Shanghai provided a welcome change to the tide of IT that swept us away in Beijing. An exciting array of companies was on the itinerary, but the most intriguing companies on offer were the ones revolving around the rapidly growing society of social entrepreneurs (pun intended).

The 15^th of December had a surprise in store for the iLead marauders, who were busy painting the city of Shanghai red. Instead of Smith Street Solutions, we were going to visit a very interesting company by the name of Brown Rice, led by Philippine fashion designer and charity enthusiast Bonita Lim. While Brown Rice remains a design consultancy, they also have their very own brand, NuoMi, offering women some environmentally friendly, natural fashion. NuoMi literally means Brown Rice, a name inspired by the featured earth-friendly products made with fair trade and social enterprise practices. According to Bonita, “A NuoMi woman is simple, practical and knows what she wants. She does not follow style blindly.”

Social enterprises are defined as businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners. Of course, these words do little to delve into the shroud of confusion surrounding the topic. However, a key difference between charities and social enterprises is the fact that the latter are businesses, which means the usual rules of profit-making and a good business plan hold fort.

I think that visiting several different social enterprises through this Study Mission has been a thoroughly eye-opening experience, in terms of going beyond the definition of social entrepreneurship, and exploring the subject through the eyes of the daring entrepreneurs willing to take up social responsibility, and integrate the same with their businesses. Being an aspiring social entrepreneur myself, it was unbelievably inspiring, like words cannot describe inspiring, but at the same time humbling in the realization of severe difficulties and challenges in addition to the already tough journey of entrepreneurship.

The crown of social entrepreneurship adorned by Brown Rice is showcased in Bonita’s words, “Our products are made of silk, organic cotton, bamboo and re-used materials. We work with local based designers and small producers to customize our products, materials, and for purposes of job creation.” a crown that is majestic, brilliant and resplendent in all manner of speaking. They have programs all across the world to provide means of livelihood to the helpless. In Philippines, Brown Rice Livelihood Program gives tailoring opportunities to imprisoned women, their crimes being poverty related 90% of the time, including prostitution and drug trafficking. Most of these women have children with no means to feed and sustain them otherwise. In Kenya, unemployed mothers have been given the role of knitting baby sweaters, which are then imported from Africa. While we were all deeply moved by the initiatives, one of us expressed curiosity about how Bonita was able to reach out to these people. Her response was interesting, “I seek out these people only through personal contacts in the government. You need to be cautious so that you don’t end up helping the wrong party.”

As I pointed out before, social enterprises are not charities, and obviously we were curious whether Brown Rice made any profit. Bonita was very frank telling us that they were indeed running in loss. While I choose to keep the exact figures confidential in respect to the trust Bonita placed in us, more important is the profit driven mentality as they have a vision of translating the losses into significant profits within the next few years. Currently Brown Rice has only 4 outlets. A small digression, Bonita pointed out that each of these stores has a unique look, although sharing a similar theme of nature and purity. Her vision is not to create a chain, but a boutique. She also said that the studios were sufficient to support up to 10 stores, which she described as a Mini-Van powered by a Porsche engine.” Thus, the future is bright with Brown Rice looking to target the second tier cities, apart from Shanghai, which is a difficult market with consumers having an in-born tendency to negotiate prices.

Apart from this, I would also like to touch upon their highly horizontal organisation structure, which was different from the usual pyramid built by companies. At Brown Rice, everyone is a leader. When a team calls Bonita with a problem, they not only have a well-defined problem but also have five different solutions to the same. She only plays the role of a mentor and gives her opinion on the solutions. The team then makes its own decision .However, everyone needs to take complete responsibility for the decisions they make. Hence, employees at Brown Rice are expected to have very good self-management skills and the company on the whole works on the foundation of trust.

After the highly interactive and enlightening discussion with Bonita we proceeded to the NuoMi store in Tianzifang where we were able to experience fashion, the NuoMi way. As I conclude this post, I am touched and motivated to reach out to my goal of creating a globally dominant social enterprise with renewed vigour and passion. As little drops of water make a mighty ocean, every effort taken by such social enterprises goes a long way. As budding entrepreneurs, we too must strive to make this world a better place to live in and do a little bit in our own way to serve the society.

Tags: Brown Rice, fashion, NuoMi, social entrepreneurship

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Shanghai, Social Enterpreneurship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.