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Issues in Social Entrepreneurship

Shyam SunderGlobal Social Entrepreneurship Workshop

Yale School of ManagementSeptember 20, 2011

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Issues in Social Entrepreneurship

• Product lines: – Tradition vs. innovation– Goods vs. services

• Organizations:– Unique/customized/personal vs. mass scale– Assessing Efficiency

• Growth and Transitions:– From grants to self-sustenance– From founding entrepreneurs to professional

managers

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Product Lines: Tradition vs. Innovation

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Product Lines: Tradition vs. Innovation

• Special• Pride• Existing skill• Craft: embroidery• Low capital • Low education• Low price

• Staying ahead of imitation

• New markets• New products• Mass production:

paper cups• Higher values

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Product Lines: Goods vs. Services

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Product Lines: Goods vs. Services

• Known crafts• Familiar processes• Familiar markets• Higher investment• Limited demand

• Newer process• Creation of new

markets• Reputation important• Quality from

experience• Low investment• High demand• Challenge of

standardization

Examples of Services

Examples of Services• Food and food service• Custodial and Cleaning services• Shopping services• Child, sick, and elder care• House painting (white washing)• Home repair• Electrical work• Plumbing work• Cabinetry work• Delivery services• Quality control• Security• Pest control• Driving and auto/motor cycle repair• Agricultural services (soil testing, land survey, equipment repair)• Consumer surveys and product testing• Skills training

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Organizations: Unique/Customized/Personal vs. Mass

Scale

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Organizations: Unique/Customized/Personal vs. Mass

Scale• Human Scale & Care• Personalized• Uniqueness• Decentralized / Robust• Diverse• Individualized initiative• Difficult• Disappear with individuals• Entrepreneurial • Grass roots

• Large scale• Impersonal• Same/similar everywhere• Centralized / fragile• Copy cat• Mass initiative• Replicable• Continues beyond

individual managers• Top down control• Chance of going viral?

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Organizations: Assessing Efficiency or How Are We Doing?

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Organizations: Assessing Efficiency?

• Efficient for who?

• Engineering efficiency

• Economic efficiency

• Multiperson efficiency

• Efficiency under uncertainty

• Combination of two or more of the above

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Growth and Transitions:From Grants to Self-Sustenance

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Growth and Transitions:From Grants to Self-Sustenance

• Is it possible? When?• Is it desirable? In which cases? Why?• If yes, what to do to become self-sustaining?

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Growth and Transitions:From Founding Entrepreneurs to

Professional Managers

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Growth and Transitions:From Founding Entrepreneurs to

Professional Managers• Is it possible? In which cases?• Is it desirable? In which cases?• If yes, what can be done to promote / smoothen

such transitions?

Engineering of Organizations: A Template

Shyam SunderGlobal Social Entrepreneurship Workshop

Yale School of ManagementSeptember 21, 2010

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An Overview

• A Template for Organizational Engineering– An idea– Resources: inputs and outputs– People: what each gives and wants– Advantage to all– Good governance– Sustainability under stress– Change and transition (re-engineering)– Let us try this out, and develop it as we try

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The Idea

• The idea originates with the entrepreneur: a way of meeting an unmet demand or utilizing one or more wasted resource(s) in a way that would make all participants better off– The initial idea rarely survives in final form– All entrepreneurs need to revisit and refine the initial

idea many times through iterations until it works– Template may help us refine the idea

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Resources: inputs and outputs

• What will be the output(s) of the organization (i.e., anything that anyone may want from it)?

• What inputs does the organization need (all those things for which we need to find a supplier)

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People: what they want and are willing to give

• For each input, list one or more prospective supplier

• For each output, list one or more prospect who would want to have it

• If the list cannot be completed, go to an earlier step and revise it

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Advantage to all

• Make a list of all participants (from previous page)• For each participant, list the contribution and entitlement• Check if for each participant, what they get is valued as

much or more than what they contribute• If not, what changes are necessary to make the

participation advantageous to every person on the list?• If there is no way of satisfying the condition, go to an

earlier step and revise it

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Governance

• Good governance: It is in each participant’s interest to do what the other participants expect him/her to do in various circumstances

• How can we organize the environment of each participant to fulfill the good governance criterion?

• If such an environment cannot be designed, go to an earlier step and revise

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Sustainability under stress

• What are the jolts that could shake the organization?

• How big a jolt can the organization survive (i.e., not violate the “advantage for all” condition)

• What can be done to:– Avoid the jolts– Increase capacity to withstand larger jolts– Plan for disaster (pick up the pieces)

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Change and transition (re-engineering)

• Which changes in the environment threaten the balance you have achieved in the organization (people, resources, technology, expectations)

• There are inevitable changes that make the organization infeasible

• Go to an earlier step to re-engineer:– New arrangements, expectations– New or different resources– New or different people– New or different idea

Skills Development (Anudip)

• Workplace English• Workplace Readiness• Workplace IT• ICT-based Livelihoods• Basics of Business• Advanced IT• Financial Accounting & Tally• PC Maintenance• DTP (Desktop Publishing –

Pagemaker & Corel Draw)• MS Access

• Internet usage for the office• Image Processing (Photoshop)• Basics of Sales• CRS (Customer Relationship &

Sales)• BPO / Call Center Training• Hospitality• Patient Assistance• Special Curriculum for BPOs• Entrepreneurship

Development Workshop• Steps in Cyber Cafe

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Anudip: Unemplyment => Employment

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Anudip: Entrepreneur Program

• Adoption and Mentoring• Assisting graduates interested in group-based micro-enterprises• Equipment lease (computers, printers, cameras, etc.)• Mentoring during incubation phase: planning, marketing, budgeting• Monitoring progress and continuing support to help it grow• People: low income, unemployed, young, mostly agrarian, in

geographically isolated villages. • Enterprises: IT-based--cyber cafés, desktop publishing centers,

digital photo studios and computer training centers to help:•  ◦ Internet surfing• ◦ Online railway booking• ◦ Electricity and telephone bill payment• ◦ One-minute digital photography

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Thank You

Shyam.sunder@yale.edu

www.som.yale.edu\faculty\sunder

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