What is Mission on the Ground (MoG)?
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very50’s main program, Mission on the Ground (MoG), is a long-term consulting project catered towards the specific business needs and challenges of a particular social enterprise. very50 visits these social enterprises (SE) in their home countries and discusses their goals and current challenges. If a contract for a MoG program is made, very50 will create a consulting team specifically for that business and their challenges.
MoG differs from typical consulting or acceleration programs, as our consulting teams consist of normal citizens. For two to three months, these teams are trained and educated by professionals, entrepreneurs, and professors in a number of disciplines including logical thinking, and MBA business strategies such as marketing and product development. They learn not only how to think critically (an indispensable skill in this global age), but also gain the power to form ideas and successfully implement them.
There are three types of MoG program based on the (makeup) of the team; High School, Individual, and Big Enterprise. Although the implementation of the program itself is consistent across the program variations, there are slight differences between the programs.
Project Flow
Once a contract for a MoG program is made, a consulting team will be formed for each specific on-site project. The team will undergo a two to three-month training period, during which they will remain in contact with the social entrepreneur. Through Skype or telephone, the team have frequent conferences with the social entrepreneurs to collect data about their business. These meetings will continue until the on-site project begins.
After the training period is completed, the consulting team will travel to your country for a 10 to 14-day on-site project. They will work closely with your business to implement their hypothesis-based business strategies and create sustainable solutions based on your organization’s mission. The very50 team takes special care to propose solutions based on deep analysis and ensures that their methods mesh well with the local culture. Very50 also tackles problems on-site as they arise, drafting new plans and improvement policies on demand.
Following the conclusion of the on-site project, very50 will continue to work with the social enterprise for at least two years, with a new on-site project approximately every six months. In the interim, very50 continues to provide business support and networking through our vast web of connections.
(There are three types of MoG programs, differentiated by the members of the consulting teams. The High School MoG teams, as they are called, consist of high school students. This is our most common MoG program. We also have Individual MoG, whose members are university students and company workers. The last variation is our Big Enterprise MoG, whose consulting team consists of employees from large companies such as Panasonic and Shiseido.
MoG Type | Compensation | MoG Project Duration | Business Consultation | Network Expansion | Technical Skills | Connections & Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
High School MoG | 500-1000 USD | 7-10 days | Moderate | Limited | Moderate | Moderate |
Individual MoG | N/A | 10-14 days | High | Moderate | High | High |
Big Enterprise MoG | N/A | TBD | High | High | High | Moderate |
High School MoG
Our High School MoG is our most popular accelerator program. A team of bright young minds will be trained for two to three months specifically for your business and its issues. The onsite MoG is typically shorter in duration than the other two options, and social entrepreneurs receive compensation for participating. There is a mutual exchange of information, as the students are learning as much from you as they are outputting towards your business. The students are excited and passionate, working hard to creatively and logically problem solve.
Individual MoG
The Individual MoG team is comprised of university students and everyday citizens such as company employees, designers, engineers, and business professionals. Team members are from various schools and industries, and contribute high level skills and thinking due to their various backgrounds. They are able to use these skills to develop and help implement practical solutions to your business issues. During a slightly longer on-site project, team members develop close relationships with the social entrepreneurs through which they often continue to support the social entrepreneurs even after the end of the program.
Big Enterprise MoG
Big Enterprise MoG is our smallest acceleration program. Due to the nature of this program, the duration of the onsite project is not defined ahead of time. Working with company members from large enterprises, the social enterprises can receive tried and true business expertise first hand. Social entrepreneurs also gain access to the company's wide networks and connections. Opportunities to participate in this program are limited.
Training
Teams undergo intensive, custom tailored training for two to three months before the onsite project. The curriculum has been continuously updated for the past nine years to reflect the most current and effective business strategies. In addition to business, the teams also gain in depth knowledge of the country their MoG program is located in, and are trained in other important skills such as communication and logical thinking.
Creative
Emotional Marketing
In order to differentiate your company’s products / services, you need to appeal to customers’ emotions through branding and emotional marketing as well as product improvement. Team members deepen their understanding of effective advertising and PR to attract customers’ attention.
Idea Creation
Even if you are able to organize information in a logical way, it is whether you can come up with creative ideas that makes all the difference. Through a two-day workshop participants learn idea creation skills by dealing with questions like “What is a good idea?”, “What makes a good idea good?” and “How can we brush up ideas?”
Global Communication
Global Communication
What communication, thinking, and decision making skills are necessary to get results in environments with a different language, culture and values from your own? In this seminar, team members learn the skills required to succeed in these situations. Additionally, team members learn project facilitation skills.
Topics in Global Learning
Through guest lectures taught by professionals in the field, team members learn about topics relevant to their particular MoG program such as tourism, jewelry, evacuation procedures, etc.
Country-Specific Issues
Participants get familiar with country-specific issues about the destination countries from various points of view. Topics include macro and micro economics, politics, and cultures of the host countries.
Finance & Marketing
Project Accounting
It is crucial to make a quantitative assessment of a project. Team members are taught accounting concepts like cost accounting and decision accounting.
Vision Making
Team members deepen their understanding of your company's mission, vision, and values and learn its significance and meaning.
Marketing Strategy
Team members get familiar with not only marketing basics such as 3C analysis but also more practical marketing strategies in an easy-to-use approach.
Problem Solving
Logical & Critical Thinking
Participants learn how to deal with large amounts of information, prioritize important tasks, and manage an efficient and effective plan. They are exposed to ideas of how to define key issues of the assigned projects and conduct a hypothesis-verification process by looking at actual cases.
Project Planning
Participants learn how to actively discover a problem and draft a proposal to solve it in the most effective way. Techniques such as hypothesis-based thinking under uncertain situations and swift decision making for important issues are taught in the workshop.
Design Thinking
A problem-solving project constantly requires good ideas. In the workshop, participants learn "Practical Design Thinking", a methodology to get to know what “good” design is and how to get it.