Team:Arizona State E/Executive Summary

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<h2>Executive Summary</h2>
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The Arizona State University iGEM E-team seeks to address the business challenge of maintaining high levels of organizational performance in both the synthetic biology and global economy. For the purposes of this wiki and discussion of this challenge, performance is defined as three components according to the American Management Association: high levels of innovative output, high skilled worker retention rates, and maintaining corporate integrity. The survey found that ultimately, companies that maintained a strong social focus were able to access these components most effectively. Thus, the ASU iGEM E-team believes that the best business model in answering today’s economic challenges is the Community Focused Corporation.
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The Arizona State SynBio Entrepreneurship Team (ASSET) wants to expand the synthetic biology market through use of the Community Focused Corporation. The Community Focused Corporation, or CFC, is a business model that incorporates the dynamics of both non-profit organizations and for-profit companies to create a profitable system for socially impactful projects.
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The Community Focused Corporation operates as a much needed update to modern business paradigms. It takes into account the social impact and advantages of a non-profit organization while maintaining the ability to self-sustain and expand like a for profit corporation. This model is essential because modern expectations of business have changed. Highly skilled workers are now seeking better company cultures and benefits—and rather than money, passion and intrinsic motivation plays a crucial role in performance. The CFC differs from conventional for profit models due to its unique ability to attract passionate employees. Since the company operates as a social cause driven engine, at its core it exists to counteract some kind of social need. According to the 2007 American Management Association survey, the graduating Stanford business school class cited that they would “prefer to work in an environment that was committed to ethics and social causes.” There is a legitimate need for companies to begin taking an interest in the community. As more and more skilled workers begin citing company culture as a crucial element in the job hunting process, the CFC takes this a bit further and goes as far as generating its own money for its causes, establishing the company’s ability to also be fiscally independent and cover expenses for maintaining highly skilled worker retention rates.
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In 2006, the University of Edinburgh developed a biosensor that could detect arsenic in water samples. This project would be useful in developing countries such as Bangladesh, where lack of clean water posed serious health threats to the general population. Thus, Lumen Biosensors was born. Unfortunately, this project was unable to fully enter the market due to a lack of funding. Investors are hard to find when profits are hard to generate.
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That’s where the Community Focused Corporation comes in. Projects like Lumen Biosensors hold their greatest wealth in their impact on the community. They are intuitively recognized for their social worth, not necessarily their financial worth. Investors are naturally afraid of risks without tangible rewards, and given the success of industrial applications like biofuels and biopolymer manufacturing, investment into synthetic biology has become skewed.
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The CFC takes advantage of a unique vertical integration strategy that cycles a portion of the profits back into the non-profit system and utilizes the remainder as a standard corporation. The socially impactful product is used for non-profit purposes and in turn, the outcomes from the product can be commercialized for the for-profit company. This allows the organization as a whole to be financially self-sustainable. In turn, the profits generated could be reappropriated for further research applications and development.
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Latest revision as of 10:28, 26 October 2012

Executive Summary

The Arizona State SynBio Entrepreneurship Team (ASSET) wants to expand the synthetic biology market through use of the Community Focused Corporation. The Community Focused Corporation, or CFC, is a business model that incorporates the dynamics of both non-profit organizations and for-profit companies to create a profitable system for socially impactful projects.

In 2006, the University of Edinburgh developed a biosensor that could detect arsenic in water samples. This project would be useful in developing countries such as Bangladesh, where lack of clean water posed serious health threats to the general population. Thus, Lumen Biosensors was born. Unfortunately, this project was unable to fully enter the market due to a lack of funding. Investors are hard to find when profits are hard to generate.

That’s where the Community Focused Corporation comes in. Projects like Lumen Biosensors hold their greatest wealth in their impact on the community. They are intuitively recognized for their social worth, not necessarily their financial worth. Investors are naturally afraid of risks without tangible rewards, and given the success of industrial applications like biofuels and biopolymer manufacturing, investment into synthetic biology has become skewed.

The CFC takes advantage of a unique vertical integration strategy that cycles a portion of the profits back into the non-profit system and utilizes the remainder as a standard corporation. The socially impactful product is used for non-profit purposes and in turn, the outcomes from the product can be commercialized for the for-profit company. This allows the organization as a whole to be financially self-sustainable. In turn, the profits generated could be reappropriated for further research applications and development.

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