The entrepreneur, who sees herself as a florist, has started her professional life working, sporadically, by the age of 14 years old, as a helper at some relatives’ flower shop, looking for financial independence and monetary support for her own leisure.

Aiming to improve herself in that work environment and to prove her value to herself and others, the interviewee began, during the time she had to rest, training the process of setting floral arrangements up, conceiving her own productive strategies. After a while, due to the skill acquired, she was able to reach her first professional achievement – she became the florist responsible for certain events.

Even so, there was still an issue involving her position as a worker: the work seasonality, in contrast to the constant need for remuneration in order to support her living. Besides, internally, the young lady started to criticize her job position and economic stability, as well as the lack of appreciation and recognition from her employers. Due to that, the interviewee left the floral arrangements segment and started to work on other occupation.

After a stable period working in another area, which was higher-paid, she was missing the unique feeling of fullness she used to have when seeing the result of her work, people’s happiness and the beauty of the floral arrangements. This encouraged her to go back, in parallel, to the floral décor field. This time, however, as an entrepreneur.

The enterprise was founded in 2001, with her own financial resources, which came from savings accumulated during previous work experiences. The floral arrangements used to be produced after her work journey, and advertised/offered, literally, in a door-to-door format.

Therefore, the entrepreneurial motivation had its roots in a personal nature, since the young lady sought for fulfillment with the position, given her previous dissatisfaction with her job; and in necessity, as she had to earn money and wanted to change her life. At some point, the enterprise was the entrepreneur’s main source of income; currently, however, it is an economic activity that aims income supplementation.

The floral arrangements segment is composed of: (a) informal service providers, with low training and extensive experience, such as interior decorators, floral artists and party ornamentors, working under low demand and with local coverage; and (b) occasional and institutional clientele.

Being part of the floral segment for events, the “Diferencial Festas, Eventos e Decorações” has regional coverage and has the proposal of serving customers that want to celebrate an event, through the production of floral arrangements.

Predominantly hired by intermediary companies that, in general, act as commercial representatives of the final consumers by negotiating several services that, when put together, compose an event, the Diferencial can be hired fully or partially. In full mode, the customer accepts the conditions and use of materials from the company’s partners; and in partial mode, the hirer previously establishes its suppliers (the product types for each event category are described next, in Table 2).

Table 2 Table 2 Product types Table 2 Product types

Table 2
Product types
Event	Raw material	Product purpose
Graduation	Roses, field flowers, noble flowers, exotic flowers	• set a solemn tone to the event;
		• photos panel;
		• arrangements to: table, entrance, sideboards and restroom.
Graduation		• photos panel;
		• cake and gifts table;
		• arrangements to: footbridge, chantry, table, entrance, sideboards and restroom;
		• bridal bouquet, bridesmaid and lapel.
15 years old party		• photos panel;
		• cake and gifts table;
		• arrangements to: table, entrance, sideboards and restroom.
Events in general, with natural flowers		• photos panel;
		• cake and gifts table;
		• arrangements to: table, entrance, sideboards and restroom.
Note: Elaborated by authors.

Note: Elaborated by authors.

For the small orders, Diferencial has a storage space for finished products, which are shipped using a private vehicle; large orders are made at the place in which the event will be held.

As for the human resources, the entrepreneur kept a portfolio of potential employees, recruited sporadically, in a contract format, when large events came up. The selection was based on a vulnerability profile created by her: unemployed people, single mothers and people looking for a first work experience (following this priority order).

The training for performing the operations is conducted after the employee’s admission to the team. It is carried out by the entrepreneur herself, based on the On the Job Training method, which provides practical experiences. That being said, some disadvantages could be mentioned when it comes to this training, specifically talking about this enterprise: lack of a well-structured environment for its execution; the entrepreneur’s limited skills in acting as an instructor; and the inexistence of other criteria for performance analysis, besides this stage.

The existing positions in the researched company, the assignments, the necessary requirements for performing them, as well as the respective “financial rewards” offered to the employees, are listed below (Table 3).

Table 3 Table 3 Rewards Table 3 Rewards

Table 3
Rewards
Position	Assignments	Requirements	Payments
Helper	• clean the handle and petals of the flowers;	Being attentive; having flexibility to learn; proactivity; and agility with the hands.	Fixed per day.
	• offer assistance to the florist.
Florist’s assistant	• finishing	Having the basics on assembling floral arrangements; proactivity; agility with the hands; and being detail-oriented.	Fixed per day or by demand.
Florist	• compose floral arrangements;	Having agility with the hands; creativity; flexibility to learn; responsibility; ability to guide people; and knowledge about the different types and events’ profile.	Variable
	• assemble floral arrangements;
	• outline work strategies.
Note: Elaborated by authors.

Note: Elaborated by authors.

During the contact with the entrepreneur, it was possible to notice that the changes regarding equipments, such as the acquisition of a manual thorns extractor, as well as of special scissors and knives, had, as their main goal, to enhance productive efficiency, since better instruments enable the operations to have higher quality, which directly affects the product. Moreover, such changes also aimed to offer safety and quality of life to the operator, since there used to occur a lot of hand injuries and fatigue, due to the obsolete state of some equipments. Currently, there are benches and tables for the working process; vegetable knives (with no saw); pruning shears; a meat knife (in order to cut the flowers with precision); and a manual rose cleaner.

The business relies on the entrepreneur and one more collaborator. Together, they also hold a matrimonial family bond. Currently, the enterprise only fullfills small orders, and its greatest issue refers to low profitability, based on its entire history.

SWOT analysis is one of the most famous and applied tool in Business field. Besides verifying the strategic position, it performs a “general assessment of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats" (Kotler, 2016, p. 59) regarding the enterprise. Based on the information collected, we present, next, a SWOT analysis of the studied company (Table 4).

Table 4 Table 4 SWOT analysis Table 4 SWOT analysis

Table 4
SWOT analysis
Strengths	Weaknesses
• quality raw material;	• working only with natural arrangements assembly;
• on-time delivery;	• not having productive availability for large events;
• assembly agility;	• little capital to be invested;
• customer loyalty;	• low profit margin;
• product differentiation by customization; and	• outsourced service provision;
• image linked to quality service.	• demand seasonality; and
	• standardized cost, with no differentiation among the customers.
Oportunities	Threats
• high number of graduates in the city;	• excessive competition;
• growth of the events sector;	• loyal customers to other event companies;
• opening of new spaces for parties;	• increase in the number of competitors;
• artificial floral arrangements; and	• increase in manpower cost; and
• supply chain partnerships.	• growth of new trends in the market.
Note: Elaborated by authors.

Note: Elaborated by authors.

SWOT analysis reveals that, on the company’s horizon, there were threats related to manpower cost and to an increase in the number of competitors; on the other hand, there were opportunities arising from an increased demand in the area; and, as for the weaknesses, it is possible to mention the little capital available to be invested, and the lack of work with large events. According to the other data collected and observed in this research, there is also a difficulty in training new professionals; a high cost involving raw material and manpower; low profitability; and a dangerous and unhealthy activity.

Heading from these findings, at first, the Iceberg Principle, which breaks down the factors/symptoms of a certain problem, was used; followed by the Cause-Effect Diagram, also known as Ishikawa Diagram, that logically sorts the possible causes of the main negative factor, according to the perspective of the entrepreneur-florist.

It is worth outstanding that, for this process, only four categories (4M) were taken into consideration, due to the features of the two causes types, that could not be changed (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Figure 1 Cause-effect diagram Figure 1 Cause-effect diagram Note: Elaborated by authors.

After that, in a second moment (Figure 2), the interrogative technique of the Five Whys was used, in order to explore the root cause of the superficially diagnosed problem and, later, to act over it in a resolute manner.

Figure 2 Figure 2 Five whys Figure 2 Five whys Note: Elaborated by authors.

The low profitability is primarily attributed to the small number of sales, since the final product offers low profit margin per unit. This factor, inserted in a macro-environmental context, makes the enterprise holder of an insignificant portion of market share, situation that is aggravated by the existing fierce competition. Nevertheless, a low market share is attributed to low productivity.

Thinking, now, about productivity, it is worth mentioning that the total processing time was long, which points out to interruptions due to misfortunes, to production bottlenecks, and to a time lapse during handlings, specially when it comes to the operation to remove thorns and leaves.

Finally, by questioning the cause once more, it was possible to conclude that there was not enough technological capacity to effectively and satisfactorily support the process, which revealed the need to act over this operation.

The operation to remove thorns and leaves out of the flowers used to be performed manually, a flower each time, which, in general, hurt the helpers’ hands. Even though the entrepreneur made safety goggles and gloves available, the use of this last safety equipment generated less productivity, as it used to get stuck in the flowers and was, as a consequence, discarded. This operation was, therefore, considered to be exhausting and unhealthy.

With this manual extraction method, the production process of 150 floral arrangements used to require 11 people, those being: four helpers to clean the roses (thorns and leaves) and two to clean the petals; two assistants to add the green part; a florist to model; and two people to carry and position the arrangement. The time for removing thorns and leaves was estimated at seven seconds per person and rosebud.

Currently, the existing technologies fulfilling this operation, given by the patents PI96b0191 (thorns extracting device for roses) and ES1012938 (manual device to remove the thorns from roses), use the manual process and the method of transforming one item at a time, which results in: larger amount of time to produce the order; excessive manpower in the process; and quality losses in customer service. As a result, they no longer meet the business needs of Diferencial Festas, Eventos e Decorações.

Due to that, an innovation opportunity in the area of equipments and machinery was identified, aiming to achieve a better development of floral arrangements and more agility in their assembly process by the florist. From an economic point of view, developing a prototype of a new product – in this case, a mechanized rose extractor – will be a differential in the floral décor field.

The device created has an engine; a drive shaft; a protective acrylic box; a hollow wooden plank; an acrylic waste box and a pedal. Another factor, taken into consideration when stipulating and implementing the improvement, is the place in which the arrangements assembly takes place, in order to provide the operator with compatibility, experimentation and simplicity. Depending on the type of demand, the florist makes the arrangements at the event’s venue and, for that, the proposed solution is portable and lightweight (it weighs about 14 kilograms).

Following the installation of the device to extract thorns and leaves out of the roses, the number of operators has decreased to five; as a result, the process relies, now, on 45% of the manpower previously employed. Moreover, the machine cleans the 150 roses in 30 seconds (it removes thorns from five roses per second), which represents a 97% time savings.

This provides greater speed to the operation developed by the florist, and makes operators available to other activities, being now distributed as it follows: a helper to clean the roses (thorns and leaves) and the petals; two assistants that add the green part and provide support to the florist; a florist to model; and a person to carry and position the floral arrangement.

Compared to previous models existing in the state of the art, this invention: reduces the physical effort required of the operator; increases the efficiency/speed of provision and/or distribution of goods and services; decreases operational costs for the provision of services, the time, and the unit production costs; increases the capacity and flexibility of production/service provision; eliminates the waste/by-product collection step of the operation; and operates with less risk of damaging the health of the operator.

Next (Table 5), the effects observed after the process innovation was implemented by Diferencial Festas e Eventos are described. Among them, the list recommended by the Oslo Manual (1997) draws attention because the process innovation in question has caused an effect attributed to another type of innovation: an improvement in the ability of adapting to the different demands of customers, who need certain decorations at the event venue.

Table 5 Table 5 Factors related to the goals and effects of the innovation Table 5 Factors related to the goals and effects of the innovation

Table 5
Factors related to the goals and effects of the innovation
Relevance	Process innovations	Diferencial
Increased goods and services quality.	∎	∎
Increased production/service provision flexibility.	∎	∎
Increased production/service provision capacity.	∎	∎
Reduced unit production costs.	∎	∎
Reduced materials and energy consumption.	∎	∎
Reduced product design costs.	∎	∎
Reduced production time.	∎	∎
Industrial technical standards achievement.	∎
Reduced operational costs for service provision.	∎	∎
Increased efficiency/speed of provision and/or distribution of goods/services.	∎	∎
Improved IT capabilities.	∎
Improved adaptability to different customer demands.		∎
Improved working conditions.	∎	∎
Others:
Reduced environmental impacts/Improved health and safety.	∎	∎
Regulatory requirements execution.	∎
Note: Elaborated by authors.

Note: Elaborated by authors.