INTRODUCTION:
A non profitable humanitarian organization seeks applications for the position of Consultant to provide Organization and Donor with a road map to promote Taanka’s (Brand/product) growth and sustainability in the short, medium and long term.
In 2016, the organization launched an enterprise named “Taanka”to develop sustainable market linkages for rural women artisans in District Umerkot, Sindh. While working with these artisans for about three years it was realized that at village level there is market potential and artisans are able to harness it themselves. However, creating and sustaining linkages with urban buyers is difficult while sitting in Umerkot. Secondly, urban buyers need some organization who can understand their demand/requirement easily and help them in processing their order/taking care of production, quality assurance, delivering order in time and even at times in designing and finishing their product line as well. Not all retailers in Pakistan have their design houses, they very much need services of designers and production houses together. This is how Taanka’s existence is envisioned.
Taanka acts as a social enterprise to be a link between rural artisans and urban buyers. To explain it further, Taanka puts in effort to get orders from retailers, once order is received; specifications are shared with field team who get orders processed from artisans. Field team takes care of distribution of order, quality assurance aspect and completion of order in time. For all this Taanka charges 25 – 30% as service charges to be sustainable and achieve it’s breakeven.
In about one year, using this approach Taanka was able to secure orders of around PKR 3.5 million. This is quite encouraging and we are definite that if we work with more concentration having Taanka as enterprise to secure orders we will get good results.
DESCRIPTION OF ARTISANS AND THEIR CONTEXT:
700 artisans in Umerkot and 200 artisans in Thatta are trained and learnt importance of working in a group, how to use design in crafts, importance of quality assurance, time management, pricing and negotiation skills. These artisans have experience of working with urban retailers, understand their requirements well and can work under pressure to complete orders in time.
Before initiation of livelihood projects in Thatta and Umerkot, these artisans were not fully aware of their potential. They were earning less than 10 dollars and that too from agriculture. Now some of artisans are earning more than 65 dollars, and are very much satisfied that they do not have to toll in heat in farms. Increase in income and working in groups has given them confidence as well to have say in decision-making. Now they can do shop for themselves and their mobility has also increased. In a way, we can say that most of them are on path to empowerment.
OBECTIVES:
The objective of the Marketing and Business Plan (MBP) is to provide organization and Donor with a road map to promote Taanka’s growth and sustainability in the short, medium and long term. Specifically, the MBP will:
- Define Taanka’s (Brand) structure and its development in the medium and long term.
- Define the running costs of Taanka and their suggested sources of income to ensure its sustainability and independence from external funding.
- Define the target market and the potential customers.
- Conduct competitors’ analysis and define how and why Taanka is different from them.
- Identify if there is an existing coordination mechanism for similar social enterprises already in the market.
- Define the service Taanka should deliver to its key stakeholders:
- Customers (designers, retailers and other potentials)
- Artisans.
- Develop a Business Plan including but not limited to:
- Detailed marketing plan.
- Communication plan with a focus on its positioning and advertising.
- Sales forecasting over the next five years.
- Projected profit and loss statements to forecast the breakeven point.
- Project the time to reach the break-even status from the present funding and donor support (funds) required till then.
- Provide organizational management structural modification and new skill set (if required) to meet the requirements of the business plan.
- Provide a detailed map of the value chain and Taanka’s role and position in that chain (including competitors, potential allies and broken down in private, public and third sector organizations).
- Define a monitoring system to measure Taanka’s social impact.
- Competitor analysis.
- Define Organization’s capacity and skills gaps to manage Taanka.
DELIVERABLES:
The expected end product of this assignment will be;
(1) A complete Business and Marketing Plan clearly detailing tasks and responsibilities of each actor within the systems.
(2) A financial and operational plan.
(3) A plan for measuring performance and impact of the system.
Based on the objectives the consultant(s) will be required to provide an analysis of the present scenario and develop a detailed business plan with emphasis on the costing and marketing plan that is expected to provide overall direction to Organization and Donor on Taanka’s operations making it sustainable, efficient and growth oriented in the long run. The plan should be time bound and show clear achievable targets within defined timelines.
The Business Plan to have the following sections at the minimum:
- Executive summary.
- Analysis of the services offered .
- Analysis of the organizational status, skill sets, running cost (broken to each services) and gaps thereof.
- Analysis of the market and potential customers.
- Value chain map.
- Comparative advantage.
- PESTEL and SWOT analysis (other analysis such as PESTER).
- Business Model and description of operation/s for each services.
- Costing for each services.
- Marketing strategy.
- Modified organizational management structure & new skill sets.
- Projection of business returns over 5 years.
- Financial/funding needs till break-even status.
The plan should also have a section on general guidance and preparation of an annual budget, 5-year projections of the following statements:
- Projected income statement.
- Projected cash flow statement.
- Projected balance sheet.
TIMEFRAME:
The above deliverable must be completed within 45 working days from the start date, with the following (suggested) time-line (details for the final work plan will be agreed with the selected consultant):
- Preparatory activities: 5 days
- Review all relevant project documents and materials
- Consultation with Organization and DonorI and other stakeholders
- Situation analysis: 15 days (including travel days to Umerkot: visits and interviews with key informants and/or focus groups:
- Artisans and sales and Marketing Agents
- Community Steering Committees and Gender Activist
- Organization’s staff in Umerkot.
- Designers and retailers in Karachi.
- Any other stakeholders identified by the consultants.
- Data analysis.
- Outcome: situation Analysis report
- Writing the plan: 20 days (the plan should share for comments and modification)
- Writing and editing report
- Incorporating comments and modification from partners
- Finalizing business and marketing plan
- Presentation to Organization for feedback and comments
- Final compilation and presentation: 5 days
- Recording of feedback and making the needed changes
- Presentation of the final draft to Organization and Donor.
- Presentation to artisans
- Final Business and Marketing plan submitted to Organization and Donor.
Qualification/Experience:
The consultant(s) should have a university degree in marketing, textile or social sciences and at least 5 years experience in;
- Social enterprises in Pakistan.
- Analyzing sets of services provided by designers/ artisans/ textile sector in Pakistan.
- Analyzing market preferably of textile sector.
- Providing costs analysis, projection of income and returns.
- Analyzing skill sets and organizational structures required of different groups of functionaries in a multi-dimensional set-up preferably in textile sector.
- Analyzing national and regional strategies, policies and priorities for textile sector in Pakistan.
- Developing marketing strategy preferably for textile sector.
- Writing business plan preferably for textile sector.
- Mapping value chains.
- Working with diverse cultural and skills background.
- Following strict time frame.