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We are getting there!

02 December 2009

 

After the great and energizing team session we had last Saturday I immediately teamed up with our "new chairman" on Monday to bring her up to speed on what we have been working on last weeks. She is very enthusiastic about her new role within Daily Dump and this was exactly what she was looking for. It is a great opportunity for her and Daily Dump really needs somebody likes this!

 

What I am hoping to see one year from now is that Poonam is focusing on what she is really good at: spreading her vision, inspiring everybody and transferring her energy to the team! The new chairman is managing the daily business at Daily Dump and makes sure we are making money to build a healthy organization with good salaries! And of course she provides focus. The team is happy and committed as always and is working in a structured way on growing Daily Dump and spreading the word!

 

Tuesday December 1st we have been working on financial monitoring so we had a nice day with excel. There is one person within Daily Dump who is responsible for sales reporting, so that data is available. However, to get insight in actual product and company performance we need more data. So we have been gathering and integrating all this information which has resulted in an overview file that gives insight in our performance last year. Quite the eye-opener that was! Besides we built two other tools that will enable Daily Dump to monitor performance on a monthly and yearly basis from now on.

 

Poonam will leave Thursday early morning for a congress in the North where she will be "spreading the word"! Therefore we will "wrap up" today, evaluate last weeks and look back if our expectations were met. Next days I will be working with the team members individually who are translating the assigned growth opportunities to personal action plans. The focus for the next six months is clear, so that is great. Last step will be integrating all action plans before I leave Daily Dump next Saturday.

 

Growth opportunities and team composition

30 November 2009

 

Last week we made a lot of progress. Monday we evaluated the strategic session and integrated all information we had on growth opportunities so far. Then this "Master file" was prioritized which resulted in the "Priority list" that contains the growth scenarios we will be executing next 6 months.

 

Focus next 6 months

• Grow sales Daily Dump! Optimize current channels, expand availability and sell the product.
• Create awareness! Focus on new users!
• Create customer loyalty! Focus on current users!
• Create ambassadors! Focus on innovators: "green people"!
• Product innovation

The growth scenarios contain several tactics which we have discussed with the team during the second team session last Saturday. For each scenario and tactic one Daily Dump team member has been assigned and will be "in the lead". Next step is that they will translate scenarios and tactics into clear objectives, action plan, timeline & support needed. 

 

Above mentioned exercise was preceded by a team analysis. The objective was to optimize the team composition and maximize potential of the team and the team members. On many levels this is a great team with very inspired and committed people, who truly believe in the vision of Daily Dump and are happy with the level of freedom, openess and flexibility provided. In order to know whether we had an optimal team composition we used the Belbin Team Roles model that made it possible to assess ourselves. This exercise has given us some great insights on what motivates each one of us from within and what value we would like to add to Daily Dump in which team role.

 

The most important conclusion of the team analysis was that we all felt the team is in urgent need of a "Coordinator / chairman: A mature, confident and good chairperson who clarifies goals, promotes decision making and delegates well". We had good laughs on the effects of this omission in the team and after a short discussion there was one person who was very willing to fulfill this role and everybody agreed on this, so I am very happy to inform you that we have found our "Chairwoman". For me personally this is also perfect as I was fulfilling this role for last couple of weeks, so now I can go into further detail with my "successor" on actual plans and transfer all responsibilities as soon as I leave Bangalore.

 

    

 

Next step will be to build a financial structure which makes it possible to monitor current and project future sales and overall performance. Great news is that the design of our new product, the mechanical composter is, finished. We are planning for the product to be ready in January 2010.

 

At last I would like to inform you that the website has been "improved". We wanted to make waste management and composting more visual so we adapted the homepage and the structure of the website. Please check www.dailydump.org! If you have any recommendations do not hesitate to contact us.

 

Welcome to the world of Daily Dump!

24 November 2009

 

Wednesday November 18 I arrived in Bangalore for working on this very inspiring business case. I was welcomed by a team of enthusiastic, creative and ambitious people who introduced me to "The world of Daily Dump"! During the first days I was trained to be a "home composter" and learned all about their product range and service plans. We visited some outlets and spoke to several clients to get a feel on how the product is being marketed. We discussed the Marketing Plan 2009 to get better understanding of where we are and where we want to be next year.

 

After aligning the approach for this project with the founder of Daily Dump, Poonam Bir Kasturi, our first priority was to thoroughly evaluate the current situation. Therefore we scheduled a "strategic session" on Saturday with the complete Daily Dump team. Main objective of this workshop was to find out which barriers hinder further growth of Daily Dump and how the team thinks we can overcome this barriers.

 

    

 

We had a great and very fruitful session in which we first focused on the lessons learned to find out what is working or has worked well for Daily Dump. Next step was to identify all the possible growth barriers we could think of. We concluded the workshop with a brainstorm session in which 5 teams were asked to come up with possible opportunities for growth. All ideas were listed and valued individually so we ended up with a complete and prioritized list of growth opportunities. This provides a great and focused base on what we will be working on coming weeks.

 

What are you waiting for? Begin composting at home!

22 November 2009

 

Daily Dump is the main brand of the company Playnspeak.

 

Daily Dump has designed a product with which anyone can convert kitchen waste into useful high-quality compost at home. The product, made of terra-cotta, is sourced from village potters. It is marketed through word-of-mouth referrals, media awareness and the website http://www.dailydump.org/. It is sold through channels including individuals, retail stores and societies. The designs are ‘open source' so individuals in other locations can replicate, adapt, build on, sell and use - for wide and rapid propagation of the idea. The current product works well in independent homes and Daily Dump is working on a ‘mechanical composter' for use in flats. Their vision is to see a composter in every independent home and pre-fitted in every flat sold in the country, as a standard fitting.

 

    

 

Today (November 2009) the customers of Daily Dump keep 3528 kgs of organic waste out of landfills everyday by converting it into great nutritious manure for the earth.

 

Tom Wooning

02 November 2009

Tom Wooning will be working in Bangalore, India from November 18 to December 5 2009. He will assist the company Daily Dump in making a clear 5 point plan on market thrust areas - and possible growth strategies to get there.