English

Trans-formando is a non-profit organization based in Madrid specialized in developing self-employement training methods and in giving management advice for the launch of new businesses run by socially excluded groups such as immigrants, ex-drug addicts , the homeless and young people. We are constituted as a social consulting cooperative.

TRANS-FORMANDO S.Coop.Mad. is the result of the merger of efforts, since 1998, of a group of professionals, coming from both the big business environment and the smaller and local development ones, with the common interest for the social compromise.

Our identity distinctiveness is :

Professionalism: efficacy and efficiency in our work.
Compromise and implication: committed to the community transformation.

Why being a company?

The initiatives for societal transformation normally occur in the politic or social work scenery, trying to modify legislation or fulfilling necessities not covered by the Welfare State. However, it is very uncommon that these initiatives are launched by the production system, represented mainly by the private businesses.

The business world is where we spend most of our working time, and moreover it has such strength in itself, that nothing that it is not attuned to it is accepted as possible by our society.

Profitability above everything, motivation through money, competition, large scale production, technology supremacy, material progress, etc.. are generally accepted premises for any production system performance.

This principles also influence the society, were any values opposed to them only have room within the social service organizations.

This project incorporates itself in the already existing efforts to create a singular network, with special criteria, where solidarity goes beyond profit, and preserving more positive values as creativity, initiative, effort and improvement courage. In achieving this, a further step will be taken in the difficult task of changing the social order.

Big solutions for small enterprises

Target group and customer structure

Age, ethnical origin, education and personal circumstances | Company size, age, legal form and industrial sector | Causes for the crisis and typical interests (according to priotity) | Contact channels (e.g. internet, telephone).

The characteristics of our customers are as follows:

Personal condition: socially excluded entrepreneurs such as immigrants, ex-drug addicts, the homeless and women with difficulties.
Ethnical origin: we work with the social and economically excluded local people (from all over Spain) and within the immigrants mostly with south American, African and Western Europe people.
Age: between 30 and 60 years old
Legal form: micro-enterprises (including cooperatives) and self-employed
Industrial Sectors: services, retailers, restoration, textile and construction.
Need of guidance and Causes of crises: lack of management skills, lack of knowledge of the Spanish market and its cultural implications, acquiring or maintaining customers, personal or familiar situation, liquidity problems, human resources planning…
Contact channels: derivation from other NGO´s, our website, advertising in specialized media, mouth to mouth…

Customer structure:

ORIGIN				INTERESTS
SPAIN	LATIN AMERICA	EASTERN EUROPE	OTH	TRAINING (business management in general)	Consultancy	Financing	OTH
5%	80%	10%	5%	50%	20%	20%	10%

CAUSES OF CRISIS (lack of..)				CONTACT CHANNELS
Acquiring/ maintaining customers	Economic planning	Management skills	OTH	Derivation from NGOs	Our website	advertising in specialized media	mouth to mouth
30%	30%	20%	20%	20%	20%	50%	10%

Business operations (What are you providing?

General discription of provided services ( e.g. telephone based, face to face, in written form, internet service) | Major topics covered by your offer and particularitries | Capacity of the business

Our aim is to enable socially excluded people to employ themselves or improve their working status by providing them the necessary tools so that they can integrate into society economically wise.

Our main services are:

Training: pre starting phase (business plan), management while doing the start-up, crisis intervention and management of change. We also provide training in specific issues such as taxes, requesting funds, commercial techniques, etc... and training to trainers.
Mentoring/tutoring: face to face, on-line and by telephone adressed to entrepreneurs who find themselves in a difficult economic situation
Transformando is the promotor of the European Project LACER financed by the EU through the Leonardo Program and after 3 years is about to accomplish an adapted training methodology for the creation of new businesses by qualified immigrants.
Consultancy to NGO´s (strategic planning, quality, formulation and evaluation of projects...)
Publication of handbooks: simplified and accesible business management advice.
Transformando promotes “Empresa de Jardineria Multicolor”, which is an Insertion enterprise dedicated to gardening which employs socially excluded people with the aim of facilitating them the access to a normalised job in a year’s tim
Start-up administrative and legal coverage (pls see diagram 2 below): Transformando also provides the service “Lanzadera de empresas” which gives administrative and legal coverage to people who want to be self-employed but cannot get established yet. It allows them to test their services in real conditions but without having to constitute themselves as a company. It reduces considerably the risk of the start-up and provides them a Fiscal identification code so they can:
Buy as a company obtaining better prices from the vendor
Deduct VAT receivables
Invoice the client
Be covered by Social Security
Be covered by insurance
Microcredits: Transformando works with “Fundacion Un Sol Mon” (from the Spanish Bank Caixa Catalunya), providing microcredits for employment, giving support to activities capable to generate incomes and offer labour stability to the applicant, who has not the warranty nor the reference required to have access to a credit from the traditional financial system.
Networking: Transformando is member of several social networks and promotes the same networking between the entrepeneurs organising events and free training sessions. It also encourages the co-operation and relationship customer-provider, between micro entrepreneurs.

Business organisation (How do you provide it)?

Team organisation and structure

Number of employees and working hours | Core functions | Educational requirements / work experiences / provided trainings | Paticularities

Transformando has a multidisciplinary team of 10 professionals (7 of them are working partners of the cooperative) who participate in the different activities and projects. Each member has successfully completed his/her studies, has experience in the private sector and shares the common social education and compromise. This applies for every consultant that joins the firm. We do not work with volunteers.

As 28th of February 2006:

Full time workers: 7 (3 men, 4 women) 6 of them partners from the cooperative
Half time workers: 3 (2 woman, 1 man) working 62%=25 hours/week

We also have an experienced team of external consultants that we hire when we have over work over load, specially for training courses (usually of 3 months duration).

As a cooperative the organisation structure is horizontal, where all the partners have decission making responsibilities at the same degree. All the members have also internal tasks within the company. The responsibilities of some of the team´s members are as follows:

Elena Fernandez: industrial engineer. Working partner, in Transformando since 1998. General coordinator.
Jose Maria Menendez: industrial engineer. Working partner since 1998. Strategic planning and quality supervisor. Tutorship coordinator.
Sophie Lens: business administration, marketing specialised. Working partner since 2001. Training coordinator.
Jose Luis Mejias: business administration, labour market specialised. Working partner since 2002. Human resources and dissemination manager.
Ana Gorostegui: law degree, bussiness adminsitration specialised. Working partner since 2003. Mircrocredit program coordinator.

Workplace

Organisation (separate offices, open-plan office etc.) | Technical equipment (in particular complexity and special features of the deployed software solutions) | Particularitie

Our company has its premises in the center of Madrid, making it easily accesible to people coming from the entire province. In its offices there are several working places for the consultants team (although most of them work from home), a meeting place and a free space for the entrepeneurs with available PCs, internet acces, printers, etc.. and a library with handbooks and a variety of publications referring to micro-enterprise management.

Methodology

Structure of the advice process

Every two Wednesdays in the evening (19.00h so that people can come after work) we have an induction groupal session explaining all the services we provide to solicitants. Following that they have to fill up an application form with their personal data and expression of needs so that we can direct him/her to the proper service.

For the personalised advice in crisis intervention and management of change this is the specific process that is followed:

1^st meeting to identify the situation and need of guidance
A consultant is assigned depending of the area/s to be worked with and depending of the industrial sector of the activity.
A working plan is then elaborated and presented to the client (the financer) and to the solicitant (it is a free service for them). It will vary between a total of 15 and 40 hours depending of the objectives to be accomplished.
Weekly meetings will take place face to face, in Transformando offices or else in the solicitant´s premises, to review the tasks assigned and assign new ones to be done before the next meeting.
An internal committee is always available in case of need of specific advice or difficult decision making.
A control report will be updated after each session and a final report will be written with the global impressions and new situation of the client and if he needs any additional help or be derivated to any other service.

Lessons learned in crisis intervention:

Face to face guidance is very time-intensive and therefore costly, so we try to minimise them as much as possible. These meetings take place every 15 days and last 1 or 2 hours maximum with the outcome of a “to-do list” for the entrepreneur that be followed up by telephone or email. But to really know if the guidance is being effective it is essential to visit the premises to certify everything. It is a fact that entrepreneurs sometimes loose objectiveness of reality and once in crisis every little step or decision made is crucial.

Transformando has been working all these years elaborating crisis intervention tools and assessing in the correct way to face changes and the main conclusion would be that all efforts must be made in the prevention of crisis, providing tools to the micro-entrepreneurs so that they can detect and resolve the possible problems in a consistent and efficient way, before they become irremediable.

Therefore it is an integral an adapted attention: training, credit, partners, assessment, etc. And we adapt the support depending of the collective and their personal circumstances (i.e. a constant and close approach for the ex-drug addicts, a flexible time table for immigrants..)

Description of instruments and tools

Information leaflets | Spreadsheets | Supportance measures (supervision, reference material, surplus of the deployed software tools, existence of an internet presence).

Applying questionnaire: with the personal data and expression of needs of the solicitant
Micro-enterprise management handbooks
Films: to make the trainings more visual and amusing we always use extract of commercial films as case studies of the subject that is being taught.
Excel spreadsheet to measure cash flow, profit and losses account and balance sheet.
Basic business plan model to be easily completed
Legal steps to be taken before closing up a business
“Lanzadera de empresas”, which was mentioned above and that can be translated as “Business launcher”.

Acquisition

Marketing concept

Our customer targets are basically private saving banks and public institutions (no private companies, particulars or fundraising)

Our positioning is innovation and professionalism

The channels used are mainly our web site, our annual report, organised events to disseminate self employment, and advertising and articles in specialised media.

Networking, partners and referral channels

Media relations | Memberships | Professional exchange with other organisations | Multiplicators, references | Acessiblitity of the network for clients

Transformando is an active member of several Spanish Networks as REAS (Alternative and Solidary Economic Network) and also European ones as the EMN (European Microfinance Network) and publishes advertisement-announcements and articles in Networking, partners and referral channels.

Almost all organisations that are involved in the crisis management of entrepreneurs in Madrid are informed about all the services Transformando has to offer, in special la “Lanzadera de Empresas” which has been proved to be an innovative and useful resource for entrepeneurs who have special difficulty in setting themselves by their own, and are therefore allowed to start making clients, billing them, paying social security costs, taxes, etc..

Business development (How do your efforts pay off?)

Financial development

Sources of financing | Share of income generated soley trough coaching / advice

Up until now the majority of the sources of Transformando have been public ones (50% EU, 25% regional, 25% local) providing free services to all our clients. It has been proven that a small amount can be requested to the clients, they are happy to pay for a good service and it even assures their compromise, assistance, etc..

Sources of financing for Transformando during 2005:

Annual contracts with clients (permanent services): 16%

Funded projects: 46%

Direct services provided: 38%

Project growth

Employees | Number of branches | Number of assignments | Average contacts per client and per week | Plans for the future (e.g. new business fields, setting up of new branches)

The objective is to replicate our services all over Spain once proven their sustainability, which surely will imply to charge small amounts to the customers so it will not have to depend on public or private funding.

The growth of the cooperative will be done by “divisions”, micro-credits; NGO´s consulting; training; etc.