Developing a Value Proposition: The
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INCLUSIVE ECONOMY INSTITUTE DEVELOPING A VALUE PROPOSITION: THE BRISTOL POUND INCLUSIVE ECONOMY INSTITUTE Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 4 MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTICS OF B2B PARTNERS ............................................................................ 8 SAMPLE ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 CURRENT £B MEMBERS ............................................................................................................................ 10 £B MEMBERSHIP: INTERPRETING THE DATA .............................................................................................. 11 MEMBERSHIP OF OTHER NETWORKS ........................................................................................................ 15 VALUING SERVICES AND FEATURES OF NETWORKS ................................................................................... 18 INTERPRETING THE DATA ......................................................................................................................... 18 PAYING FOR SERVICES .............................................................................................................................. 26 SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATIONS .......................................................................................................... 27 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................ 31 INCLUSIVE ECONOMY INSTITUTE Executive Summary This report presents the findings of a research project with the purpose of evaluating what services and features the Bristol Pound1 (£B) might offer its business members in order to encourage and expand its business membership and the active engagement of this membership with the £B. The research was funded by the ESRC and took place between January and June 2019. It was comprised of 26 semi-structured interviews with £B business members and non-members. It represents a collaboration between the Inclusive Economy Institute at the University of Bristol and the £B. It was conducted by Dr Thomas Sealy and overseen by Professor Martin Parker. Local currencies have seen a renewed interest in the last few decades and the Bristol Pound is one of several that have been founded in the UK. These currencies aim to exert change along three lines, making economic, social and environmental impacts in order to create a reorientation towards increased local and sustainable patterns of trade and currency circulation. Yet these currencies face considerable difficulty in breaking the ‘lifecycle phenomenon’ and becoming financially self- sustaining beyond the first five to eight years, resulting in many of them folding. Moreover, and linked to this, they also face significant challenges in penetrating the mainstream to a degree that would enable them to begin to meet their goals. The £B is at a critical juncture in its lifecycle and bid to reach self-sustainability as a viable business in its own right. Its business membership has been identified as key to attaining both its general aims as well as its aim of being financially self- sustaining. By creating a package of services that it can offer to its business members, £B hopes to become financially sustainable, which will in turn allow it to meet its wider economic, social and environmental aims. Full findings and recommendations are presented in the following pages, but the headline findings are: • The £B needs a targeted strategy for expanding beyond its current membership. This should also involve concentration on sector by sector development and include key consumer targets and influential anchor institutions. • Technology needs to be prioritised for investment and development. Without this, expansion will be limited and curtailed. • The £B needs to focus on adding business value to its business members. This means being able to bring economic benefit to its business members as well as being able to demonstrate this benefit. • The £B should develop more collaborative and personal relationships with its members, developing forms of communication and support. • The £B needs to know its members, their businesses and their needs better in order to facilitate more meaningful communication both between the £B and its members as well as between businesses themselves. • The £B needs to have a greater presence in local, community events and projects. • Businesses are willing to pay to be a member of a network organisation such as the £B but will only do so and continue to do so if they see added value to their business as a result. 1 https://bristolpound.org 3 INCLUSIVE ECONOMY INSTITUTE Introduction Aims and focus The principal aim of this project is to contribute towards a value proposition that £B might offer its business members as part of it becoming a financially self-sustaining organisation. The findings presented and recommendations made aim to feed into the development of existing services and features that £B offers its members, current thinking and developments of additional services and features £B might offer, as well as suggesting other propositions £B might offer its members. The aim is to provide research-based evidence for these developments. The focus is thus on what kinds of services and features independent businesses in Bristol value and would find attractive as part of a membership package that the £B might provide. Literature overview Local, community or complementary currencies have a long and varied history but have seen renewed attention more recently and developed across the world, including in the UK, since the 1980s in varying forms (Blanc, 2010; Michel & Hudon, 2015; Seyfang & Longhurst, 2013a; North, 2010; North, 2007). Convertible Local Currencies (CLCs), such as the £B, which is the focus of this report, are limited to use within a particular geographical area, and the BerkShare, founded in the USA in 2006 was the first of this kind. Probably the most successful local currency has been the Chiemgauer regiogeld scheme in Bavaria, Germany, although this operates on a wider regional basis, which is considered important to this success (see Gelleri, 2009; North, 2010 chapt 9; North, 2014; Thiel, 2012). In the UK local currencies have appeared in Totnes, being the pathbreaker, (Longhurst, 2012; North, 2010), Lewes (see Graugaard, 2012, North, 2010), the Lake District, Brixton (North, 2010), and Stroud (see Scott Cato & Suárez, 2012; North, 2010), although with very limited evidenced success in terms of impacts. According to Zelizer (1994), all money expresses social values, not least because far from being a neutral ‘thing’, money is indicative of, and reinforces a particular pattern of relationships (North, 2010). Complementary currencies are specifically and deliberately formed in order to offer an alternative to national and global currency circulation and the dominance of national corporate and financial sectors. They are grassroots or bottom up innovations whose function broadly speaking is to change economic, social and environmental pathways and impacts. As such, they have been characterised as a form of technology as ‘purposed systems’ (Longhurst, 2012) given their orientation towards fulfilling specified purposes. They are aimed at developing local value and facilitating trade among local businesses by preventing wealth from leaking away from local economies. They are also aimed at developing trust and relationships locally and helping to enable participation of more socially and economically marginalised groups. Furthermore, by keeping currency and trade circulating locally, by encouraging a ‘local multiplier effect’, they aim to encourage a more sustainable form of business and development, reducing carbon footprints and encouraging greater local consumption. A further aspect of local currencies is developing local resilience, through encouraging interdependency between a vibrant population of SMEs (Graugaard, 2012). A common observation of local currencies is a lifecycle phenomenon. Local currencies exhibit similar trajectories, with an initial period of growth and enthusiasm, which lasts around five years, followed by a plateau and then decline, resulting in limited impact (Blanc, 2010: 307). An important part of this cycle is the importance of ideological and value alignment in a currency’s initial stages, supported by a ‘novelty effect’ (Collom, 2005), which helps drive early membership take up. A significant aspect of the later drop off is that despite social values being a motivating factor, when there is no perceived economic benefit, membership is not maintained and users can become disillusioned (Evans, 2009; Blanc, 2010). A further aspect of this is that however much part of the “local ambience” they may become for some circles (Jacob et al., 2004), local currencies struggle to gain legitimacy beyond 4 INCLUSIVE ECONOMY INSTITUTE narrower alternative trade circles or activists (Blanc, 2010). That is, they remain restricted to what have been conceptualised as niches and niche actors (Longhurst, 2012; Seyfang & Longhurst, 2013b) and struggle to gain usage and legitimacy amongst the wider