07-03.
Community Business
Pattern description
Communities come together and set up community businesses to address challenges they face together.
There are many types of community business including shops, farms, pubs and call centres. What they all have in common is that they are accountable to their community and that the profits they generate deliver positive local impact, such as boosting the local economy.
Similar to social enterprises, community businesses are committed to positively benefiting society through trading in a sustainable way. All profit from a community business is reinvested in the local area. Unlike social enterprises, community businesses are focused on benefiting a specific local geographic area.
Community businesses also have similarities to place-based charitable trusts which manage assets. However, a community business is accountable to its beneficiary community which can mean local people being involved in formal participation or even actual legal ownership.
Inventive problems
The produce suppliers should build relationship with each individual customer, so as to best meet the customer's needs.
The produce suppliers should build relationships with large groups of customers in order to reduce costs.
The company should be large and have a complex structure to perform a large number of diverse operations for the development, production, and delivery of a complex product to the customers.
The company should be small and have a simple structure in order to:
- reduce the variety and complexity of the company activities;
- focus on a small number of core operations;
- have a small stuff;
- minimize the cost of development, production, sale, and delivery of products to customers.