Business design for cooperatives in San Juan de Pasto

According to the Municipal Development Plan (2016), in Nariño, Colombia, there are numerous problems that characterize the economy of its capital, San Juan de Pasto: unemployment levels, informality and outsourcing above the national average, the agricultural sector with low contribution to its added value, the secondary sector with scarce productive and transformation infrastructure, financing barriers and cost overruns for the creation and funding of formal business organizations, as well as other structural regional barriers aggravated by the Covid-19 health crisis. All of these hinder the economic development of the municipality and especially affect the formation of companies in the cooperative sector. Despite this adverse outlook, once a cooperative-type associative group has reached a consensus on an idea with which they believe a profitable business could be developed, that idea — which is nothing more than an assumption by a group of potential entrepreneurs — must be tested against the reality of its target market to verify that it can effectively be transformed into a profitable and sustainable venture. For this, business modeling methodologies and tools suited to the special needs and conditions of the solidarity sector are necessary. The objective of this chapter is to present the results of the research "Design of a tool for cooperative-type business modeling in the municipality of Pasto," which, in essence, consists of the development of a guide to structure cooperative-type businesses and identify how the products and services of the associated entrepreneurs in this sector should be brought to market.