Tomorrow we will have an afternoon site visit to the Guinness Enterprise Centre. Here is a recent article which describes some of the Centre’s programming and work:
In preparation for your site visit to the Guinness Enterprise Centre, we will hear the following theme throughout the presentation (which is part of a quote in the article above) – “the power of entrepreneurship and the impact that it can have on the community, which benefits everyone.” In short, individuals and organizations who are interested in community economic development often focus on supporting small entrepreneurs who are seeking to launch interesting new ventures in certain neighborhoods or in the geographic area of a city like Dublin. Based on your quick review of the article on the Guinness Enterprise Centre, identify one commercial opportunity and one commercial challenge they are addressing in their efforts to support the development of local entrepreneurs in Dublin.
A commercial opportunity that the GEC is addressing is the collaboration between businesses in the Centre. The close proximity of all the entrepreneurial and start-up companies to one another inspires the building of partnerships and relationships with other companies in order to get the companies up and running in the economy.
A challenge that the GEC is addressing is the fact that the building is too small to accommodate the growing size of the GEC. The expansion of the company requires a larger space to house more companies, and with the 10 million Euro expansion that is set to take place, the GEC hopes to be able to nearly double the number of startups that it is able to host.
Finally, acting as members of consulting teams that might choose to write a group paper about the commercial opportunities and challenges connected to the Guinness Enterprise Centre, what specific questions do you have about the business model for the Guinness Enterprise Centre that relate to our course material (Triple Bottom Line and sustainability, market segmentation, maximization versus shared value, etc.)? Give us a specific question for tomorrow’s visit.
How does the Centre address the pressing environmental concerns over sustainability?