Innovating New Paradigms of Value in Handicrafts

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All business processes and enterprises depend on creating and sustaining ‘value’ of their products or services in the minds of the customers. The meaning of ‘value’ has transformed substantially over time from being just a product or function centered to more holistic concepts of brands and core beliefs that a business practice stands for. ‘Value’ has many meanings & interpretations depending on the context. Value is attributed to people, cultures, objects, events, actions, ideologies…. and so on. Common factors in assigning value as positive or negative are the triggers that one responds to based on ones worldview. Much of mere commodity products have redefined themselves as aspirational benchmarks where the customer pays for their imagery as an enhancer of a sense of wellbeing or status. However the traditional crafts have seen a reversal of this process and in turn are being commoditized. This has had detrimental consequences for the very survival of crafts. We need to redefine the very premise that helps understand the core nuances of value from a historical, economic, sociological and perceptual paradigms in the context of handicrafts. We also need to look at crafts and handmade products as an approach that dovetails into the emerging new customer across the globe.