Model concept
From the first center, started ten years ago in Kolkata, to the current five centers in different parts of the country, the I Create journey has been quite exhilarating. Our approach to grass roots entrepreneurship training and development through decentralized service delivery (by our centers) and centralized knowledge pool, technical support and quality control (by I Create) has been a successful model. We refer to this as the Modified Business Format Franchising.
I Create has been fortunate in forming partnership with the sponsors of the five currently operating centers who are also equally committed to the cause of economic empowerment. Building on its success at the current centers in India, I Create is now prepared and ready to sign up more partners to sponsor and operate additional centers in India.
Modified Business Format Franchise (MBFF)
Franchising in the commercial world is not new or unique. The original “Trade Name” franchising has been gradually overtaken by the “Business Format Franchising (BFF)” in many successful ventures. It is one of the fastest growing models for entrepreneurship development. The essential difference between the two is that the later format not only lends its trade name (like the former) to the franchisee, but it also provides with an entire system of doing business. It is this system approach of Business Format Franchising that we wish to bring to the non-profit world through our model. We believe that even the non-profit organizations should be run on the principles of any disciplined business – with plans, accountability for performance, systems to handle all known and some time unknown variations, fiscal responsibility etc. We call our model “Modified Business Format Franchise”, as certain aspects of BFF, like excessive standardization, over-bureaucratization and expenses like franchise fee etc have been done away with and central theme of system-dependency (as opposed to people dependency) has been retained.
Key Elements of I Create MBFF
Any organization or individual wishing to start an I Create Center needs to meet certain broad criteria:
- First of all, it should demonstrate that its mission is congruent with that of I Create- viz. economic empowerment of the disadvantaged members of society through grass roots entrepreneurship development.
- I Create, in partnership with NFTE, has developed country-appropriate program and teaching methodology – for India. This has kept the disadvantaged, urban and rural members of our society in mind – their education level, fluency or lack there-of in English and other socio-economic factors.
- The methodology of instructions through interactive sessions, participatory games, live case studies, guest lectures from actual entrepreneurs (local) who have started and achieved success ( as also those who have faced challenges) etc have been standardized and well documented.
- The entity desirous of setting up a center needs to be a non-profit organization or even an individual with the objective of providing practical and effective entrepreneurial education in addition to any other social/developmental objective.
- The partnering entity can be structured as one of the following – Trust, Society or a Company under section 25 in India. The potential partner can be an existing organization or a yet-to-be formed one.
- The partner organization will be the Grand Sponsor of I Create center in the designated geographic area and the center can be named appropriately to reflect the fact.
The Sponsor of the Center and I Create will enter in to an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding). This will define the roles, responsibilities and duties of different parties. The key points of the MOU are:
Center Sponsor
- Provide necessary resources & guidance to Center Director, in coordination with I Create.
- Be willing to serve as an active member of the Advisory Council of I Create.
Center Director/Administration
- Plan & Implement program for out-reach to target groups.
- Develop annual plan for approval and implementation.
- Implement the approved plan of programs
- Develop and maintain network of Master Trainers and Mentors.
- Participate in various events and programs initiated by I Create.
I Create
- Coordinate setting up and managing of the centers.
- Provide guidance to the centers in their program implementation
- Continued documentation and sharing of best practices from various centers.
- Provide guidance and assistance to Centers, in achieving access to capital for entrepreneurs.
Details of I Create Model
The MBFF model developed and successfully implemented by I Create has the core principles of BFF as evidenced in the following:
- I Create, in partnership with NFTE, has developed country-appropriate program and teaching methodology – for India. This has kept the disadvantaged, urban and rural members of our society in mind – their education level, fluency or lack there-of in English and other socio-economic factors.
- The methodology of instructions through interactive sessions, participatory games, live case studies, guest lectures from actual entrepreneurs (local) who have started and achieved success ( as also those who have faced challenges) etc have been standardized and well documented.
- Our training program “Training Of Trainers (TOT)” imparts the methodology to potential Master Trainers.
- Selection criteria for those wanting to participate in the TOT and be certified as Master Trainer have been carefully identified and documented.
- Duration and course content have been adjusted to meet the needs of different target groups (literate, semi-literate, Tribal, college students, youth etc) without compromising the core content necessary for basic understanding.
- The course material is available in local language of the areas of operation. Currently these are available in Bengali, Hindi, Gujarathi and Kannada. Translation in to different languages and local case studies will be added as new centers in other areas get established.
- I Create helps control the quality of the program delivery through actual observation, retraining of Master Trainers, sharing of best practices, refresher courses etc.
- I Create monitors the effectiveness of the programs through structured reporting on key performance indicators and comparing them against the plans.We pool best practices from various centers and share them with all.
- Centers are permitted to and in fact encouraged to use “I Create” brand in the out-reach and publicity. They have easy access to different resources available at I Create.
However, the “Modified” in MBFF arises on account of the following:
- While we do specify the general infra structure requirements – office space, computers, training facilities etc, we do not insist on “exacting standards” for space, size of rooms, type of computers, furniture etc.
- We let the ingenuity and creativity at the local level, coupled with available resources, determine these things.
- We encourage local leadership and staff to think out-of-the-box for the challenges faced, without compromising the quality of the core program.
- The administrative burden of “reports” is minimal.
- There is no franchise fee, royalty or marketing expenses to be paid to I Create.
