Enrique Castillejos
EGADE Business School Tecnologico de Monterrey
MARTIN H BREMER
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The production of jewelry in amber and the incursion in textile art through 100% Chiapas products, of high quality and innovative designs made by the indigenous people of Chiapas.
The designs are made by artisans from Chiapas, where 80% of the indigenous population participates in mineral extraction, however, they don’t have formal knowledge of how to do this, it’s merely experiential knowledge.
The innovation comes from the detection of the lack of formal knowledge that the artisans had in the commerce process of amber in both Chiapas and the rest of the country, so Xochitl Escobar and Adrián Arnaud decided to create a supply chain that would generate value for all the parties involved - ranging from the extraction of amber, design of the jewelry, to commercialization.
This began during a visit to San Cristóbal, while they were walking through a park where they sell many local crafts, they met artisans who told them their story and where the sale of their designs came from. The couple, very interested in helping to empower these artisan families wanted to provide them with an effective workplace (workshops, materials, training) to improve the quality but the essence of the designs would remain the same.
Amber, being a mineral, must be extracted trying to have the least negative impact on the environment, and Xochitl Escobar and Adrián Arnaud decided to commercialize the different work of other artisans, such as textile products, that 15 years ago, at the beginning of L I X O, were sold in the streets without any kind of organization and at prices that were not competitive for the producers.
Having created the brand together with the staff (artisans), training them and providing them with a place to work with dignity in a workshop, the quality of life of all the people participating in the value chain has improved.
Currently, the company has grown to have 6 points of sale, at the same time, L I X O has strategic alliances with different commercial chains, and this growth is reflected in the fact that currently more than 15 families of Chiapas artisans are employed, since they have better lifestyles and higher economic solvency, allowing these families to have a better quality of life, which allows them to have zero hands of child labor.
By having the personnel that work within the supply chain, they have best practices, ranging from stone extraction, carving and polishing, and marketing of amber.
The short-term effects that could be seen are the improved product, beginning with a finer facet to then mount the amber to another type of jewelry, creating a differentiator.
With this distinctive, the sales have been growing and we can see the change of the mentality and of their lives since now the great majority of the children belonging to these artisan families are studying instead of working, like most of the children of Chiapas. Additionally, they previously did not have any vehicles for transportation, currently they all have vehicles to be able to move around, not just by walking, bicycles or public transportation. Even though they are not the latest model cars, you can see that the quality of life has gradually improved, and since it has become a differentiator among the other artisans who are still working on their own and didn’t want to join the project, they are in the same rough conditions that they were 15 years ago.
"We started with the families more than 15 years ago, there is a very notorious social and economic inequality and we are trying to create conscience on the community that they can live better, and that education is fundamental for their children if they want to live better."
"The only way to move forward is through the improvement of culture and education."
L I X O Jewelry throughout its 15 years of existence has come to be able to have benefits from different parts of the business. One of the main benefits is that the government has given support to them in terms of taxes and exposure in the national and international market. Other benefit that the company has is that with its growth they have begun to obtain greater positioning in the Chiapas market and nationally, by opening online stores. They are currently offering their products on Amazon, MercadoLibre and the Walmart online platform, in addition to the company's own online store and the 6 points of sales around Chiapas.
The company is classified as socially responsible since what it does is to create a large number of jobs for families who had previously lived in extreme poverty. The conditions of life and work that these artisans had were really deplorable. In the interview, we were told that L I X O have focused a lot on trying to change the way of thinking of the people, because before all the children in the families were working in the extraction and sale of amber instead of going to school. With the passing of time it was possible to see that the children of the families that participate in L I X O began to send their children to school, changing the dynamics of the society in which they live.
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It is a company that uses amber treated to sell to final consumers. But first, it improves the life of the artisans who create the pieces.
