Social Impact of Fairtrade

Behind the concept of fairtrade, we need to understand how fairtrade is helping the rest of the developing countries, what changes can we make by doing something locally to have an impact globally. It's time to change the rules of trade!

Hope the following clip will change your view too.

Promoting WOU through Fairtrade

We have seen the market of fair-trade is increasing by 25% per year, and from this statistics, we have projected that the revenue of WOU in 5 years will be £164794. Through long-term strategy, we are going to suggest WOU to join Fairtrade. We need to consider the process of application, audit and evaluation via Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO) in order to obtain Fairtrade Certificate from the certification authority FLO-CERT. In this way, we are investing our cost to boost the revenue of WOU in a cost efficient way.

Picture of Tannat Man

Prices, Premium and Procedures for Fairtrade

A quick overview about Fairtrade in relations to Wine Grapes:
-There are 2 categories of organizations that WOU needs to define themselves:
a. Small Producers Organizations
b.Hired Labour
-There are 2 types of Wine grapes that Fairtrade will need to know:
a. Organic
b. Conventional

Certification Body: FLO-CERT
WOU needs to pay premium in order to start getting involved in Fairtrade.

Please see below for more detailed terms via the links:

Here's the Fairtrade Standards for Small Producers Organizations:

Some of the terms need to refer to the second link:
http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/02-09_Wine_Grapes_SPO_EN.pdf

http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/SOP_Public_Development_of_Fairtrade_Standards.pdf


Here's the Fairtrade Standards for Hired Labour:
http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/Wine_Grapes_HL_Feb09EN.pdf


The Certification body is called FLO-CERT:
http://www.flo-cert.net/flo-cert/main.php?lv=3&p=1&p3=6



Examples of Price for Fairtrade Wine grapes:
http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/051009_EN_Price_and_Premium_table.pdf


If we look at Wine grapes from Argentina, here's what WOU can take as a reference:

Product:Wine grapes
Quality:Conventional
Country:Argentina
Small Producers Organization/Hired Labour:SPO / HL
Price Level:Farm Gate
Unit:kg
Quantity:1
Currenty:EUR
Fairtrade minium price:0.25
Fairtrade Premium:0.05

UK government invests £12 million in Fairtrade

In UK, customers can choose from more than 4,500 Fairtrade products. A research of 25,000 households showed that they prefer to spend more on a Fairtrade product than on any other. This led to an increase of purchasing Fairtrade products by 5.5% in the last twelve months.

Now UK Government decided to invest £12 million in order to help Fairtrade to expand and achieve its’ following goals:

• 100% increase of the farmers involved in the Fairtrade system.
• Help farmers in lowest income countries to access the Faitrade markets.
• Give money back to the producers in order to invest in their own community projects.
• Three-fold increase of the sales of Fairtrade products globally.

Reference: www.fairtrade.org.uk

Fairtrade - Buy-side social factor recommendation for WOU

Consumers in the UK are increasingly demanding transparency and would like to know
more about the product making/acquiring process, especially if it is imported from a developing country like Uruguay, so that they can be sure that the money they spend on an item reaches the root of the supply chain. But they don't have the time, resource and energy to do all the hard work required for such behaviors in order to ensure that their money is spent ethically, Fairtrade does it for them. That is why we recommend WOU and/or its suppliers to join Fairtrade and be an active player in the UK wine market.

The chart below illustrates the ever increasing demand for Fairtrade certified wines.

Summary of presentation

This presentation tries to look at the social factors that we should consider while planning a strategy for WOU. It tries to address the social factors from the buy side and continues to the sell side.

The buy side social factors mainly focus on transparency. This is because consumers are becoming increasingly cautious about the products they buy. They would like to be sure that the money they spend reaches the root of the supply chain. As a solution this presentation suggests WOU and/or its suppliers to join Fairtrade to gain consumer’s trust.

The sell side social factors include age (34-69), main stream media and national holidays as shown by the customer journey. Furthermore, as the findings of our research show, the last two months of the year are a good chance for WOU to boost its sales, by setting up events where the main customers reside in.

Web market Research

These are the findings of our research in the web market of wines using "Google Trends". The phrase "online wines" is used in a quiet stable rate along the year. But in the last two months the rate goes surprisingly up. This is when we should put all our effort to attract new customers.

In the second chart we can see the cities of UK that search the most for wines online. We can use this findings in order to localize our efforts (organize the wine taste events in these cities).

UK's Popular Social Networking Sites

In addition to Aleks' post, this is the pie chart that I made based on the below

Reference:Clickz.com Top Ten UK Social Networking Sites, May 2009

http://www.clickz.com/3634585

"Eighty percent of the total U.K. online population visited a social networking site in May, with Facebook and Bebo attracting the most unique visitors over the course of the month, according to data from comScore's World Metrix audience measurement service."

Customer Journey Chart

Hey,
This is the chart that I made.The following graph shows the customer journey.

Firstly we are concerned for the UK market exclusively. We need to consider the fact that many customers would not be able to use the internet effectively, thus making the website simple and easy to use would be beneficial. (I think the new site is really well designed)

Potential customers may be using Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo to find the wine they want to drink. This is case it is essential that the website is Google Friendly so that its on top of the search list. Some of the web technologies which could be used are: Cascade Style Sheets, and Google Webmaster Tools.

Customers may use Mainstream media or search online using a search intermediary.
Our research shows that the main group of wine drinkers are 33-60 years old(77million). By looking up their online habits, it seems like a good idea for the company to establish a network using Facebook. This way it would be possible to connect Wines of Uruguay with their main customers.

Through Facebook it would be possible to promote new events and wine. Furthermore Facebook is able to connect the customers to the company. Twitter could also be added as the firm expands for further establishing a name for Wines of Uruguay.

Wines of Uruguay, has an advantage over other wine importers/sellers as it has exclusive connection to Uruguay and it’s able to supply more diverse products. However customers have a diverse range of sites which sell wine online such as major UK superstores, virgin wines and Majestic Wine Warehouse.

References:

Google 54 of all search engines done by Google
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2126193,00.asp

Alexa.com

Winnie References.

Breaking News!!!

WOU has a new website now! Check it out @ http://www.winesofuruguay.co.uk.

Articles about UK's wine market & social networking websites

Facebook being crowned as UK's most popular social networking site
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/09/social_networking_and_blogs_more_popular_than_email/
Interestingly, the fastest growing demographic of Facebook users are those aged 35 to 49 years old (more than 24.1 million users). The site also has almost twice as many visitors between 50 to 64 years old (+13.6 million) compared to those under 18 years old (+7.3 million).

Buyer trust is needed to begin any purchasing relationshipThe core group of wine purchasers is made up of individuals who fall into the 34-60 age (Mintel, 2007)http://www.google.com/search?q=uk+online+wine+buyers+age+group&rls=com.microsoft:zh-tw:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GPEA_zh-twGB301

Mintel report about UK wine market 2008
http://www.giichinese.com.tw/report/mt90805-wine-uk.html

Wine drinkers segmentation in the UK 2009
http://www.wineintelligence.com/documents/WineIntelligenceUKPortraitsnewsletter.pdf

List of all social networking sites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Are social class and online social network related?

Just come across this new article on CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/10/13/social.networking.class/index.html

Our Suggestion part 1

This is the chart showing how we believe the “Wines of Uruguay” company should be reorganized. Also, it is showing the technologies that should be used in order to add value to the brand.

From the buy side point of view, we recommend an intranet specially designed to fulfill the needs of the producers and the company itself. We should use a database keeping track of the suppliers and their wine’s quality. Additionally the company will know each moment its stock availability so to be in position to fulfill online orders. Suppliers will have the ability to register in order to acquire an e-mail account to receive newsletters and have a more immediate communication with the company.To those who are registered a blog will be available to facilitate this communication.

From the sell side point of view, we believe that the best way to promote the brand is by improving the already existing website. First of all, we could have a database to keep track of our customers. Gathering information for all the customers will help the company to create profiles of them in order to make them suggestions about the company’s products (personalization). These suggestions as long as wine taste parties and other events invitations can be sent to the customers by newsletters or mobile text messages. Another technology that we should include is online ordering, giving the opportunity to the customer with some simple steps to order the wines of his choice from his home. We believe that it is also essential for the company to add a blog to the website. Nowadays it has become very difficult for the companies to keep their customers because of the internet and the many alternatives given. Adding a blog makes the website more interactive for the customer and gives him the opportunity to express his opinion and thus it is more possible to keep him with us. Finally, some marketing policies should be adopted like creating a Facebook group and organizing wine taste parties in order to attract new customers and keep the already ones interested.

This was our first draft view of how this company could be reorganized in order to gain more important role in the new marketplace that it is trying to be part of.

Initial State of Wines of Uruguay

Hey,

The chart above shows how we see Wines of Uruguay at the moment.

Wines of Uruguay (WoU) is a small business importing wines from Uruguay and selling them in the UK market. Its a small business managed by 2 -3 people, including Carla Bertelloti as the owner.

On the buy side (the wine producers), there are 4 main companies being represented by WoU at the moment. All of the imported products are stored in a warehouse in Isle Of White before being sold and shipped to the customer. There is no link between the warehouse and the website, thus customers may not be able to see if there are any new wines available or others which have run out of stock.

On the sell side(customers), there is a basic website which is used as an intermediary between WoU and its customers. As it is, the website gives basic overview what the company is about, available wines and some of the producers. There is no description of how wines taste or some insight of the wine producers such as a brief history/philosophy. Finally a customer can order wines by calling/emailing using the contact details.

Overall, this is how we see the company at the moment. At least to us, it seems that the used technology is not used to its potential and further improvements can make the company more profitable and efficient. A future view of how we would like WoU to evolve to can be seen on the next article.

Welcome !

This blog is created by Alazar, Aleksander, Fotis and Winnie (2009-10 BIS post graduate students in Royal Holloway, University of London ) to support their project for the course Networked organisations.