Decisions in Paradise part 3

Decisions in Paradise: Implementation and Ethical Considerations

Author Affiliation (Your School)

The intent of this analysis is to first define the factors that are affecting the decision implementation of market and business development plans for Kava. Next an evaluation of resources and actions required for the implementation is provided. The ethical implications from the stakeholders' perspective are discussed, including the issue of oversight and governance. The foundation of the business model Nik and his team have defined centers on creating an educational company that offers vocational training and advanced education. The impetus of choosing this business is the need the island has for an educated workforce so its industries can grow.

Applying Business Theory to Kava Market and Business Development

The core business model for Nik and his team is the creation of an island-wide educational network that offers free courses over public television as a community service, and tuition-based programs in local schools and universities. The mission of this educational network is to provide marketable, pragmatic skills for the island residents. The financing will be derived from public television grants obtained through the nation itself, and also from global funding sources for public television. Using public television as the basis of this business model will ensure virtually everyone on the island will learn of their educational network soon after it is launched. This strategy will also give Nik and his team the ability to recruit instructors locally as awareness of the educational network spreads not only through the island nation, but through the entire region of the world as well. For Nik and his team to be successful they will need to define the key success factors that will lead to them being able to attract national, regional and global grants. Based upon this initial objective being accomplished, Nik and his team will need to expand their education network to encompass location-based colleges and trade schools throughout the island nation. These trade schools will partner with regional and global banks to offer financing, and will also have its own financing department as well. This will be the initial revenue stream of the business model going forward, and will eventually encompass the development of entirely new staffing and personnel services in growing service-based sectors of the Kava economy. The education network's priorities will focus first on the banking, education, healthcare and tourism sectors which are critical for the island nations' economy to continue growing. Additional sectors including agriculture, petroleum, and natural gas will be included in the educational network in subsequent phases. This approach to designing the educational network will also contribute to the immediate growth of the Kava economy, while also setting a training-based foundation for the growth of additional industries on the island nation through training. Clearly education is critical to the island nation growing economically, embracing a services-based economy, and becoming more competitive on a global scale. Only through an educational network will this be possible.

The Mission: Creating an Education Network for the People of Kava

Instead of thinking purely about the profit and loss of this business, Nik needs to think about how to enrich Kava's economy and in so doing, set the foundation of how to benefit over the longer-term. Nik then needs to be very strategic in his view of the creating of this educational network Only by concentrating on enriching the residents of Kava and in turn strengthening the service industries will Nik and his team be able to generate new opportunities for themselves and other investors. Education is the catalyst of all potential future growth in each industry of the island nation, and by fueling it with the education network; Nik will be creating opportunities for itself over the long-term. It has also been shown empirically that as the educational level of a nation increases its quality of life rises (Rehme, 2007). The reliance then on creating a first phase of the education network, which is the development of the public-access educational programming, is critical. By focusing on this specific area of their business model, Nik and his team will also be able to learn valuable lessons about how to work with potential funding from the nation, region and globally as well. These lessons learned will also be invaluable in giving Nik and his team creates partnerships with key regional and global development agencies, all of which will be essential in gaining funding for future initiatives and strategies for the educational network. Nik also needs to realize that in getting public access television in place and having programming by each service sector of the economy, he can actively nurture and foster the development of these specific industries as well. The tourism industry for example, through continued education, may be able to create a tourism bureau and also have websites, social networking accounts and e-mail accounts created to promote the island. In other words the education network will also be instrumental in fostering the growth of the island's industries as well.

As has often been mentioned throughout the case, Nik's superiors also seek to enrich the island nation through businesses that further the socio-economic well-being of its citizens while at the same time creating sustainable, viable business over time. Studies indicate that companies who routinely take Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into account in new venture creation over time win the trust and support of local, regional, national and global sources of financial support (Estes, 2008). As can be seen from the case analysis there is a urgent need for education throughout the island nation, with the majority of inhabitants less than 15 years of age. Extrapolating from this figure there are urgent social program concerns, as a high proportion of the population being 15 years of age signals that families are large, and that there is an exceptional economic burden on the parents to support these children. Clearly the need for nurturing and continually contributing to the growth of the education and healthcare industries of the island is critically important for Nik and his team to stay true to its CSR-based values.

Recommendations

Given the demographics, the implication of per capita income on the island given socio-economic levels and existing educational levels, and the nascent state of its industries, Kava needs to partner with Nik's firm to create the foundational element that the proposed education network can provide. The future economic development of Kava is entirely dependent on an education network being successful or not in training the island's next generation of workers in marketable skills. Regardless of whether these skills are used on the island nation to grow its industries directly or indirectly, the processes, systems and workflows put into place in the development of an education network will be invaluable. Second, the reliance on education network as a means to nurture and develop the healthcare system on Kava is possible and could be highly profitable. Taking an approach of first training the technicians, staff and maintenance teams for a healthcare services business, Nik and his team could invest in healthcare clinics which are needed on the island and seek both funding and also payment as the nation's economy grows. The strategic market planning for healthcare would be comparable to education, in that it would begin with education as the foundation of growth. Next, healthcare facilities could be created through alliances with regional and global hospitals. This approach to building out the healthcare industry is also consistent with CSR-based initiatives and programs that have delivered the results of creating an industry while enriching a nation at the same time (Estes, 2008). In conjunction with education and healthcare, the banking industry in Kava also will need trained employees and also will need to follow the strategy of creating global alliances to bring micro-lenders to the island nation. With education being the core business model, the segmentation of markets beginning with healthcare and banking is critically important for Nik and his team to build a services-based business that can flex with the needs of the island nation and fulfill the vision of being CSR-based in strategy and decision making (Estes, 2008).

Creating a Strategic Plan for the Kava Education Network

To ensure the Kava Education Network has a strong chance to succeed, Nik and his team will need to define a strategic plan that encompasses the build-out first of the education business both from a public broadcasting and technical school standpoint. Second the strategic plan for first bringing greater levels of education into the healthcare field, creating alliances with outside healthcare providers to create jobs for graduates, and raising the standard of living on the island in the process. This same model needs to be applied to the banking industry as well. The sequencing and development of these plans is crucial for the team to attract initial funding for public television investment, and also create the vocational schools that will be the basis of their primary business. The build-out of the healthcare industry is predicated on a global alliance strategy that seeks to partner with regional and globally known hospitals. The partnership strategy will bring capital investment to the island in the form of clinics while at the same time creating jobs for graduates. The same model needs to be applied to the banking industry as well. Creating an alliance strategy that will attract banking partners to Kava to create micro-lending programs and open branches will in turn create jobs for the Kava Educational Network. It will also serve as a source of funding to pay for vocational school tuitions as well. Throughout the strategic planning process, the potential to both enrich the island from a socio-economic basis through CSR programs (Estes, 2008) while also building out key industries to ensure their profitable growth (Rehme, 2007) is key. The strategic plan will need to balance the defining of the educational business as the foundation and the definition of healthcare and banking as the immediate industries of interest.