"Creative business models" research report (2015)

"Creative business models for creative organisations" (2014-2015) was a pilot research project, conducted in partnership with "The Creative Plot" - an initiative by the Cultural and Economic Development departments of the City of Lund, and funded by Future of Lund Foundation, aiming at investigating sustainable business models for cultural organisations. This project set the ground for "Creative Lenses" (2015-2019) project, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the EU, which explored the issue of sustainability of European arts and cultural organisations. Trans Europe Halles served as a managing partner.

Based on the survey of 45 TEH members, the following information was included:

• the nature and typoligies of the legal structures of the organisations;
• the location, ownership and facilities of the physical buildings in which they operate;
• the most common types of activities and the related managerial activities as well as types of services delivered to clients and customers;
• the economic and financial issues, such as annual budget, sources of incomes, sources of earned incomes, types of funding, bank loans, cash reserves and savings, and types of activities connected to the renting of spaces;
• organisational governance, in terms of presence of a director, board of directors or trustees, and human resources involved in the delivering of the activities of the independent cultural centers of TEH network.

In 2014-2015, these were the major research report findings:

• Companies and organisations operating in the creative and cultural industries (CCIs) face significant challenges that can be outlined as follows:
  • support of the public good
  • organisational investment
  • financial stability
  • marketing strategies
  • performance measurement and management systems
  • partnership strategies and business model innovation.
• Great attention was placed on the role and relevance of a business model in general, and business model innovations, in particular - to support and drive the improvement of organisational performance. This impulse came from the private sector, namely information and communication technology companies (ICTs) and e-businesses.
• Smal and medium entreprises (SMEs) and organisations operating in the CCIs - although recognising the relevance of elaborating and adopting business models - still did not have structured initiatives in place. Their business models were predominantly managed implicitly, without the use of formal approaches and tools.
• There were two major reasons that shaped the relevance of sustainable business modelling for cultural organisations
  • lack of understanding how they can achieve financial viability, without compromising their mission and/or not-for-profit values;
  • according to the progressive evolution of the business landscape, they can position themselves in the ecosystems not only as providers of cultural activities, extending their audience, but increasingly they can play a major role as:
    • actors for social innovation and development;
    • providers of cultural and creative sectors;
    • catalysts for change and performance improvements of organisations operating in other traditional sectors.
• Although business model innovation is recognised as being fundamental to creative and cultural organisations' success, the approaches, the techniques and the tools for elaborating, implementing and managing specific and tailor-made business models in creative and cultural industries are still crude and often inadequate.