{"id":90,"date":"2013-09-09T19:53:13","date_gmt":"2013-09-09T14:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/?p=90"},"modified":"2019-12-15T08:32:51","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T03:02:51","slug":"on-social-enterprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/?p=90","title":{"rendered":"On social enterprises"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In my view, social enterprises are a class of enterprises which:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 15px;\">Have business models that are sustainable (Note: Profits or surpluses are the simplest and cleanest route to\u00a0sustainability\u00a0and growth; but other ways exist)<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Create value for society (or some part of it) by offering products and\/or services that address certain problems or unmet needs of society, but in the case of social enterprises also: 1) create significant positive social and\/or environmental impact and\/or 2) serve marginalized, under-served sections of society; typically those who have limited ability to pay for products and services or have limited access or could represent an unattractive commercial market segment, and\/or 3) create significant enhancement in quality of life, productivity, upward mobility of the economically weaker sections of the society.<\/li>\n<li>Inspires considerable good-will in society and can thus enlist the support of the government, charitable organisations, employees, customers, suppliers, investors etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Social enterprises have to be sustainable initiatives like any other commercial enterprises. The basics of building a social enterprises are the same as for commercial enterprises. The key difference is only in how they arrange to secure their resources.<\/p>\n<p>What constitutes a social enterprise is always contextual and changes with locations, times and specifics in each society.<\/p>\n<p>Examples of social enterprises:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 15px;\">A company addressing societies most pressing problems like health, water, food, energy etc with an element of compassion such as a company delivering clean drinking water in rural India, a company building local distributed clean energy solutions in rural India etc<\/span><\/li>\n<li>A company addressing needs of the disabled and aged.<\/li>\n<li>Companies working towards addressing the UN&#8217;s Millennium Development Goals by offering affordable solutions in the poorest regions of the world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Examples of enterprises unlikely (note: I am aware that there are exceptions) to be social enterprises:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 15px;\">A cigarette company<\/span><\/li>\n<li>A luxury fashion chain<\/li>\n<li>A jewellery chain<\/li>\n<li>A sports car company<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my view, social enterprises are a class of enterprises which: Have business models that are sustainable (Note: Profits or surpluses are the simplest and cleanest route to\u00a0sustainability\u00a0and growth; but other ways exist) Create value for society (or some part &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/?p=90\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-age-18-25","category-for-age-above-25-young-professionals","category-innovation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.premnath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}