Key resources in a social enterprise are related to the resources that add both commercial and impact values. Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) and Burkett (2013) have these five categories for a Social Enterprises’ resources:
Physical: Material stuff such as enterprises’ premises, the standard equipment. In addition, special equipment, and infrastructure.
Intellectual Property: Intangible resources such as copyrights, patents, brands, databases belong to this type of key resources. Intellectual properties are hard to be created, but when it happens, is extremely beneficial for the enterprise. Consumer goods companies such as Nike and Sony rely heavily on brand as a Key Resource. For instance, Microsoft depends on software and this is an intellectual property which has been developed for many years.
Human: Human resources are the most important for any enterprise, especially when then enterprise ‘sells’ a service rather than product. In social enterprises are more important because the nature of the work is mostly oriented to people. These people can also be supporting networks and strong collaborations.
Financial: Social enterprises can start only if they have monetary resources. Where and how the needed amount will be ensured, is one of the most important tasks that an enterprise has because when financially resources are sufficient, it is ensured that impact costs are covered.
5. Impact: All the available methods or networking people who have as their main task to evaluate impact or/and to ensure that impact is delivered.
It is not expected for every social enterprise to include all the above resources from the first days. It is something that will be developed by time or it will be decide that they are not all so important. It depends on the type of social enterprise and the goals that have been set.
Some useful questions that should be answered about key resources in a social enterprise are the following:
What resources are important to be delivered by our impact activities?
In which way commercial resources affect the implementation of impact objectives and in which way the opposite?
What physical, intellectual property, human, and financial resources are necessary for the commercial activities of the enterprise?
What physical, intellectual property, human, financial and impact resources are necessaryfor delivering impact via our activities?
