CEEPS New Venture
Template Analysis
For those of you interested in the organizational and
analytical side of the consulting industry, I thought this might be an
interesting tidbit. Ian
Chaprin, of intellact, took it upon himself to
subject the entire CEEPS concept to a
New Venture
Template TM (NVT) analysis - just for fun. The basic
concept is to answer some questions about a new venture (in this case the
CEEPS conference/community), in order to determine how to position and
grow the venture for maximum success. The
algorithm was created by Dr. Ron Mitchell - you can
read all
about some of the factoring; I have just included the graphical
results, scores, and advice. The algorithm is weighted to push
ventures toward the "Charity" designation, and that is precisely
where we ended up.
NVT Results
Correlation Coefficients
91.1%
Charity
72.8% Lifestyle
71.4% Struggling Proprietary
68.6% Competence-based Troubled
58.9% Hostage
58.0% High Potential
57.3% Technology-based Success
56.6% Competence-based Success
56.2% Buy-a-job
54.1% Low Competence
51.4% Hobby
49.3% Fad
45.3% Model
13.5% Research
Charity Venture - Description and Advice
When a venture lacks many of the elements that make
it a business, but still has "staying power" in society, we generally find
a charity. Although the charity is a long-term benefit to society (the
Net Buyer Benefit is medium to high), it is uneconomic because there is
insufficient volume and margins to make it a self-sustaining business.
So we find as charities organizations that vary from
opera and symphony companies to other community, educational, or religious
groups that exist because they depend upon the "charity" of society to
make up the shortfalls that come from lack of profitable delivery of their
product or service.
You will also notice in the diagram below that (1)
the innovation level is immaterial to marketability, being insufficient to
propel the product/service into profit-making status; (2) scarcity and
appropriability are medium, due to weak economic standing; (3) uncertainty
is medium due to community support, with ambiguity in the medium range due
to the basic lack of profit-making in the organization.
ADVICE: To turn a charity into a business, it is
necessary to address the fundamental problems that render the organization
unable to exist without help from society. These are: (1) problems with
the Product/Market Match [there's just not a big market for this stuff];
(2) because of the low PMM there are problems with the margins [although
people do value the product/service, the costs in time and money are much
higher than the few who value it highly can afford]; which explains (3)
problems with the volume. Though many "purists" resist, the solution is
to "commercialize" the product or service, i.e. make it accessible to and
desirable for larger portions of society.
Where an
organization is likely to depend upon society over the long term, it is an
error to promise supporters a return on their contributions beyond that of
"recognition" for their help. If used properly, the "sale" of recognition
is a "second product" that if properly marketed, can guarantee a charity
the Margins and Volume that come from this NEW product/market match. The
key is to fund such organizations as charities, and NOT as businesses.
Ian kindly added his own thoughts, based on our recent
initiative to build the CEEPS Yahoo group:
"In terms of the new venture template, by moving people onto a Yahoo
group you add some extra value to membership (improved net buyer
benefit), you potentially expand the number of people who will
participate (better product-market match and volume), you reduce your
time taken (improved margins), and if there is more group contribution
in planning and organization as a result, then you reduce uncertainty."
