Aart Wedemeijer supporting WFTO Asia

About the organisation

World Fair Trade Organization-Asia (WFTO-Asia) is an umbrella organisation which mainly serves as a platform for its members. These members consist of 120 fair trade organisations in the Philippines, Laos , India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia. These FTO's support at least 200.000 households and farmers. WFTO  wants to improve the condition of  food and crafts producers and improve the access to regional and inter-regional export markets for them. WFTO also makes it possible to share knowledge about organizational development, technology transfer and access to information.

WFTO Asia is registered since 2009 and employs 5 full time staff. 

By 2014 WFTO Asia will develop a new trade facilitation mode for Fair trade organisations (FTO's) in Asia. This mode will create a platform to trade in products regionally.


Business case
Aart Wedemeijer was asked to support WFTO Asia by: 

•·      Discover the strength of producer organisations and integrate these with each other, to enable volume and advantage of scale.

•·      identify the best possible way to make sure Fair Trade products reach the European market. on a logistic and distribution strategy for sales

•·      Pinpoint the best logistical and distribution strategy for these organisations to supply European Fair Trade demand.

Results

Analysis
Aart has had interviews with the director and staff and analyzed very thoroughly. All documents and Board decisions were evaluated to get a good view of the current situation and the strategic step necessary for growth.

Conclusions
There were no conclusions to draw on content-level yet. Major conclusion is that the project has to start after the Board approved the document "Going forward with the New Trading Model" delivered by Aart, and after the Board assigned an Executive to this project.

Advice
Aart's advice is to start with the project by making a business plan for the New Trading Model. After, a project group can be installed and it is a good thing to appoint a project manager to direct the project. According to Aart, SharePeople simultaneously has to find expert(s) on Marketing, Financing, Logistics, International procurement and International Export to support WFTO.

Results
The advice is made concrete through the document "Going forward with the New Trading Model", which points to many other documents with detailed advice. The planning is ready, now it is time to make the necessary next steps and actions.

Follow up
After finalizing the Business Plan, it has to be implemented. The business has to start, procedures have to in place and most importantly: Business orders have to come in.

This is the continuation of the partnership between SharePeople and WFTO Asia.  Both organisations will keep in touch. After this Programme, an official update on the status of the organisation takes place at least every 12 months. With this information, a new Programme is one of the possibilities to boost the organisation if needed. Participation in a yearly SharePeople Experience Week is also an option.