How to set up a Junior Enterprise

Step 3.2

A portfolio has been defined, with all the projects and services your JI is going to offer to your clients.

5W2H

What?

Define a portfolio with projects and services your JI is going to offer.

When?

The team can start working on the portfolio since the first team meetings take place. Somebody (especially the person who initiates the creation of the student group) might have a great idea which can be better implemented through an organization such a Junior Enterprise.

Where?

It depends on how you have organized your team work. You can have face to face meetings or have Skype talks and forum (e-mail group) discussions.

Why?

The portfolio of projects and services that are aimed to be offered to the clients is important since this is how you can become very concrete in your presentations to potential clients and this is also how you can better find out what kind of clients you can address with your offers. You can better present yourself also on your website so that through a web search potential clients might visit your page and decide to contact for projects of interest for them.

Who?

The team members should brainstorm and decide together on the portfolio that can be offered. This is a better way to come to new ideas and see from the beginning on what kind of teams can be created for each of the projects and set of services that are to be offered.

How?

First of all start by brainstorming and gathering information on the experience everybody in the team has already got in working for other enterprises and organizations. In this way you can have a basis on the skills that you have and that you can offer to the enterprises.

As second step you should think on the services you might offer, which can be the same that the team members have offered elsewhere or can be a new service that is being created as result of the synergy of skills already existing in the team.

As third step you should write down all kinds of services and projects to be offered and create a service catalogue that you can use for your presentations (and for your presentation on your website).

How much?

This in an internal process and there are no costs involved.

How to set up a Junior Enterprise

Step 3.3

A Corporate Identity has been created and your JI now has a logo and personalised office material.

5W2H

What?

Create a Corporate Identity, a logo and personalise office material.

When?

The team leader can organize the work for collecting ideas on the corporate identity and logo. This strongly depends also on the fact whether you have a graphic designer in your team or you have to ask somebody in your network. On the personalised office material can be worked in a later stage, i.e. while you start preparing the presentation dedicated to the potential clients of the organization.

Where?

It depends on how you have organized your team work. You can have face to face meetings or have Skype talks and forum (e-mail group) discussions.

Why?

The Corporate Identity is important in order to create the right image of the company in the market. It will serve to distinguish you from your competitors, to help you establish yourself in the market and to attract and keep human capital in your organization especially in times and places where it is difficult to find students ready for this kind of challenge bearing in mind that there are many other opportunities and organizations that can offer similar job positions as you will do.

Who?

The team members should brainstorm and decide together on the corporate identity. This is a better way to come to creative solutions which.

How?

First of all start by brainstorming and gathering ideas about everything that will identify your organization. This can be words and images. You should be clear about the fact that the identity will stand for the type of business you are. You need to say what you are, why you are in the market, what you are going to do and how you are going to do that.

You hire then a graphic designer and pay for the service or if you have one designer in your team this will be even better. You can also ask somebody from your personal network and consider the designing of the logo and of the personalized material for the JI as a sponsorship for the organization that is being established. You can for example offer to provide contact address of this person (or firm) on your website.

How much?

This in an internal process and there are no costs involved if you have the designer in your team or from your personal network.

How to set up a Junior Enterprise

Step 3.4

Your JI have established its commercial procedures and materials, and is now ready to have its first customer.

5W2H

What?

Establish commercial procedures and materials.

When?

The team can start working while the presentation for the first client is being prepared. It can happen also before this or after the first client has been acquired. In many cases the first client happens to be an acquaintance of somebody in the student team who already has confidence that the team will do a good job even if this is will be their first project.

Where?

It depends on how you have organized your team work. You can have face to face meetings or have Skype talks and forum (e-mail group) discussions.

Why?

The commercial procedures and materials are important in many aspects. The provide a good image towards potential clients who are used to commercial procedures in their work with consulting enterprises and who pose attention to certain levels of quality while they are deciding between different offers from consultants. These procedures and materials provide a good negotiation basis to the students and furthermore they provide a basis for the continuous quality of your service even after the founding members of the JI step out of the JI and the new recruits continue the work.

Who?

The team members who should work on the commercial procedures and materials should be mainly students of Law Sciences or who at least have had experience with commercial procedures before, designers who will prepare the layouts for the materials and of course the Board who will give input on the procedures and materials and who will decide for the acceptance of the final versions.

How?

First of all make a research online on commercial procedures that are common in your country and at international level. In this way you are able to have a first overview free of charge on the situation in the market. Then you should gather and decide on how your procedures will look like, how do you aim to attract your customers, what kind of activities will you conduct until you get a first appointment and make a first presentation, what kind of materials will you present (power point presentation, flyers, brochures with your portfolio of services to be offered etc.), what are the next steps until you reach a deal. Then it should be in advance what kind of contracts will you use and what will be their content, who will undersign and take the responsibility for the project, what kind of guarantee can you provide for your services and if you can provide also support for maintenance (that for example in case of technical projects that aim at creating internet portals etc.).

How much?

This in an internal process and there are no costs involved. But if you need to have external support for the law consultancy and the design, then it might be necessary that you pay for the service. What you could offer in this case is that you would do work free of charge for a lawyer or a designer who assists you in doing this.

How to set up a Junior Enterprise

Step 3.5

A market research has been done and a promotion strategy was developed based on it. Your JI is now communicating its services to potential clients.

5W2H

What?

Do market research and develop a promotion strategy based on the results of the research.

When?

The experience shows that in the beginning there is almost always room for a Junior Enterprise operating close to a university. That’s why it is not indispensable that you do market research since the beginning of your activity. You can start preparing and launching your promotion activities and then in a second stage of your work you can work on realizing the position you already have in the market, the perception of your JE and your services from the clients and other market participants and work on improving yourself. This can be best achieved in the course of a market research where you involve a part of your team.

Where?

The market research needs to be made with market participants of the market that you want to reach with your services. That would mean field research that could last a couple of weeks to one month, depending on the range of the market and of the market participants that you want to involve. The work for the promotion strategy can be done in face to face meeting or in online discussions (forums or Skype).

Why?

The market research and the promotion strategies are very important if you want to establish yourself the sooner possible in the market where you aim to perform. Even though the market research can be postponed for a second stage of your activities, you need to be fast in preparing a good promotion strategy for your start, since it is common that you won’t be cheered by the enterprises in need for consulting services. They will be reluctant about your capabilities and your capacities. This shouldn’t discourage you on the contrary this should make you understand why a good promotion strategy is important, namely them with a good confidence base for the start. Then it’s up to you to show how worthy you with your consultant services are.

Who?

The team members who should work on the market research and the promotion strategies are students who already have had experience in preparing and conducting market research and promotion activities for enterprises or for university projects (like course work).

How?

Market research:

You might already be aware of them because of your business studies, but here we present a few steps that prove to be important in order to conduct a good market research.

You should start with determining the goal of your research. Then you should conduct some research online, then read through magazines, government reports and get information from the chamber of commerce to find out more about the market you want to reach. You prepare then the survey and conduct it via mail, telephone or face to face. If you conduct the research at a second stage of the existence of the JI, you can focus on your customers and have them involved by filling questionnaires, having face to face meetings with the aim of personal interviews and by observing them at various points of contact you have had with them. As a next step you should analyze the data you have gathered and prepare a final report on which you can base your marketing strategy for the future. Part of this marketing strategy will be also the promotion strategy. As follows you can find a few tips on how to manage the process of developing a promotional strategy.

Promotion strategy:

First of all you should understand who you are and be sure about your identity as a young enterprise. Then you should develop the theme of your strategy: you want to establish yourself in the market as a start-up of young, motivated students. You should identify the audience for your promotion activities: enterprises, university, students, and government agencies. Then you should establish the objectives of your strategy. They should be clear and measurable, so that in the end when you conduct an evaluation for your strategy, you can measure the impact of your investment in this strategy. You should furthermore develop the content and the format of your message, and choose how you will disseminate this message to the target audience. In the end you should also conduct some evaluation and see what the impact of the strategy has been and if your objectives have been reached.

How much?

This in an internal process and there are no costs involved. But if you need to have external support for the market research, then it might be necessary that you pay for the service. What you could offer in this case is that you would do work free of charge for a market research company or a consultant who assists you in doing this.

How to set up a Junior Enterprise

Step 3.6

Your internal operations processes and activities, as team meetings, reporting, project management, decision-making processes, recruitment, training, handover, etc. are established.

5W2H

What?

Establish internal operations processes and activities.

When?

It makes to start thinking about these processes since the beginning of your work in the student group. Though you can wait a few months and see how things are proceeding before you start writing down the internal operations processes. This will help you proceed more easily also in the direction of having Quality Management since the beginning of your activities. This will be a good point also in your negotiations with JADE since it will show that you are committed to quality which is a main topic for JADE. A few months after you activities have started you should seriously think about starting writing down the internal operations processes. During this time you might have had enough time to observe and take notes of the evolvement of the communication in the team and you should have experienced also many team meetings, at least one election of the Executive Board, perhaps also a project and a recruitment process which would require also some training sessions for the recruits.

Where?

It depends on how you have organized your team work. You can have face to face meetings or have Skype talks and forum (e-mail group) discussions. It is very important that in your internet portal, you organize to have also a place where to share documents with team colleagues. There everybody can have access and download as well as upload important documents that document your work as a JI.

Why?

Reaching this stage of development when you write down the internal operations is a good sign that your JI is maturing and working in a very serious way. As stated above this will help you also in your negotiations with JADE since it will show that you are committed to quality which is a main topic for JADE. Working on Quality Management is also a good sign for students who would like to join the JI since it provides them with an important information, that when they will start working for the JI, they will find a very good basis on which to build upon. If you promote it properly it can have also an impact in your audience composed of customers, potential customers, university, etc.

Who?

The team members who should work on the internal operations processes are those who have gained more experience since the beginning of your effort to build the student group. They should have made observations, taken notes, and lead election processes and worked on writing minutes of team meetings. In many cases this work is organized and lead by the Secretary General who is in charge of documenting the work of the JI, but it can be also someone who leads the team, perhaps a student who has more experience in Quality Management.

How?

You can start your work by collecting all the notes you and your team colleagues have taken during the establishment process of the JI, the minutes of your team meetings, the statutes where you have already regulated the election process of your Executive Board. Then you should continue by starting to write down concepts for your internal operations processes while specifying to whom they are directed. For example the recruitment processes should be directed to the Human Resources officer, the election processes to the Secretary General and so on.

After you write down first concepts it would be good if you contact JADE and ask for support from their part. They should check the concepts you’ve written and give feedback on them while making a comparison to other examples in the network as well as to their own internal processes. You can send your interest for exchange to your national JADE organization or to JADE in Brussels or to both of them to have different perspectives the national, and the international one.

Then based on the feedback, you can finalize your work. Do not forget to upload the documents in your shared content space on your web portal.

How much?

This in an internal process and there are no costs involved.

How to set up a Junior Enterprise

Step 3.7

A recruitment process has taken place and you now have new members in your junior initiative.

5W2H

What?

Organize a recruitment process.

When?

The first publicly organized recruitment process should take place once you have established a solid student team whose members are sure about their commitment to the enterprise that is being built that have already shown to be able to work together as a team. In best case you have already acquired a project or more and you need co-workers for your project. In such cases also the interest of the students proves to be higher since they have a concrete project on which they are going to work.

Where?

You can organize the recruitment process by using first of all your website, flyers announcing the recruitment process, as well as mouth to mouth propaganda. In best case you will be supported by the university with an office or seminar room where you can organize the recruitment process.

Why?

Recruitment is an important process to let your enterprise grow. It is considered to be also a sign of maturity since it proves that the student team is be able and also willing to ensure continuity for the JI. It is also a good sign to other stakeholders such as the university, customers and potential customers.

Who?

The recruitment process should be initiated and organized by the Executive Board. In best case you have already selected one or two persons with experience in Human Resources who will take care of the Human Resources department and who already have prepared procedures for the recruitment that has also been approved by the Executive Board.

How?

You should start by figuring out what kind of needs you have for new human capital in your enterprise. Do you need people for the management only or do you need people also for a project you are aiming to start or that you have already started? You may think that it would be a good idea to hire good friends or family members who may have heard of the JI and are interested to participate. Experience proves that hiring people because of these reasons is not a good idea and proves to be even dangerous since in case of friends and family you cannot decide so easily based only on objective facts and results. Thus friends and family should go through the same filter of the recruitment procedures as other potential recruits.

Once you know what you need, you have to decide how you aim to reach the students. You can launch an announcement on your website, on your facebook group, on student forums of your university, disseminate flyers, and in case you have already established good relations to the university, you might ask the University for Help in disseminating the information to all the students they have in their mailing list.

The recruiting procedures should contain: a presentation of the candidates via e-mail through a Curriculum Vitae, a Motivation letter on why they are aiming at joining the team, references if they have any. Once they have gone through this filter, they can be invited to one or two interviews where apart from the Human Resource officers also the (other) Board Members participate. You can prepare a catalogue of questions which are important to you. Another way to organize your work would be through an assessment center, though this is a topic mainly handled by very well established Junior Enterprises that have gained so much experience in recruitment processes that they can invest time and efforts in such a process.

In best case you will be able to involve the university as a partner of this process. This will provide a good signal also to your potential co-workers that your enterprise is serious and that they have found the chance of their student life.

How much?

This in an internal process and there are no costs involved.