Home cooking: Inspired by REculture
Inspired by all the creative hacks that I have come across in blogs like REculture, I was undaunted when I lost a tiny but critical part of my pressure cooker last month in Nairobi. Then I reverted to type and promptly documented self hack. Yes, the lamb keema curry came out perfect. This post […]
Informal Economy Problems: Chinese BoP in Africa
Market forces led to the increasing visibility of the street hawkers from China in the informal markets of Africa. Mostly lower income and uneducated, Chinese traders are rapidly becoming the bane of African markets, much like how cheap, Chinese goods disrupted the local informal trade in the early years of the century. An indepth look […]
User driven innovation planning and strategy in development
It was with feeling of satisfaction that I read Eric Smallberg’s recent post titled “Thankfully, ICT4D is Now About Strategy and Implementations, Not Technovelty” where brings up the lessons from failure and the shift in emphasis of technology based development projects and social enterprises. He says: Richard Heeks wrote about the early history of these […]
What price brand? No pretence about “fakes”
One of the most fascinating things that emerged from my immersion in the informal trade of China made consumer electronics in Kenya last month was the role played by “fakes”. We assume that cheaper copies of well known brands attempt to fool the customers. Packaging and brand names echo the look and feel of the […]
Shared value simply means its human centered investment planning
The good news is that factoring shared value into valuations is a straightforward process. Investors simply need to ask companies the right questions. While these might vary by company or industry, the four below offer a good starting point: 1. Where will future revenue growth come from? Namely geographies, demographic groups, etc.2. How will (new) […]
From the archives: Analyzing value of this personal computer
Continuing the thread of thought from the previous post, what was once a productivity tool for word processing, data analysis, document management – aah, the days when we were told that the paperless office was right around the corner – has become in fact a communications tool. Now, if we take a step back from […]
Hub and spoke model for new product introductions
Nairobi’s Central Business District – Luthuli Avenue is the heart of the electronics and consumer appliance trade for Kenya. Chinese businessmen can be seen mingling with Somali traders and wholesalers come from all over the country to see “what’s new”. I saw recently introduced solar powered refrigerators (just 60W) on display, direct from China but […]
“Some NGO gave us a mosquito net”
Kitui, Eastern Province, Kenya July 2012 Serem, Western Kenya, June 2012 This post was written by niti bhan and rss originates from www.nitibhan.com
The continued curse of Cargo Cult marketing in emerging markets
The concept of Cargo Cult marketing is not unknown yet its impact and influence in the emerging markets in which I operate, can be and is, much worse. The so called “Bottom of the Pyramid” (AKA the BoP) markets have conditions that are even more likely to give rise to this blind adherence to conventional […]
The ubiquitious rural computer
Bargaining for bananas in rural Rwandan market could not have been completed without the use of the mobile phone’s calculator function. While a combination of broken Swahili, Kinyarwanda and English was used by the customer and the shopkeeper, the transaction’s clarity was increased by piling goods on the table and then using the clear numerals […]
