Sustainability of the business

"A sustainable business is a resource efficient,  respects the environment and is a good neighbour."

                                                                             - Phil Harding

Sustainability creates and maintains the condition under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony.

To keep a business sustainable, there are 3 P's which should be kept in mind:                                                                                     

1. People:  social responsibility

2. Profit:  economic value

3. Planet: stewardship of environment

Quotes by the team members of NIRMAAN:

1. If we live our business it automatically creates an approach to sustainability.
                                                                              - Kashish Koul

2. If sustainability is seen as a matter of survival of business,  we can create a massive    change.
                                                                              - Muskan Gulati




"Cutting costs or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy."
                                                                  
                                                     - Howard Schultz

Feed backs given by  the customers:

Parent 1 - The quality of the items are amazing.  I support this enterprise thoroughly with what they are doing and wish luck to the whole team of NIRMAAN enterprise.

Parent 2 - I would like to have more variety in chocolates.

Parent 3-  I am happy to see an Enterprise working for the upbringing of women by providing them employment. The students are also developing their skills. These children are sure to be great entrepreneurs in their future.

Customers buying products and giving feedbacks

Measures ensured to make our business sustainable:

• Social sustainability - The main aim of the business is to create employment opportunities for the women of economically weaker section which makes our business socially sustainable.

• Environmental sustainability - Nirmaan Enterprises sell bags made using scrap cloth. The enterprise is eco-friendly, using reusable materials to create long lasting products which can be reused time and again. This strategy is highly topical in Delhi as the use of plastic bags has been banned. Also, the members of Nirmaan Enterprises grow some plants like aloevera, fenugreek ,etc. in order to earn profit keeping our planet in mind. The members are themselves grow plants in their homes, in the vacations. This makes our business environmentally sustainable. 

Team members of NIRMAAN growing plants

• Economical sustainability - 50% of the profit is given to ladies belonging to the economically weaker section so that they can earn a livelihood. Our remaining profits are also ploughed back into the business. Nirmaan Enterprises intend to spend their profits by reinvesting it in the business to purchase new accessories and fabrics to diversify further. We train the EWS ladies to learn a skill and training cost is also borne by profit .This makes our business economically sustainable.

Ladies receiving their payments

Happy faces

Plans for long term success of business:

1. Never compromise on the quality of the product and provide the best quality product to the customers. 

2. Keep on adding new innovations to the product to make it better and more attractive.

3. Listen to the advice and complaints  of the customer carefully, read the feedbacks given by them and get the needful done.

4. We would take the help of social media for selling and distribution as well as procuring orders and thus would reach more potential customers.

"You must have long range goals to keep from being frustrated by short term failures."                                        
                                                                                - Charles Noble

Profitability of the school business

'PRESERVERANCE' is the secret of a successful business and profits will come if you go after it.

A business may have many goals but if it does not make profit in the business,  it cannot survive. Profits are important because money is involved in the set up and start of the business. It helps to invest into new ventures and expand.

Techniques used by our business to ensure that it is profitable:

Our business is based within our school premises and the expenditure is only on raw materials,  payment for training and to the workforce, on packaging and a little amount on advertising.

Since all our promotions and sales is looked after by us, the students, we put all the profit back into the business. 

Every year awards are given to the four most enterprising students so that the team remains motivated.

The facts and figures of the business:

Below are a few images of the vouchers that are maintained by the students. (Vouchers are the bills and invoices for payments.)

We also put up stalls during parent teacher meets and in neighbouring colonies. 

                   

                  
'Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them. '

                                                              - W.  Edward Deming

Plans made to spend our profits:

 Maintaining quality of products is very important for profits. Our enterprise keeps this in view and the above mentioned things while strategically pricing our products. We listen to the feedbacks given by our clients and apply them in our business to improve our products and hence the profits. We are easily accessible to our customers and have a pricing strategy that will attract more people towards the enterprise and our profits will rise. 

Parents giving their feedback and advises for the improvement of our products :

Delegates from other countries also visit our enterprise time to time.

              

Feedback given by the customers:

Parent 1: I am highly impressed by seeing the teamwork of the staff of Nirmaan Enterprise. Each child is giving their best to improve the working and for the betterment of the Enterprise.
The children can work on making the packaging of chocolates more attractive to compete with other enterprises.

Parent 2: My advice for the enterprise is to provide variety and different flavours for chocolates.   

Parent 3: I am happy to see an Enterprise working for the upbringing of women by providing them employment. The students are also developing their skills. These children are sure to be great entrepreneurs in their future.

          

Our business is not driven just for profits,  it is also driven to serve.

The main goal of our business is empowering the women in the lower strata of the society. 50% of the profit is given to ladies belonging to the economically weaker section so that they can earn a livelihood.

Our remaining profits are also ploughed back into the business. We train the EWS ladies to learn a skill and training cost is also borne by profit. 

The EWS ladies being trained and guided by the teacher and the students:

                   

Future plans of our business to increase profits:

• In future we would take the help of social media for selling and distribution as well as procuring orders and thus would reach more potential customers.
• We would like to improve the products by advising new varieties in chocolates so that they become more tempting.
• We will like to work on providing new gifting options like on birthdays and other occasions by taking orders and this way would like to expand our business which would in turn increase profits.
• We would try to increase our customer base in school for chocolates and pencils. We would sell on regular basis instead for waiting for PTM's and other events. This will add up to our sales and profits.

Our main goal is to increase our customer base - sales and hence the profits.

Quotes written by the team members of NIRMAAN:

1. 'We commit ourselves to constant improvement.  '       

                                           - Kashish Koul

2. 'Profit is not something to add on at the end, it is something to plan for in the       beginning.  '

                                           - Manya Jain

Experience of the marketing team of NIRMAAN when they dealt with the customers:

1. After being a part of the Production Department for a year I thought of getting a new experience and shifted from the Production Department to the Marketing Department. To be honest I thought it was a very easy task to sell products to the customer. But After standing on our stall(where we sell our products) for an hour or so I came to know how wrong I was. Selling a product isn't just displaying it and earning money but it is a very large process which starts from approaching customers- convincing them to buy your product, why it is better than every other product in the market- bargaining about the price- finally selling it.

In this long process I learned about many different things like  techniques to convince customers to buy your products, how to handle all sorts of customers- the generous and kind ones or the short tempered ones and other sorts too and also how important it is to consider every profession important. I believe this experience has polished my communication skills as well as improved my patience level and temper and I am extremely thankful to the Nirmaan Family and School Enterprise Challenge to give me this opportunity to share my experience.

                                                               

                                                                                                -Nischay Vij

2. The job of the marketing department is an interesting one and at the same time teaches you a lot about dealing with people of different types, convincing them to buy your product and a lot of product management skills. Most importantly I have enjoyed this task as it has given me a broader outlook at the customer’s perception. I have always tried my best to fetch more and more customers and make them a part of the Nirmaan family. Marketing is not everyone’s cup of tea and thus it is very important to learn to deal with people and Nirmaan has been among the first to teach me that. Being a part of the marketing team, I look upto my seniors and try to grasp more and more skills. It has always been something i have enjoyed and my teachers have always helped me and I am grateful to them for that.

                                                                                                      -Ishika Chauhan

Student Motivation

“Challenges are what make a business interesting. Overcoming them is what makes a business successful.”

After setting up our business we faced many challenges, which usually follow. But the biggest challenge we faced was to bring the best out of our members and always keep them motivated to achieve their goals. Our team comprised of students of grade 9^th, 10^th and 11^th. 

On being asked why the students wish to be part of Nirmaan one of the students said- “I want to be a part of Nirmaan as I wish to takeover my father’s business in future. So, I am going to pursue Commerce in 11^th and I believe being part of an enterprise at an early stage will help me understand the functioning of market.” Another student said – “I want to be a part of Nirmaan because it will polish many skills of mine like teamwork, communication and patience.” Some said it was their urge to contribute to the society as Nirmaan aims at the upbringing of woman by providing them employment.

  "Coming together is a beginning

                    

               Staying together is a progress

                                And working together is success."

           

As entrepreneurs, starting a business brings out many different emotions, including passion, excitement and impatience. All these can be used to motivate the students to work hard and try to put their best efforts in the business.

With a team consisting of members with such mixed goals and aims it looked like a difficult task. But to motivate the students we divided them into 6 departments- 

1. Marketing

2. IT

3. Creative

4. Production

5. Accounts

6. HR and Advisory department

This distribution now gave them the responsibility of the departments they wished to be a part of. Each of these departments were headed by one or two students. In this way we were able to distribute the work among everyone and were able to bring the best out of them.
Also we motivated them to get involved in the working of other departments too so that they can get an idea about its working and contribute.

Students who were good with accounts were given the duty to maintain proper records of the payment made for raw material, money earned by selling the finished products, profits/loss, etc. Below are a few images of the records that were maintained by the students

                                             

 Students who were creative were given the task to implement the changes suggested by the customers and those good with computers were given the task to write blogs, use Facebook and Twitter for popularity, communication, etc.

 

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul."   

 Here we see the students putting their creativity out to work

Are the students really motivated?

 

To know whether the students were really motivated, what has been the impact of being a part of an enterprise in their life and what are the skills they have gained from this undertaking we conducted a small survey. A few of the answers that we received were-

 Student 1- “I joined Nirmaan firstly because I was interested to be a part of an enterprise and get some experience from its work, secondly it was for a good cause. Nirmaan has always shown me how things have to be managed and what is required in building our own enterprise to a good level, I have got a reason to be a constant part of it, also it gives me a view of my future.
I aspire to be an entrepreneur and being a part of this enterprise has given me an insight of an enterprise and shows me how to run it successfully!”- Navya Aggarwal

Student2-"I joined Nirmaan because I wanted to learn the skill of entrepreneurship and I love art and craft and I wanted to use my creative outputs for some good purpose.I was motivated by the way our seniors and teachers were dedicated towards this business and were working hard to make the women self-reliant.
Being a member of Nirmaan helped me a lot as it teaches me how can we be happy by bringing a smile on other's face. Also I learned the skills of team work, leadership, marketing, and also how to make any new creative things.- Manpreet Kaur

Student 3-"I joined Nirmaan because it could help me in learning new business skills that I probably won’t get a chance to otherwise.I was motivated by the efforts our school has taken and really wanted to help in this initiative because this is something that we don’t get to do in our daily lives.
 Nirmaan has taught me a lot of things- being innovative, handling business, managing work and time and all over helped in changing my attitude towards helping people and how important it is. - Ishika Chauhan

Student 4 -"Being a commercce student..Nirmaan helps me to gain practical knowledge of business studies.It makes me responsible and teaches various skills like management and teamwork which will help lifelong.
Nirmaan is a business enterprise that helps the economically weaker section of the society. This attracts and motivates me the most to be the part of it.- Jyoti Gogia

Here we see students interacting with the customers, sharpening their communication skills. 

                       

                        "Teamwork makes the dream work." 

Here are a few images of students working together as a team.


The following video is of our Principal Mrs. Anjali Aggarwal sharing her thoughts on student motivation.  

https://youtu.be/XCjeM0j1SPo 

What did the school do to motivate the students?

Since the students have been working so hard it is the duty of the school to continue motivating them. So, the most enterprising and hardworking students are awarded each year with a trophy and certificate. By doing this the school isn't just motivating the award winners but also inspiring other members to work hard. Below are a few pictures of the students receiving their awards by our honourable Principal Ma'am.

Heartfelt comment by our teacher incharge:

This venture is close to my heart as its been 6 years long association with this project. It gives me immense satisfaction when i see that every year more and more students from our school want to be part of Nirmaan team and do something for the local community. At the same time they develop many skills like leadership, teamwork, management, entrepreneurial, marketing and gain a lot of confidence. All this remains with them throughout their life.
School Enterprise Challenge plays a crucial role by giving schools a platform to showcase the hidden talent of students internationally and at the same time achieve the goals of the people, profit and planet. 

The following link is of a video of two members of our enterprise sharing their experience of being a part of the team. 

https://youtu.be/D44DxHXqPpM

    School Enterprise Challenge

We are very thankful to the School Enterprise Challenge for providing us this platform to share about our business. After winning an award in  Mini Blogging Competition last year we feel that these monthly competitions have encouraged and motivated the students to work even harder. We look forward to share more about our business with the School Enterprise Challenge this year.

Reviews students' parents of our school

To know whether the parents were satisfied with the working of the Enterprise, we did a small survey:

Parent 1: I am highly impressed by seeing the teamwork of the staff of Nirmaan Enterprise. Each child is giving their best to improve the working and for the betterment of the Enterprise. All the members are gaining important skills such as leadership, marketing,etc. which would help them in future.

Parent 2: I would love my child to be a part of Nirmaan Enterprise too. It gives a lot of confidence to the child in terms of speaking. A child also learns the skill of entrepreneurship. As my child wants to opt for business studies in higher class, being a part of this Enterprise would help in learning business skills.

Parent 3: I am happy to see an Enterprise working for the upbringing of women by providing them employment. The students are also developing their skills. These children are sure to be great entrepreneurs in their future.

The sale of chocolates made by NIRMAAN team in our school were sold out in the blink of an eye.
We have another PTM coming up tomorrow and the preparations are on.

Students along with the ladies making the chocolates 

Packing of chocolates

Also visit our facebook page to know more about what has been happening recently. The link is-https://www.facebook.com/nirmaansms/ 

Most Enterprising Students of 2016

'A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself to praise the skills of others'.-Norman Shilde
In Nirmaan, we are a TEAM and our team members Gauri Dev, Ananya Chawla, Mansi Marwah and Manya Jain were awarded the most Enterprising Student Award for 2016, because they worked positively together with everyone to get the job done in the best possible way. These awards are given every year to motivate the students to work hard in future.

Students receiving their awards!

    CONGRATULATIONS!
Also visit our facebook page to know more about what has been happening recently. The link is-https://www.facebook.com/nirmaansms/ 

The ladies of the Nirmaan family are the backbone of our enterprise. The radiant smiles on their faces tell about the joy on receiving payment for their hard work. Our future depend on what we do today. So, in Nirmaan we focus on being as good as we can possibly be. Here are a few images of the ladies receiving their payments from our teacher in-charge.

Ladies receiving the payments

Making proper records for the distribution of money

Smiling Faces

Also visit our facebook page to know more about what has been happening recently. The link is-https://www.facebook.com/nirmaansms/