Strategic plan for Intercrafts Perú

Intercrafts Peru Inc. has been working side by side with Peruvian handcrafts producers for over ten years and it is currently going through a financial and organizational downturn. The company has experienced net losses for the past three years and there is a need to implement changes that can revert this situation by putting the company back on track to achieve sustainable long term grow. The organization is subjected to trade practices established by the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) and it is through this practices that the company has established long term relationships with customers in North America, Europe and Oceania. However changes in the industry and internal inefficiencies limit the capacity of Intercrafts to increase the number of sales reaching new customers. The company was born as an initiative of the (Interregional Central of Peruvian Artisans) CIAP and explains the low bargaining power towards the suppliers because of the relationship. Furthermore this bond reinforces the social commitment of the organization from its conception, to support the sustainable development of the artisans and their environment. It is in this commitment that the company can exploit most of the potential strengths and opportunities. In this context this strategic plan proposes the use of three strategies to take the company from its current situation to the desired situation to be the best crafts exporting company in Peru in 2020: (a) Product development through strategic alliances, creating new designs capacitating the artisans to improve the products; (b) Retrenchment, restructuring some of the company’s processes to reduce costs and have an efficient operational system; and (c) Market penetration attacking the high end niche market with improved marketing.Intercrafts Perú Inc. ha trabajado de la mano con productores de artesanía peruanos por más de 10 años y actualmente se encuentra en una mala situación financiera y organizacional. La compañía ha operado los tres últimos años incurriendo en pérdidas. Existe una necesidad por realizar cambios que puedan revertir esta tendencia y poner a la compañía en un camino de crecimiento sostenido en el largo plazo. La organización está sujeta a las prácticas de comercio establecidas por la Organización Mundial de Comercio Justo y es a través de estas prácticas que ha conseguido relaciones de largo plazo con clientes en Norte América, Europa y Oceanía. Sin embargo cambios en la industria e ineficiencias internas limitan la capacidad de Intercrafts para ampliar la base de clientes actual. La compañía nace como una iniciativa de la Central Interregional de Artesanos del Perú (CIAP). Y en esta relación se explica el bajo poder de negociación que existe hacia los proveedores. Sin embargo esta relación también refuerza el compromiso social de la compañía que, desde su concepción, está dedicada a apoyar al desarrollo sostenible de los artesanos y su entorno. Es aquí en donde se encuentras potenciales oportunidades y fortalezas que Intercrafts necesita explotar. Es en este contexto que este plan estratégico plantea el uso de estrategias para llevar a la compañía del estado actual a ser la exportadora número uno de artesanías peruanas en el 2020: (a) Desarrollo de producto alianzas estratégicas, fortaleciendo la relación con CIAP con capacitaciones y creación de diseños innovadores; (b) Atrincheramiento, reestructurando algunos de los procesos de la compañía con el fin de disminuir costos y ser más eficientes; y (c) Penetración de mercado, atacando nichos en el sector más elevado del mercado con una nueva técnica de mercadeo.Tesi

Southern Fair Trade Organisations and Institutional Logics

This work is a case study of a Southern Fair Trade Organisation (SFTO), with the objective of uncovering the complexities of working within Fair Trade (FT) and Mainstream Markets (MM) simultaneously. It employs the concept of ‘institutional logics’ (IL) to analyse and suggest resolutions to the mainstreaming dilemma from an organisational perspective. The SFTO chosen for the case study is Allpa, based in Lima, Peru, which has been operating in the market for 30 years. The research questions addressed were: 1. What is an organisation’s experience of dealing with multiple logics? 2. How does an organisation respond to potential tensions and contradictions arising from being surrounded by multiple logics? 3. How is the organisation’s identity shaped in the process? This research makes a contribution to both FT and IL literature by illuminating the complex setting of SFTOs in which the logics of FT, MM and Local Producers (LP) are all prominent. I found that organisational structure, communication and flexibility can change how an organisation experiences logic multiplicity. Through changing its organisational structure and communication methods, Allpa has managed to increase the degree of compatibility between the different logics. As a result, Allpa has combined and blended the three logics creating a hybrid organisational form with a new identity and has become a translator between two different worlds. The study also found that organisational leadership is a significant determinant of the organisational experience of institutional complexity, and hence the response to it. This study makes a contribution to IL theory through identifying three institutional logics, and highlighting the “bottom up” influence of one of the logics. This work illustrates the dynamics of responding to multiple logics “on the ground”, and has implications for FT research and practice

A World of Difference: Unity and Differentiation Among Ceramicists in Quinua, Ayacucho, Peru

This chapter analyzes local notions of authenticity drawing on ethnographic data collected during thirteen months of fieldwork in the rural village of Quinua, Peru. The author highlights how local ceramic artisans conceived of authenticity, which, it is argued, is encapsulated by local terms and material practices surrounding the concept of artesano verdadero. Artisans in Quinua share, borrow, and even “steal” designs from others. Within this context, artisans persistently evaluated each other based on these practices. Ultimately, the narratives artisans tell themselves and others about who they are, and are not, as artisans, thereby put forth claims about who counts and who does not as an artisan. This chapter shows that to be a “true” and thus successful artisan, one must strike a delicate balance of maintaining control over his or her craft and cultural heritage while engaging fickle markets

Ticuna Ceramics Amidst the Expansion of Illicit Coca: Rendering New Relations

In Ticuna communities across Amazonia, ceramics are useful objects employed for cooking and storage. Their practical importance, however, does not describe the extent of their significance. In the following article, we consider Ticuna ceramics and ceramic-making practices as a means of studying the changes set in motion by the transformation of Ticuna ancestral lands in Peru’s lowland Amazonian region into zones of illicit coca cultivation. Drawing on mixed-methods ethnographic research, including participant observation, interviews, and a participatory film project focused on ceramic production, we evaluate contemporary practices of ceramic-making within three Peruvian Ticuna communities in the context of these transformations, and the national government’s subsequent responses to the coca situation. Ceramics are a starting point to explore a complex web of relations as Ticuna communities intersect with both drug-trafficking operations and agents of the Peruvian state

Networking Peripheries: Technological Futures and the Myth of Digital Universalism Anita Say Chan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014)

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/166163/1/plar12233.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/166163/2/plar12233_am.pd

Anarchism and the press in Lima: The case of "Los Parias"

This thesis explores the relationship between the anarchist press and the nascent labor movement in the Republic of Peru in the beginning of the twentieth century. The first anarchist newspaper that appeared in Peru in 1904, titled Los Parias, provides a detailed look into the ways in which this communications medium, thanks to its timely message and firm social commitment, was able to forge an alliance with the workers of Peru in order to work towards a more socially egalitarian society in an era often recognized as the "Aristocratic Republic;" a historical period were old aristocracies and new bourgeoisies controlled the nation. By analyzing this material, this thesis hopes to delve deeper into how anarchists and all those who became supporters of this ideology (i.e. workers??? associations, guilds, students, intellectuals, etc.) conceptualized their social condition and the solutions they championed in order to achieve a libertarian utopia. The collaboration between anarchists and the nascent labor movement resulted in the formulation of an anti-establishment rhetoric that served as a precursor to new radical social trends that appeared in Peru as the twentieth century marched along; trends that had a profound effect in the social landscape of the nation. We find in these pages a call for social redemption; a radical and revolutionary alternative to elite control

Poor people's knowledge : helping poor people to earn from their knowledge

How can we help poor people to earn more from their knowledge rather than from their sweat and muscle? This paper draws lessons from projects intended to promote and protect the innovation, knowledge, and creative skills of poor people in poor countries, particularly to improve the earnings of poor people from such knowledge and skills. The international community has paid considerable attention to problems associated with intellectual property that poor countries buy-such as the increased cost of pharmaceuticals brought on by the WTO's agreement on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). This paper is about the other half of the development-intellectual property link. It is about the knowledge poor people own, create, and sell rather than about what they buy. The paper calls attention to a broad range of poor people's knowledge that has commercial potential. It highlights the incentives for and concerns of poor people-which may be different from those of corporate research, northern nongovernmental organizations, or even entertainment stars from developing countries who already enjoy an international audience. The studies find that increased earnings is sometimes a matter of poor people acquiring commercial skills. Legal reform, though often necessary, is frequently not sufficient. Moreover, the paper concludes that the need for novel legal approaches to protect traditional knowledge has been overemphasized. Standard instruments such as patents and copyrights are often effective. Rather than legal innovation, there is a need for economic and political empowerment of poor people so that they have the skills to use such instruments and the influence to insist that institutional structures respond to their interests. Finally, the paper concludes that there is minimal conflict between culture and commerce. There are many income-earning expressions of culture, and it is incorrect to presume that expressions of culture must always be income-using.Cultural Heritage&Preservation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Arts&Music,Public Health Promotion,Cultural Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Cultural Heritage&Preservation,Arts&Music,Cultural Policy,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

Ethnic Artists and the Appropriation of Fashion: Embroidery and Identity in the Colca Valley, Peru

When I\u27m in Arequipa and I see a lady in embroidered clothes, I always greet her; she\u27s from my land, she\u27s my compatriot. . . . [When I teach embroidery] no matter how much one teaches, the motifs don\u27t come out the same. If there are twenty embroiderers, twenty different motifs come out although they have the same name. It\u27s like, even if you\u27re my brother, we\u27re not the same. These comments by embroidery artist Leonardo Mejfa neatly express the character of Colca Valley ethnic clothes: simultaneously shared and individual. Similar appearance is important in recognizing a compatriot, but an artist\u27s style of executing the complex embroidered designs distinguishes his/her work. Contemporary textile production in the Colca Valley, a highland region of southern Peru, occurs mostly in small workshops, where I center my study. There, men and women embroider and tailor ornate clothes on treadle sewing machines. About 150 artisans provide garments for about 8,000 female consumers (total valley population is about 20,000). This article draws on surveys that I conducted with 110 artisans and vendors, during two years of fieldwork. Textiles are important emblems of ethnic identity, as is commonly observed. However, I want to move beyond seeing emblems as superficial symbols, and to analyze ethnicity as a concept, as a relation of power among social groups with profoundly different resources. The rural, Quechua-speaking Colca Valley peoples are often considered Indians by outsiders, but they do not identify themselves as such. Indio in Peru is a powerful epithet that accentuates class difference and disguises it in racial terms. The social and economic roles that Colca Valley men and women play in Peruvian society have changed considerably in this century, and increasingly so in this generation. Ethnic artists have been crucial in mediating change, by producing ethnic clothes. Through observing everyday and festival garments, discussing aesthetics with women who wear those garments, and analyzing the artisan surveys, I realized how important color and materials had become. In these domains, ethnic artists appropriate national and international tastes according to local cultural preferences, which in tum help to develop and maintain discrete ethnic identities