that is contributing to its favor.

Population of many large cities in India has grown tremendously over the past decade. There is a colossal demand for residential and commercial properties in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. Some of the Top 5 residential cities in India are Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune. There are many key drivers for this exceptional real estate growth and investment in India.

a) Government of India has put up a roadmap for economic reforms to step up Infrastructure development by inviting investments from domestic and international players by creating business-friendly and Investor-Friendly atmosphere. Also, easing of monetary economic policies by cutting interest rates to make home loans by banks to buyers easily available and affordable.

b) Growing Urbanization and large scale migration of population from rural to urban locations in search of employment, higher income, better living conditions which has led to an increased demand for residential and commercial properties in the area.

c) From an Investment standpoint, since stocks and mutual funds are extremely volatile to market conditions, more people including middle-class income group, Non-Resident Indians are investing in real estate which offers high returns both in Short and Long term investments due to soaring property prices. Investment in residential properties also gives an option for residential buyers a second income to supplement their monthly Income.

d) Business activity and Setting up of IT development Centers, BPO, large scale manufacturing units in automobile and Engineering Sectors by multinationals has spurred growth in commercial office space requirements. As more and more MNCs setup shop in cities it opens new lines for overall growth & investment in real estate industry. These industries bring lot of job opportunities in to the system. More jobs means rising income levels, increased purchasing power for property buyers which is also another factor for real estate investment and growth.

e) State Governments in India have given green signal to develop residential townships, commercial centers, shopping malls near Industrial hubs, IT hotspots inviting both domestic and international investments for Constructing Connectivity bridges, state roadways, rail networks to ease the commuting traffic. Many large residential and commercial projects have sprung up to cater to the growing housing demand for real estate.

f) Augmenting the real estate growth are government policies in the pipeline to allow FDI (foreign direct investment) in retail, insurance, healthcare sectors of the economy which will likely see the real estate development and investment opportunities in India for many years to come.

Truck Wash Business Case Study

Often smart entrepreneurs look for out of the way businesses, things out of the mainstream but businesses, which have a good customer base and steady incomes. This is an extremely interesting story. I had always considered the mobile truck washing efforts to be very profitable and believed that fixed truck washes were a big waste of money. That was until one year when a new franchisee joined our team from Oklahoma City. I run a franchise company called the Car Wash Guys; http://www.carwashguys.com. Turns out the franchisee was formerly employed by Blue Beacon Truck Washes the largest chain of truck washes in the US. They do about $138,000,000 per year with 80 truck washes and the company is very closely held. Tim our franchisee was a truck manager for them and before buying into our franchise and started washing cars in OKC even though he knows truck washing best. He had a two-year non-compete with his old company, which we have honored in OKC. He has tons of experience and had indicated to me that the business is sound and we should really get into it. Later that year I sold a franchise to a person in WA State who owned car washes (5) and he made a deal with a truck stop on an Indian Reservation, he never started the plan, but the numbers we ran on the spreadsheet looked great and very profitable.

Even as a serial entrepreneur, I had never considered the fixed site truck wash business, as the mobile truck wash business seemed so much more efficient and so little over head; http://www.truckwashguy.com . So even with all this knowledge on the team we still did not enter that market. One of our competitors in the car washing industry bought up two

truck washing chains for a total of fourteen truck washes and proclaimed it more profitable than his other car washes by 5 times as much money. They now own nearly 100 locations of truck and car washes nationwide. After looking into it some more a franchise buyer who owned Fuel MAN, an East coast Fuel Card for fleet owners approached us in South Carolina to use the Truck Wash Guys name and develop a truck wash mid state. At that point we decided to start working on the details. Then a franchisee in OH made a deal with a truck stop between Columbus OH and Pittsburgh, to operate a 24 hour truck wash and de-ice business. He thought how easy this is and now so we have made deal in WV at a truck wash as well. Our Ohio Franchisee at the time took on another partner in WV.

Still reluctant to fully dive into the subcategory of full service truck washes we found our Ohio Franchisee going full guns to put together a deal with Pilot Truck Stops. Pilot Truck Stop has the most Truck Stops on the Planet and sells 8% of all the diesel fuel in the United States. So we planned a pilot program at pilot. Our temporary set up is a trailer unit, which sits at the truck stops and washes made sense. We then worked on plans for a building to submit them to the Building dept. for approval, meanwhile the deals in

OH and WV and SC were suddenly in the works. We figured if our deal with the truck stops worked well, the Truck Stops will get more traffic and fuel sales while we generate

revenue and a percentage of the total take for the truck stop for the privilege of working there. We are so use to washing trucks and have on our team a gentleman who sells simonize truck wash and has been in the car washing and pressure washing equipment business for 20 years. By using the fuel man fuel cards as currency on the east coast and name recognition of Pilot we figured we could move into this industry and pick up the slack.

There is a shortage of truck washes across the country and also a shortage of oil change facilities for trucks. A franchisee could be trained by our truck wash prototypes and probably on the top performing franchisee in our mobile truck wash

division; then quickly set up in their own markets. Pressure Washing companies which specialize in fleet truck washing should in fact consider this type of strategy for moving into the fixed site truck washing business.

If you study entrepreneurial companies you will in fact see that many companies fall into markets due to opportunities which present themselves, it is amazing the opportunities which exist out there and how fast companies can grow when they can handle the demand of those markets. Think on this.

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