A Business Plan: To Start a Cultural Economic Program - Case Study Example

A Business Plan: To Start a Cultural Economic Program Contents Contents 1 About the Business 2 Overview of business 3 Marketing and operating strategy 5 Implementation 7 Conclusion 9 Works Cited 10 Introduction Art and culture are sectors of a country, which have an immense potential to stimulate the economy and earn revenue for the government. They have the able to create jobs, attract investments and generate revenues for the government. They also have the potential to impact local economies by influencing consumers to purchase products, increase aesthetic appeal of the country and promote tourism. It has been quite some time that the political leaders have understood that creative edge can act as a competitive edge for an economy and help to achieve higher economic growth. Over the past few years, creative and media services have been growing and have had a significant impact on the social and economic forces. The economics behind this is that uniqueness of a product depends on its aesthetic appeal, performance and individuality and this in turn contributes to the competitive edge to the economy (“Arts and Economy”). The purpose of this project is to develop an economic cultural program for the economy of Qatar in order to support creative people associated with art and culture. Qatar has been one of the fastest growing Arab countries of Middle East, which has maintained a high cultural and traditional value, along with its rapid pace of growth. One of the biggest challenges faced by Qatar, at present, is to preserve its rich culture. This makes the cultural economic program a relevant issue for the economy. To do so, various aspects will be discussed in details like, demand of such project in Qatar, number of artists who seek support and measures of implementing such a program. About the Business The art and culture industry in Qatar is a strong one. This is also evident from actions of the royal family, in recent times, when in 2007, it had purchased Damien Hirst’s pill cabinet (filled with 6,136 painted, bronze cast pills), Lullaby Spring, for an amount, that went on to become one of the highest auction amount for a living artist. Recently, the country has joined hands with the United Kingdom to enhance performance of its art and cultural section. The Qatar UK 2013 program has events and programs, revolving around eight main themes: art and design, film and media, performing arts, education, sports, science and innovation, sustainability and community building, to boost the demand of this sector and make it one of the most vibrant sectors contributing to growth of the economy (“Qatar UK 2013”). The main characteristic of art in Qatar is that the people are only influenced by realism art and not abstract art. This lessens the demand for abstract art and raises that of realistic art. One of the primary challenges for artists in Qatar is that despite the best efforts from the government and private bodies, art and culture as s successful career has failed to gain momentum. This implies that the importance of a cultural economic program can be immense in curing the ailing industry. Overview of business Demand for art and culture The “Creative Zone of Qatar” is an economic art and cultural program in Qatar, which aims at providing support to artisans of Qatar, namely crafters, musicians, painters and writers. This program will enable the local artisans to develop their hobby into real life business. The artisans in Qatar need financial support to establish their own business by increasing their visibility; supporting arts education; encouraging new, creative and innovative works of art; and broadening cultural understanding. This program will be based in Doha and will contain eight art galleries, five auditoriums for performing arts and literary workshops for writers to showcase the talent of the local Qatari artisans, with the objective of bringing the Qatari culture on the world stage. The purpose of the program is to promote Qatar as a cultural beacon in the field of literature, art, music and exhibitions. The beneficiaries of the programs will include struggling artisans, who have failed to establish themselves in the commercial platforms and make a formal career out of their profession. With the advent of aggressive globalization, the chief problem of Arab countries was that there was a tendency among the people to be drifting towards Western culture by forgetting their own roots. The local artisans ceased to be creators, inspirer and consumer of local cultural products, thereby resulting in the degradation of traditional cultural products. This program is created with the sole objective of promoting traditional cultural forms (Barakat 113). It has been criticized that though Qatar is trying to develop its art and culture by investing huge amounts in the sector, most of this investment is being used for buying arts from other parts of the world. This is marginalizing the domestic artists. This also makes the number of artisans seeking support in Qatar high, as the patrons are favouring foreign arts in filling the domestic museums (Algethami, “Middle East demand for contemporary art on the rise”). The mission of the program is to encourage and facilitate an enriched artistic, cultural and creative environment in Qatar. This mission of the program is: The program aspires to protect, preserve and promote the traditional culture of the country. To develop sustainable training and development programs for performing arts through vocational training and workshops. Promote closer integration with regional and interregional countries through cultural exchange. This is expected to be achieved by increasing awareness among the population by proper advertisements and marketing techniques. The program will focus on understanding the needs of each artisan and try to provide solutions, through both financial and non-financial modes. It will form groups of volunteers to assist on aspects of research and documentation. Products and Services At present, the most significant effort that has been put to promote the cultural segment of Qatar is establishment of the Katara Cultural Village (Widen, “Fostering Qatar’s art industry”). This is a similar program, like, Creative Zone of Qatar, that aims to promote the cultural community through supporting literature, music and artistic conventions. The Katara Cultural Village patronizes the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra and the Doha Tribeca International Film Festival to promote arts. This program provides a platform for artists all over the world, engaged in various arts, to interact with the Qatari artists in order to provide the local with more global exposure. Many Qatari organizations like, Qatar Music Academy, Qatar Fine Arts Society, Visual Art Centre, have their offices in Katara. Another major one is Fanar, better known as the Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre, which aims to motivate the Non-Muslims to be inspired from the Islamic culture by spreading the beauty of Islamic culture (“Qatar’s Islamic Cultural - Fanar”). Based on the understanding of similar programs, this program will offer the following services: Public Art Program: This program will support all the struggling artists with talent, who aims to start a career in art by providing better visibility to their work through exhibitions and workshops. This will provide a better opportunity to sell their work and provide them a platform to showcase their talent. The expansion of artistic skills will not only improve the plight of the artists, but also the cultural heritage of the country can be enriched. Performing Arts Association: This section will promote dancers and musicians of the soil and promote the culture of the country through music and dance performances. This will be helpful to the locals, who are trying to establish themselves as commercial artists on the national and international level. They will be given the opportunity to perform at the tourist spots and other major social events, so that they get a fair chance to express their talent in front of a major audience. The places of tourist attractions can prove to be great spots of public relations as people of mixed origin visit here. This can enable local artists to engage with major socialites and PR managers to help them achieve global recognition. Literary Hub Program: This program will provide an opportunity for all the local authors, who could not find a publisher for themselves or has been unsuccessful in releasing their books and reach out to the readers. The program also aspires to conduct international book fairs and literary workshops, where local writers can get a common platform to share their creative spirit with various authors of international origin. This will not only provide them with an enriching experience, but also improve their chances of establishing themselves as commercial booksellers. Marketing and operating strategy There are quite a large number of countries, which run similar programs. Examples include Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs of America, Akwaba Cultural Program of Africa, Asian Cultural Council of Asia, to name a few. Almost all countries of the world have a tendency to promote their traditional culture and have come up with programs that protect the cultural heritage of the country. All these programs have marketing and distributional strategy, which provides them an economic viability. The marketing concept holds that the key of achieving organizational goals, which consists of determining the needs and wants of target markets and then attempting to satisfy them more effectively and efficiently than competitors (Finn, McFadyen and Hoskins, “Marketing, Management, and Competitive Strategy in the Cultural Industries”). There are four elements in the marketing strategy of any cultural industry, namely market focus, a customer orientation, coordinated marketing and a goal of profitability. The cultural industry is a highly product-oriented industry and in this sector, managers are highly concerned with the manufacturing of high-quality products and finding ways to improve them. “Creative Zone of Qatar” puts in considerable effort to find the best pool of talent and provide them with every possible support to improve their creative skills. The customer orientation is also equally important because in cultural industries, it becomes important to influence customers to understand the creativity and value of arts being created. In this regard, it can be said that choosing the correct group of customers becomes extremely important for a successful business venture. This involves proper segmentation of the market and need to identify the most efficient partners, who can carry the business forward. The target group of customers for this project is the elite patrons of art in Qatar, like, Sheikh Tamim, Sheikha Mayassa and other such eminent members of the society, who harbours deep love for art and culture. The other potential group can be the eminent chorographers, painters and socialites, who have deep understanding about art and tradition of the country. The marketing programs consist of the marketing mix, loyalty programs, customs, services and supports, market research, personal selling and promotional activities. This will involve all the extensive advertising and promotional strategies, like, print media, audiovisual media, seminars, conferences, billboards, posters and pilot campaigning, to promote awareness among the participants and customers about the program. The economic profitability of a business venture is the cornerstone of any successful business and the same holds true for the cultural sector as well. Strongest cultural industries companies come from naturally business-oriented sub-sectors, like, architectural, design, publishing and advertising companies. As this program is not primarily a profit driven one, so it has to depend largely on grants from the government and private institutions who promotes art and culture. In 2011, the government of Qatar had launched grants to support at least 15 initiatives (“Government to launch cultural grants programme”). The Qatar Foundation International has been one of the pioneer institutions, which had funded the Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture in fostering their Arabic language and cultural initiatives. “Creative Zone of Qatar” will approach organizations like this to fund their program. Apart from this, donations from the elite patrons can form a source of revenue for the program. An organization cannot, however, rely only on grants. In order to provide a systematic stream of income, this program will charge commissions from sales margin of the community it supports. For painters, this will include a part of their sales proceeds, if they are successful in selling paintings. For the musicians, this will include a part of the proceeds from ticket sales of their performance. For the literary group, successful selling of books of aspiring authors will be charged fairly. By this way, the company will be able to generate revenues for its functioning. There are various global organizations, which offer grants and loans to the cultural programs. One such example is the Ford foundation, which has a long history of providing grants, recoverable grants, loans and loan guarantees to various cultural programs of developing countries, like, Puerto Rico, Qatar and Romania, to name a few (“Grants”). Implementation The implementation plan of an organization includes product design and development, marketing and sales, distributors, resource requirement and scheduling. The implementation of cultural programs does not require a very high capital investment. The successful implementation of any marketing program requires proper identification of target market, analysis of the needs of members of the segmented market and development and implementation of proper marketing mix strategies. The marketing mix strategy is again an interaction between four variables, namely product, price, promotion and place (“Marketing Communication and Events Plan for Creative Cultural Industries”). The marketing of cultural programs are rather complex and is not similar to practices followed by the traditional industries. The categorization is difficult because cultural products are the result of concerted team efforts. The cultural production system may involve a series of participants, like, a creative subsystem, responsible for generation of idea, a management subsystem for selecting, making and distributing the product and a communication subsystem to give meaning to the product (Soloman, 1988). “Creative Zone of Qatar” will have its headquarters in Doha as the strategy is to use geopolitical location of the city to interact with the national and international regions. The first step that needs to be followed is a successful implementation strategy for its potential success. The first task for the program would be to locate the resource pool for its mission, who can provide potential benefits to the organization. The target group for this program will be policymakers, cultural operators, creative entrepreneurs, other industries as well as general public. The basic agenda of this program is to raise awareness among the culture-loving people to start their own business by establishing strong bonds and enhancing cooperation among creative entrepreneurs. This program will create strong networking between them by acting as a communication interface, interlinking enterprises of the creative economy and organizations interested in supporting these communities. The marketing mix strategies of the cultural industry are not exactly similar to the traditional industry. The product, in this case, creation of the artist, is unique from one another and no two pieces of art is same. This heterogeneity in product arises because artists differ in creation of utilitarian products and creativity is valued in terms of qualitative expressions. The determination of price can be determined from the sale through auctions or putting works of art in exhibition-cum-sale formats. For the musicians, this process will include pricing their tickets at a ceiling price and the “Creative Zone of Qatar” will charge commissions from ticket sales. Proceeds from book sale will be collected by the company for every unit of books sold by the author. This process will be synergistic to both entrepreneurs who are willing to start business and the organization as well. The struggling entrepreneurs can obtain the financial support from the organization and once they reap the benefits, they can pay back to the organization. This is because cultural policies to promote cultural diversity represent the two opposite sides of the spectrum. On one side, there is a need to provide support to the right of creative expression of all artisans that it nurtures and on the other hand, there is a need to make the business venture viable to enhance possibility of marketing at a global scale. These two factors are difficult to reconcile, but nevertheless, they are complementary. The promotional strategies are extremely important for any project to increase its visibility and promote its popularity. Apart from traditional modes of advertising that can be used for promotions, the program wishes to establish web pages on the internet to make the program visible on a global scale. The promotional strategies will also include developing communication channels and providing public relations support. All these will be done with the objective of attracting grants and support from foreign countries, which share a deep love for culture. The primary objective is to increase awareness at regional, local and global levels. Conclusion This paper has dealt with creation of a business plan for a cultural economic program. The basic objective of the program is to help the creative entrepreneurs of the country to set up their own business with both financial and non-financial help from the organization, called the Creative Zone of Qatar. The financial aid will come from the provision of monetary help to artisans to start their business and the non-financial support will consist of providing major various platforms, like, important social events, performance on local television and other PR support, which can improve visibility of artisans globally, so that they can get better opportunities. The program is designed to collect commissions from sale of the work of artisans to meet its administrative expenses. The grants from the government and non-governmental organizations all over the world will be approached for proving donations and loan-able grants for the organizations. The elite section of the Qatari society will also be approached for grants to support the artisans creating traditional arts. The implementation of the project will require proper analysis of the market to locate the hubs of art and culture in the society and recognition of the resource pool. The next step will be segmentation of the art-loving customers, who have the love and wherewithal to purchase pieces of art and help artists. The marketing strategy of the plan has also been discussed in the last segment of the paper. Works Cited Algethami, Sarah. “Middle East demand for contemporary art on the rise.” Gulf News, 2013. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. “Arts and Economy.” NGA, 2013. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. Barakat, Halim. The Arab world: Society, culture, and state. California: University of California Press, 1993. Print. Finn, Adam, Stuart McFadyen, and Colin Hoskins. “Marketing, Management, and Competitive Strategy in the Cultural Industries”. Canadian Journal of Communication. 19.3 (1994): n. pag. Web. 20 May 2014. “Grants.” Ford Foundation, 2014. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. “Government to launch cultural grants programme.” IFACCA, 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. “Marketing Communication and Events Plan for Creative Cultural Industries.” Baltic Sea Region, Web. 04 Feb. 2014. “Qatar’s Islamic Cultural - Fanar.” Nakhweh, 2013. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. “Qatar UK 2013.” British Council, 2013. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. Widen, Erika. “Fostering Qatar’s art industry.” The edge, 2013. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. Read More