An Interdisciplinary Approach to “Best Fit” for International Development: Process and Tools
This post follows on from the previous one which introduced the concept of a ‘best fit’ approach to the ‘wicked problems’ in development. There I posited that consumer facing private enterprises looking at the African market would benefit from considering Development’s thought-leadership in this regard, given their experience in the challenging operating environments of the […]
Pivoting from “best practice” to “best fit”: An interdisciplinary perspective
There has been an evolution in thinking about development practice. Buckley and Ward (2015) found a broad consensus for a shift from a ‘best-practice paradigm’ (Chambers 2011) to one of ‘best fit’ — that is, development interventions that are ‘optimally adapted’ to the socioeconomic, political and ecological context at any given moment (Ramalingam et al. […]
Tsunami of change – design, brands, marketing and the mobile phone
In the 10 short months since I wrote on the market forces influencing the global mobile phone market, and the implications of the democratization of innovation whose early, weak signals I could already foresee, matters have come to a head. I had written: The locus of innovation in handset design, product planning and market strategy […]
“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 […]
Strategy and Operational Excellence: Trade-Offs Made in Design and Thinking
“Managers must clearly distinguish operational effectiveness from strategy. Both are essential, but the two agendas are different. The operational agenda involves continual improvement everywhere there are no trade-offs. Failure to do this creates vulnerability even for companies with a good strategy. The operational agenda is the proper place for constant change, flexibility, and relentless efforts […]
Gamer Gen: Civ III as virtual MBA?
This post was written on 29th November 2005 in San Francisco Back in May 2005, I wrote a post on the book “Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever” where the authors, John C. Beck and Richard Wade, argue that gamers glean valuable knowledge from their pastime and that they’re poised to […]
Why are they shaming Simon Berry for making an important and valuable strategic change? #colalife
In my 2009 article “The 5Ds of BoP Marketing: Touchpoints for a holistic, human centered strategy” I used Simon Berry’s initial work, with Cola Life, as an example of innovative distribution models, so: Such “piggybacking” has been attempted on an existing tried and tested global distribution network as a way to distribute medicines to the […]
Reflecting on The Informal Economy, October 2012
John Keith Hart, who first saw the economic activity of the “unemployed” in Accra, Ghana back in the beginning of the 1970’s, almost exactly 40 years ago, opened the symposium with the statement that the informal economy had gone mainstream. After all, he said, here was a gathering of folks from around the world, ready […]
Target market strategy for upwardly mobile BoP segments
* BoP – referring Prahalad’s Bottom of the social and economic pyramid, MoP – middle This visualization of the emerging consumer market opportunity in India is by the insightful analysts at Nomura Research Institute, Japan. When taking this in conjunction with the information collated in my previous post on the imminent boom in upward mobility […]
Emerging evolution of global BoP markets by mindset and income
Japan’s Nomura Research Institute have an interesting take on the evolution of the existing global population currently demarcated as the BoP (Base or Bottom of the Pyramid). While it is not surprising that income levels are expected to increase, given the signals already observed in frontier markets and rapidly growing economies, what was intriguing was […]
