Timeframe: March-August 2023
Target group: Cooperatives and revolving funds of the Jalal-Abad region.
Project goals:
- Strengthening the capacity of cooperative management and supervisory boards in strategic development and financial management.
- Increasing the capacity of cooperative management and supervisory boards in analyzing the services market, correctly calculating the cost of services offered and assessing competitiveness.
- Assisting cooperatives in attracting active members of farmer production groups and tourism networks into their ranks.
- Coaching of RF holders on effective management of RF funds and sustainable office work.
- Development and implementation of a marketing strategy for each cooperative.
- Development of brands for cooperative products and further support of product entry into the market.
Project objectives:
- Conduct initial negotiations;
- Assess the current situation and progress in the internal activities of cooperatives;
- Identify priority consultations and topics for coaching together with the management of cooperatives and revolving funds.
Results achieved:
As a result of this consulting assistance, cooperative management gained the skills to develop strategic goals, as well as the knowledge and ability to draw up plans.
Work was carried out to evaluate the developed strategies and refine them: most of the cooperatives were able to make changes and optimize their strategies, especially in terms of production plans and marketing.
Technical support was provided to cooperatives and the RF through consulting and practical services to consolidate acquired knowledge, compliance and correct implementation of the development strategy, and in particular:
- planning, organization and implementation of supply, training, and marketing activities of the cooperative;
- cooperation and interaction between cooperatives and the RF on financing cooperative members;
- provision of other cooperative services: warehousing and storage, etc .;
- promoting the establishment of close relations between the RF and government agencies, other parties to the VAC in close cooperation with partner NGOs.
In those cooperatives that expressed the greatest readiness and were actively involved in the work, tasks planned for 2023 were introduced, such as:
- Construction of a storage facility
- Launch of production facilities and equipment purchased in 2022
- Renting and organizing points of sale
- Organization of work with distributors for product sales
- Training of employees responsible for marketing.
Together with the Board, as well as with responsible employees of cooperatives and Program Partners, corporate styles (logos) of cooperatives were developed and approved based on the marketing strategy in accordance with the set tasks to actively position themselves in the market using these logos.
Development of internal procedures and policies with sustainable administration mechanisms has been carried out.
A number of internal regulatory documents have been discussed and revised jointly with the cooperative boards.
The “Guide to Revolving Funds,” developed within the framework of consultancy assistance to revolving funds, has been implemented into practice.
As a result of training sessions, leaders and responsible employees of cooperatives have been trained in marketing strategy principles according to SMART:
- Developing a marketing plan and monitoring its implementation,
- Promoting in social networks (SMM),
- Understanding the significance of the website for search engines (SEO),
- Email marketing,
- Marketing in search engines (SEM),
- Partner marketing.
The main focus of marketing experts’ work was to teach responsible employees and the Boards of cooperatives how to study the market, find their niche, segment the market, and successfully position themselves in the market.