Getting Ready to Trade

This section is designed to help you prepare your organisation for trade. It looks at how to spot enterprise opportunities that fit your organisation’s mission, purpose and values. It examines the likely impact of trade on your organisation’s culture and structure, and shows you how to select and develop the most promising trading ideas. 

On your marks, get set ...

Taking on new trading activities could have a major unintended impact on your organisation unless you plan how to address some of the key issues associated with trade:

• What impact will the trading activity have on the mission, purpose  and values of your organisation?
• How will it affect the organisational culture?
• Do you have the right organisational structure to start trading?
• How will you identify the best opportunities for new trading activities? 

This section addresses four topics:

• Mission, purpose and values: Developing new trading activities can enhance the mission and purpose of your organisation if you concentrate on generating ideas that are related to your mission, express the values of your organisation, and fully exploit its strengths. 

• Organisational culture: It is important that the development of trading activities has the full support of your organisation. You need to be sensitive to different attitudes to enterprise, and promote an entrepreneurial approach. One way of doing this is to establish an enterprise team responsible for identifying, testing and developing trading ideas.

• Organisational structure: If your organisation is a registered charity, you need to check that it is allowed to trade in the areas you are considering. You may need to change the structure of your organisation, or adopt a legal form better suited to trading activities. 

• Selecting the right idea: The most important part of getting ready to trade is to make sure you select and develop the best trading activity. Start by identifying all the opportunities open to your organisation. Sift these ideas and select the most promising for a full feasibility study.

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