The DIDHK’s Story
- from experimentation to continuous innovation A timeline (see Table 1), based on the DIDHK’s Chief Executive Officer’s recollection of important events, newspaper articles and a book written by one of the DIDHK founders, was put together with the key milestones illustrating the dynamic business growth happening since its pilot run in 2009.
Table 1. Timeline of Organisational Major Milestones
2009
• Site identified for opening in 2010
• Opening of DIDHK in its first location in February
Phase One – Times before financial breakeven DIDHK started with mobile workshops in 2009 to test the market and their business model. Much as DIDHK had attracted attention and sales revenue since 2009, the operation was still running at a loss financially six months into its opening at a fixed location in 2010 because of its high operational and maintenance costs. In 2010, DIDHK started having regular walk-in visitors, the revenue source was still struggling to cover the operational costs, not to say achieving financial break-even. The current CEO came on board in June 2010 while the two founders were still active in the operation. Although the then GM understood that the financial shortfall was normal as a new startup, he did not allow himself to be complacent and set himself the goal of seeking revenue increase not by himself but by providing the conditions to facilitate bottom-up dynamics. In an interview, he said that ‘we had no strategy but we tried everything in order to achieve financial viability.’ Identifying that the corporate workshops achieved higher profit margin, he mobilized two levels of members to act. First of all, he promoted one junior member of the sales team to head up the team as a manager and set sales target to be achieved. Secondly, he appealed to the Board to facilitate referral of potential corporate clients for the sales team to follow up on orders. ‘Opportunity tension’ was heightened at this stage because of the pressure of financial non-viability. Although the Board including the founders were not imposing an urgency of revenue increase,
• DIDHK launched in January 2009 as a mobile experiential experience provider without a fixed location and the executive training workshops were well received. With these successful pilot runs, the two founders started to locate a fixed rental location
• Financial breakthrough with the first monthly income exceeding expenditure achieved in July
2010
• ‘Concert in the Dark’, the first concert performed in complete darkness in Hong Kong was organized. DIDHK collaborated with pop singers and musicians. Event sponsored by CSL, a mobile phone company • Sales of corporate training was driven up as the dominant revenue generator and started to sustain growth of DIDHK • Year-end loss for 2010 at HK$1,577,811 (DIDHK, 2013)
• Launch of Dialogue in Silence • DIDHK expanded beyond Hong Kong, serving multinational clients in China • Strategically expanding to China • ‘Concert in the Dark’ received ‘Innovation Award’
2011
• ‘Concert in the Dark’ received ‘Outstanding Small Budget Campaign Award’ • Awarded ‘Outstanding Social Enterprise Award’ by Home Affairs Bureau, Hong Kong • Awarded ‘Talent-Wise Recruitment Excellent Award’ for promoting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities • Year-end profit for 2011 at HK$654,408 (DIDHK, 2013)
• Dialogue In Silence (DIS) further developed more products including ‘Silence Yum Cha (i.e. Having Tea in Silence)’ and started new silence workshops • Soul Searching: a rebranding exercise with the participation of the whole company realigning the staff’s understanding of its social mission and financial goals. The new mission statement ‘Engaging people of differences to create social impacts’ was created with refined social missions:
2012
- Turn sympathy into empathy - Empower physically challenged to use their unique strengths and talents to live a beautiful life - Become a role model in inspiring more people to take positive actions to transform our world into a better one • Opening of ‘Dialogue Experience Square’ at Good Lab, a new venue of around 5,000 sq ft. • Cabaret in Silence, a new Dialogue in Silence entertainment product was first launched in October • Year-end profit for 2012 at HK$2,041,407 (DIDHK, 2013)
• Social impact measurement research projects were commissioned to provide for better communication of DIDHK’s social impact and increase transparency
2013
• Impact investment and incubation of new businesses. Supported intrapreneurship with a VI Trainer created a new business start-up financially supported by DIDHK. • Launch of a social media partnership with CR2, a commercial radio station in Hong Kong to launch a joint venture programme • Suspension of the strategic expansion to China • ‘Dialogue in Silence’ received ‘Social Enterprise Award’ in the Innovation Category of the annual Social Enterprise Summit in Hong Kong
Theory of Change – A Scoping Study | 11