Umbrellas on Demand – Atmosphere Protection
Introduction of a Service
Vynessa D. Robinson
Southern New Hampshire University
Abstract
As the trend for products and services to be "on-demand" has become prevalent in our society, many opportunities exist for these goods and services. The basis of this project was to provide a service to Coloradoans, who would otherwise be caught in some precarious situations caused by the sometimes unpredictable weather in Colorado. The service being provided is Umbrellas on Demand. Currently, there is a trend toward sharing items such as cars, homes and bicycles. Denver B-cycle is Denver’s bike sharing system. You can check out and return a B-cycle at any station 5 a.m. to midnight, 365 days a year (Denver Bcycle, 2015). Umbrellas are a product that will always be in demand and can be shared, especially in a location such as Colorado. The Umbrella on Demand service will offer a valuable benefit to its customers. The service would be accessible to everyone who can swipe a plastic card.
Keywords: Colorado, umbrella, on-demand, bicycles
Umbrellas on Demand – Atmosphere Protection
Introduction of a Service
Frequently, people encounter situations in their environment that are impossible to avoid. The environmental factors that are referred to are the environmental factors that affect the weather in Colorado. Umbrellas on demand is a sharing system in which consumers can share or rent umbrellas from strategic locations. The umbrellas stands will be found throughout each metro city in Colorado. The consumer will have the ability to rent umbrellas, $5 for 12 hours. The umbrellas would also be available for purchase for $20 to $100. The umbrellas will be of different sizes and for different uses. A monthly subscription membership would also be a possibility. In anticipation of inclement weather, a subscriber would know that there would be umbrellas stashed all over the city for whenever they wanted to use it. After use, the subscriber would drop the umbrella off at any of the umbrella stands in the area.

Colorado Weather
Each year, Colorado receives 300 days of sunshine, more than 300 inches of snow at the mountain resorts, 16.5 inches of precipitation (8 at lower elevations and 23 at higher elevations) and 33 percent average humidity (Writer, 2015).Warm, moist air from the south moves into Colorado infrequently in the spring, summer, and early autumn. As this air is carried northward and westward to higher elevations, the heaviest and most general rainfalls (and sometimes wet snows) occur over the eastern portions of the State from April through early September. For southern and western Colorado, the intrusions of moist air are most common from mid-July into September associated with wind patterns sometimes called the Southwest Monsoon. Frequent showers and thunderstorms continue well into the summer. At times during the summer, winds shift to the southwest and bring hot, dry air from the desert Southwest over the State. Such hot spells are usually of short duration (Doesken, Pielke, Sr., & Bliss, 2003).
Business Opportunity
The business opportunity is for on-demand umbrellas. Umbrellas are used to protect us from inclement weather. Coloradoans are aware of this more than some other areas of the United States. At times, the inclement weather in Colorado catches its citizens off guard with sudden cloud bursts to the relentless sting of the sun. Coloradoans seem to have a reputation: they have little patience for the inconvenience. Why would they want to lug umbrellas, especially when they’re simply a precaution and can feel like an inconvenience? When the unexpected unthinkable happens and it starts to rain, or the picnic is at a location with a limited shaded area on a sunny day, where would an unprepared citizen find relief?
Problem Solved. There is a way! Umbrellas on Demand is a sharing system that allows someone to rent umbrellas from strategically located stands, vendors, and machines by swiping a credit, debit or umbrella card. Umbrellas stands that are located near parks would have sizes ranging from personal to beach size. The umbrella stands in the business district would carry the portal personal size umbrellas. During special events, a strolling vendor would be on hand to accommodate the event attendees.
Competitive Advantage. Currently, there are no service providers in Colorado for on-demand umbrellas. On-demand is going to explode and take over the traditional way we've done things (Kokalitcheva, 2015). While companies in other areas of the United States are tinkering with the idea of renting umbrellas, few have implemented the process.
Challenge. A marketing challenge that the company could face would be introducing a new service to the area. Service marketing requires more than just traditional external marketing using the four Ps. Service marketing also requires internal marketing and interactive marketing. Internal marketing means that the service firm must orient and motivate its customer-contact employees and supporting service people to work as a team to provide customer satisfaction. Interactive marketing means that service quality depends heavily on the quality of the buyer –seller transaction during the service encounter (Armstrong & Kotler, 2014).
References
Armstrong, G., & Kotler, P. (2014). Marketing: An Introduction (12th Edition). In G. Armstrong, & P. Kotler, Marketing: An Introduction (12th Edition) (p. 218). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Denver Bcycle. (2015, July 15). Retrieved from Denver: https://denver.bcycle.com/
Doesken, N. J., Pielke, Sr., R. A., & Bliss, O. A. (2003, January). Climate of Colorado. Retrieved from Colorado State: http://climate.colostate.edu/climateofcolorado.php
Kokalitcheva, K. (2015, January 1). On Demand Services. Retrieved from VentureBeat: http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/01/these-5-types-of-on-demand-services-will-get-even-bigger-in-2015/
Writer, C. S. (2015, April 6). Articles/Colorado-weather. Retrieved from colorado.com: www.colorado.com/articles/colorado-weather#sthas.CcbdMtgi.dpuf