Staying with my choice of entrepreneurial venture mentioned in discussion 1 of this week - the agro-industrial venture in Africa - I will use my organization to illustrate how I would go about building a creative and high performance culture, using the CREATIVE model.
First, the mission of our organization is to “help fight hunger and malnutrition in Africa by demonstrating improved farming practices, and encouraging young people to become agro-industrial entrepreneurs.” We have set up an agro-industrial complex to cultivate, process and market a handful of critical crops. In about 3 years, it will become the training arm of the business and entrepreneurship training institute aimed at training agro-industrial entrepreneurs in line with the …show more content…
We collaborate with a local agronomic research institution that is linked to a research university, to conduct agronomic research on selected crop varieties. In line with the mission of the company, this crop must be a major staple in a majority of the country and the region, have a highly fluctuating market availability, but with a demonstrated agronomic and marketing potential on a large scale. Our R&D department run by a trained agronomist uses our pilot research facility to conduct basic agronomic research in terms of plant variety and multiplication at a small scale, up to the level of harvesting, demonstrating feasibility, cost, crop yield and quality. Depending on the crop in question, either processing (using local partners) or the marketing option would be tested as well. In the future, the plan will also include customer feedback and surveys. This approach to R&D, from the choice of crop type and variety, through processing ensures that we respond to the true needs of the consumers, and make available food items in times of …show more content…
They all knew we had one year funding, with full salaries and benefits, within which time they had to work hard to make sure the company was profitable to sustain itself. Everyone was encouraged to come up with an idea they think could generate income in the short term, which if adopted would be directed to the the R&D department. The idea behind this is to help everyone appreciate the unique innovative orientation of our company is not to find a niche within the existing industry space but to create new space that is uniquely suited to the mission (Mauborgne & Kim, 2005). Unfortunately, the pepper and cassava project came from that initiative, which failed badly. We were lucky that the initial harvest of the first badge of plantains followed shortly after the end of the first
First, the mission of our organization is to “help fight hunger and malnutrition in Africa by demonstrating improved farming practices, and encouraging young people to become agro-industrial entrepreneurs.” We have set up an agro-industrial complex to cultivate, process and market a handful of critical crops. In about 3 years, it will become the training arm of the business and entrepreneurship training institute aimed at training agro-industrial entrepreneurs in line with the …show more content…
We collaborate with a local agronomic research institution that is linked to a research university, to conduct agronomic research on selected crop varieties. In line with the mission of the company, this crop must be a major staple in a majority of the country and the region, have a highly fluctuating market availability, but with a demonstrated agronomic and marketing potential on a large scale. Our R&D department run by a trained agronomist uses our pilot research facility to conduct basic agronomic research in terms of plant variety and multiplication at a small scale, up to the level of harvesting, demonstrating feasibility, cost, crop yield and quality. Depending on the crop in question, either processing (using local partners) or the marketing option would be tested as well. In the future, the plan will also include customer feedback and surveys. This approach to R&D, from the choice of crop type and variety, through processing ensures that we respond to the true needs of the consumers, and make available food items in times of …show more content…
They all knew we had one year funding, with full salaries and benefits, within which time they had to work hard to make sure the company was profitable to sustain itself. Everyone was encouraged to come up with an idea they think could generate income in the short term, which if adopted would be directed to the the R&D department. The idea behind this is to help everyone appreciate the unique innovative orientation of our company is not to find a niche within the existing industry space but to create new space that is uniquely suited to the mission (Mauborgne & Kim, 2005). Unfortunately, the pepper and cassava project came from that initiative, which failed badly. We were lucky that the initial harvest of the first badge of plantains followed shortly after the end of the first