Results

Poultry Co-operative Federation

Increased market opportunities for 2,200 female poultry farmers

By working together instead of competing against each other, seven co-operatives of poultry farmers (2,200 members) in Jharkhand are gaining better access to the market. SharePeople advises the umbrella federation about the organisation of their business and also about collective marketing and finances.

About Poultry Co-operative Federation

The Poultry Co-operative Federation is in charge of seven co-operatives of poultry farmers. The individual co-operatives are responsible for ensuring that their members gain access to the purchasing and sales channels and provide extra services. Together, the co-operatives have approximately 2,200 female members. Increasingly more women are becoming poultry breeders and are joining the co-operatives.

Business case

The individual co-operatives are too small and have too few resources to be able to realise their goals. They also compete against each other. The co-operatives are now going to join forces and work together under the auspices of the Poultry Co-operative Federation. The increase in scale and the exchange of knowledge must lead to easier access to the market. SharePeople is being asked to consider the following:

the business plan, in which the core activities of the federation are set down
the organisation structure of the federation and its relation to the 7 co-operatives
the way in which the federation can improve the situation of the co-operatives and their members
how the federation will be able to function in the future if it is not subsidised.

Results

Analysis

The SharePeople team establishes that the seven co-operatives scarcely co-operate with each other. They work independently from each other on developing their knowledge and skills, improving cost efficiency and marketing their products.

Advice

In order to manage the federation and the co-operatives more efficiently, the SharePeople team offers the following advice: to train the members of the co-operatives and share knowledge, to implement fixed times for meetings, to develop selection criteria for new staff members, to stimulate the exchange of staff members between the various co-operatives and to set up an emergency plan for situations, such as the bird flu.
SharePeople advises the federation to take on the role of central purchasing officer for the co-operatives, to determine an overall marketing strategy and to provide the co-operatives with the accompanying the marketing materials. In order to provide insight into the feasibility of its advice and recommendations, the SharePeople team has mapped out the costs and profits for the federation and co-operatives for the coming three years.

Impact on the overseas partners

The SharePeople team highlighted the bottlenecks and the points for improvement for the co-operatives and reassured the management that the establishment of the federation was indeed a wise move.

In his counter visit to the Netherlands, Pawan Kumar Ojha learns all about the co-operative organisation structures and also about the technical and logistical organisation of the broiler industry.

Impact on the European professionals

Manager Pawan has learned how to get to the heart of the matter/message more quickly. He says that he is now far more capable of communicating with external parties, finding out information and presenting his viewpoints clearly.
The Dutch professionals say that they have learned from working with the differences and supplementary characteristics of the participants in the group.

‘I developed a kind of thinking a bit forward. They let me understand about international market and they made me start thinking 5 years ahead. It definitely changed my way of thinking. Also this experience showed me where we are at present and I got ensured about which way to go. I thought we would have to integrate the co-operatives and this I got confirmed.' Pawan Kumar Ojha