Flash Appointments LLC

AIMCO Case Study

Kelly A. McMahon
Business: (303) 793-4603
Cell: (303) 507-3007
Fax: (720) 200-6897
4582 South Ulster Parkway Suite 1100
Denver, CO80237

Overview

In 50 AIMCO Redevelopment properties, rents are being raised to adjust to market competition, to cover redevelopment costs and to reflect the upgraded amenities among properties.

Problem Statement

We are struggling to drive enough leads to meet occupancy goals with increased rent.

Case Challenges:

(specific markets, properties and rent range resources will be provided)

I. What is the change in our customer base?

Who do we lose when we increase rent?
Who do we gain?
What are the general demographics of each group?
What are the specific demographics and psychographics for the group of customers we gain?

II. Where do these customers that are willing to pay higher rent search for apartments? What marketing mediums are they using that AIMCO does not currently use?

AIMCO will provide a listing of the following resources:

All current media sources

All optimized media sources

III. How do the top competitors market to the group of customers willing to pay higher rents?

IV. Why is this group of people searching for apartments within a high rent range?

Are there specific motivations associated with factors such as age group, marital status and profession?

2525 Arapahoe Ave.
Suite E4-131
Boulder, CO 80302
email:
tel: 303-546-6063

We’re looking for a team to help us execute our new business model in the Boulder/Denver area. We welcome new ideas and will need help analyzing our ROI’s on every front. Ultimately, we want to know if our model is viable. We will be active participants and are happy to meet once a week and on the phone.
Below is a laundry list of things the team could work on. At the beginning of the project, we will sit down together to decide on the project's scope.
1. Company Structure?
• Advise on different structuring options i.e. C Corp, LLC, Sub-Chapter S and possibly implement.
•Define what a business “team’ would need to look like in order to successfully execute on the idea and the attributes you would look for in each team member (skill sets, experience, etc.).
2. Budget?
Propose an operating budget based on several scenerios:
- slow growth (bootstrap), medium growth (multi-site rollout at one time) and rapid growth (U.S. wide all at once)
3. Who are our users and how easy is the system to use?
• Examine the different facets of the website and report on your findings in terms of ease-of-use, intuitiveness, and the “fun factor”. Advise on what you like, what you think is a waste of time and what you’d like to see.
- Define User Groups
- How many people are willing to pay to post their items?
- How many and what type businesses will want to advertise?
- How many people will be looking for stuff on our site?
- We think we know who our users are, but we need proof! Therefore, we’ll be needing analysis on all data collected and guidance with how to reach our target effectively.
4. Analysis of the market and our competition?
• How big is the building materials business in general and what kind of market share can we hope to gain?
• Compare & Contrast to Ebay, Craigslist & Newspaper ; usability, price
• Revenue Models
- Based on Banners -web traffic (Page Views) and rates sold per thousand (CPM)
- Pay to post. Will they? Does the site offer enough advantage over competitors.
5. What is the most effective way to market our products?
Where to advertise the site??
• How can we tie in to the GreenBuilding boom??
• Public radio stations?
• Local/ National DIY (Do it yourself) Radio shows such as “Around the House”
• Public Bus advertising in certain markets..
• Billboards, especially near Big Box Home Stores (home depot, lowes)
• Magazines such as Finehomebuilding, This Old House
• Trade shows? Which markets would this have the most effect?
• Compare to liquidators.com (Have heard on NPR)
• Compare Angies List (Contractor Referral service)
•Best way to reach out to prospective customers with promo codes & other materials. • Pros & Cons of offering promotional codes for free postings?
6. What legal issues do we need to be concerned with right now?
•How can we pull listings from Craigslist, legally?
•What is our risk/exposure with a site like this (in general) which helps us determine what corporate structure to setup?

CU Football

Proposal for Project Management Course:

Contact Information is listed below in the email signature for Mark Nolan:

Project Purpose: Develop, implement, marketing / recruiting materials to recruit a Top 10 recruiting class.

Measurement / Assessment: If materials are used in our operation then they are good (success). If materials are not used then they were not good (failure.)

Availability: We work 7 days a week during the football season. Availability will not be a problem. Work will need to be done in the Dal Ward Football Recruiting and Operations Office due to security and sensitive information concerns.

Go Buffs!

Mark Nolan

University of Colorado Football

Director of Recruiting / Assistant Director of Football Operations

Dal Ward Center Room 285 Campus Box 368

Boulder, CO80309

(Office) 303-735-1622 (Toll Free) 800-428-3332 (Fax) 303-492-8990

1990 National Champs 2001 Big XII Champs 2002, 2004, 2005 Big XII Champs

Company:

Eco-Products

3640 Walnut St.

Boulder, CO 80301

Company Overview:

Eco-Products is the nation’s leading supplier of biodegradable products. Eco-Products offers distributors and end-customers a one-stop shop for all of their food service disposable needs. We strive to make high quality eco-friendly products available to all customers at competitive prices. The Company has more than doubled each of the past three years and expects to continue a similar growth plan in the future. Eco-Products has three warehouses with plans to open a fourth warehouse in the near future. The Company was founded in 1990 and currently has 40 employees.

Eco-Products Contact & Project Manager:

Luke Vernon, General Manager

Direct – 303-962-4240

Cell – 720-771-7271

Project Objective:

Review the Company’s current forecasting procedures and develop a user-friendly inventory forecasting model for the Company’s top 200 selling SKUs.

Project Description:

Eco-Products works with OEMs in Asia as well as domestic manufacturers. With the Company’s rapid growth over the past three years, inventory planning has become extremely important, but it is currently the Company’s weakest area. The result of poor forecasting techniques has led to upset customers, loss in potential revenue, supply chain issues, increased logistics costs, and other problems.

The Company is seeking a team of business students who have taken classes in quantitative methods (statistics), decision modeling, and, preferably, supply chain analysis. The team will review the Company’s current inventory planning and forecasting procedures, understand the entire supply chain, document opportunities for improvement, and develop a user-friendly spreadsheet,based on the best forecasting model, that will improve forecasting accuracy. The team will have access to sales history, current minimum stocking levels and reorder points for all of the warehouses, and any other data that will be helpful in completing the project.

Flash Appointments LLC

Flash Appointments is a Software as a Service (SaaS) company, offering online appointment scheduling on a monthly subscription basis. The service offers several applications to allow businesses and their clients to manage appointments over the internet. End clients, staff and business owners appreciate the freedom of managing appointments and schedules at their convenience.

Without any marketing Flash Appointments continues to grow at a steady rate since April 2005, with over 170 customers in 7 countries. Universities and businesses use Flash Appointments to schedule interviews. Accountants, spas, salons, personal trainers, junk haulers, business consultants and veterinarians also use Flash Appointments. The software is currently available only in English, but has been requested in Danish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish and Japanese.

Flash Appointments is a reliable, stable application suite with proven global interest. These projects offer you a real opportunity to see an immediate, direct impact of your work on a start up business.

Project 1: Address HIPAA Compliance

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is complicated legislation with which health care providers must comply. As the name suggests it was originally intended to promote portability of health insurance. It was later expanded to include data privacy and security.

It is unclear what aspects of HIPAA need to be addressed by Flash Appointments in order to ensure customers that they can use Flash Appointments and be HIPAA compliant. What features need to be implemented? What policies need to be in place? What information needs to be made available?

When asked: ‘Is Flash Appointments HIPAA compliant?’

Get to the answer: ‘Yes, your business can be HIPAA compliant with Flash Appointments. Here’s how to do it…’

Project 2: Grow Flash Appointment

Massage therapy and related businesses currently make up 1/3 of customers. This is a huge potential market. Implement an integrated marketing and sales strategy and grow this market.

Create a multi-approach marketing and sales plan. Implement each approach in the plan. Measure ROI for each approach in the plan as well as the plan as a whole. You will have a limited total budget.

Be able to tie increased sales to the plan. Report on ROI success, failure, lessons learned, recommendations.

Janus Capital Group, Inc. – Project 1

Background

Janus Capital Group Inc. is a leading mutual fund firm headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with other offices located world-wide. Recently, Janus began shifting its focus from retail investors to institutional investors. In order to properly capture and retain this market segment, Janus believes a strong web presence is needed.

Problem Definition

With the shift in focus, it is important that Janus understand best practices and standards set or followed by the mutual fund industry at large.

Students will be provided a list of industry-leading firms and asked to do comprehensive research on their institutional websites, identifying common practices, standards, and unique positive features. These findings must be backed by research. Students will then be expected to deliver recommendations and models of best practices based on their findings.

Measurable Objectives

Identify at least 15 standards and best practices implemented by Janus and other industry-leading firms on their institutional websites.
Make at least 5 recommendations for improvements to Janus’ institutional website that will allow a larger share of the market to be captured.
Deliver concepts/wireframes/other artifacts to Janus based on your recommendations.

Deliverables

Deliver all relevant documentation for the class (within professor’s or Janus’ constraints).
Deliver results and recommendations for implementation on Janus’ institutional website based on documented research to the Janus team.

Commitment to Janus

Attend a kick-off event at the Janus office in Denver. Conduct conference calls bi-weekly to discuss status and close questions and issues.
Present findings formally at a closure event at the Janus office in Denver.
Adhere to all Janus policies and procedures.

Commitment to Students

Janus has an interest in furthering its relationship with local universities. For these projects, it is expected that, at minimum:

Janus will instruct students how to work within the Janus project management framework.
Janus will attend a mid-project checkpoint in Boulder.
Janus will provide feedback on deliverables and overall project execution.

Contact Information

Project Manager: Kristi Kuetemeier

Email:

Phone: 303-639-3370

Janus Capital Group, Inc. - Project 2

Background

Janus Capital Group Inc. is a leading mutual fund firm headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with other offices located world-wide. Janus is interested in finding and implementing online community opportunities. Online communities typically consist of blogs, chat rooms and other electronic gathering places.

Problem Definition

While there are sites available to employees for collaboration on projects, Janus would like to better understand options available for building employee-to-employee online communities.

Measurable Objectives

Identify 4 ways to build online community to aid in the development of Janus’ corporate culture.
Identify the impact of blogging and/or other online communities on corporate culture.
Identify methods of managing corporate-level blogging.
Make software and implementation recommendations.

Deliverables

Deliver all relevant documentation for the class (within professor’s or Janus’ constraints).
Deliver results of implementing an online community to the Janus team.

Commitment to Janus

Attend a kick-off event at the Janus office in Denver.
Conduct conference calls weekly to discuss status and close questions and issues.
Present findings formally at a closure event at the Janus Denver office.
Adhere to all Janus policies and procedures.

Commitment to Students

Janus has an interest in furthering its relationship with local universities. For these projects, it is expected that, at minimum:

Janus will instruct students how to work within the Janus project management framework.
Janus will attend a mid-project checkpoint in Boulder.
Janus will provide feedback on deliverables and overall project execution.

Contact Information

Project Manager: Kristi Kuetemeier

Email:

Phone: 303-639-3370

Julie Klein

Director of Environmental Affairs

RockResorts/Vail Resorts Lodging Company

Broomfield, CO80021

303.404.1876 (p)

720.271.5173 (m)

Proposed Projects

Submitted by: RockResorts (a division of Vail Resorts, Inc.)

Fall 2007 semester

Project 1 Objective: Greening Vail Resorts Golf Courses

Project description: Currently 4 of 8 golf courses are participants in the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary golf course environmental program. The company is interested in a project that develops a program template/system to bring the remaining courses into the program and to develop a small number (3-6) of best management practices or discriminators that go beyond the Audubon criteria to establish a green market position for Vail Resorts golf courses.

Project team interaction: At a minimum, a Vail Resorts representative will be available to the project team for a weekly call or short meeting. VRI representative(s) will also be available for team mentoring sessions.

Project 2 Objective: Innovative Environmental Technologies focused on Island Resorts

Project description: RockResorts is a luxury resort brand that currently operates seven properties in some of the world’s most beautiful mountain and island resorts. Within the next 12-18 months Vail Resorts expects to be operating at two to three island resort locations – all new developments.

There are significant challenges in operating a remote island resort relative to access to utilities and support infrastructure and more specifically to energy and water conservation, and waste minimization and disposal. The project team will be asked to research and identify innovative, yet feasible technologies to assist in addressing these operational challenges in an island resort setting.