Bizcuits | Gelato

Leanda Lee

There is this rather funky school near Bologna, Italy to which chefs and sea-changers go to learn the secrets behind putting together the elements that make the perfect gelato. At €1,342 for the basic course to €5,002 for the complete curriculum, if price is an indication of value and willingness to pay, this is a seriously cool course.  From Sr. Neves in Porto to Fuji-san in Peru, Carpigiani Gelato University gives students the skills and knowledge to start their own artisan businesses which include business plans and operations, an understanding of appropriate architectural designs, hygiene standards, as well as the nitty-gritty of how to put recipes together and create new ones. And, for the cold of the winter, when this seasonal business takes a breath, the students are given other sets of skills in pastries and artisan-style chocolates to keep revenue turning.

The university’s own business model does not stop with teaching and training. Given the creative mindset that goes from knowing how to create a product and setting up a successful business to do so, to then teaching others to do the same globally, there were always going to be extensions to the model. They have links with other academic institutions for research and development, and with suppliers and partners to help budding gelatieres start their shops, set up their facilities and keep them supplied, serviced and maintained for many months and years to come.

Loyalty is imbued via the days or weeks of Italian hospitality during the course, and then the equipment that they have used and become used to, ingredients and ongoing advice are sold to the new businesses thereafter. Global gelati competitions, a museum, new recipes and book publications; they even run a job centre to match gelatarias with student gelatieres – it is a simple yet self-sustaining and growth model.

This business could have stopped at a successful gelati shop, but it did not. It was expanded to generate revenue on each and every element that makes one. The “university” has 7,000 students a year and has twelve campuses internationally.

These types of business models are the stuff of dreams: Make ideas work hard for you, rather than working hard for your idea. Good businesses do not need to be complex.

Teaching business students over the years, we used to get barbed sotto voce comments from some academic colleagues for allowing our students to write business plans for coffee shops. This was in a time before young coffee-shop entrepreneurs started opening artisanal coffee roasters and themed quirky cafes. Having our students work with seemingly simple and accessible business concepts we believed they could envisage the possibilities beyond.  That part of Macau’s streetscape has now changed for the better and we are aware that we had at least some influence.

An idea or a business does not need to be entirely new or entrepreneurial in nature. Heading into this new year from the depths of this (always short) winter and beyond, entrepreneurs who have had an idea and have done well with it may well think of how they can do better – not necessarily by doing the same thing more efficiently or effectively with better service at lower cost as commonly taught in business schools, but by extension.

Macau has long supported young entrepreneurs and new SMEs through a number of government incubators, grants and matching services. Success in new business ventures is, however, notoriously haphazard. We seem to forget that success can be leveraged best from existing success.

As the weather improves from the frost of the New Year into the Chinese New Year, successful SMEs may as well come out of the lonely cold and garner support to diversify their own businesses. There are many ways to skin Macau’s diversification rabbit.