Prepaid pricing plans and the financially savvy BoP buyer: A discussion
Rural grocery shop, South Africa January 2008 While putting together my post on demanding BoP customers today, I came across this snippet from an article titled "Getting to know the sophisticated prepaid user" from The Philippines (one of the field locations for the user research documented on this site). Its a quote attributed to the […]
Synthesis of the Prepaid Economy Project
The impetus for the Prepaid Economy project came from field observations during other projects which focused on the design and development of products and services for those at the BoP. It was noted that the majority of the BoP lived on irregular incomes derived from a variety of sources, while few business models or payment […]
Seasonality and its influence on rural BoP household financial management
Fallow field, Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan India January 2009 I first noticed the influence of seasonality on income halfway during the Indian fieldwork. On one hand, its but natural that the seasons are linked to a farmer's cash flow, dependent as it is on the harvest. But it was when I met the silversmith that I […]
Wrapping up the project
The time has come to make my primary blog, Perspective 2.0 the default on Emerging Futures Lab's website. While the oodles of information, data and understanding churned up by this project means that there's material enough for future thinking and pondering on the topic of the BoP's household financial practices, the primary phases of this […]
Some thoughts on community based models for sharing costs
We found that the key factor that makes 'prepaid' payment plans (whether its for electricity, mobile phones, water etc) so attractive to the BoP customer, in the context of their own behaviour patterns regarding the management of their personal finances. This is the fact that this model puts significant control over time – frequency and […]
Quick summary of workshop findings
Our workshop officially ended today although there's still a lot of 'mopping up' to be done not to mention the final documentation. We had the opportunity to analyze groups of users observed and interviewed by me in rural Rajasthan (India) and a barangay in Iloilo (Philippines) as well as some basic personal financial management information […]
The BoP are people too – a shift in storytelling
Reading the recent post on "Portfolios of the Poor: How the Poor Live on Less Than $2 a Day" by Rob Katz on nextbillion.net, it struck me that this might be an early signal of a shift away from simply segmenting the billions at the BoP by income, not that that isn't useful. But coverage […]
Where are we now?
Design Factory, TKK, Helsinki Finland April 6th 2009 We've been busy the last couple of weeks primarily preparing for the critical phase of this project – the user research analysis and concept design workshop – and also my relocation to Helsinki for the rest of the year. In a few days, team members will gather […]
Sudhir Venkatesh and the rise of the “other” BoP
Photo credit: Jim Wilson/The New York Times Even as we observe and study those who live on irregular and unpredictable incomes in the lower income strata of the developing world, articles in the media this week catch our attention to inform us that these challenges are not simply for the 'poor' but in fact, being […]
Creativity goes hand in hand with entreprenuership
Furniture designer & artisan, Iloilo Province, February 24th 2009 Jesse is just 30 years old. A year ago, he sold his motorcycle to obtain the working capital to start his own handmade furniture design workshop, here on the main road. He pays 300 pesos a month to rent this highly visible location and lives onsite. […]
