Han Tran _ SALES AND MARKETING COORDINATOR
Lets reach us here : https://www.facebook.com/TravelTurku
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/han-tran-29438b13a/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/pyökylä-bike-village-b1aa56226/
DATA AND BUSINESS ANALYSIS: (https://github.com/coderhani/data-and-business-analysis.git)
PyöKylä is a start-up founded and developed for students and tourist. The mission of PyöKylä is to provide fast and affordable bike rental services which can be long or short terms to students and tourists in Turku. The vision of PyöKylä is to:
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Help the City of Turku solve the bike thief problems and solve the problems of unwanted bikes
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Offer the means of transportation which is cheap and convenient to customers
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Reduce the emissions and wastes from their own vehicles
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Offer better solutions to exchange students or tourists who only need short term bikes
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Track the bike info based on the frame numbers
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Develop a locking system where cyclists are able to check their bikes, preventing bike thieves.
PyöKylä’s goal is to provide supportive bike rental services which will help those who only need short-term bikes get the well-functional bikes and all relevant services such as fixing or replacement quickly and affordably. In the future, PyöKylä aims at developing technology that can help prevent bikes from thieves and promote benefits of cycling. Especially, people can help the missed bikes through the notice information
• Establish trustful bike rental services for locals and tourists at a reasonable price • Build a local supportive biker community: re-designing bikes, bike exchange, bike overnight delivery, etc.… • Recycle the unwanted bikes, especially tires to reduce the wasteful tires to the environment • Contribute to the healthy environment of the cities
Affordable bike rental services: renting bikes including locks and lights. Depend on the demands and situations, for example, we can also offer parking frames
• Bike passport • Helmets • Bike Headlight & Tail Light • Glasses • Reflective Vest • Gloves • Hydration backpack • Drinking bottles • Bicycle locks • Clothes • Spare parts for the bicycles (ringing bell, pedals, wheels, winter equipment to mention a few) • Backpacks and cycling bags • Distance meters • Others
According to the data of European Union about Finland- a country located in northern Europe. There are 311 municipalities administrated by the local governments and the head government is in Helsinki. In another word, the country has 19 regions and 70 sub regions. Especially, land (Islands) is an autonomous small archipelago located in the south west region that people can travel on land and on the sea from Turku. The Islands is small but worthy for the tourist and bike lovers to see, experience and enjoy in a small area.
In addition, Finland is one of the top 10 countries creating the best and healthy business environment in the world where the businesses, especially young entrepreneurs, can get the advice and supports from the governments. With the political stability and sustainable economy, Finland gets the excellent credit ratings for the business to land on and develop the ideas. Besides, Transparency International ranks Finland among the least corrupt nations. (Website of European Union)
Figure 1. The coverage of forest on Finland (Website of borealforest.org)
Finland is covered by 23 million hectares of the forest thanks to the geography and high awareness about environment. From the past decades until now, Finland has constantly built and implemented the policies and strategies to deal with the problems and well utilize the benefits of the forests. This means Finland government can manage and save the healthy ecology along with cycling the wood flows proactively for demands but still remain the beauty and diversity of the nature. Turku where is the head office of PyöKylä, is an ancient city having a long-term history, old buildings and castles and native forests. Its beauty is a combination of history and modern.
With such advantage, PyöKylä hopes to promote more people using bikes as cycling is not only for health and enjoying the nature. We care for the environment and hence our business model will contribute to reducing the emission from other vehicles. Therefore, our idea firstly is to encourage people to use friendly-environmental means of transport to the nearby areas and improve the health condition by cycling to reduce the calories of a day
Boosting the bike usage and walking is one of the main goals in the task of developing the quality of country and cities. Finnish government takes the carbon emission and wastes in to the consideration so that the activities and friendly-environmental ideas are valued and improved. Cycling is cheap and green means of transportation which not only helps to reduce the carbon emission to the environment but also supports to increase the heath quality: stress decrease, muscle and mental improvement.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), people are encouraged to do exercise daily for the health sustainability because the passive activities or no workouts can increase the threats to the human health physically and mentally.
Every year, the government has launched the new promotions and social projects and policies to increase the bike usage instead of cars or motorcycles. With the aim of achieving the 30% of the market in 2030 and infrastructure plans for biking in 2050, Finland has launched and implemented the biking infrastructures as well as the facilities in big cities by cooperating with transportation company, typically Foli in Turku. Along with the achievements in physical points, the head government has introduced the policies and news for the citizen about the latest plans and current environment situations, for example:
- “Taxation of perks to favour more environmentally-friendly transport” –Yle 11.9.2020
- “Helsinki city employees may get bonuses to buy bikes” –Yle 05.10.2020
- “Finland's green scheme to invest €40m in cycling and walking” –Yle 02.08.2019
- “Bicycle sales up 70% in June as e-bikes gain traction”–Yle 12.07.2020 (Website of the Yle News)
Currently, bikes and accessories are manufactured and produced for various demands, locations, subjects and budgets. Based on the geographical and daily purposes, there are several bikes and accessories designed and applied to meet the customers’ expectations.
For the emergency cases or long distance trips, the bikes can be carried along with the people during the travelling with the reasonable price. Along with that, the municipalities have their own investments in cycling by the savings and public responses. For example, bike roofed parks, city bike services, bus/train travelling with bikes; especially well-functioned infrastructures for bikers are built and improved regularly. It is seen as a mutual benefit situation of people and government. (Website of the Yle News 2018).
Thanks to the achievements of government and human environmental awareness, our business will launch several specific promotions which can boost the sales and increase the cycling residents.
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Group student renter
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Cycling games
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Etc…
In Finland, in 2017, children below 5 years old is 278 510 and the youth 5-14 is 611914; they are the ones who tend to enjoy and are encouraged to attend the outside activities and active sports. Moreover, they are also in the customer groups who have had various requirements for the bikes except the sporty and tourist aged professionals. The rest of age groups are also bikers (over 14), however, most of them prefer sport and city bikes.
In Finland, bike is not only a friend and a mean of transportation, but also especially an award of the highest prize in the events or promotions. Besides, thanks to the benefits of cycling to the health, cycling is a sport activity for sustainability, heart rates and muscles. This sport is a free-time sport activity which is suitable and helpful for both adult and young bikers.
Figure 3. Free-time sport activities among people 19-65 (Website of the statistics of Finland 2018)
Figure 4. Free-time sport activities among people 3-18 (Website of the statistics of Finland 2018)
According to the statistics, the bike usage is high and tends to increase more every year in the future. Especially, in this current situation-unpredictable further development of coronavirus epidemics, biking usage and bike sales have increased more than ever before. The increasing bike demands along with the beautiful nature and sightseeing, Finland is a positive and potential market. Yearly, people come to Finland for short-term studies/researches/internship or tours to the nature, therefore, the first objective of our service is to provide bikes, accessories, and biking support for this customer group.
Every company has faced the risks and no business activity is immune from risks and unexpected changes despite well-planned preparation. Based on the situation and development plan, the company will identify, consult and list which categories of risks they may suffered from and then how to deal with them? The risks may have already existed or be potential or definitely will occur in the near future. Depending on the business situation, there are various risks, however, most of start-up will be challenged by the difficulties related to operation, finance, strategy and legacy as soon as the company service is public (Blackman 2014).
In the first year, the operation risk will challenge PyöKylä most because of the current and potential factors. The changes of market, competitors, unstable price of products which are different from the projected data may affect to start-up operation at the beginning (European Best Practices in Bike Sharing Systems)
In case the financial record or unaccepted bank transactions, PyöKylä will face the financial risk. The financial risks cause the level of accountability for the subjects involved in the business such as investors or shareholders. In the future, PyöKylä is going to invest in more potential projects for tourism and environment, therefore, the reliable plans to prevent the financial risks will be serious considered as soon as the problems occurs. In addition to capital, credibility, equity, the most important and key property of BS are bikes and customer loyalty, As the current information and predicted data, the damaged, stolen and unwanted bikes are our challenges
In Finland, the winter lasts longer than the summer; and the exchange students mostly come to study from August to May every year. For the safety, PyöKylä will offer the bikes included necessary stuff along with the winter tires to prevent the accidents (European Best Practices in Bike Sharing Systems 2009.)
The risk of crime is unpredictable and becomes a headache for every service provider. It can come from either the customers’ less attention or company’s less security investments. The risk is evaluated by the frequency, damage and destruction level, maintaining costs and others. The high level of crime risks can decrease the reputation of the company and city.
Finland is known as one of the countries with high bycicle uses. It is believed that bikes are good for human health and therefore increasingly used for fitness and work trips. The demands of bike tend to be more common and diverse in cities. Traditionally, bicycles are for adults, however, children are also become cyclers because of their active and playful characteristics. The people in big cities such as Helsinki, Turku, and Tampere prefer bikes as their main and daily means of transportion. According to an HSL survey, one third of the population in Helsinki and Espoo have replaced public transport with the bicycles.
Overview of the bicycle market in Finland (Source: Custom statistics) https://digimagazine.bike-eu.com/market_reports/finland
In Turku where the headquarter of PyöKylä is placed, the city of Turku has predicted that Cycling is nowadays as significant as a form of transport as public transport in Turku (Website of Turku city).
As a result, there is more investments and improvements in cycling infrastructure and natural geography. Besides, the Finnish government has encouraged individuals to use friendly environmental transportations by offering constantly eco-friendly services. Especially people who are working remotely in current situation will find cycling as a good exercise. Along with that, Finland has a wonderful nature with large forest and wild areas. They are perfect environment for cyclists who love adventure trips racing competitions
Helkama www.helkamavelox.fi/ Tunturi www.tunturi.fi/ Nishiki www.nishiki.fi/) Trek www.trekbikes.com/fi/fi_FI/ Felt www.feltbicycles.com/ Specialized www.specialized.com/ Cannondale www.cannondale.com/en/Europe Focus www.focus-bikes.com/ Cube www.cube.eu/ Merida www.merida-bikes.com/fi_fi Nopsa www.nopsa.fi/ Insera www.insera.fi/ Bianchi www.bianchi.com/
Although the business is still at the first stage, PyöKylä has a strong potential customer base who love coming to visit, live and study short-term in Turku. They can be:
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Local people
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Students
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Tourists
With the mission to encourage the usage of friendly-environmental transportation, PyöKylä segmented the market as follows: • People with short-term demands such as exchange students and tourists • People who love travelling by bikes but do not want to have bikes • Own-designed bikes
Carfield bike rental shop and Föli have been offering the same rental services. However, they have different price structures and target customers. In details, because PyöKylä’s target customers are those who have low income, so we are committed to offer competitive prices compared to other competitors. In addition, the future vision of PyöKylä’s services is to help reduce the bike theft issues.
Therefore, bike rental service is considered as the first testing step which helps PyöKylä test and develop its own future technology services that can help solve the bike thief issue.