Learning from failure

Many worldwide social enterprises have failed at success but not a lot of them made it public and shared their experiences.  Henry Ford said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” In other words, to be able to attain your greatest success you must first learn from your past failures and other experiences.

According to a study conducted by the MBA students of Toronto University; the failure of a social enterprise is characterized by its “inability to build a profitable, self‐sustaining company that accomplishes its predefined social goals”.

The Impact Hub, Warney Parquer, and Pantagonia are examples of successful social enterprises. However, there are some new social enterprises, which perform as well as the ones who build themselves for a second time. In fact, it is stated in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, that approximately half of the new businesses don’t last more than 5 years, and that the number of failed social enterprises is likely to be the same.

Nowadays, the capitalistic system is known to be a creative growing and dynamic. A system that fires enterprises that are unable to enter the market due to their lack of efficiency and competitiveness. Success stories of Social Enterprises are very inspiring; nevertheless, failure tales should be told and learned as well.

Throughout this blog post, My focus is going to be on two main questions: What was the essential difference between a successful social enterprise and a failed one? And what are the lessons to be learned for the future?

When social enterprises are committed and passionate, they are willing to put more effort and time in their ideas. Opening a business is very challenging and stressful; however, many other enterprises decide to quit when they encounter obstacles. This is due to the lack of passion, commitment, which is one of the many failures of entrepreneurship.

Furthermore, having a brilliant idea and spotting an opportunity for implementing your social project are not enough. A good social enterprise needs to value and be familiar with the context in which it is working.

Another challenge that is often encountered during the implementation of the Social Enterprise is the lack of a strong leadership. Some leaders fail to support and coordinate all the different sectors relevant to their enterprises.  Starting from understanding the basic business plan to supporting the community, negotiating with governments and knowing well the markets.

The MBA student’s research of Toronto University’s says that, Social enterprises and start-ups tend to develop a poor business model, which doesn’t guarantee a sustainable generation of revenue that could balance their businesses in the long run. Therefore a solid business model that is proper to the social goals and scale of the enterprise is mandatory in order to sustain itself. In fact successful social enterprises that are funded by external sources know how to make use of the money by investing in researches that aim to find out what people really need and want.

In a saturated market, innovation could help you get through it. Therefore, Social enterprises that are innovative but also very committed in achieving their goals are more likely to succeed.

In my opinion one of the most important factor is : communication. By creating a contact with the people and communicating with them, your passions and values, i believe social enterprises are more likely to succeed. If people love your brand and are convinced of taking part in your objectives, your enterprise will flourish. Nonetheless, i think it would be the best way to attract and retain talents.

No hay comentarios / 20 May 2016 por cmallat
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