Partnerships

There are five types of partnership I can envisage in the business or probably more rightly termed interested parties.

One is any direct employee in the business.

Second is any supplier to the businesss.

Those two are relatively easy. Specific contracts for each will cover the rules of engagement.

But there are two other key partnerships which are those people who may supply the supplier ie subcontractors.. And another important part for me is people on the ground who can find me new ideas, new product ideas and new artisans to create the products – I will call these buyers.

So we have in order of a product reaching the customer:

Buyer, Subcontractor, Supplier and Employee – and the key partnership of Customer must not be forgotten either.

While, we need a good supply chain to work and to make a particular product. I have no problem having some products which can only be supplied say every three months because that is how long it takes a community or workers long enough to make the quantity we might want to buy.

I can see that with different manufacturing techniques, split bamboo and glued bamboo strips are similar but require different techniques. Also, some wooden shapes on a lathe to turn it to make the shape is a different process to using a type of band saw to cut out a shape on a board. Again these all require different skilled people.

And I can well see that we might use lots of smaller artisans for some projects almost on a piece by piece payment system those then being collected by a ‘supplier’ who send them to us for sale.

Different products and different countries will require different systems. Sometimes we will want consistency of products, other times we might want the personality of the manufacturer to shine through and be make one of a kind products.

Enhancing the ability of people to grow with the business will be key. Someone who starts as an artisan might become a leader of a team of artisans over time.