Category Archives: Consumer Behaviour

Time to update the 5D’s framework for inclusive business design after 12 years

By Niti Bhan | Published: June 10, 2021

Two things have happened since I first published The 5D’s of BoP Marketing: Touchpoints for a holistic, human-centered strategy in Core77 back in January 2009. One, Core77 overhauled their site design and broke my article rather badly. Its layout and formatting makes it virtually incomprehensible. On the other hand, the 5Ds framework has apparently held […]

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IMD Case Study – how Mpesa’s adoption transformed Safaricom

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 26, 2021

There is a case study on Safaricom that supports my viewpoint – that first one must consider the operating environment pragmatically prior to design and delivery of services for low income markets for a successful outcome that then drives the transformation of both the customer base and the corporation, giving rise to new ecosystems and […]

Also posted in Africa, Airtime, Banking, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Cashless transactions, Design, Economy, Ecosystem, Kenya, Mobile platform, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, South Africa, Technology | Tagged mobile money, mpesa, safaricom | Leave a comment

Situating one’s rant within business model typology for rural and low income markets

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 24, 2021

After yesterday’s post on stripping out social considerations to allow for a pragmatic economic assessment of viability prior to investing in infrastructure for service delivery to rural customers, I looked up literature on the general theme. Site selection as a keyword brought a slew of articles focusing on GIS technology, primarily from the lens of […]

Also posted in Biashara Economics, Business Models, Frameworks, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Literature review, Marketing, Perspective, Retail in Africa, Rural Economy, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Work in Progress | Tagged business model, conceptual framework, informal trade ecosystem, literature review, marketing, pels & sheth, rural economy, strategy tools, toolmaking, typology | Leave a comment

Is a business inclusive if its doing business in rural Africa? Why modeling economic capacity matters

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 23, 2021

Whether a business thinks of itself as inclusive or not, it must consider the sustainability of revenue streams and their expected duration, prior to committing themselves to infrastructural investments in rural locations of the global South. Those that position themselves as inclusive businesses – regardless of size, must consider the value being created for their […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Distribution, East African Community, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Income, Informal & Flexible, Literature review, Marketing, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, rural, Rural Economy, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology, User research, Work in Progress | Tagged economic capacity, operations management, participatory design research, profit margin, return on investment, revenue model, site selection, sociotechnical systems, village economy | Leave a comment

Looking back at 2020 from Mama Mboga’s eyes: The Pandemic as Natural Disaster

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 4, 2020

I am moved today by my work to look back at this agonizingly long year of separations and losses and delays for peoples around the world. Uncertainty and complexity have both increased, and economic volatility has become the order of the day, regardless of the development status of the region or location. More people in […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Analysis, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, East African Community, Economy, Ecosystem, Frugality, Kenya, Mama Biashara, Marchés africains, Marketing, Perspective, Retail in Africa, Risk, Scarcity, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, urban, User research | Tagged endurance, farm to fork, food security, informal economy, informal urban food system, mama mboga, nairobi, precarious, remoteresilienceproject, resilience, stoic, vcd | Leave a comment

Closing the Circle: Can integration of the flows in the post consumption ecosystem of Global North & South aid resilient recovery for all?

By Niti Bhan | Published: November 30, 2020

It was in July 2009 that I first attempted to visualize the significantly large subsector of informal recycling that fed the informal industrial ecosystem with re-processed ‘raw’ materials for their manufacturing output. The first draft was based on what I’d seen and documented in The Philippines, and in India, during the fieldwork for the ‘prepaid […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, China, East African Community, Economy, Ecosystem, Frugality, Ghana, global, India, Informal & Flexible, jua kali, Kenya, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Retail in Africa, Senegal, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Tanzania, Technology, Uganda, User research | Tagged boundary spanners, circular economy, ecosystem map, global south, informal economy | Leave a comment

Coronavirus side-effect: Transformation of China’s business models, logistics, and service delivery

By Niti Bhan | Published: February 29, 2020

Just the way the SARs epidemic kicked off China’s e-commerce revolution back in 2003, the ongoing COVID-19 containment strategies maybe triggering an even larger transformation of the Chinese economic ecosystem. I went looking today for the earliest signals of what might be underway. Rural China is facing the biggest challenge right now as the spring […]

Also posted in Analysis, Business Models, China, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Culture, Distribution, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Marketing, Migrant worker, Mobile platform, perfect storm, Perspective, Platforms, Research, Rural Economy, Scarcity, Technology, urban | Tagged china, contactless economy, coronavirus, covid 19, digitalization, disruption, farming, logistics, massive change, mobile platform, non contact, sars, shared agriculture, smartphones, transformation, value chain, vcd | Leave a comment

Less Technologically Advanced Societies are not necessarily backward or primitive: Assume at your own risk

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 26, 2019

This illustration by Jeroen Meijer of Jam Visueldenken of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, was created for our team during a workshop to capture the insights from a feasibility study on agritech we had completed for the Dutch government’s sustainable agricultural value chain development at Wageningen University’s Economic Research unit back in mid 2013. I’m pulling it […]

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The legacy of Uber’s business model and app will outlive the company in Africa

By Niti Bhan | Published: August 27, 2019

As news of Uber’s possible decline and fall filters in, it behooves me to take a moment to ponder the implications for sub Saharan Africa’s digital economic ecosystem, particularly the decentralized hybrid one emerging among the erstwhile informal sectors of the economy, such as motorcycle taxis and other on demand services. While Uber itself has […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Analysis, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Design, Economy, Ecosystem, Frameworks, Innovation Planning, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology | Tagged business model, demand and supply, informal economy, prepaid economy, social biashara, uber, uberization, uberization of african informal economy | Leave a comment

The Perfect Storm: A Continent, A Phone, A Business Model

By Niti Bhan | Published: July 20, 2019

In the mid 1990s, in a small city in northern Finland, engineers and designers began work on the product development of a mobile phone that would eventually become one of the best selling Nokia models ever – the 3310, released in Europe and the Far East in the year 2000. The continent of Africa was […]

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