Providing the elderly help with their IT devices: a family duty or a profitable business?
Turunen, Toni (2022)
2022
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202205026699
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202205026699
Tiivistelmä
Many of us has taken the role of family IT-support; helping our parents and grandparents with their mobile phones, computers, and other IT devices. While young generations today grow up with tech and intuitively adopt it, the elderly struggle even though they are increasingly reliant on technology, for example, when keeping in touch with their close ones.
As not every elderly person has a network of family members available to help, nor all those family members have the skills or the time to provide the help needed, this thesis was to research, whether there is a promising business idea in providing the elderly with a helping hand with their mobile or other technical devices.
This objective was approached by selecting a lean business creation method that was used to further define and build the business concept to answer this need. The chosen business creation method was used to build the business model and generate the main offering together with a prototype. To validate this business concept, potential end-users were interviewed, and the business concept was pitched to business professionals.
The chosen business creation model was used to define a clear value proposal and service offering, which together with competitor benchmarking found a competitive edge in targeting hybrid IT assistance towards the elderly consumer. While the potential target market is large, the service is diminishing over time and very geographically dependant. A hybrid service is feasible, but realistically the target market requires more on-site than on-line assistance.
Financially, a business concept like can realistically break-even, but further research is required to identify ways to turn it into an investment-appealing idea. Both business professionals and the potential target consumer responded to the service prototype well, taking into consideration the beforementioned challenges.
As not every elderly person has a network of family members available to help, nor all those family members have the skills or the time to provide the help needed, this thesis was to research, whether there is a promising business idea in providing the elderly with a helping hand with their mobile or other technical devices.
This objective was approached by selecting a lean business creation method that was used to further define and build the business concept to answer this need. The chosen business creation method was used to build the business model and generate the main offering together with a prototype. To validate this business concept, potential end-users were interviewed, and the business concept was pitched to business professionals.
The chosen business creation model was used to define a clear value proposal and service offering, which together with competitor benchmarking found a competitive edge in targeting hybrid IT assistance towards the elderly consumer. While the potential target market is large, the service is diminishing over time and very geographically dependant. A hybrid service is feasible, but realistically the target market requires more on-site than on-line assistance.
Financially, a business concept like can realistically break-even, but further research is required to identify ways to turn it into an investment-appealing idea. Both business professionals and the potential target consumer responded to the service prototype well, taking into consideration the beforementioned challenges.