Figure 9. The business model of Puki
4.3.1 Social Entrepreneur
The founder of Puki’s, Xiao Liang, used to work for an advertising company. Xiao Liang learned sign language and met many deaf students in the process of participating in an experience session at a sign language student club at local schools, where he was asked to deliver a design course. Xiao Liang, a very ambivalent man used his experiences and knowledge he gained from those deaf students he met to contribute to both to those in need ans a generally to society.
Xiao Liang is a person bold and audacious enough to practice his ideas regardless of what consequences or thoughts others may think of him. For example, he resigned from a lucrative job at a marketing company, entering a non-profit organization to pursue his great dream of marketing a non-profitt organization (NPO). The NPO Xiao Liang worked for had been commissioned a design case by the government. At the time, the NPO did not have a design team, so Xiao Liang out-sourced the case to the deaf students he knew for the school for the deaf he previously visited. To his surprise, the outcome of the design is acclaimed by his peers and all-round well received. Xiao Liang recognized that, although many of the graduates from design schools for the deaf were all-round outstanding students, the job opportunities which these graduates had a available were very limited or often unrelated to the specification of the students. Xiao Liang knew that such outstanding students, despite her inability to see, deserved more hopefully future. Xiao Liang founded a design company that employs deaf designers to ameliorate this problem, creating job opportunities for these outstanding applicants.
In the early stages of founding Puki, Xiao Liang’s idea proved much more successful than he had originally thought, attracted much talent. In the beginning, Xiao Liang only had bare ideas, without proper resources and partners. Nonetheless, he carried on designing his company logo and printed his business cards. Xiao Liang presented the preceding and his ideas to Ding Li, vice director of a social enterprise incubator called NPI. Ding li was immediately attracted to Puki’s social innovation concept. Simultaneously, NPI’s Nest project was also recruiting social enterprises providing serviced to the disabled. NPI provides incubation service and office space to those enterprise partners chosen. With Ding li’s approval and the service provided by the NPI, Xiao Liang successfully founded Puki in the Shanghai Social Innovation Incubation Park.
Xiao Liang founded a social enterprise, instead of an NPO. The distinguishing benefit is that a social enterprise can generate its own source of income and profit. And benefit of starting Puki as a social enterpise is that Xiao Liang would not be limited by several laws and formalities set by the government and various foundations that would slow and hinter Xiao Liang for achieving his ambitions with Puki.
4.3.2 Customer Segments
Originally, Puki planed to have a target customer audience like that of other NPOs with a design outsourcing demand to be their target customer. However, since more than 80 percent of Puki’s customers are for-proft enterprises, this was not the case. Xiao Liang draws comparison, noting that, although for NPO customers, what prices Puki charge are usually higher than other street printing stores, for enterprise customers, on the other hand, prices are considerably lower for their comparable quality. Puki is more popular for corporate customers than NPO customers, following suit Most of Puki’s corporate customers can be placed into the three following categories: the pharmaceutical industry (e.g. Sanofi-Aventis, Johnson, etc.), Banking Industry (e.g. DBS), and foundations.
4.3.3 Value Proposition
Puki hired many deaf designers, with 75 percent of Puki designers being deaf. This employment stategy allows Puki to provide design services for customers, while at the same time providing employment opportunities to those qualified deaf persons, thus aiding towards alleviating one area of social inequality.
4.3.4 Revenue Stream
Puki’s revenue is mainly generated and collected through various designing service fees. With these services fees, Puki has been able to break more than even with its yearly revenue is approximately 800 thousand RMB, accumulating a profit is that is about 20 percent costs.
4.3.5 Social and Environmental Benefit
In addition to creating job opportunities in design offices, Puki also provides a free training program for deaf students called “1+1.” Puki also matches deaf students with internship opportunities of major companies.
Besides creating job opportunities for the qualified deaf persons inside the company itself, Puki also furnishes opportunities outside the company. Puki provides 320 hours of skill training related programs and over 150 hours of career training programs. Although only about 50 percent of deaf applicants are actually taken up as employees, Xiao Liang believes that the opportunity of “building the self-confidence for deaf people” is much more important than the efficiency of creating jobs.
4.3.6 Channel
Puki’s main channel is its platform at the Shanghai Social Innovation Incubation Park.
4.3.7 Customer Relationships
Xiao Liang considers customer relationships with Puki structurally relatively passive. Most of customers were already aware of Puki when they visited Puki’s location at the Shanghai Social Innovation Incubation Park. Many customers come to Puki on their own regard, recognizing its value and desiring business intercourse with them.
4.3.8 Key Sources
The key resources of Puki are the deaf talents that they recruit. Despite having certain restrictions due to their disability, deaf designers often have the outstanding talent to stay concentrated on what they are designing. To some extent, Puki’s special mission to employ qualified deaf applicants is a type of social innovation, turning a commonly seen disadvantage into an inside business advantage. Puki works around the obsticles they face employing deaf persons, taking that do not require creative design projects that require listening and speaking abilities, but rather graphic design and layout designs where the high concentration advantage can be fully taken actualized.
4.3.9 Key Activities
The primary business activity of Puki is design. Puki’s team is equipted with one third hearing and two thirds deaf designers. Their enterprise provides design services comprises: (1) “brand management communication,” (2) “graphic design,” (3) “corporate image design,” (4) “exhibition planning and implementation,” and (5) “web pages and multimedia design.”
4.3.10 Key Partners
The most important partner of Puki is its incubator-NPI, who support Puki with space and business opportunities. Other partners include consultants foundations and deaf schools. Table 16 lists the partners of Puki.
4.3.1 Social Entrepreneur
The founder of Puki’s, Xiao Liang, used to work for an advertising company. Xiao Liang learned sign language and met many deaf students in the process of participating in an experience session at a sign language student club at local schools, where he was asked to deliver a design course. Xiao Liang, a very ambivalent man used his experiences and knowledge he gained from those deaf students he met to contribute to both to those in need ans a generally to society.
Xiao Liang is a person bold and audacious enough to practice his ideas regardless of what consequences or thoughts others may think of him. For example, he resigned from a lucrative job at a marketing company, entering a non-profit organization to pursue his great dream of marketing a non-profitt organization (NPO). The NPO Xiao Liang worked for had been commissioned a design case by the government. At the time, the NPO did not have a design team, so Xiao Liang out-sourced the case to the deaf students he knew for the school for the deaf he previously visited. To his surprise, the outcome of the design is acclaimed by his peers and all-round well received. Xiao Liang recognized that, although many of the graduates from design schools for the deaf were all-round outstanding students, the job opportunities which these graduates had a available were very limited or often unrelated to the specification of the students. Xiao Liang knew that such outstanding students, despite her inability to see, deserved more hopefully future. Xiao Liang founded a design company that employs deaf designers to ameliorate this problem, creating job opportunities for these outstanding applicants.
In the early stages of founding Puki, Xiao Liang’s idea proved much more successful than he had originally thought, attracted much talent. In the beginning, Xiao Liang only had bare ideas, without proper resources and partners. Nonetheless, he carried on designing his company logo and printed his business cards. Xiao Liang presented the preceding and his ideas to Ding Li, vice director of a social enterprise incubator called NPI. Ding li was immediately attracted to Puki’s social innovation concept. Simultaneously, NPI’s Nest project was also recruiting social enterprises providing serviced to the disabled. NPI provides incubation service and office space to those enterprise partners chosen. With Ding li’s approval and the service provided by the NPI, Xiao Liang successfully founded Puki in the Shanghai Social Innovation Incubation Park.
Xiao Liang founded a social enterprise, instead of an NPO. The distinguishing benefit is that a social enterprise can generate its own source of income and profit. And benefit of starting Puki as a social enterpise is that Xiao Liang would not be limited by several laws and formalities set by the government and various foundations that would slow and hinter Xiao Liang for achieving his ambitions with Puki.
4.3.2 Customer Segments
Originally, Puki planed to have a target customer audience like that of other NPOs with a design outsourcing demand to be their target customer. However, since more than 80 percent of Puki’s customers are for-proft enterprises, this was not the case. Xiao Liang draws comparison, noting that, although for NPO customers, what prices Puki charge are usually higher than other street printing stores, for enterprise customers, on the other hand, prices are considerably lower for their comparable quality. Puki is more popular for corporate customers than NPO customers, following suit Most of Puki’s corporate customers can be placed into the three following categories: the pharmaceutical industry (e.g. Sanofi-Aventis, Johnson, etc.), Banking Industry (e.g. DBS), and foundations.
4.3.3 Value Proposition
Puki hired many deaf designers, with 75 percent of Puki designers being deaf. This employment stategy allows Puki to provide design services for customers, while at the same time providing employment opportunities to those qualified deaf persons, thus aiding towards alleviating one area of social inequality.
4.3.4 Revenue Stream
Puki’s revenue is mainly generated and collected through various designing service fees. With these services fees, Puki has been able to break more than even with its yearly revenue is approximately 800 thousand RMB, accumulating a profit is that is about 20 percent costs.
4.3.5 Social and Environmental Benefit
In addition to creating job opportunities in design offices, Puki also provides a free training program for deaf students called “1+1.” Puki also matches deaf students with internship opportunities of major companies.
Besides creating job opportunities for the qualified deaf persons inside the company itself, Puki also furnishes opportunities outside the company. Puki provides 320 hours of skill training related programs and over 150 hours of career training programs. Although only about 50 percent of deaf applicants are actually taken up as employees, Xiao Liang believes that the opportunity of “building the self-confidence for deaf people” is much more important than the efficiency of creating jobs.
4.3.6 Channel
Puki’s main channel is its platform at the Shanghai Social Innovation Incubation Park.
4.3.7 Customer Relationships
Xiao Liang considers customer relationships with Puki structurally relatively passive. Most of customers were already aware of Puki when they visited Puki’s location at the Shanghai Social Innovation Incubation Park. Many customers come to Puki on their own regard, recognizing its value and desiring business intercourse with them.
4.3.8 Key Sources
The key resources of Puki are the deaf talents that they recruit. Despite having certain restrictions due to their disability, deaf designers often have the outstanding talent to stay concentrated on what they are designing. To some extent, Puki’s special mission to employ qualified deaf applicants is a type of social innovation, turning a commonly seen disadvantage into an inside business advantage. Puki works around the obsticles they face employing deaf persons, taking that do not require creative design projects that require listening and speaking abilities, but rather graphic design and layout designs where the high concentration advantage can be fully taken actualized.
4.3.9 Key Activities
The primary business activity of Puki is design. Puki’s team is equipted with one third hearing and two thirds deaf designers. Their enterprise provides design services comprises: (1) “brand management communication,” (2) “graphic design,” (3) “corporate image design,” (4) “exhibition planning and implementation,” and (5) “web pages and multimedia design.”
4.3.10 Key Partners
The most important partner of Puki is its incubator-NPI, who support Puki with space and business opportunities. Other partners include consultants foundations and deaf schools. Table 16 lists the partners of Puki.
4.3.11Cost Structure
Puki’s main costs are, one, the salary of its designer and, two, office rent.
4.3.12 Social and Environmental Cost
Xiao Liang believes that everything has two sides: Puki is no exception. Puki’s model, on one hand, creates many job opportunities for deaf persons and credited with social innovation and value, but, on the other hand, there is much controversy whenever Puki lays off designers, naturally as many are deaf. The public regards Puki as a chartable and responsible organization, yet there are persistent negative responses to the layoffs. Puki being a social enterprise, however, lay-offs are a necessary part of maintaining Puki. These negative responses are partly due to a lack of understanding of the ways in which social enterpirses function. Xiao Liang furthers this mentioning that most social enterprises highly depended on their founders, and often many social enterprises cannot be as well maintained and sustainable once the founder of the enterprise leaves.
Puki’s main costs are, one, the salary of its designer and, two, office rent.
4.3.12 Social and Environmental Cost
Xiao Liang believes that everything has two sides: Puki is no exception. Puki’s model, on one hand, creates many job opportunities for deaf persons and credited with social innovation and value, but, on the other hand, there is much controversy whenever Puki lays off designers, naturally as many are deaf. The public regards Puki as a chartable and responsible organization, yet there are persistent negative responses to the layoffs. Puki being a social enterprise, however, lay-offs are a necessary part of maintaining Puki. These negative responses are partly due to a lack of understanding of the ways in which social enterpirses function. Xiao Liang furthers this mentioning that most social enterprises highly depended on their founders, and often many social enterprises cannot be as well maintained and sustainable once the founder of the enterprise leaves.