First Nation partnerships and effective business relationships thrive
From http://thechronicleherald.ca/Business/540310.html
First Nations making their mark - KAREN BLOTNICKY
IN THE MIDST of Canada’s multicultural mosaic is a largely untapped market of aboriginal consumers. Often overlooked, this market has many characteristics that should lead more businesses to look to the First Nations as viable consumers of a variety of goods and services.
In Canada’s rush to serve our immigrant population, Canadian media were quick to delve into a variety of ethnic markets. Publications of various types, in various languages, began to account for a larger percentage of advertisers’ budgets. In the midst of this flurry only one key medium, APTN, the Aboriginal People’s Television Network, was born to cater to our own indigenous peoples.
Canada’s aboriginal community is diverse. It consists not only of North American Indians, many of whom come from diverse tribes, but also of Metis and Inuit people. Often overlooked as an economically depressed group with little to attract marketers, the aboriginal community has remained in splendid isolation. However, that is beginning to change.
There are many reasons why the aboriginal market deserves serious consideration. For one thing, aboriginals are much younger than the rest of the Canadian population, which has been long overshadowed by an aging trend. The median age for Canadians as a group was 37.3, according to the 2001 census. However, the median age for North American Indians was 24, for the Metis it was 27 and for the Inuit it was 21.
The aboriginal population is not only younger, but also growing at a much faster rate. The aboriginal population of about one million is expected to double over the next decade or so. This is in stark contrast to the general Canadian population, which is declining as well as aging. Canada is long been relying on immigration to maintain population growth to fuel the future of businesses.
Most marketers do not realize that aboriginal people maintain many of their core cultural values while working and living off the reserve. Sixty per cent of aboriginals live off-reserve in major cities and towns across Canada. They consume the same products and services as others in their communities.
Aboriginal people have also worked hard to establish a small-business backbone to support and grow their local economies. One of the most successful business ventures is in the Membertou Mi’kmaq community on Cape Breton Island.
Only a decade ago the town was feeling the pinch of the loss of coal and steel, as was the rest of Cape Breton. Unemployment topped out at 95 per cent. The Membertou First Nation employed only 20 people with an operating budget of $4.5 million annually and had a serious deficit.
In an impressive display of entrepreneurialism and creativity, the community grew its local business base by developing partnerships with other firms to sell goods and services. Today it employs 250 people, the operating budget has skyrocketed and the community enjoys a surplus. The unemployment rate has fallen to 10 per cent.
The new goal of the Membertou community is not only to make a profit and create jobs, but also to become self-reliant, weaning itself from federal transfer payments.
These success stories are not unusual. Metis and Inuit communities are proving to be creative and successful entrepreneurs. With this newfound wealth comes an even greater opportunity to contribute economically, with enhanced opportunities for individuals to earn a living and to enjoy the fruits of their labours.
Add to this the $7 billion that individual bands receive in federal funds and an estimated $15 billion expected in land claims over the next decade, and the aboriginal market begins to look much more attractive for a variety of goods and services. In 2003 the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business launched the PAR program, an acronym for Progressive Aboriginal Relations. PAR allows non-aboriginal entrepreneurs to partner with aboriginal firms to market goods and services.
In return for doing good business with such firms, non-aboriginal firms will be able to display the PAR symbol, which provides the equivalent of a seal of approval. The PAR seal is regarded as a rating scheme that shows all aboriginal consumers that one’s business meets certain criteria that are considered important by aboriginal shoppers. The project also helps to integrate aboriginal and non-aboriginal business relationships in a mutually advantageous way.
Too often Canada’s small businesses are focused on the new and the different, trying to find ways to appeal to the growing diversity of the general population. Sometimes the secret to success is much closer to home. For more information on the PAR program, visit www.aboriginalbiz.com
For a new marketing opportunity for your firm, consider the aboriginal markets in your own community.
Karen Blotnicky is president of TMC The Marketing Clinic and a professor at Mount Saint Vincent University.