Our partner, Homeboy Industries, is an L.A. based organization whose mission is to serve the formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated through a variety of services that support these individuals in overcoming unimaginable trauma as they navigate the road to recovery and reintegration into society. Within Homeboy Industries, Homeboy Foods is an eCommerce social enterprise that generates revenue, provides jobs, and offers an opportunity for the general public to engage with the brand through the online sale of baked goods. Homeboy Industries has a saying that they do not hire people to bake goods, they bake goods to hire people. Our shared goal with Homeboy Foods was to increase eCommerce sales in order to create more job opportunities for the Homeboys community.
What did we do?
Before traveling to Los Angeles, our team began learning about eCommerce, bakery operations, and Homeboy Industries itself. Through this research, we collaborated with the Homeboy Industries team members to:
Reduce operational bottlenecks throughout the fulfillment process;
Position Homeboy Foods’ online platform to communicate the impact that every purchase makes;
Grow revenue during non-holiday months to reduce the effects of highly seasonal season sales on the workforce; and
Develop key performance indicators for the Homeboys leadership team to measure and track progress towards its goals.
The implementation of this plan is expected to increase Homeboy Foods’ monthly revenue, and in turn, create more jobs for the communities it serves.
Once we arrived in Los Angeles, we began conducting field research to develop our hypotheses regarding how to accomplish the four aforementioned goals. During our time in California, we conducted interviews with other Los Angeles bakeries that ship nationwide, spoke with Homeboy Industries’ technology and marketing teams, observed the bakery’s operations, and spoke extensively with the bakery’s staff. We were able to gather informative data that enabled us to construct ways to achieve our team’s goals. As such, when we departed from Los Angeles, we were eager and excited to refine our observations and ideas into a cohesive recommendation for Homeboy Industries to use to further develop its eCommerce business.
What was the turning point?
The turning point for our project came to fruition when we were in-field and organized a cross-functional meeting with all internal stakeholders that touched Homeboy Foods eCommerce including the CEO, CFO, and heads of marketing, operations, and technology. To our knowledge, this meeting was the first time that all the key playmakers were in the same room collaborating towards a cohesive eCommerce strategy. The energy and excitement for the potential growth of Homeboy Foods was tangible and led to impactful conversations that resulted in new ideas and immediate changes, some of which were implemented during our visit. From this meeting we were then able to develop a more targeted approach to our in-field research, expand on our initial findings to address some of the key concerns of our partner, and construct multi-level and multi-phased final recommendations.
What was the recommendation?
Our recommendation came in the form of two phases: Phase 1, the implementation of which we encouraged to be as soon as possible; and Phase 2, which should begin in January 2023, to avoid making structural changes during Homeboy Foods’ busy holiday season. Phase 1 included process standardization, particularly in the packaging of goods, as well as recommended improvements to website design, such as emphasizing the impact that each purchase on Homeboy Foods makes and continuing to reduce barriers to sale. Phase 2 focused on eCommerce storefront consolidation, seasonality remedies, and marketing recommendations. Homeboy baked goods and merchandise were currently on separate platforms. We believe that consolidation of the eCommerce storefronts will lead to a more seamless experience for consumers as well as facilitate cross-selling from the different Homeboy Industries enterprises. Seasonality remedies included unique product offerings throughout the year at other key holiday moments as well as implementation of a subscription service, all oriented towards increasing revenue in the historically off-season months. Finally, we developed key performance indicators for the Homeboys leadership team to track in order to assess the impact of these improvements and continue to iterate on our recommendations.
Since our initial set of recommendations, Homeboy Foods has already experienced an uptick in sales and we are excited for the momentum that its highly talented cross-functional team is experiencing!