Client: an international business consultancy specialized in urban and architectural project management, project support, and architectural & town planning studies.
Objective: grow their urban transportation & infrastructure project presence in China’s emerging 2nd and 3rd tier cities.
Current status: client has project office established in a 1st tiered city of China for the past decade. Client has a portfolio of successfully completed projects in China’s wealthier coastal region demonstrating strong advantage in integrating public and private commercial space.
Challenge: client possess limited project exposure and business relationship in inland Chinese cities.
Analytical Framework using the Matrix previously introduced:
1. Supply & Demand – client need understand which urban centers have the greatest demand for urban transformation projects. Necessary data sets include passenger flow within transportation network (subway, metro rail, bus, ferry, hired vehicles, carpooling, etc.), population in city and metropolitan areas, and population density across districts, and finally existing modes of available transportation.
2. Influencing factors on future market behavior – governmental regulations and subsidies concerning public transport systems, profiles of major providers and their growth capacity to keep up with urban growth, projected city and metropolitan population growth, new technology adoption that aid in the construction and management of urban networks, and governmental policy plans for the future.
3. Additional considerations on long term potential – client may need to examine supporting industries for urban transformation, human resource availability for core and supporting industries, possible technical innovation that can disrupt the current market dynamics and if the government is currently supporting such technology in their five year plan, and finally intangible factors such as the reputed ease-of-doing-business in certain cities.
When the above framework is utilized, a more nuanced, three-dimensional picture of urban transformation is discovered and can uncover interesting opportunities for businesses.