In a previous blog, I described “value chain” analysis, which is an analytical technique designed by Michael Porter to evaluate the sequence of business activities to improve profitability. Those five areas are: inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing & sales, and service. That leads to a review of cost advantages and areas of differentiation for your firm. Continue reading “Case Study: Value Chain Improves Profitability”
New! Social Enterprise Shopping Guide
Have you ever gone online to order something and then wondered if you could buy it from a social enterprise? We often have, which is why the npEnterprise Forum created the Social Enterprise Shopping Guide.
Support the SE sector while shopping online!
Here’s the web address for the Guide: http://bit.ly/qsDUzN
Alternative Legal Structures for Your Business
There are now many choices in legal structure for a new business. That’s both a good thing and bad thing. It’s great to have options, but sometimes the details can become overwhelming. For a business with a social as well as financial purpose, there are different ways to set things up, depending on your motivations, your target market, your access to capital, and how much control you need.
Some of the alternatives include for-profit, for-profit with a social overlay, hybrid, nonprofit with a mission-related enterprise, or nonprofit.
A very thorough article on just this topic can be found in the Spring 2011 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. SSIR is a publication well worth a subscription, but in this case, the article is available for free. It’s call “For Love or Lucre,” and was written by Jim Fruchterman. Here’s the URL:
This is a good thing to get ironed out early in your business planning process.
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For more resources, see our Library topic Business Planning.
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What Is NOT a Social Enterprise
Steve Jobs once said: “I am as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.” So also it should be for the social enterprise sector. There are plenty of great things that are not SEs. To gain credibility and traction in the marketplace, the SE field cannot be all things to all people. That’s the path to becoming nothing at all.
Gotta Have A Social Media Strategy
Social media has not been around that long; Facebook is barely seven years old, for example. But in today’s business and social environment, for many companies that sell directly to the public, having a social media strategy is no longer an option. You gotta have one. Continue reading “Gotta Have A Social Media Strategy”
ShoreBank Demise Dissected: “Too Good To Fail”
In August 2010, ShoreBank, the nation’s first, largest, and leading community bank, was shut down by regulators. It was a major blow to the social enterprise sector.
For almost forty years, ShoreBank made more than $4 billion in mission investments and financed more than 59,000 units of affordable housing. It spearheaded the national movement of community development financial institutions, played a significant role in federal policy around community investment, and was the role model f or dozens of smaller progressive banks in the US and abroad.
And yet it failed. Why? And what can we learn from that failure?
Continue reading “ShoreBank Demise Dissected: “Too Good To Fail””
Social Enterprise Summit, Chicago, 10/30-11/2
If you haven’t heard about it yet, check out the Social Enterprise Summit, put on by Social Enterprise Alliance. For those interested in social enterprise, there’s no better way to learn, network and get inspired by the incredible people who organize and put on these conferences. I’ve been to ten of them, and gained something valuable every time I attended. (Disclosure: I used to be on the SEA board.) Here’s some information from SEA:
New! Sales Strategy for Rhode Island Social Enterprises
For years, some of us have mused about some kind of national system to drive sales to social enterprises. The basic idea is that there are government agencies and socially-minded companies who might be willing to purchase large quantities of goods and services from social enterprises, provided someone would identify qualified suppliers and make it easy to order from them. Continue reading “New! Sales Strategy for Rhode Island Social Enterprises”
Value Chain Your Way To Profitability
Ultimately, success in business depends on finding your competitive advantage, which is to say that which makes you superior to your competitors and is perceived as valuable by your customers. One approach for figuring that out is through value chain analysis, as developed by Michael Porter. The value chain is a sequence of activities that exist in almost every business.
Continue reading “Value Chain Your Way To Profitability”
New! Social Enterprise Dining Map
Have you ever wondered: where’s the nearest SE restaurant? Or is there an SE cafe in a city you’re planning to visit?
We often do, which is why the npEnterprise Forum created the first-ever Social Enterprise Dining Map. This map lists more than 50 social enterprise cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, and ice cream stores in the US and Canada. Continue reading “New! Social Enterprise Dining Map”