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The entrepreneur desirous of
founding a Crafts-Based Corporation is in every respect, as the
entrepreneur addressed under
The
Entrepreneur. In effect, the would-be founder of a Crafts-Based
Corporation must perform all the tasks expected of the
non-crafts based venture developer
entrepreneur. Yet there are distinct differences between the
circumstances of the traditional entrepreneur and the
crafts-leveraging entrepreneur. These differences are
effectively elicited through the analysis of the very essence
of what a craft is.
In the practice of a
craft -
a stable subsistence living
- the practitioners usually buy the raw materials in small
quantities and produces the craft-product in proportion to the
quantity of raw materials purchase, and then sells the products
upon finishing.
The crafts-skill sellers
effectively are simultaneously production forces and an entire
miniature company onto themselves.
Often though the quantity of raw material purchase is dependent
on space
availability for storage, speed of completion as a result of
time availability because time for such people are usually split
across several tasks, and available funds because after all
practitioners of crafts for subsistence living are generally
without much disposable income.
Compared
to a non-crafts-based, or standard,
venture development
endeavour, the
crafts-production process is already well known by the
crafts-practitioners, while the product of the
non-crafts-based
venture, in course of its development - from concept validation
through prototyping and design optimization, define the
manufacturing technology or process. So in the case of the
non-crafts-based
venture, the manufacturing process is not known as at the time of
venture development. Further, with regards to the crafts-based
venture production process, often, there are also no immediately
known mass production machines readily available to accomplish the
volume production needs at the onset of venture development.
In
consideration of these characteristics of the crafts-based
venture, only two
growth strategic options/paths: Horizontal Integration and
Vertical Integration; are available to the entrepreneur who is
intent on founding venture corporation with corporate growth
strategic goal based on native-crafts leveraging; and then the
entrepreneur can adopt only one of the two growth strategic
options/paths.
The Horizontal
Integration growth strategic option adopts the growth thrust of
maintaining the composition of the prevailing operations of a
very specific crafts operation as reference and then growing
from that point by expanding the volume of production; and hence
effectively operating with the object of facilitating volume
production of the
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subsistence
crafts-products; and because of the subsistence character of the
product a default obvious marketing strategy becomes high volume low
margins.
The Vertical Integration
growth strategic option/path adopts the growth thrust of maintaining
the composition of the prevailing operations of a very specific
crafts operation as reference and then growing from that point by
using some of the products as raw materials for second tier
products; and hence effectively operating with the object of facilitating
volume production of the subsistence crafts-products through
consumption in next tier product(s). However, because a second tier
product component of the venture may entail innovation in any
collection of
dimensions clusters of the Euclidean Space of Innovation,
this growth thrust may be such that product of the vision may or
may not by its development invariably define the manufacturing
technology/process and so possibly require manufacturing process
development, and perhaps also force innovative marketing tactics
implementation. Clearly, the economy of scale, notwithstanding
the subsistence character of the product, can not be created, as
an obvious default, from the marketing strategy of high volume
low margins.
Evidently then, the entrepreneur who is
engaging on social
welfare -driven corporation founding, must eschew the Vertical
Integration Growth Strategy in
favor of the Horizontal
Integration Growth Strategy, because the latter strategy is less
demanding for the purposes of founding the crafts-based venture
corporation. Therefore, the
crafts leveraging entrepreneur
must found Crafts-Based Corporation
which brings together a collection
of people practising the same craft.
Even then, the Horizontal Integration
Growth Strategy to be adopted by the entrepreneur must actually be a
variant of the type presented above. The variation is motivated by
the circumstance that the entrepreneur is not already an established
crafts practitioner. The entrepreneur has no reference operation
from where to initiate the horizontal integration.
The Horizontal Integration Growth
Strategy variation obtains from being constructed on top of
mass Mergers and Acquisitions:
The bringing together of a collection of people practising the same
craft, which is tantamount to undertaking several of mini mergers
and acquisitions, allows the position that each such crafts-skill
seller effectively is an entire miniature company onto self.
Now given that by the non-aligned
practice of subsistence Crafts Operations: The
practitioner buys raw materials in small quantities and produces the
craft-product in proportion to the quantity of raw materials
purchase, and then sells the products upon finishing; the
production,
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marketing and sales
activities are undertaken singularly by the crafts
practitioner, and also given that the vision analysis of the
Crafts-Based Corporation necessarily stipulates the
design of the various business functions set including the
production, marketing and sales operations, the aggregation of the
several crafts-skill sellers invariably separates the production
forces and the marketing forces of the several miniature crafts
operations and then fuses all of same type into individual operating
units.
In planning for the
inception of business operations of the Crafts-Based Corporation,
then the entrepreneur must adopt the perspective that the position
of the corporation on the Adizes Corporate Lifecycle Curve is that
of Adolescence, and the stage of the corporation development on the venture start-up stage
is [early stage] Execution Phase. This assessment, of course, is
quite significant in the development of the Operational Corporate
Growth Strategic Plan, which the corporation would operate as
competitive strategic thrust [in] counter to the competitive forces
identified through the competitor analysis of the Strategic Forces
Model.
In any case, the
vision for founding crafts-based
corporation, without any doubt, even while having
an underpinning of innovation, has the innovation in the Marketing Tactics dimension
of the product innovation dimensions.
Further in undertaking the vision
analysis, the crafts-based corporation invariably
must adopt a Corporate Growth Strategy,
naturally, based on the aforementioned variant of the Horizon
Integration Growth Strategy.
The Growth Tactical
Plan must necessarily follow the Strategic Plan:
The
approach is akin to the founding of corporation through mergers and
acquisitions. Effectively, the entrepreneur must treat the crafts
business sellers as both
employees and as shareholders, such that each one's production capacity must be
assessed and used as the basis for assignment of shares. Extensive
training is required here to inculcate the concept of corporation
in the participants.
Further, the Plan must also develop means of overcoming the
shortcomings of the crafts-skill sellers such as warehousing space
and financial limitation.
At the inception of
operations, as with the
founding of venture corporation, in any other situation,
implementation of a strong corporate culture is imperative.
Internal intelligence
system is absolutely imperative to head-off misconceptions at the early
stages of the gelling of the individuals into having shared vision
and with the mindset of being of one corporation.
Except perhaps for Shadow Organization, the entrepreneur must aim to
implement all the other aspects of the founding of venture
corporation deemed important. |
