A Twenty Something's Business as Mission Journey :: Case Study #1
We've started! We've been meeting weekly, have already met with two different companies and next week will interact with three more! Now we'll seek to capture what we feel are some key elements of one of these places to share with you.As we said, the purpose of this note is to share observations, reflections and lessons learned as I and others journey in our learning and application of Business as Mission. It is hoped that this sharing will spark your imagination, intercession and action to grow in wisdom and understanding and love and good deeds. Domestic market case study (case study #1)
Sector: Resources for infrastructure
Market: Primary - Domestic public works agencies; Secondary - export of product and sourcing for manufacturing of small quantities of small tools for corporate office
Structure: Wholly foreign-owned enterprise, working independently but supporting the corporate headquarters. Business registered in 1996, now has 50 employees with 3 expats.
Champion: Mechanical Engineering background, 10-years work experience, came to the region for heart reasons, 2-years language learning, 4-years working for trading company. Informal (on-the-job) business training. Role is company General Manager (GM).
Business formation: Prayer/desire of champion, providential meeting with like-minded corporate leaders of North American company. Initial concept to use processing equipment that was to be scrapped and import product from South American to open the market and establish business relationship network. Ultimate goal was to be on the front edge of the wave in manufacturing and selling corporate products.
Vision: Create an environment that encourages and develops long-term relationships. Primary goal is not to reach the workers, rather to develop relationships with them that allow access to their relationship and family networks and seek to influence these networks with the Gospel. Company culture encourages caring for people and their family's needs.
Story: Quickly learned the importance of marketing and sales. Domestic market very difficult to penetrate. Original business plan had to be adjusted multiple times. Actual plan turned out to be manufacturing (not importing) the product and selling it domestically. By the time the infrastructure environment shifted, the market for the corporate products was already lost. Through developing sales agents and demonstration projects, they have turned a profit almost every year. They now export 10-15% of their product.
Lessons learned: Sales are the most important thing. Business plans must change with changing environments. Deal with ethical conundrums of kick-back environment in domestic sales through sales agents and bonus' for sales staff with guidance but not micro-management. Importance of modeling what you want to get things started and then finding capable managers as things grow.
Observations: Perseverance, rolling with the changes, hard work, long hours, sticking to the vision, being a jack-of-all trades have all allowed this GM to keep this company going. Appears to be commercially successful and sustainable and poised to keep growing which is amazing considering this is in the domestic market. However, unclear on how successful the heart vision has been. At least one staff has come to faith and the champion (GM) has brought in another expat (of another nationality) who is gifted in evangelism - however, unsure if the vision is know by or held by any others at the factory besides these two.
Future plans: (and how you can get your two-cents in!) We have plans to interact with 8-10 other BAM enterprises over the next couple of months! We are exciting about these opportunities to observe, ask questions, see and interact with courageous entrepreneurs. And, we welcome your input! Please feel free to provide your ideas, input, questions, etc simply by hitting 'comment' on the site. If you have ideas on what types of questions we should ask, how we might create a standard 'template' on information gathering and sharing, other books we ought to read or even contact info for people we should interact with - please let us know!
Want to get Involved? This is a one-year (with an option to come earlier and participate in a summer program) program that will run from late August '08 to July '09. Full-time language and culture study with a weekly (sometimes twice per week) time together to discuss Biblical foundations, core BAM principles and issues and then visit BAM practitioners to see how these foundations and principles are being worked out. If you are interested, please contact Liz Miller liz@imi.org and start the application process!
Labels: A Twenty Something's Business as Mission Journey, Case Studies
1 Comments:
It would be informative to know where start-up funds (and Champion's initial livelyhood) originated. How does one fund two years of full time, in-country language study?
commented by 
LuckyDuck, 11:35 AM
LuckyDuck, 11:35 AM
