Last mile of achieving cashless
Last weekend I was walking around Kallio district in Helsinki, when I saw these handwritten signs informing passers-by that mobile payments were accepted here. It was an unstructured neighbourhood flea market where people put their own unwanted stuff out for sale. This is the last mile of cashless transactions in Finland. This recent news article […]
Uber’s problems with women’s safety in India – my 2 rupees worth
In its mindless rush for scale, Uber leapt into the Indian market with their “hassle-free” service of hailing a car with a push of a button on your smartphone. I call this mindless because “will it scale” is an unquestioned imperative for a startup, not something that is thought through. Nobody asks should it scale, […]
Social change and upward mobility: what numbers can’t tell you
Rajesh Aithal noticed this first, in a rural Indian haat or market. Macaroni displayed and sold like any other staple commodity. Pasta was not part of the staple Indian diet, at least not the rural one. It wasn’t mainstream even 10 years ago. Is it a sign of the adoption of urban consumption patterns as […]
Emerging Markets Competition – this time its technology
Around twenty years ago, when the Indian and Chinese markets first opened up to global brands, many were surprised to discover domestic incumbents were stronger than they had imagined. Proctor & Gamble’s laundry detergents battled for the Indian housewife’s attention and share of wallet. It wasn’t just their usual competitor Unilever either but indigenous upstarts […]
10 years later: Will buying Lunar Design make McKinsey more nimble?
Around 10 years ago, I’d made this rough sketch of the innovation consulting landscape as I saw it at the time. The overlap of business and design was the topic du jour, and IDEO had just begun seeding the media with stories of the Empathy Economy and the magic of “design thinking”. Today*, peterme’s blogpost […]
Assessing the size and value of investment opportunities with an informal economy footprint
There’s an interesting snippet from the Nigerian news yesterday that led to this framing of a necessary problem statement. KPMG’s head of private equity is quoted as saying: Meeting current needs of the one billion plus population and, the future demands of the rapidly emerging middle class consumers will drive the next wave of Private […]
An Introduction to Human Centered Design for Policy Makers in International Development
I’m making available the article based on our work with the Dutch government a couple of years ago. Download PDF
Upward Mobility is Changing Base of the Pyramid Consumer Aspirations
I’d observed earlier that upward mobility wasn’t simply about increasing incomes, but also a change in mindset, world view and values. Aspirational consumer behaviour trickles downward faster, as strivers seek to emulate the status signals sent by those they perceive as “arrived”. The emerging middle class numbers may indeed be uncertain, as statisticians debate over […]
How social networks can share the cost of technology – An innovative payment plan
The original Prepaid Economy project grant from the iBoP Asia Project required me to design a payment plan for a shared community asset based on the exploratory user research on households managed their finances on irregular and unpredictable incomes. For the first time since I started looking into this space back in 2008 I’ve come […]
“No Ordinary Disruption” – Africa’s Transformation
McKinsey consultants have released a new book – No Ordinary Disruption – looking at global mega trends and market forces that are forcing a rethink of the foundations of their intuitive knowledge. Assumptions are to be challenged and questioned, they say, as these changes impact a deeper transition in the way the world works. Even […]
