3 Ways to Improve Social Enterprises

[AMIT GANGULY]

India is a country of Sharp contrasts.On one hand one of its richest state Gujarat boasts about its economic turn around,but on the other hand a UN health report reveals that large number of Gujarati women are malnourished. Likewise India is rated as the biggest source of Billionaires in S.E.Asia, by Forbes,yet  around 40% of the total Indian population livebelow poverty line. What lacks is a proper framework of development that includes social alleviation policies and social innovations.

 

Image- Poverty

Social Enterprise is not new. Vinoba Bhave, the founder of India’s Land Gift Movement, Robert Owen, the founder of cooperative movement and Florence Nightingale, founder of first nursing school and developer of modern nursing practices are few examples of Social entrepreneurship. The issues that social enterprises deal with are social justice, inequality and inclusion,  environment, trade justice and development.

 

Short-Comings of Existing Framework

In the twentieth century Social Enterprise has embraced charities and community organisations.

1.The way social enterprises operate now is often to address the  limitationsof public service provision. Some social enterprises, based on charities, are established to meet needs. 

 

2.The state Governments find it difficult to cope with diversity of needs of users, 

especially niche and specialist needs as consumers have become increasingly aware of their distinct needs and able to voice their demands. Social enterprises are often developed just to cater for needs which the state does not fully meet.

 

3.The state Governments create a culture of paternalism, encouraging a dependency culture.Here Social enterprises  come to see themselves as recipients of solutions delivered to them by professionals rather than participants in creating solutions. 

 

However, Social enterprises should have their own Business values built on a model of self-help that encourages people to be participants in creating solutions for one another. They should mobilise peer-to-peer systems of support, for example, rather than relying on 
professionals. Thus,Government needs a framework for social innovation that improves social outcomes.

 

Strategies to Improve the Framework

 

1. Larger Scale = Greater Impact  

In-order to strengthen the existing Social Enterprises,these businesses should Champion the Economics of Scale.Enterprises should operate at a National level and a become household name.Organizations must find ways of clustering together, helping themselves to form alliances, federations and networks that give them scale. The Grameen Bank has achieved this, first in Bangladesh and then around the world. Grameen is impressive because it operates at scale.

 

2.Social Innovation Platforms = Social Enterprise State

The government should create Social Innovation platforms at Public Level. This will bring together the public sector, private companies and social enterprises to address shared problems and opportunities, such as provision of home- based services for the elderly, to combat social isolation. A shift towards more local governance such as local carbon trusts to drive down CO2 emissions– would create the conditions for much more local social innovation.

3. More Socially Responsible Businesses = More Disruptive Innovation
Developing Goods and Providing services at radically low costs, so as to bring them in reach of poor consumers.
->The Clinton Global Initiative has done something like this with Aids drugs for the poor, by finding a way to eliminate middle men and distributors so as to get the generic versions of drugs more cheaply. 
->Fair-trade producers such as Café Direct have shown how corporate supply chains can be reorganised to provide commodity producers in the developing world with a higher margin. 

 

Conclusion

Thus,Social enterprises can challenge mainstream businesses to operate in more socially responsible ways. Also, they can inspire consumers to demand such products.

 

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, had once said that “If you believe that each life has equal value then it is disgusting to learn than some lives are worth saving and some not…We asked “How could the world let these children die?" 

Bill and Melinda Gates foundation since then has worked  to find approaches that caters to the needs of the poor,and that generates profits for business. 

Some of the recent examples of successful social ventures are -  The Grameen Bank by Muhammad Yunus, Ashoka: The Innovators for the Public by Bill Drayton, Youth United by Jyotindra Nath, Rand De by Ramakrishna and Smita Ram, SKS Microfinance by Vikram Akula and Roozi.com by Nick Reder, Brent Freeman and Norma La Rosa has popularized the term.