Background

Premier Organics exemplified every aspect of Inner City Advisor’s (ICA) mission: Premier Organics was a fast-growing, small organic food company needing strategic direction after expanding their operations into inner city East Oakland.  Additionally, the co-founders were a group of smart, dedicated and passionate individuals that, together, created a winning team.  Most importantly, Premier Organics had built a larger vision into their business model, which sought to create quality employment opportunities for local residents and give back to the community in which they operated.  With all these qualities combined, Premier Organics truly captured the essence of the responsible and sustainable inner city businesses ICA seeks to assist.

Business Challenge

Premier Organics came to Inner City Advisors (ICA) in 2004 with a set of business challenges that were impacting their growth and operations.   They recognized, as they were growing in both revenue and company size, that issues and decisions were getting bigger — not smaller:

• Raising significant amounts of capital to finance A/R, along with inventory and equipment;
• Effectively projecting costs and financial growth;
• Raising awareness of equity partnerships to focus on the changes the company would undergo with the guidance of key advisors; AND
• Evaluating the interdependencies and impact of the target market, facility and equipment constraints against the organizational structure.

How ICA Helped

The turning point for Premier Organics arrived by way of a business workshop that was organized and facilitated by ICA Advisors.  Through their participation in the workshop, Premier Organics learned many great lessons; i.e., how to better market their products and services, evaluate strategic growth opportunities, strengthen their leadership and management, etc.  Interestingly, the greatest lesson came from observing how ICA demonstrated, to everyone, what a healthy and well operated company looked like by how they managed their own strategic growth and the changes associated, as well as their passionate commitment to strengthen local neighborhoods and communities by helping businesses to grow and to foster job creation.

Results

The interaction with ICA inspired Premier Organics to, not only take a healthier approach to resolve their differences, mitigate risks/issues, strengthen overall organizational effectiveness, but to pay attention to the impact their business was having on the local community – through job creation and growth.  This shift in focus and setting of priorities has lead Premier Organics to have an overall healthier organization that is constantly learning, evolving and improving the way they provide service excellence to both their employees and the local community.  Premier Organics is not just another small organic food company — they are a living testimony that by focusing on what’s important and getting back to basics, an organization can truly make a difference in the world around them.