Ethnicproject
Strategy
ARNAUD SEGLA
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
and Library and Archives Canada cataloguing in publication
Segla, Arnaud, 1978
[Stratégie de projets ethniques. English]
Ethnic project Strategy
Translation of: Stratégie de projetsethniques
ISBN KDP:9781790671168
1. Entrepreneurship.2. Minority business enterprises. I. Title.
II. Title.Stratégie de projets ethniques. English.
.
Legal deposit
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, 2017 Library and Archives Canada, 2017
Book and cover design: ASSOUKA
Cover illustration: © Arzawe
Translation: Idoron
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© THE WISEMEN COUNCIL, 2017
Sommaire
Sommaire 3
Introduction 5
Before you start 7
STEP 1 – DEFINITION 7
STEP 2 – INITIATION 9
STEP 3 – PREPARATION 9
STEP 4 – LAUNCHING 11
STEP 5 – CONSOLIDATION 11
STEP 6 – DEVELOPMENT 12
STEP 7 – INTENSIFICATION 25
STEP 8 – REALIGNMENT 26
STEP 9 – TRANSITION 27
STEP 10 – CONVERSION 28
STEP 11 – TRANSMISSION 29
TRANSVERSAL STEP 30
Conclusion 32
The goal of my project is to give an alternative method to entrepreneurs who have urgent financial needs. Despite the challenges, the informal route is privileged, and is here to serve as a basis to a transition towards the market economy. To be competitive and performing in the sphere of the globalization of exchanges implies defining new models to aid in the insertion of marginalized sectors. As far as the community economy is concerned, the creation of bridges between the ethnic entrepreneurs (diasporas) and the informal ones (motherlands) permits us to vision pertinent strategic levers. A Body of knowledge in ethnic and informal entrepreneurship therefore takes its meaning in the effort to assure a better economic boom and to reduce the human imprint of poverty.
“Each Human is
important to the eyes of God.”
Introduction
Ethnic and informal entrepreneurship was long-time accused for its lack of initiative and realism to assure satisfaction standards asked by the non-community clientele. This has restrained access to a larger market to these products and services (outputs) from economic players of this sector. With the inputting of contribution and the adaptation of management tools like strategy, it becomes possible to transform these gaps with the opportunity to play at a level playing field or equitable with local entrepreneurs. This is in order to manage such businesses like a project and a project like a business (especially community and development projects). This guide, written in a particular style, presents a proximity approach to take profit of the time to produce quality as a sales pitch. It bases on learning techniques (of the environment and of the profession) and later, on the habilitation by the acquired competencies and, finally, on the affirmation of the action and sensitization of the community. To finish, this guide supports the process developed in my project structure model (complete), shown as part of my courses and of the coaching offered elsewhere:
Definition – Vocation – Idea – Vision – Mission – Objective – Strategy – Tactics – Action Plan – Projects – Utility.
Before you start
This guide prepares the publication of the theoretical fundamentals that underlie the alternative approach nicknamed under the label “Business in the Box”. As you will see, the theoretical fundamentals use simple and innovative results to define a law of management permitting you to carry out the promotion of one’s services or products on the Internet by associating technology and the traditional means… This targets the objectives of wealth (lean effort and promotion effort) and pride (image affirmation and charismatic effort) which are dear to the Ka Method and to Eco Animism. We therefore define a monetary flux (real or virtual) and an information flux (technological or traditional) which, under reserve of the mastery of accomplishment time of each step (in terms of maturity), guarantees the quality of the deliverable and therefore the rise of the project. The following 11 steps are a strategy of architecture proposition adaptable to your case that corresponds to many phases of development (creation, launching, first 6 months…) from my alternative model.
Let’s discover now the 11 steps of the ethnic project strategy that I propose.
STEP 1 – DEFINITION
Everything starts with your definition (activity and motivation). Once it has been established, the effective promotion of your project cannot start until you possess two essential elements: the project’s plan (including the business model) and a starting budget (based on a market study and evaluation). The latter made up of firstly having access to a credit card (or a line of credit), for example, by a job that gives us the guarantee (by way of the introduction of a savings system). The plan can be thought of at will but access to a credit card is important and depends on different elements such as credit history, credit score, or financial behavior. It is essential to approach your financial institution to negotiate. Quit taking time to restructure yourself (savings blocked as collateral or other solutions issue good personal finance practices). The credit card will give scope to our promotional action to accomplish the project’s plan. This will assure us a resource in which we can deplete and in which we must put in funds whether we are in investment or enrichment mode. Attention: we cannot use more than 50% of one’s amount for our activities in order to maintain our credit score.
In one word
The latter made up of firstly having access to a credit card (or a line of credit), for example, by a job that gives us the guarantee (by way of the introduction of a savings system). The plan can be thought of at will but access to a credit card is important and depends on different elements such as credit history, credit score, or financial behavior.
It will also help us smooth the monetary flux like an accumulator. The amount of the credit card depends on the scope of your project or on the phase in which it is in. We should note that the project finds its justification in the fact that we found that one has a utility that inserts itself without prejudice in the community and that we will be trading as a vocation (to go to the heart of the community and economic model) to develop it.
STEP 2 – INITIATION
The project’s plan (including the business model) and the credit card permit us to initiate the project or campaign in its physical structure (business and actor) and its virtual double (website or image). The initiation concerns itself with legal declarations and starts in the leadership campaign via the construction of the website or the act of assembling the image tools online. At this step, the preparation is the main effort to admit. It consists of visioning the long term for the two elements making up the project or campaign and to descend it upon each aspect in which it is created whether it be chosen or built. The initiation acts as a precursor to the heritage transmitted to the successor (future leader). It is to put in place the vehicle which will improve through the exercises (project life), that is, through your work or your campaign until your retirement. Later we will talk more about the project, the business and the website uniquely but a strategic effort remains valid for the actor and its image in the area of one’s leadership campaign. For me, contemporary entrepreneurship is also a question of leadership and enterprise or personal image communication.
STEP 3 – PREPARATION
The credit card, the business and the website permit us to be present in a market, with a clear positioning and a product or service to sell. Before even starting the enhancement of our position on the market, it is good to make adjustments and tests with a segment of our market or a sample of our product or service.
In one word
It is good to solicit people that are susceptible to be clients after the launching. This is to avoid creating a distortion during the launching by knowing the clientele’s profile. There are tendencies to fear: the copying of ideas (justified or not), due to the capacity of observation and of human pivot.
It serves as an internal verification at the business. It is good to solicit people that are susceptible to be clients after the launching. This is to avoid creating a distortion during the launching by knowing the clientele’s profile. There are tendencies to fear: the copying of ideas (justified or not), due to the capacity of observation and of human pivot. I think that it is not a major risk even if it is clear that this can be common for those with a low innovation level. There is enough market share to obtain for everyone and each project is part of a dynamic that is beyond human reach but holds of Providence and destiny via Time. Resorting to potential clients maximizes the effect of the project’s pertinence and demands a greater intuition in the elaboration of the project’s plan since a weak sample of one’s clients are surveyed as a test. If we look at the military strategy, we must have the power to use three tricks: the advantage of the land (good positioning), the preparation (before the launching), as well as the logistic (plan of the project and credit card). As I have said, in the ethnic economy, some ideas do not have a big innovation that renders them easily reproducible or adaptable by another entrepreneur. It is better to prepare yourself well under your own roof and to go about in a frank way in combat knowing that you must adapt yourself to reality (market response) instead of innovate from the concept (recommended in classic approaches). This approach is desired but everyone can’t afford it.
STEP 4 – LAUNCHING
With the business, the website, the market and the positioning, the product or service is launched to the greater public and allows it to define the stakeholder groups of our project: sector experts (mentors, counselors and coaches), professional facilitators (accountants, lawyers and bankers), authorities (regulators), clients from the host country (locals), and clients from our community (ethnic). These stakeholders constitute the five forces that will make use of resources for the growth of the project. Note that there is no polarization wanted with the competitors themselves (if they exist); the goal is to concentrate on the quality of our product or service as well as on the relationship with the clientele in the image of the spirit of solidarity that reigns in informal trade, despite the apparent opposition of the economic actors’ purpose. The latter must each sell a minimum number of products without adversely affecting the other. Observing the competition does not make us dwell on it but acts as an emulation to improve our offer of the product or service and excel (in terms of quality/leadership and performance/time).
STEP 5 – CONSOLIDATION
The product or service and the stakeholders will quickly permit us to make a place or name in our profession body: economic project promoter, professionals and entrepreneurs. Businesspeople are nothing but a more advanced form of an entrepreneur in the sense that they do not derive their profit stemming from their product or service entirely from their business but also from stock market investments and other investments in other structures. Often, the consolidation concerns the first six months of the exercise of the project or as long as working capital is available. This is a critical period where our efforts and quality must be at an optimum to facilitate the reputation and loyalty of our clientele and especially the creation of a community to support in a subsequent step. It is at this step where the general quality and specific image of the business progressively become major and predominant competitive advantages of the ethnic project. Off course there is a cost to quality but you must have in perspective the added value to the product or service and then to its commercialization.
STEP 6 – DEVELOPMENT
The stakeholders and the profession body of the promoters of economic projects impose the implementation of the ethnic project’s strategy. This strategy calls out to 11 states of the ethnic entrepreneur, to effort and to remunerated work. The 11 states are tactics that the entrepreneur can use according to the configuration of the market and the economic environment all while considering their internal resources. They can decline and become more or less pertinent according to the seven periods of the project’s accomplishment or of the promoter of the project (see in Ka Method).
We do not force Time but we adapt to what it brings us as challenges and opportunities to accomplish our ethnic project without depending too much on one’s environment. Such is the main paradigm beyond where we create tension in the exercise of one’s ethnic entrepreneur profession. The heart of the method is that the best strategy is to have no rigorous strategic planning but to know how to adapt to the market to defend and advance our vision and our definition by way of the business’ mission, its performance and our attitude. Planning is a frame of the strategic action don’t replace it. As long as we are not being taken into planning in strict detail, it is nevertheless good to write what we will do in an action plan. Therefore, it serves to create a list of actions (equivalent to a backlog in agile project management) for the defined project plan (equivalent to scripts) and to thoroughly realize them according to the opportunities and constraints by mini phases or sub-projects (equivalent to sprints). The course permits it to readjust (iterations and bonuses for commercialized deliverables). It is what I call working with empty hands (at least in this mind-frame). That being said this implies maintaining a mastery of the tools and competencies to always profit from the environment and to not be a slave.
The 11 states are therefore the minimum tools and competencies whereby we have ways to lead an ethnic strategy based on the learning and adaptation to unite one’s innovation to the tradition of the profession now well. Once the starting conditions have been respected (notably the positioning) and the launching has been done, the entrepreneur uses tools (marketing, software, financials, etc.) and competencies (writing, selling, management, etc.) at a good knowledge to attain one’s objectives according to the stages. It is all just a question of spirit or state of mind, and skill. It is characteristic of the informal economy.
In one word
Planning is a frame of the strategic action don’t replace it. As long as we are not being taken into planning in strict detail, it is nevertheless good to write what we will do in an action plan.
Effort is a constant and a requirement to promote an ethnic project. As to the paying job often at part-time or of temporary manner (to constitute a saving and later a credit), it is a solution to the lack of access and financial resources (main barrier) in cities where diasporas are installed. The two are important for the functioning of the strategy such as the amounts of our development ladder where the 11 rungs are the following states (states of mind). It does not serve as a process but as a toolbox of tactics/routines. They are presented here in a similar way indicative to those who want to go farther by the Ka Method:
The 11 states are typical attitudes to adopt that accompany the developmental strategy of one’s ethnic project. They are clearly more accessible to comprehend that the general political theory of the business makes intervene concepts such as specialisation, diversification and competitive advantage that are useful but dissociate the human from his business in my view. In an ultimate phase, it is possible to appropriate one’s notions, notably in the transition phase (farther), but for now, it is okay to correct and model one’s tacit informal knowledge.
State 1: To moderate one’s dependence to the effects of terrestial time and to put oneself in the persepective of the accomplishment of one’s destiny
Let some time pass before taking action and wait for the right moment. (Letting go; Terrestial impermanence; Geb)
State 2: To be simple in one’s strategic choices and to integrate God’s hand to one’s actions
Surrender to pleasure and display oneself as one is. (To abandon; Liberty; Heru)
State 3: To know how to simulate in a realist way one’s innovations without anticipation of the expected result
Try first with a sample, improve your craft, and then find your population. (To first try; Imagination; Het Heru)
State 4: To correct one’s economic attitude to improve the performance of their business
Conquer one’s fear. (To dominate; Verb; Sebek)
State 5: The information flux generated by one’s business is useful to the entire community and vice versa
To be organized in one’s effort. (To be organized; Interdependence; Maat)
State 6: To nourish one’s charisma of one’s pride to undertake to affirm one’s leadership
To experience peace and confidence without retaining it. (To experience; Peace; Amen)
State 7: The acquisition of the knowledge available online is a step towards the rehabilitation of the role of workforce quality
To be assiduous to natural effort and the reflection it gives itself. (To be assiduous; Wisdom; Tehuti)
State 8: The practice of the entrepreneur career requires a rite of effort on oneself and the promotional resources of the activity (To take care; Transcendence; Auset)
Taking care of oneself: sleep, food and exercise.
State 9: To (re)structure the business to key phases in its evolution permits to maintain the equilibrium between the market and the community
To sanitize one’s finances and to constitute a heritage all by looking to one’s connection to life. (To sanitize; Uniqueness; Ausar)
State 10: To maintain one’s attitude calmly to preserve one’s intention of continued effort entirely throughout one’s life project
To be lean in one’s intention and to integrate the maximum number of concepts to one’s attitude. (To be lean; Justice; Herukhuti)
State 11: To see in the finance a personal and community accomplishment tool and not the project owner of life projects
Avoid all dualities in conflict. (To forget; God’s spiritual power; Sekher)
STEP 7 – INTENSIFICATION
The belonging to the profession body of economic project promoters and the application of the ethnic project strategy can cause an excess of “doing” by impatience and stress of the promoters when those people have a strong desire to succeed, to assure their social mobility and are scared of not having enough time to live their life project. This leads to a use of substitutes that do not forcefully respect the profession’s spirit and chosen strategy, which can lead to a decrease in quality as well as the project’s performance. A recommendation is therefore to survey the customer’s satisfaction and to establish corrective measures that will impose themselves in one’s production chain in a priority manner. It is hard to have a database of fans and prospects at the start, and later, loyal clients, and lastly, a community that support. It would be regrettable to lose the work put in place in one’s strategy at the moment when it’s time to change the volume of one’s sales and grow. It is to repeat tirelessly the tactics of development by respecting the states by taking care to respect economic cycles and the cycle of the ethnic project (believing, federating, prospering and sharing). The goal of intensification is therefore to prepare to integrate the liberal market from the expanding community structure.
STEP 8 – REALIGNMENT
To maintain the ethnic project’s strategy by taking into account the excess of “doing” by impatience and by the stress of its promoters calls to coming back to the quality in life to reconnect with the quality in the product or service. This imposes slowing down a little bit to regenerate and dose one’s efforts in the event that the project is in a more mature phase. This is not possible before, as long as the project is still in a phase of critical growth. It is equally the moment to identify the successor. Adjustments are necessary to align the gears of the business with a cultural system with dedicate customer to a liberalised system with mobile clientele. The gear is the economic actor itself and its faculty is to reflect reality in its analysis and to make good decisions, such as exposing more the excess of “doing” can lead to unjustified decisions. We recommend taking responsible and thought-over acts based on the intuition and a set of attitudes (internal disposition and behavior) where observation (within the meaning of “practice”) is suitable to informed choices. Realignment imposes making the distinction between its assets to oneself, developed during its growth in a privileged way in the community economy by the alternative and informal approach, and the codes of the market economy.
In one word
The gear is the economic actor itself and its faculty is to reflect reality in its analysis and to make good decisions, such as exposing more the excess of “doing” can lead to unjustified decisions.
It is good to take into consideration both sides of what makes sense for the project and to comply with the laws. You should not hesitate to confirm the present alternative concept all by not being in the margins of economic systems. It has in its DNA to assure to the majority of ethnic and informal entrepreneurs an advantageous transition to the liberal economy. It is at this level that you can make links with the general policy of the enterprise as it is presented habitually. At this state, the fundamentals of the Ka Method and of Eco Animism propose a series of correspondence to navigate better through them.
STEP 9 – TRANSITION
Quality is an important asset to differentiate and position oneself in the liberal market. However, this cannot suffice. It is good to make a choice in the offer price of this quality or to consider the buying power of this new target clientele of the new market. This is necessary before repositioning (in a vision of market’s expanding). There are two possibilities. The prices’ efforts can be internally transmitted based on the revenue of the output without it being very sensitive to the price. In the latter case, we build complementary niches that can add themselves to others in the framework of a customers portfolio. At this moment, you lose, little by little, the ethnic or informal character of your business to integrate yourself entirely in the local economy. It is good to take interest in the successor by initially helping without taking too much responsibility. The challenge of the Transition step is therefore the identification, selection and validation of markets for your product. It does not serve anymore to content oneself with the niches acquired for oneself or the support of the community but to capture a local clientele that is exposed to a variety of offers for products and services that is, as well, is ruptured to the practice of being a requirement to one’s standards of satisfaction. Finding markets imply reinforcing the promotion of the product or service and disposing a minimal distribution network to respond to the demand if this is also involved. It is ideally important not to lose all the acquired assets in the informal economy, notably the human spirit that surrounds the presenting of the service or the delivery of the product. That human relationship must rule and be implemented so that in your entrepreneurial leadership, you must not be confined to the cold management of indicators and dashboards but instead you should give an alive face through yourself to your business project.
STEP 10 – CONVERSION
Although communities comprising the flow of economic migrants have not necessarily been known for a marked proselytism, it seems important for them to take the lead of an affirmative actions and fight in the liberal market to overcome and do not disappear culturally facing a form of economic oppression which goes further than the past globalization. It is here more matter of a conversion to a market or local economy (expansion) rather than a conversion in structure or nature (attribution). The quality and passage to market economy entrepreneurship is full of long-term enrichment.
It normally permits to access a potentially more important volume of prospects. By converting to this type of entrepreneurship is what qualify as “canonic”: we can either adopt one’s codes (some minimally to communicate in the market system), or make from our informal approach a sales asset. This is notably the case with customer service. It is not fair to condemn the economic actors due to the lack of professionalism that was long-time observed in the ethnic and informal economy to believe not in one’s chances for success. In this guide, I insist on the importance of the quality of the output, on learning of the competencies of the profession and the adaptability to the reality of the market for a better performance. Once the factors are integrated into the correction of past attitudes, it becomes more advantageous to re-enter in competition with the rest of the entrepreneurs of the host society. The successor owes its future role to present knowledge and should be more interested in the management of the economic structure. Let’s notice that ethnic enterprises became also a local enterprises when they settle back in their motherlands.
STEP 11 – TRANSMISSION
The transmission of the ethnic or informal business can therefore be done with a successor ready to manage the community as much as he or she would the market economy. This person needs to be impregnated with the spirit that has presided at the long strategy of integration into the local economy. It is therefore highly probable that the techniques of management adopted by this person be roughly consistent with those of the liberal economy but it is good to keep what remains beneficial to the pursuit of the business project. This new profile takes commands with one’s capital, one’s capacities and one’s entrepreneurial soul to face new challenges. It permits to concede adjustments to facilitate transmission. Finally, the most important thing is that the community does not lose a utility that is not part of its heritage. The choice of selling an ethnic or informal business is tearing enough when we know the outcome of who is their successor. It is good that the evolution of the community business park permits the entire community to start an economic boom thanks to the social individual mobility of its members notably due to entrepreneurship.
In one word
The prices’ efforts can be internally transmitted based on the revenue of the output without it being very sensitive to the price. In the latter case, we build complementary niches that can add themselves to others in the framework of a customers portfolio.
TRANSVERSAL STEP
The transversal step to this strategic guide is the one that concerns Man in his leadership in entrepreneurship that is a guarantee of the quality and makes a difference in the market. My vision of entrepreneurship implies the mastery of many competencies of human faith, technical and spiritual. The business itself has multiple dimensions and evolves in a world with economic cycles and natural perturbations.
We therefore distinguish Man, his soul and body, and the business as his double in the referential of richness and value creation with these same attributes. The virtual turn has already started and it needs reinforcement with the judicious usage of all of the Internet’s possibilities. The whole challenge is to re-centre attention to Man who is the heart of decisions that influence life on the entire planet. Therefore, it gives us the occasion to allude to personal daily routines such as support to willingness or indicator of the state of the entrepreneurial soul.
It is good, for those who live according to senses and not to things, to make a form of daily sacrifice, personal and symbolic to mark one’s engagement to pursue one’s life project. This can be accomplished by stretching every day, waking up early, watering a plant, systematically washing the dishes after every meal without waiting, feeding the birds, having a coffee before one’s work shift or even simply praying. It is generally something we did not like doing before the start of the project or that benefits others. Do not find from noon to 2 P.M. the magic effect or a hidden power. It is an aid to manifest your determination and your willingness and an indicator of your level of motivation. Neither pleasure nor constraints are what are looked for but rather the possibility to have a ritual or personal routine associated with the business of our business project. The sense is indeed personal as well as the force of conviction that emerges. The goal is to create an effective relationship (based on the importance of the mood and one’s transmission through empathy) between the economic actor and its double, the enterprise. Therefore, this can constitute assistance in apprehending this feeling of progressive accomplishment if you do not have it already throughout the results of your daily action.
Conclusion
“Love your neighbor like thyself”. These words from Jesus Christ is not only to be simply taken as a reinforcement of compassion towards the members of one’s community but also as an exhortation to honor the gift of life that we received in us. Therefore, it is important to find a means of expression to the saintly project (saint in the sense of “apart”) and divine that accompanies our journey as a creature predestined to adoration.
In one word
simply praying. It is generally something we did not like doing before the start of the project or that benefits others. Do not find from noon to 2 P.M. the magic effect or a hidden power. It is an aid to manifest your determination and your willingness and an indicator of your level of motivation.
Ethnic and informal entrepreneurship is a response to economic migrations that multiply in our contemporary world. Inter and intra states. This brings us to acquire new reflexes such as strategy, networking (community), effort and learning. Structuring one’s steps is not the most important, but to dispose both minimal resources and good attitude to adapt remains the new approach that makes Agility and Lean intervene. Quality in product or services and time performance are the key to an affirmative ethnic entrepreneurship !
Faced with the perverse effects of past globalization and the effects that we still observe in the violent movements of refusal of cultural entropy, it is convenient to replace Man as the center of attention whether it be in the political, economic, social and religious approaches or movements. In fact, faced with the incapacity to define a reason that gives hope to communities to work daily towards a common vision, the road to the nuclearization of economic actors to realize, in synergy, countless individual quantum leaps for the sufficiency of revenue is the new strategy against poverty and its actual corollary produces dishonesty and speculation. The following slogan supports this vision that stays in the line of messages at a universal and constant reach:
“Each Human is important to the eyes of God.”
Photo: Awa Lake Diop
Arnaud Segla M. Sc., M. Sc. Admin., CAPM. Consultant, Trainer and Coach specializing in ethnic, informal and corporate entrepreneurship. I organize and animate learning activities and accompany many entrepreneurs in the attaining of the objectives of their business project.