Future Africa Blog

Lessons From the Developing World - Part 3

**Know more about Lars Stork
Managing Director
Strategic Planning Consultants at FutureAfrica provide business consulting services you need to insure your business plan is align with the visions and aims of your organization, company or business.

For Further Reading

See these related articles from MIT Sloan Management Review.

*Strategic Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid
By Jamie Anderson and Costas Markides (Fall 2007)
Innovation in developing markets has less to do with finding new customers than addressing issues of product acceptability, affordability, availability and awareness.
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/49116

*The Great Leap: Driving Innovation From the Base of the Pyramid
By Stuart L. Hart and Clayton M. Christensen (Fall 2002)
Billions of poor people aspire to join the world’s economy. Disruptive innovation can pave the way, helping companies blend sustainable corporate growth with social responsibility.
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/4415

*Is Your Innovation Process Global?
By José Santos, Yves Doz and Peter Williamson (Summer 2004)
By sourcing and integrating knowledge from dispersed geographic locations, companies can generate more innovations of higher value and lower cost.
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/45406

The strategy was crucial to Vodafone’s success in the Mumbai slums, where revenue has far exceeded the company’s initial expectations. And not just because of the improved network coverage. The mini-transmitters brought the partnership between Vodafone and the retailers to a new level. Each retailer “becomes your ear to the ground to the local community,” Mr. Chopra says. The retailer “tells you what opportunities there are, where you need to launch a particular tariff plan” to cater to the many different communities within the slum. “So he becomes a very integral part of the way you do the business.”

Something for Everyone

Companies in these environments also have discovered the importance of establishing relationships that benefit their employees and business partners and the communities they work in.

“Once the economics are right, once you have a win-win” for the company and its partners, says Mr. Chopra, “you have a relationship that is resilient. It is about respecting the fact that your associate in the slum may do only a small turnover, but for that person a small turnover is a big amount, and you call him for the same meetings that you call your other urban distributors. He gets recognition and respect, and in turn this builds trust and loyalty.”

Trust and loyalty can also be built by helping employees and business partners develop business skills. Celtel set up three-day workshops at regional company offices to train new franchisees in sales and marketing techniques, accounting and financial management, retail operations,basic maintenance of base stations, site security and human-resources management. And once in business, franchisees are provided with regular training events organized at the regional level.

In the chaos of Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, a newly formed Iraqi unit of Zain sent local engineers abroad for training in building and operating a mobile network, in effect becoming a corporate university that provided the education and skills required to run its business. The company also has provided training in other aspects of the business, including marketing and communications, distribution and customer care.

Companies also reached out beyond partners and employees, to weave themselves into the communities where they operate. Celtel shared a percentage of its franchise revenues with local communities, allocating the funds in cooperation with franchisees, village authority figures and sometimes non-governmental organizations.

Zain has helped many Iraqis find medical attention, both inside and outside the country; supported local sporting activities, the Iraqi national soccer team and the country’s Olympic athletes; and helped reassemble the Iraqi symphony orchestra.
“Our message has been that we are part of Iraqi society, and we are dynamically tied to Iraq and its people,” says Ali Al Dhawi, chief executive officer of Zain’s Iraqi unit. “We suffer what Iraq suffers, and we enjoy what Iraq enjoys.”