WebOrganics Blue Ocean Strategy

Creating a Blue Ocean for a Socialause

The strategy applied by the company related to the execution of visionary and shaping strategies in new and unchartered waters of addressing a social issue in Hong Kong using technology. In the article, data provided shows that the pilot project of WebOrganic sought to ensure that the students from underprivileged backgrounds could access to the Internet and computers. Therefore, on the attainment of its social mission, the company was more determined to see that their clients were satisfied. Forming lasting partnerships with known technologies companies enabled WebOrganic spearhead their mission forward. Through the arrangement, students could get the best and latest products from companies such as Lenovo that were available in the market at very affordable and or reasonable prices (Hunh-Hsua 2012). The vision is evident when it created the Tree School Program that included mediating, consulting and distributing the products and services to various schools (Hunh-Hsua 2012). The whole idea that made WebOrganic adopt the visionary strategy was to be able to address the e-learning issue that existed in Hong Kong. Therefore, it wanted to ensure that progression was visible in the infrastructural and software levels of schools (Hunh-Hsua 2012). Huang’s visionary strategy is also presented when he introduced the Cantonese-Learning software that would cater for the needs of students coming from ethnic minorities who accounted for 3% in Hong Kong (Hunh-Hsua 2012). The company’s strategy was to reach out to the untouched markets, low-income earners of the society, and helping in bridging the technological gap and access to e-learning facilities in Hong Kong (Hunh-Hsua 2012). Later, WebOrganic also adopted a shaping strategy that helped them to develop collaborative ecosystems especially with companies like Lenovo and PCCW Ltd. The shaping strategy also proved to be helpful to the company when it influenced its business environment later.
In the new venture, Huang is playing a pivotal role in formulating and executing the company’s strategies. His idea was to ensure that the students could access the computers and the Internet at affordable prices. Therefore, he decided to scan the environment and understand what needed to be done for the stakeholders (teachers and parents) to collaborate with the company in meeting the needs of their students. WebOrganic looked at the market prices of the products being offered and managed to bring them down to figures that were affordable to the target clients. By negotiating with Lenovo, WebOrganic worked out deals that were satisfactory regarding meeting their social mission. Other companies that came on board were Microsoft and Intel. The low prices enabled WebOrganic to remain competitive, and this meant bringing down the number of companies competing with their offers. Moreover, WebOrganic looked at creating a service package that would change the whole learning process for students. Therefore, the package was geared towards allowing and enhancing students learning experience into reaching optimal levels. Since most of the students acquiring the devices were first time owners, it managed to assist them through giving them support. The support came from WebOrganic’s staff members who attained training from renowned companies such as Microsoft and Lenovo (Hunh-Hsua 2012).
Most of the service centers helping the students were within reach of students because they were located in their residential neighborhoods. Parents and teachers were also not left out; they received training from the community centers that also looked at solving the technological hiccups presented. WebOrganic also incorporated university students in the learning experience as part of their social learning curriculum.
Social Enterprise at WebOrganic
In a social enterprise, an individual or a company decides to combine the passion of fulfilling a social mission with the business strategy business-like image (Abu-Saifan 2012). In such a scenario, the company’s business tools are used in resolving a particular social issue/challenge in the society. Such an enterprise looks at addressing the critical social problems that affect the society. Therefore, WebOrganic is a social enterprise because of its dedication to improving the well-being of its society as seen from its commitment and purpose of satisfying the social needs of their clients: the students. Through this, the program improves the life quality of poor members of the society by giving them access to computers and the Internet. Therefore, a revenue-generating strategy for a social enterprise looks at giving direct service to their social mission of delivering some social value to the society (Abu-Saifan 2012).
WebOrganic is more of a community enterprise, which is socially responsible in its business operations because it has looked at the aspect of community inclusion for the underprivileged members of the society by bridging the existing technological gap. Moreover, its establishment was guided by the need to be beneficial to the community (Geelan 2013). WebOrganic’s management has managed to be a social enterprise by giving the parents and teachers a ‘can do’ attitude to propel them into unlocking the potential present in people, students. Therefore, it is serving a particular people from a given geographic location and interests of the community members influenced the company to engage in such activities. With their initiatives, poverty reduction will be attained in these regions because the students are empowered, and the knowledge they attain can be shared to others in the community.
Considering the high levels of poverty manifested by the target group, WebOrganic prioritized its goals towards solving the complex problems by engaging with the community and giving them solutions. The products and service they were given by companies like Lenovo and Internet service providers like Hong Kong Broadband Network were a step forward towards eradicating poverty. Employment opportunities arose and worked directly towards eradicating the poverty lines within the target population (Janah 2017). The community-based enterprise managed to play a vital role in offering poverty alleviation strategies because students from low-income families and background could access resources such as computers, which was a preserve of the rich in the society. The power is essential because the students can make sound decisions and their future endeavors and cement the concept that the company is a social enterprise.
WebOrganic’s mission
The company’s expanded mission relates to hope, opportunity, and choice (Hunh-Hsua 2012, p.3). In this mission, Huang had a vision of providing students with the hope of using computers and having access to the Internet, which he believes can be achieved if all stakeholders give WebOrganics a chance to undertake their project and make a choice to help them implement it fully. By having such an expanded mission, the company managed to touch on all the stakeholders. Through this, they were given a chance to bring change in their communities and societies. It is evident that WebOrganic’s mission was expanded because it intended to include all parties involved when it came to implementing its project.
As a blue ocean player, the expanded mission gave the students and society members a clear vision of where the company wanted to place the selected communities in the map of Hong Kong. Therefore, through giving students computers that were similar to their peers, they were able to eliminate the stigmatization that was present when they were using the out-dated computers. Therefore, alignment of both the rich and poor students was attained through this process, which gave hope to the poor students on attainment of a bright future. Lastly, the hope helped the students understand that they have a chance to change their destinies if only they make the right choice about their learning process.

References List
Abu-Saifan, S., 2012. Social entrepreneurship: definition and boundaries. Technology Innovation Management Review, vol. 2, no.2, pp. 22-27.
Geelan, CA 2013 Social Enterprise: Crossing the abyss, Bloomington: Booktango.
Hunh-Hsua, J 2012 ‘WebOrganic: Creating a blue ocean for a social cause’, Asia Case Research Centre, pp. 1-19
Janah, L 2017, ‘In the fight against poverty, work is our most powerful weapon,' Harvard Business Review.
Reeves, M, Haanaes, K & Sinha, J 2015, ‘Navigating the dozens of different strategy options,' Harvard Business Review.