Abstract

SSISM is the case of a missionary organization, founded by an upwardly mobile IT professional Pranjal Dubey, who leaves the trappings of a successful career to pursue what he felt was his life’s calling, to make a difference to the community around his ancestral village, through providing better education to the youth.

The case highlights the effort and evangelistic zeal of Pranjal as he battles multiple hurdles on a daily basis to try and make a difference at the grass root level. However, what clearly needs to be defined is how he can establish a viable business model, in the absence of which the organization is unlikely to achieve its vision. The case discusses the various challenges SSISM faces on multiple fronts including motivating people, ensuring quality of education, financing, and changing social mind-sets. It also addresses the issue of society’s involvement and responsibility. From the perspective of Pranjal, the main protagonist, the case provides several rich pastures of discussion including, should he manifest a local or global perspective, and how should he sustain the movement, going forward?

The case touches upon several processes that are fundamental in Strategy and entrepreneurship in terms of developing a sustainable business model for an entrepreneurial missionary organization. As an entrepreneurial missionary firm in its growth phase, SSISM needs to manage the fine balance between growth (current revenues, clients, etc.) and sustaining and disseminating its evangelistic vision.

Learning Objective

The primary teaching objective of the case is to provide students an understanding of the following:

• The challenges of starting an entrepreneurial venture with a powerful social orientation. This includes getting key stakeholder support (family, supporting staff, students, and society being served)
• How to evangelize the cause from the entrepreneur to the rest of the missionary organization?
• Complexity of the inter-linkages of problems in the social context . How does a social entrepreneur define the boundaries of the activities being undertaken?
• How to define goal setting, systems and processes for not-for-profit organizations, even as the organization struggles for survival?