Category Archives: Rural Economy

Mobile telephony and low income customers: Market conditions drove product development and pricing

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 25, 2021

Many who were around and as obsessed by the entry of mobile telephony in the global South during the early years of this century will recall this eyecatching graphic used to illustrate the announcement by Cameroonian researchers Victor and Irene Mbarika that can now be pointed to as the moment Africa’s mobile revolution was born: […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Airtime, Assumption filter, Biashara Economics, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Literature review, Mobile platform, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Work in Progress | Tagged africa, mobile phones, prepaid business model, strategy, strategy tools, toolmaking | 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, Consumer Behaviour, Frameworks, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Literature review, Marketing, Perspective, Retail in Africa, 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, Consumer Behaviour, Distribution, East African Community, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Income, Informal & Flexible, Literature review, Marketing, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, rural, 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

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), Consumer Behaviour, Culture, Distribution, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Marketing, Migrant worker, Mobile platform, perfect storm, Perspective, Platforms, Research, 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 […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Afrique francophone, Airtime, Analysis, Assumption filter, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Consumer Behaviour, Design, East African Community, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Frameworks, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Technology, UCSD, Value | Tagged africa, business model, design, Flat and fragmented, mobile, prepaid, user research | Leave a comment

Is Design Prepared to be Responsible?

By Niti Bhan | Published: November 7, 2019

Last week, I was invited to join a 60 strong group of pan African thinkers in law, human rights, gender, debt and related issues to convene in Nairobi to explore the concept of predatory lending now being delivered direct to your handheld device. As a human centered designer, I was rocked back on my heels […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Airtime, Banking, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business, Business Models, Design, Ecosystem, Innovation Planning, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Strategy, Systems, Technology, User research | Tagged africa, design, digital mobile service, human centered design, informal economy, mobile, mobile platform, responsible design | 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 […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Afrique francophone, Airtime, Analysis, Articles on Design and Innovation, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consommateurs, Consumer Behaviour, Design, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Emerging Markets, Flexibility, global, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Mobile platform, perfect storm, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, South Africa, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology, User research | Tagged africa, digital ecosystem, mobile phone, prepaid economy, the perfect storm | Leave a comment

The Prepaid Economy as a Commercial Operating Environment

By Niti Bhan | Published: July 18, 2019

I have been looking for information the global prepaid mobile subscriber market since yesterday morning. Initially, all I wanted to know was the percentage of prepaid subscribers in China, as I wanted to compare operating environments in major mobile markets like India and China, against the fast growth emergent one in sub Saharan Africa. What […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Airtime, Alternative currency, Analysis, ASEAN, Assumption filter, Banking, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, China, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consumer Behaviour, Culture, Design, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Flexibility, Frugality, Ghana, global, Income, India, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Nigeria, Perspective, Philipines, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Savings, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology | Tagged africa, china, digital mobile social ecosystem, digital social economy, ecosystem, emerging markets, india, informal economy, mobile, prepaid business model, prepaid economy, south east asia | Leave a comment

New Market Opportunity: The Digitalisation of African Agriculture

By Niti Bhan | Published: July 12, 2019

Just over two weeks ago, I analyzed a report on the Digitalization of African Agriculture on twitter. Bandwidth heavy PDFs aren’t user friendly for mobile first or mobile only browsing environments, such as prevalent across much of the African continent, and ‘granulating’ reports is something I’ve gotten into the habit of doing quite regularly for […]

Also posted in Africa, Airtime, Alternative currency, Analysis, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Cattle, Design, Ecosystem, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Livestock, Mobile platform, Platforms, Report Review, Research, rural, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology | Tagged africa, agriculture, D4Ag, design, digitalization, new market strategy, rural value chain, sustainable agricultural value chain development, vcd | Leave a comment

The results, two years on, from Kenya’s Movable Property Security Rights Act 2017

By Niti Bhan | Published: July 6, 2019

Movable property such as household goods, livestock and office equipment has helped add 183,487 loan accounts into the banking sector, a Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) report shows. […] “The loans that flow out of the banking system on the basis of assets in the register has been growing. This shows that the alternative collateral has […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Alternative currency, Banking, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cattle, Consumer Behaviour, Economy, Flexibility, Livestock, Loans, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector | Tagged banking, biashara economics, collateral, informal economy, kenya, loans, movable assets, Movable Property Security Rights Act 2017 | Leave a comment