Tata Social Enterprise conference – expect the unconventional

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Social enterprises enable entrepreneurs to provide platform solutions to broader societal issues, according to Robin Shelley at the Tata Social Enterprise conference.

This one-day event brought together thought leaders from across the sector to offer guidance and advice to social entrepreneurs. Speaking at the conference, Robin Shelley, former chief of staff to José María Figueres, Costa Rica's former president, advised aspiring social entrepreneurs to "find your niche, focus on issues you're interested in and to travel abroad to get on-the-ground experience". He also emphasised the importance of business knowledge before setting up a social business.

This thought was later echoed by social investor and philanthropistDominic List, who argued that "while social enterprises have different values to private sector businesses, what underpins their success is the same effort and energy – ultimately the building blocks of any business." Rob Farkan, co-founder of Gandy's Flipflops, added: "When you begin to scale up, management is one of the most boring business areas… but one of the most crucial."

Experts from the conference advised the sector to avoid being too "indie". Increasingly, as many corporates are embracing enterprising CSR schemes, social businesses run the risk of alienating themselves from valuable resources if they strive for exclusivity from large corporations – according to client services director of Livity, Alex Goat.

Considering less than 150 companies own a considerable market share of the world's business, Tim West, founding editor of Pioneers Post, advised: "It shouldn't be us vs them with corporates, because then we are simply giving up valuable supply chains, resources and expertise."

Robert Ashton, founder of Swarm Apprentices, agreed: "Some corporates that we love to hate are doing things which are amazingly enterprising." One such example is Coca-Cola, which recently joined theBusiness Call to Action scheme – whereby Coca-Cola uses a network of locally owned, low-cost micro distribution centres to enable jobs and opportunities in the base of the pyramid markets across Africa.

However, sometimes your social impact can be difficult to assess. Benjamin Todd, co-founder of 80,000 hours, discussed how to assess the impact of a potential "social enterprise" employer. He advised assessing your impact by considering two questions:

1) What would be happening otherwise?

2) How can I make the most impact?

So, as in the case of Coca-Cola, would the Business Call to Action employees have found work without the scheme, and is there anyone already doing something similar? These questions, Todd advised, are worth considering before embarking on your social venture.

Returning to Robin Shelley's initial tip on travelling to gain first-hand experience of your social mission, Farkan discussed how his unique childhood, spent travelling and volunteering across the world, caused him to witness first-hand the devastation of natural disasters. He explained: "My upbringing provided the perfect platform to be an entrepreneur."

But that's not all it takes to be a social entrepreneur. It's also worth considering how your business looks to a potential investor. Dominic List, social investor and philanthropist, said: "Investment money is a lot easier to spend, so it shows real determination and commitment to a potential investor if you have invested your own resources into the business before seeking outside investment."

Regarding the publicity side of the company, Farkan explained the importance of being persistent: "We literally knocked on doors. We stood in the lobby – two guys in board shorts and flipflops – and refused to leave until we got a meeting." Unfortunately, however, that approach doesn't always work. "Rejection is key to any enterprise," advised Farkan. "You must be thick-skinned... there is no such thing as an overnight success."

Speaking at the end of the conference, Liam Black, former chief executive of Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, told social entrepreneurs to "look after yourself, enjoy life – and be appropriately selfish". Black closed the event with an insightful A-Z guide on how to be a social entrepreneur. Reiterating Dominic List's earlier sentiments, he advised aspiring social entrepreneurs to "nail the dull but boring stuff" by getting to grips with business basics.

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Personal Reflection:

I think this article is very informative and insightful because we get to hear the point of view from the successful business people and social entrepreneurs. Some points that I have taken note is that even though social enterprise tends to focus more on creating a positive social impact than making profit, we must not forget that it is ultimately a business, and to be successful, one has to put in as much effort and energy not only into the passion of making a social impact or change, but also put in the same amount of effort and energy into business management. Without proper business management, the social enterprise is bound to fail.

Also, Costa Rica's former president advised aspiring social entrepreneurs to find our niche, focus on issues that we are interested in and go overseas to get on-the-ground experience which I think this advise is very important to me because most of the time when I thought about school projects or business proposal, I tend to focus too much on what we should do and what will work than actually look deep into my heart and find out what exactly interests me and what skills and knowledge I can offer.

Lastly, what we can learn from this article is that we should not separate ourselves from the corporates that is already out there, instead, use it to our advantage and join forces to work towards a better world. The article used Coca-Cola as an example which I find interesting because most of us would not have thought that Coca-Cola, a big businesses will actually invest time and money to help build local companies from Africa.

I think that at the end of the day whether we are working in a social enterprise or business, if we are able to give back to the society and help local or small companies, we should do it. This way we can help build a better community and society.

Seager, C. (2013). Tata social enterprise conference - expect the unconventional. Retrieved January 2, 2014 from http://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprise-network/2013/dec/30/top-tips-advice-experts-social-entrepreneurs