Course description

Through a rigorous project in the management of a complex design process, the student demonstrates the mastery of the issues, methods and tools of design management. Based on a topic developed by the student, the outcome of the design process is manifested in a tangible artifact that satisfies the needs of the customer, market, producer and organization. Through documentation and a formal project presentation, students demonstrate their control of the design process and resolution of conflicting issues related to innovation.

Secondary Research

Subject of Study

The subject of the study is to assist in creating business strategies for environmental entrepreneur’s non-profit enterprises. The project will study environmental entrepreneurs, ecobusinesses, non-profit entreprises and business strategies in order to design an aggressive plan of action.

Linnanen describes three types of environmental entrepreneurs': nature-oriented enterprises, producers of environmental technology and providers of environmental management services. He describes nature-oriented enterprises as being the “purest segment”.

Problem Statement

Currently there are far more entrepreneurs than most people realize but the failure of new businesses is very high (Shane 2010 quoted in Alstele 2014). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Entrepreneurship and U.S. Economy chart #3 since 1994 only about 50% of establishments make it to year 5 (2016). Though these numbers don’t specifically address environmental businesses, they are still alarming especially considering the restraints put on environmental entrepreneurs both by society and the government. As discussed by Linnanen (2002), there are a few critical issues that successful ecopreneurs must address that conventional entrepreneurs do not.

One issue in particular is market creation. It’s difficult to provide clear cause-and-effect relations when communicating environmental problems. Many environmental entrepreneurs seem to know little about the investment community and it’s quite difficult for environmental entrepreneurs to find investors who share their objectives and ideals making finding money difficult. Another critical issue that environmental entrepreneurs face is there ethical reasoning has both positive and negative effects on the business. Their desire to serve good purposes sometimes exceeds their desire to make money making them undesirable to investors (Linnanen, 2002).

Overall there are a lot of failing businesses and the extra strain on ecobusinesses make them even more susceptible to failure. This project will work to increase the success rate of environmental entrepreneur’s non-profit enterprises by creating an aggressive business strategy for the idealistic ecopreneur.

Opportunity Statement

There is an opportunity to create a new business strategy for environmental entrepreneur’s non-profit enterprises who might be having to overcome barriers like the challenge of market creation, the finance barrier and ethical justification for existence.

Conducting the study will contribute to further understanding strategy, specifically business strategy. It will also contribute to understanding how to create a strategy. The study will be beneficial in further executing research methods and using design thinking to solve problems. The study will lead to a better understanding of the struggles that environmental entrepreneurs face which will assist in solving problems related to Eco business.

The study will assist the author in entering the professional world because it will prove great tact, knowledge of research methods, problem solving skills, an understanding of environmental issues and the ability to strategize. The combination of these skills will highlight the author’s abilities to be a design manager in any industry.

Primary Research

Immersion

5 full days (10AM - 10PM) were spent at the rescue observing the process, caring for the animals, observing volunteers and interviewing staff. A detailed day-in-the-life-of chart was conducted with the founder, Emilie Nelson.