11 Best Business Opportunities By Industry
Industries such as residential construction, mobile games, and big data will provide the best business opportunities in 2012.
Starting a business is always risky, especially if your business is trying to swim against the larger economic tides. That’s why many savvy entrepreneurs take a broader view of the forces shaping supply and demand before taking the plunge and founding a company. What those broader forces reveal: Now is a great time to get in the game.
The economy is growing again, with gross domestic product up 2.3% compared to 1.7% last year. Interest rates also remain at historic lows, with no sign of significant inflation. There is also plenty of capital to be had, as venture capitalists continue to make deals at a brisk rate. Even the IPO market seems hot these days, especially with Facebook set to debut this week. Add all that up, and you’ve got some pretty favorable business conditions.
But what type of business, exactly, should you start? After scouring the data, the team at Inc. has identified the industries with the best business opportunities for start-ups. Here are 11 industries that the smartest entrepreneurs will be targeting this year:
- Big Data
- e-Commerce
- Environmental Consulting
- Full-service Restaurants
- Internet Publishing & Broadcasting
- IT Consulting
- Mobile & Social Gaming
- Pet Care
- Residential Construction
- Supply Chain Management
- Water Conservation
This year’s list is the product of old-fashioned reporting, boosted by data and insight supplied by a trio of independent research firms: Sageworks, which performs financial analyses of privately held companies; Plunkett Research, a business intelligence firm that studies trends affecting the world’s most vital industries; and IBISWorld, which provides industry growth figures, five-year revenue projections, employment growth, profit margin averages, and industry competition ratings.
To make the list, industry have to be not only fast-growing but accessible to entrepreneurs. In other words, we excluded growing industries like energy production, nanotechnology, and auto dealers because they are typically too capital-intensive for most start-ups to break into. We also omitted several professions that are growing nicely but require years of additional education or training: law, medicine, and accoutancy, for example.
Economic drivers
The list also reflects macro- and micro-level economic drivers that continue to shape the U.S. economy. For example, not only are millions of Baby Boomers now reaching retirement age, some 90 million so-called Millennials or “Gen-Yers” are now entering the workforce—and creating new patterns of consumption and demand, says Jack Plunkett, CEO at Plunkett Research. Those Millennials are one key reason Plunkett is high on the growth prospects for the residential housing market—an industry that was severely hit by the Great Recession. “We are already seeing steady improvements in the existing housing market where unsold inventory is drying up,” says Plunkett, noting that new building permits were up 34.3% in February 2012 over a year ago. “That means we are going to see a significant new demand for housing from this maturing demographic over the next several years.”
Another trend with wide impact is the increasing demand for eco-friendly products and services, says Nikoleta Panteva, a senior analyst with IBISworld. Not only does that boost the residential housing market, where ‘green’ homes and renovations are increasingly in demand, but it also drives business-to-business demand for services such as environmental consulting and water conservation. “There is a definitive shift toward finding ways to make things more efficient and longer-lasting,” says Panteva, who notes that government programs such as Energy Star are also helping drive consumer demand for eco-friendly products.
Continue reading this article at INC.com after the break!
No comments:
Post a Comment