A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their
common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and
democratically-controlled enterprise.
Co-operatives are one of the oldest and most enduring forms of social enterprise. For example,
the Shore Porters' Society of Aberdeen, Scotland, was founded in 1498, while the Fenwick
Weaver's Society, also from Scotland, was established in 1761. In France there were cooperatives formed among cheese makers as early as 1750, and the co-operative bakery Caisse de
Pain was founded in Alsace at Guebwiller in 1828.
Globally co-operative enterprise is represented by the International Co-operative Alliance
(ICA), which is the peak body of the world co-operative movement founded in 1895. In 2012 the
ICA has over 250 member organisations in over 100 countries that employ around 100 million
people and represent the interests of some 1 billion people.
However the Cooperatives are having different problems in effective and efficient management
of their operations. Various problems like seamless Communication among the members, Real
time updation of Market Information, Management of Accounts, Election Management etc are
becoming the obstacles in achieving the essence of Cooperative Objectives.
For strategic growth and competitive edge, it is important for the Cooperatives to understand
the need for improving the internal Communication, real time market analysis to ensure
convenience and ease to members.
Considering the above, Sricom Inc Product Division identified a business case to improve and
strengthen the Cooperative Movement and initiated the development of one of its Flagship
Product “ICON – An Integrated Cooperative Node”. This would be useful for any Cooperative
that would be willing to automate their internal process and strengthening their Business. Even
though, the solution is suitable for any Cooperative, Sricom Inc is aiming at the US
Cooperatives in Agriculture, Housing and other verticals.
Considering the potential in this niche market, where there is no Single Solution which will
handle all the operations of the Cooperatives, we propose ICON – an Integrated Co-Operative
Solution.

e- Monitoring : Admission of members and Financial Inclusion

e-Accounting and Audit: Providing online information of transactions and Audit
reports for maintaining transparency and accountability

e-Market Intelligence: to provide information of market prices (agricultural
commodities to farmers and availability of agricultural inputs etc based on the business
of the Cooperative)

e-Knowledge Management: Provide information and knowledge of business
opportunities and readymade Project Reports with information of funding agencies to
the societies for Productivity Enhancement and Enterprise Promotion.

e-Collaboration
Providing simplified communication channels to have seamless
information dissemination between the members

e-Elections: Providing easy and convenient election of Cooperatives to elect the
Members
The proposed ICON is to improve the access and outreach of information to all the members of
the Cooperative for providing better information and operational convenience. The proposed
portal should improve information service delivery mechanisms; achieve better information
management and network with all other agencies, Government agencies, Statutory
Organizations for better information and knowledge management. The Business and
technological goals for portal are:
 To strengthen good governance and broaden the member participation by leveraging
ICT opportunities for sustained improvement
 Significantly improving the Quality of Service (QoS) provided by the Co-Operatives
 Instituting
Cooperatives
a mechanism of
monitoring and evaluation of the functions of the
 Improving the system for decision making with respect to planning and delivery of
services / Goods
 ICT usage in promotion of the cooperative growth and Development.
 Ensuring effective program management to track progress.
Design Considerations for Proposed Technology Solution
The design considerations for the proposed technology solution, detail the requirements that
the proposed technology solution should meet in order to fulfil the objectives. The design
considerations for the proposed technology solution in the web application for ICON are:

High Availability

Scalability

Interoperability

Portability

Performance

Extendibility

Maintainability
Logical Architecture of Web Portal
Web application set up at the SRICOM ’s Jurisdiction level or at any Third Party Data
Center, wherein data and information would be collected, stored, retrieved, used and
exchanged in an efficient manner. Web application portal is built based on Open standard
technology, supports N-tier architecture (thin/thick client) namely, Service Oriented
Architecture (SOA).It runs on multiple operating systems and various databases.
The Proposed ICON Application Architecture is
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is defined as a group of services that communicate with
each other through either simple data-passing or two or more services coordinating some
activity. SOA builds applications out of web / software services. Services comprise intrinsically
un-associated units of functionality that have no calls to each other embedded in them. They
typically implement functionality most would recognize as a service, such as filling out an
online request to department or submitting a grievance or query.
Architecture Goals
The objective of portal application is to define the framework with Centralized Architecture
Design which is cost effective. The goals of the application are to:
1. Centralized Architecture Design
2. Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
3. Upgrades and new releases of the Application are to be done only at the central server,
rather than having to be installed on several machines
4. Easier system maintenance and administration
5. Ability to manage and monitor the system from a single, central location
6. Better management and administrative control
7. Better deployment of security
8. Browser based User Interface
9. N- tier Architecture environment
10. Application should support all major communication protocols including TCP/IP
11. Central Messaging Processing Mechanism
Technology Features
(Java Based Solution)
Solution
Layered Architecture
SOA enabled
Java components, EJB’s can be modelled as the services
Coupling
Loose Coupling Between Layers
Run Time Environment
JRE .Need Web Server
Availability of Direct API
For Majority of the functionalities, direct API’s are available. Just reuse them
Extensibility
Need to use readily available adaptors to integrate with other applications
Interoperability
Platform Independent
Presentation Tier
JSP/JSF for both online as well as Offline
Proposed ICON Software system should have n-tier internet architecture with web enabled
user interface through W3C compliant Web Browsers.
Product Features
Considering Various types of Cooperatives and their functionality, and also considering the
Governing Laws of various States, the ICON team identified the following modules to be part of
the product, which enable all the Cooperatives to automate their operations as well as efficient
and effective collaboration of its members.
The Proposed ICON is a web based solution to automate the complete requirements of the
Cooperatives in handling their operations / Business. ICON is a full-featured web-based system
used for automate day to day organizational activities of Cooperatives.
The Architectural Blue Print of the ICON is as follows
The ICON will be independent of Operating System and will work major OS like Windows,
Linux, Sun etc. The ICON is Database independent and works on MySQL, Oracle or SQL
Server. APACHE has been used as Web Server and Development environment is Java (or
PHP).
SRICOM Inc understands that the Product proposed for the Cooperatives will definitely change
the face of the Cooperative Movement.
Considering the Values of the SRICOM Inc, it is
considered as Corporate Social Responsibility of the Organization to provide an Holistic
Solution with state of the art technology for empowerment of Rural people.
Not only with the intension of Revenue generation, SRICOM Inc also excited to be part of the
International Cooperative Movement.
With Commitment to excel in the field of Information Technology and expertise in
implementation of Rural Solution, SRICOM Inc will be the Leader in this segment.