For Jharcraft, generating higher revenues is the way to achieve their goal of “creating opportunities and changing lives”. Women on Wings experts advised the company to change the visual merchandising in Jharcraft stores, which has already resulted in a 50% revenue increase. This sales increase means more and better paid work for women in the rural areas of the Indian state of Jharkhand. This also brings the stores closer to their goal of achieving a six-fold increase in turnover by 2015.
Cooperation between Women on Wings and Jharcraft began last November and a team of Women on Wings experts collaborated with Jharcraft once more in January. One of the experts, Ronald van het Hof, says: “The time of pioneering and simply producing is now in the past. There is now a need for professionalization, making the change from a production-driven company to a market-focused business. This requires a clear, more sales-oriented organization; an organization that displays a transparent organizational structure with clear responsibilities, good professionals and decisive accountability.”
The main purpose of the visit in January was to list the consequences of rapid growth. Together with Dhirendra Kumar, Jharcraft’s managing director, and several MT members, bottlenecks were identified and short and long-term priorities were discussed. In addition, terms were set out that the new organization will need to comply with if it is to be managed efficiently by 2015. The first steps were taken by establishing priorities and a blueprint was created for the desired organization. Another expert, José van Aken, says: “We started the process by expressing the need to appoint a number of professionals to help achieve this significant growth. Our main focus is on sales and marketing, HR, and supply chain management. We used this to put together job profiles to attract the right caliber of people.” Ronald: “Open discussions, no secrets and no unnecessary embellishments result in a supported outcome that allows Jharcraft to start work immediately.”
