Have been thinking about the music industry and how it would be good to setup a distribution company that linked all of the (black owned) stores and businesses together under one roof as a Co-Operative, not for profit company. The store owners would place orders with this company which are handled together to, bundled, in order to ensure that they all get products in at a competitive price.

As a co-operative it would be in the interest of the business owners to work with and expand the scope of the company as a whole with the assisted promotion of artists for example, with its success it would then be possible to assist those who intend to get into the industry in general opening studios and workshops, 'Music houses' where budding artists can go, sign up as members and further their cultural interests in what ever field of the industry it may be, from the business side to the creative side, the lessons taught would teach a Pan African working model of doing business in the industry rather than the generally accepted western model... this is where I then went off on, ''tangent'' in a way I perhaps cannot do at this moment... the above could well be applied to just about any industry, simply swap ''music business'' for any other retail outlet such as Hair boutiques for example and the same could be applied, further yet it denotes the need for a working model of doing business, a Pan African model that can be applied and taught in place of the again, generally accepted western model most are taught (and then teach) today.

By this I mean that the above would need to be worked out, it would involve an understanding of the way Co-Operatives work, the safeguards and contracts, the pros and cons involved so as that it can be properly (and professionally) applied by anyone. The same alongside other concepts would need to be taught to students in whatever industry they may choose to follow, this could be studied alongside their current work with the western model of course but applied when need be.

Not on for long just wanted to type this... Is it possible to create a Unified Pan African model for business? If so how could we go about it?

Was going to make this a, ''business studies'' thread where, using retail as an example we could perhaps share ideas on how a Co-Operative, ?not for profit? organization/company can be set up and put to work.. how it could be done, what would be needed to do so and so on but I think the question stands on its own for now.

Opinions?
BL