This document summarizes a presentation given by Prof. Jatin Bhatt on innovating new paradigms of value in handicrafts. The presentation discusses how crafts have struggled for survival and patronage but can be redefined as a "New Luxury" by focusing on fair practices, sustainability, and cultural values important to new customers. Bhatt outlines various constituents of value for crafts, including characteristics, essence, worth, endorsement, patronage, experience, and the convergence of commerce and meaning. He proposes a process of value building that recognizes, creates, promotes, realizes and actualizes value through these constituents.

1. Innovating New Paradigms
of Value in Handicrafts
Prof. Jatin Bhatt
Director Edusign Consulting Private Limited New Delhi India
&
Former founding chair, Dept. of Fashion & Lifestyle Accessories, NIFT, New Delhi
A presentation to the
Masters students of Resource Management & Design Application
Lady Irwin College New Delhi
5th March 2009
©Jatin Bhatt 2008

2. Understanding Value
• Success of all business and enterprises
depend on creating and sustaining ‘value’ of
their products or services
• Value is created in the minds of the customers
• The meaning of value has changed over time
• Has expanded beyond products & functions
• Encompasses brands & core beliefs of any
business as well as values they represent.
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3. Understanding Value
• It has many interpretations depending on the
context.
• Attributed to people, cultures, objects, events,
actions, ideologies & more.
• Positive & negative triggers to value perception
depend on one’s worldview.
• Even a commodity product can be in aspirational
space indicating status & wellbeing.
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4. Hiatus of value in crafts
• Excelled due to patronage & need to enhance
status by royalty & rulers.
• Epitomized by aesthetic excellence & deftness of
craftsmanship.
• Now struggling for survival & patronage.
• Sold largely on cost plus pricing to earn bare
livelihood.
• Dependent on government & development
agencies for support.
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5. Need for new paradigms
• Reversal of true patronage and in turn are being
commoditized.
• Need to redefine the very premise of core nuances
of value of crafts.
• Perceived as New Luxury by the Global leaders of
Luxury brands.
• Emerging new customer & the values in crafts.
• The new customer is informed, ethical and
compassionate about the value of his/her money
in the entire business process.
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6. From where do we seek new value
propositions for crafts??
• Fair practices, sustainability, anti-exploitation, anti-
waste.
• recycling, cultural diversity, creative cultural
content.
• authorship of objects and recognition.
• These being prime ethos driving buying decisions
of this new customer.
• Values that are a near perfect fit with handicrafts.
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7. “New” paradigms of Value
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8. Constituents of Value
• Guna: Meaning characteristics is a term in English; it
also pertains recognizing them as inherent qualitative
aspects.
• Deciphering these in any craft as an object, process,
expression, history, tradition, techniques, reflection of
beliefs, nature of practice, material source, recycling,
sustainability etc. as key ingredients.
• Building on these and ensuring these GUNA are
integral to the process & strategies of craft
development as a sensitive connection between
traditional wisdom and contemporary markets.
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9. Constituents of Value
• Sanskara: Meaning essence or culture,it pertains to
inherent dimensions of practice, which are of immense
importance in the consumption society of today as an
antidote.
• Need to strike a cord by exemplifying minimal waste,
hand made, recycling, renewable energy use, natural
materials and harmless production practice of crafts by
virtue of a humane scale as a culture of sustainability.
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10. Constituents of Value
• Mulya/Amulya: As worth in both material terms
and perceived value.
• Building on exclusivity, cultural identity, expression
& skills, quality, authenticity, authorship, traditional
lineage and customization as core multiplier of its
monitory worth.
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11. Constituents of Value
• Pramana: As a concept of measure/co-relation/
endorsement of craft products through
benchmarking, certification and promotion to
inform, educate and engage potential customer
for long term patronage.
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12. Constituents of Value
• Samarthan/Jajmaani : system of patronage,
protection out of value recognition as a transaction
based on shared meaning between producers
and users.
• Arth in samarthan is ‘meaning’ that will need to be
created for converting customers into patrons or
jajmaans
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13. Constituents of Value
• Anubhuti: Meaning experience, a critical ingredient
in developing an emotional connect and long lasting
mind space as a reality capsuled in an object or a
craft product.
• Witnessing craft processes, interacting with
communities, immersing in the ambience or being
in awe of shear dexterity of hands combined with
stories of history, traditions, culture, human spirit of
expression and space/time location envelop much
more than the physical realities of a craft object that
travel and unfold as reminiscence, concern and
relationship of a life time.
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14. Constituents of Value
• Sansarg/Arth: Interestingly, Arth can mean
commerce and meaning. In a way suggesting that
commerce needs to make deeper meaning to all
involved.
• Convergence of all value constituents as a
commercial transaction that truly represents the
larger meaning of crafts rooted in co-creation of
values beyond the simple buying and selling of
objects.
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15. Process of Value building
• Value Recognition: Guna
• Value Creation: Mulya/Amulya
• Value Promotion: Pramaan
• Value Realization: samarthanJajmaani
• Value Actualization: anubhuti/sanskara
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16. This was a part of a module
‘Value paradigms of crafts’
specially developed for the 2 year full time program in
Craft Enterprise Management
at
The Craft Development Institute, Srinagar
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17. Edusign
Consulting Private limited
in collaboration with
Dastkar
Offers
A 13 week program
‘Curating The Commerce of Crafts’
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18. Thank you
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