Social Enterprise RICHBURG CARED WASH

Social Enterprise – RICHBURG CARED WASH

TEAM 9

Background- Management/ Business Concern

Richburg has been employing retired workers for 6 years as a corporate social responsibility initiative, aged from 45 to 68, mainly dealing with the re- conditioning duties of car beauty and car washing. Two of the aged staff have been successfully promoted to a workshop manager, and the team head of car wash department, who are aged 45 and 54 respectively.

Situation

Because of the CE’s policy address about the concept of Social Enterprise in last October 2006, it provides us the insight of addressing to a social ill, especially in the remote new towns, Tuen Mun, Yuen Long, Northern District and Tung Chung. Because of the misalignment in the town planning, a significant numbers of females who are unemployed, and they have difficulties to come to city area for employment because of expensive traveling costs, and time consuming factors.

Richburg has a strong experience in the management of the low skilled level’s car washing and beauty business, as well as the fact that we have a lot of role models, aged staff who are successfully promoted from a car washer to a manager in the corporation.

We decide to make use of related skills, and know-how in managing the aged employees, as well as the business know-how to create a social enterprise addressing to this problem. Because of the fact that the social enterprise is different from the general business operation, the undersigned has been successfully enrolled to John Kennedy School of the Public Administration in Harvard University for the course on Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations (PMNO), curriculum reference at Annex I.

Mission

To resolve the unemployment of the critical mass in the remote new towns, and to create business self- sustainability, applying the concepts from 元、亨、利、貞.

Using the strategic intent (Social Responsibility) and business initiatives (Strategic Marketing & Strategic Mapping) to create a new business with the social impacts in HK, and achieve business efficiencies in low cost and market oriented products and services.

Definition of the Social Enterprises

Social enterprises are organizations which trade in goods or services, and link that trade to a social mission and value by creating the social impact. The need to deliver on financial, social and environmental performance targets with the business value. Sustainability and long lasting implications are important in the social enterprise.

Execution

The Research Purpose

A. Literature Research – Through the Labour Department’s support, we secured the unemployed figures as follow:

 The majority of unemployment is female (55%) & educated around F1 to F5;

 The largest grouping is aged 15-29, followed by aged 40-49;

 Skill level is nil or less; and,

 Suitable for cleaners, general workers, watchmen, & service workers

B. In-depth Interviews – Interview with the following personalities to verify the hypothesis of the social illness in unemployment, and the business problems in the operation and the business sustainability of a social enterprise;

 Matthew Cheung, Secretary for Econ. Development & Labor, who support our new project;

 Byron NG Assistant Commissioner of Labor Dept, who will coordinate the recruitment and promotion of our social enterprise, all figures are given; &

 Visit Social Enterprise in Singapore , the official in-charge of a local packing factory.

C. Focus Group- Discussed with the following business experts in social enterprise and political leader in the confirmation of my hypothesis on this business model;

 Marie So, MBA graduate in John K. School of the Public Administration, Harvard Alumni, who work on a social enterprise at the moment;

 Albert Cheung King-hon, Executive Councilor, who has good experience in the root class and social problems;

 Po Chung, Ex-Chairman DHL, who had experience in corporate social responsibility;  YWCA in those targeted areas have arranged those unemployed women for interviews about their personal and social concerns;  Public liabilities, we have been negotiating with the insurance company to underwrite the potential public liabilities as the matters are of the social concerns;

D. Surveys – We visited different multi-storey car parks and car wash companies to study the potential competition from the local context, and mapping out the reasonable prices above the minimum wages with incentive to attract unemployed masses to join our business, as well as car users to shift to our services.

At the moment, a few property developers have agreed to allow our company to operate in their carparks, both residential and commercial buildings.

Findings – The project is feasible, because of the following findings;

1. Richburg has a strong brand name in the motors related business, to create a professional car-wash company is a related diversification, technical know-how in the car wash is competent, with skilled coaches;

2. Richburg has 6 years employment of the retired and unskilled middle aged people and they are the role models for the future business model to motivate the unskilled workers to work hard for promotion and well- being;

3. Government support in recruitment and subsidies are granted in principle;

4. The strategic intent is to create the business sustainability without unlimited sponsorship after the seed money invested;

5. The supply of the labour is available, and the market is available;

6. With our network, we could lobby a lot of political, media and corporate support in the first development of the social enterprise in Hong Kong ;

7. The strategic mapping will be setting up to the remote new towns, if the organizational expansion to an appropriate scale, the second phase will be using private buses sending them to work in the cities. And, the final stage, it is upgrading of the social enterprise into Communalism, when profit/surplus is accumulated; and, 8. Communalism- the final phase, we will assemble all the workers in these remote new town, using private buses to send them to the cities in TST, MK, and Central for car wash duties. These people having a characteristic, they do not want to go to the city to work, because they want to return to home and buying food to cook for their family. Under this consideration, we will use the supply chain management to collectively purchase the food for them, saving their time to go to the wet market, before off duties, in addition, medical care will be providing to them, hoping these dedications will inspire their loyalty and passion in committing to their duties.

Management Implication

To create a social enterprise is not difficult as Richburg could leverage a lot of resources and know-how, as well as the undersigned could network a lot of key personalities to develop the initial setup. However, the great difficulties and business concern are to compete with the local car wash companies, which are conglomerates, Wilson Wash, Challenger Wash, under the minimum wages and the self-employed washers, having a low cost of operation. In addition, there are a lot of triad controlled local car washers who forced a lot of car users to adopt their services, as well as the individual washer who charge about HK$150 per month to conduct the package of daily wash, and wax per month.

To create a niche, with a competitive pricing, and value creation in using the social responsibility, as well as the strategic marketing are equally important to create a value social chain.

The execution countdown will be launching the project in July 2007.

Social Implication

To create a social implication by engaging the schools, as well as people who are enjoying cars, or having a particular interest to car business, we want to engage these people, working together with the employees of our social enterprise as a kind of social work.

Crisis Success Factors

The critical factors are not the operational and management implications and execution, the greatest challenges are to inspire those employed women to work, rather than staying unemployed at home. Because, their welfare is being taking care by the government. Unless, we can create and brand a positive impact, otherwise, it is very difficult to motivate their intention to start working in the community again.

Secondly, their husbands and neighbours, which are the inner left circle of the targeted segment, whether or not they are “permitted”, or being encouraged to work to this profession. Because, this is a rather low-skilled job, unless we can brand the services into a dignified and meaningful way, or making it looked-like professional, otherwise, the family pressure to stop them applying our job will become a great challenger.

Thirdly, the potential threat and support from the social welfare professionals, district board members, or politicians who have been traditionally involving in the social enterprises and welfare management. However, they are not doing successfully in addressing the current problems. Our presence and our moves would pose a threat to their value and core duties. Therefore, we will create synergies and consultation with them, hopefully, engaging their participation will turn the potential threat into the potential cooperation as well as support.

Annex I

Curriculum The program helps nonprofit executives think conceptually about performance measurement systems. Through a powerful combination of faculty presentations, case studies, and group discussions, participants examine the rationale behind performance measurement and gain valuable insight into its critical aspects. Core curriculum topics include:

CHALLENGES AND OBSTACLES TO PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT Building a performance-based culture; understanding organizational "accountability flow;" implementing a performance management strategy.

STRATEGIC USES OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT Recognizing value and satisfying expectations; increasing productivity; fostering creativity and innovation; improving individual behavior.

ASSESSING AND RESPONDING TO DEMANDS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY Balancing stakeholder and internal accountability; dealing with the forces that shape the nonprofit environment.

ALIGNING MISSION AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT Linking mission, performance, and impact; understanding what is being measured and what is being delivered.

TOOLS AND APPROACHES FOR PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT Deciding what to measure; choosing the right tool for the job; understanding implementation challenges.

INSTITUTIONALIZING AND SUSTAINING PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Sustaining a performance management system; building capacity; understanding communication challenges.