Karin Thomassen (co)developed a complete business plan for WomenWeave (India)

About the organisation
WomenWeave is an organisation which is dedicated to empower and improve the lives of women who weave in the rural areas of India. Their goal is to make weaving a profitable, fulfilling and sustainable job for women.

The Business Case
This organisation could use some help to optimize their business plan and to analyze the export possibilities to the European market. Karin Thomassen was found suitable to support WomenWeave with this. Karin Thomassen is management consultant, project leader and manager within Capgemini.

Results
The expert started with an analysis of the company including overall financials. Karin made the structure of the business plan and consulted them on writing a Business Plan. (the actual writing was the responsibility of the local company)

The mayor conclusions were that sufficient growth opportunities exist for WomenWeave, both in the current market with current and new products, as well as in new markets with current products. A realistic planning is made for all relevant projects, including a business case per project. A large amount of quick wins are defined and some are already even accomplished.

Advice
Karin recommended to plan the projects, 19 in total, over more than one year. Also in order to improve the quality, she recommended that WomenWeave should be more demanding towards her suppliers, since the internal quality is in order.

Concrete deliverables:

Karin delivered a complete business plan, which included a SWOT analysis, sales and marketing plan, and also included the business cases for all 19 projects. Also the business plan contained a business planning, and a quick win list.

Impact on the partners
Karin Thomassen:

"I increased insight in supply chain management in rural areas. Also I learned to work in an environment where castes are determining the places employees have in the organization. And I learned to work in a challenging environment where knowledge is scarce, but believe and hope for success are almost unlimited. Besides, I learned to be patient in my reaction, since in India it is custom to first give the motivation, and afterwards the decisive yes or no. In contrary to the Western world, where it is more used to say, yes/no because...."

Hemendra Sharma:

"I learned to delegate the work and to focus. I also learned to plan projects over a large amount of time. Besides, through the programme we learned that what kinds of analysis are very important before determining the future growth and expansion strategy for the organization.  We liked the quick wins element most, in which we have identified the tasks which easily we can do in shorter run and that will significantly help in improving the functioning of the organization."

Follow up
A new shop will be opened and another project with SharePeople will take place in January 2011 to improve the MIS. Karin will be available for advice and is still promoting and supporting the activities of WomenWeave from The Netherlands. This is a start of a two-year partnership between SharePeople and WomenWeave. Both organisations will keep in touch (a.o. via the SharePeople liaison, at least every 3 months), and with the experts as well.