Creative Design Ltd.: the path to youth entrepreneurship

Abstract

Learning outcomes

By the end of this session, students should be able to: explain what a business model is; summarize the case firm’s business strategy using the elements of business model canvas proposed by Alexander Osterwalder and practice how to apply the business model canvas to analyze the business model of a firm; understand how a firm can seize an opportunity for innovation; and discuss how the case firm navigated through problems that came up as it grew.

Case overview/synopsis

Creative Design was a start-up company in Taiwan. To fulfill a course requirement while she was still in school, the founder had formed a team and entered an entrepreneurship competition. They won the second runner up award in that competition and impressed some firms who enquired if they would be interested in doing corporate identity system (CIS) design. They discovered that without establishing a corporate structure their prospective clients would be unable to pay an invoice. As a consequence, the founder and one of the team members established Creative Design Ltd. This case discusses the challenge Creative Design faced at the end of 2012. Wonderland farmers’ association (WFA) wanted to market locally grown jasmine but did not know how to go about it. They reached out to the founder and her company for assistance. The case of WFA was uncharted territory. Creative Design already had extensive experience in CIS design, but it did not have any experience in handling agriculture products. In this case, they had to deal with the full supply chain from production to exhibition. The risk for this project was high but Creative Design accepted the case and became the first design firm offering a “total solution.” Currently, Creative Design works with all kinds of cases, from simple CIS designs to more complicated total solutions of various scales. The founder now has to contemplate if the design house should develop more total solution cases. Doing so would require recruiting more staff and the dilemma of balancing revenue and costs.

Complexity academic level

The case study is designed for the undergraduate and graduate students of the College of Management; the case can be adopted for the courses of management, innovation and entrepreneurship, etc.

Supplementary materials

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

Subject code

CSS: 3 Entrepreneurship.

Citation

Chuang, Y.-H., Kang, T.-C., Chang, W.-C. and Chen, P.-J. (2020), "Creative Design Ltd.: the path to youth entrepreneurship", , Vol. 10 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-07-2019-0182