Accenture challenge: back to the basics…

When running your own business, it is important to know where to start. What is your product and what makes you so sure that you are going to sell it? Who are your competitors and what makes you different? Those are simple questions before you start. But what is equity? Or how do you calculate a percentage for reservations? What is a reservation anyway?

Twenty-one experts of Accenture BPO  are breaking their heads on these questions in an intern Accenture Community Challenge. Not that they don’t know, on the contrary, they are experienced in the subject, but how do you explain someone who hardly finished primary school? On top of that, how do you explain someone in a favela in Brazil? And how can you make sure that through your explanation this someone will be able to run his/her own successful business? The only option is going back to the basics!

On April 29th Caramundo was present at a workshop  in which the team leaders of the participating teams of the challenge came together to work on the different modules of a training to be developed for Projeto Queto. At first they thought it would be easy.  Just explain terms such as “supply chain”, “sales”, “marketing & communication” add a formula, calculate the amount you need to start, and begin. But the most difficult challenge for the employees of Accenture turned out to be how to explain what all those difficult terms mean in simple and basic language, and why it is important to people who have never thought about marketing & sales and doing business.

Imagine people who grew up in Morro do Queto, a relatively small favela in the north zone of Rio de Janeiro, but until recently lacking all forms of infrastructure and governmental social services. Imagine youth who are not going to school anymore, who are bored and who are forced to figure out for themselves how they will manage to colour their lives, how to earn a living and how to financially support their families…Did they ever think about starting a company that would it be able to compete with any other business in that area?

Projeto Queto exists since 2008. In the cultural centre youth have had the opportunity to follow basic classes in graffiti, silk-screen printing, photography, audio production and graphic design. It was all much more for fun than to learn a profession and earn a living. That is going to change now.

There’s a big opportunity for Projeto Queto to prepare itself for its participation on the local market and sell products produced in its own atelier. The Sampaio soccer field is around the corner, Maracanã a few miles away and all equipment is at hand to make a good business start up. Brazils’ growing economy and World Cup 2014 tourism as potential clients, Projeto Queto has nothing to fear, just to do…but where to start?

Caramundo asked the 1% Club and Accenture BPO to develop a practical and approachable capacity building business training for the inhabitants of Morro do Queto to learn to run their own social enterprise. Goal: teach youth the creative and practical skills as well as professional skills to be able to run a fully professional company, selling clothing and printed textile on the local and eventually the international market, with unique products designed and produced in their own neighbourhood. Could it be any better?

Fact is, that the inhabitants of Morro do Queto are coping with all basic difficulties any inhabitant of a favela has to deal with: unemployment, low or no education, and no infrastructure. Recently the Unity of Pacifying Police (UPP) has settled in the community, which diminished violence quite a bit. But the lack of social services or adequate education continues. Our common challenge is to stay positive and continue the battle. With the support of Accenture BPO and the 1% Club we are sure we will manage. In the end, a structural change doesn’t happen from one day to the other, it takes a lot of understanding and much patience.

On June 9th Accenture will announce the challenges’ winning team, we are 100% sure that is the group leaded by case manager Richard Benningshof!