What Is the Role of Social Enterprise In Society?
Social entrepreneurship in modern society is such a humane form of entrepreneurship that focuses on the benefits that society may reap. Simply put, entrepreneurship becomes a social enterprise when it transforms social capital in an approach that affects society positively. It is viewed as advantageous because the success of social entrepreneurship depends on many factors related to social impact that traditional corporate businesses do not prioritize.
Social entrepreneurs recognize immediate social problems, but also seek to understand the broader context of an issue that crosses disciplines, fields, and theories. Gaining a larger understanding of how an issue relates to society allows social entrepreneurs to develop innovative solutions and mobilize available resources to affect the greater society. Unlike traditional corporate businesses, social entrepreneurship ventures focus on maximizing gains in social satisfaction, rather than maximizing profit gains. Despite the established definition social entrepreneurship remains a difficult concept to define, since it may be manifested in multiple forms.
Social entrepreneur is a person who pursues an innovative idea with the potential to solve a community problem. While conventional entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return the social entrepreneurs take into account a positive return to society and attempts to promote broad social, cultural and environmental goals often associated with the voluntary sector.
These individuals are willing to take on the risk and effort to create positive changes in society through their initiatives. Successful examples of social entrepreneurship include microfinance institutions, need based community educational programs, providing banking and ATM services in underserved areas, helping children orphaned by epidemic diseases, and many more. The foremost object of a social entrepreneur is not to earn a profit, but to bring widespread improvements in the society.
Social entrepreneurship is an attempt to draw upon business techniques to find solutions to social problems. This concept may be applied to agricultural sector in wider perspectives by the research and extension scientists in a range of areas with different size, aim, and beliefs.
Agri- livestock based activities
In present day life large numbers of single old couples, young and job couples, working men and women, students, etc. are residing in apartments and colonies of sub-urban and urban areas for their currier. Majority of them have neither time nor knowledge and strength for numbers of works in the day to day life. It may be good opportunity for service as well as social entrepreneurship.
Under “social entrepreneurship” activities may include; home delivery of milk, milk products, animal products, bread, butter, grocery items, cut as well as fresh vegetables, flowers and garlands for home worship, herbal products, cut flowers, articles of gardening, commodities for small-small functions, and many more. The individual demand schedule for such items may be a small but cumulative and total demand schedule will be quite a large amount.
Small scale pet clinics at pet owners’ door step, veterinary consultancy services in remote and hilly areas may be few such steps for veterinary profession. The demand of animal based products are finding good place in the diversified food basket of all the people. These include and may be included by motivation i.e. Fluid milk (pasteurized, flavoured, sterilized, toned, homogenized, etc. milk); Functional milk products (Low calorie dairy milk products, vitamin ; mineral fortified products, probiotic dairy products); Fat rich products, heat desiccated as well as acid coagulated, fermented, and many such kinds of dairy products.
Large number of unemployed graduates is running for small and petty jobs, they may be the job giver rather job seekers through such activities. They may identify activities as per their choice and may form a group or co-operative society for this work and in due course of time may deploy other unemployed literates and illiterates young force of the area and activity as per the size of enterprise. Besides there are many other need based activities that may be started for the society like; dog crutch, training, modern nursing.
In the process of social entrepreneurship one thing entrepreneur must realize that, numbers of persons work till late night and accordingly they wake-up late in the morning. Therefore regular disturbance in this process of social entrepreneurs is intolerable. As per current culture they also want time tag and management from entrepreneurs. One of the prime protections in this enterprise required is the trust of public and your commitments.
Key categories of social enterprises
Groups focused on social entrepreneurship may be divided into several categories viz.;
- community-based enterprises,
- socially responsible enterprises,
- social services professionals, and
- socio-economic enterprises.
Community-based enterprises are based on social ventures of an entire community that uses its culture and capital to empower itself as an entire enterprise. There are organizations dedicated to empowering social entrepreneurs, connecting them with mentors, strengthening their enterprise models, and preparing them for capital investments. Help of such organizations may also be taken to initiate the enterprise.
Models of social entrepreneurship
These may fall under three different models, applicable in different situations and socio-economic environments;
- Non-Profit influenced: This model influences resources to respond social needs. It makes innovative use of available funds to impact need bur are more traditional in dealing with issues. They are distinguished by their innovative approaches.
- Hybrid Non-Profit: This structure is willing to use profit to sustain its operations. It can take variety of operations. Such organizations are often created to deal with government or market failures, as they generate revenue to sustain the operation to meet out loans, grants, and other forms of traditional funding.
- Community Business Project: This model aims to fetch changes through social means. They lack funding and hence forced to become for profit but not to the extent as others due to social service.
Role of Technology
The Internet and social network sites have been pivotal resources for the success and collaboration of many social entrepreneurs. Presently, Internet has become useful in disseminating information in shortest possible time. In addition, Internet allows pooling of design resources using open source principles. These media allow ideas to be heard by broader audiences, help networks and investors to develop globally, and to achieve their goals with little or no start-up capital.
For example, open source appropriate technology as a sustainable development paradigm enables people all over the world to collaborate on solving local problems just as open source software development leverages collaboration. The promise of livestock and allied sectors development will be realized through the spread of new ideas and solutions to the challenges facing producers and consumers.
Innovations and opportunities have potential to help millions of smallholder farmers and build better lives for themselves and their families. But it is also true that innovations alone do not create sustainable solutions in agriculture and sustainable rural development. These new solutions endure only when social entrepreneurs have a community-level understanding, build a broad citizen base of support, introduce incentives for participation, and bring down traditional barriers to entry.
This partnership will allow launching social entrepreneurs and their powerful, pattern-changing ideas that are built on this bottom up approach. Additionally, as a product of the increased number of entrepreneurs in this area and their broad base of supporters, agencies will be able to identify transformative principles that will ultimately revolutionize the field.
From a very macro point of view, social entrepreneurs want large scale societal change in realigning our otherwise misconstrued social pyramid to place our rural communities, farmers and women artisans at the very top for the respect and standing they deserve. Economic, environmental ; human development are tools they want to use to truly create that fundamental change and they are learning to differentiate their decisions from the typical startup way.
Low cost Franchising: It is one of the ways to take-up new venture. Franchises with lower costs can make it easier to plan to be their own boss. Here is a look to harvest successful opportunities.
Primary stakeholders of the system:
- government ; policy makers,
- scientists ; research organizations,
- local farmers ; rural communities,
- industry, private enterprises, entrepreneurs, partners, supporting organizations ; collaborators
- regular consumers.
Franchises decided to connect four concepts: Lab – Farm – Machine – Market, with the aim of creating a business that connects the benefits for local farmers and industry with reformation of livestock and agriculture sector. The challenge in this way is that we as a business are not yet capable to innovate in laboratories, develop best product preparation methods or processing machinery. But what we can do to fulfill the need for organized effort to create a confluence and an ecosystem for various stakeholders to collaborate, deliberate, co-create and develop.
Franchises act as enablers and facilitators to set up and develop the entire industrial ecosystem with the vision to reform the sector with its active role in the socio-economic uplift of farmers. They also work in collaboration with various public and private organizations that ranges from research institutes, government bodies and NGOs. Their final aim remains to create a self sustaining high yielding, high value livestock industry that involves a value chain of livestock producers, processors, packaging companies, marketers to engage local farmers and women artisans from the rural communities.
Through startup: Social entrepreneurship may also be started through a startup company. A startup is an entrepreneurial venture or a new business in the form of a company, partner, temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business. These companies generally newly created and are innovative in a process of development, validation and research for target markets. Finally the essence of startups is generally related to the concepts of ambition, innovation, scalability, and growth. Startup as an “organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.
Thinking in this way may lead the livestock as well as social sector to a new direction. The budding veterinarians and other concerned with livestock sector may play their vital role to boostup the sector.
