This course focuses on understanding subsistence marketplaces and designing business solutions for the billions of people living in poverty in the global marketplace. To develop understanding of subsistence marketplaces, we use exercises to enable participants to view the world from the eyes of subsistence consumers and entrepreneurs, facilitate bottom‐up understanding generated by participants, and provide insights from extensive research. More broadly, the course uses the context of extreme resource constrained contexts to learn about the bottom-up approach pioneered through the Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative, and apply it in any context. The course will involve virtual immersion in subsistence contexts, emersion of unique insights, bottom-up design, innovation and enterprise. A parallel project will focus on understanding a specific need in a subsistence marketplace, and designing a solution and an enterprise plan. Upon successful completion of this course you will be able to: • Develop an understanding of subsistence marketplaces • Design solutions for subsistence marketplaces • Develop enterprise plans to implement solutions for subsistence marketplaces • Apply the bottom-up approach for subsistence marketplaces as well as other contexts This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.
Project Resources
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Del curso dictado por University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Sustainable Innovation for Subsistence Marketplaces
37 calificaciones
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
37 calificaciones
Curso 1 de 7 en SpecializationGlobal Challenges in Business
De la lección
Module 1: Introduction to Subsistence Marketplaces and Bottom-Up Immersion
In this module, you will be introduced to the importance of studying subsistence marketplaces as well as the unique nature of a bottom-up approach to studying it.
Conoce a los instructores
Madhu ViswanathanDiane and Steven N. Miller Professor in Business
Department of Business Administration
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We are going to discuss project details in this presentation.
I want you to think about the topics that interest you and rank the top ones.
You're going to be working on this project in the coming week so
it's very important that you're interested in the topic you choose.
What is the project?
It involves looking at a need or a problem.
The drivers of the need and the context elements in which they are happening.
This is the part of the project that relates to understanding the problem or
the need fully.
The other side of the project is that you will double up a core and
a augmented solution on an ecosystem, on a business or enterprise plan.
The final outcome is a presentation of the following parts.
You're going to look at a problem, the opportunity for the problem, the solution,
the enterprise plan and the sustainable outcomes of implementing this plan.
I've taken a context in Africa.
I've used this content to bring out what the project looks like.
Here are the needs that identified as affecting long term protection against
parasite carrying mosquitos.
This is the need that is addressed in the solution in the content I've chosen.
Lay out three concentric circles for the need, drivers, and context.
The inner-most circle will list a need you've identified for
which you will be designing a solution.
This is the need as seen by a primary customer.
What need are you serving？
Drivers are the immediate causes that make the needs so stark.
Why is the need so stark?
Inability to take preventive measures, affordability of treatment and so on.
That is what drivers mean.
The context elements are broader and
relate to the setting in which things play out.
For instance, the climatic conditions in Africa can be a context element.
Let us not quibble too much on what you call drivers and
what you call context elements.
Drivers are the more immediate causes and
context elements are the broader setting where things play out in the work we do.
It is not enough to identify the need or the problem.
You also have to identify the larger than life circumstances
that make this need so dire.
And that's what we are trying to do here with the need, drivers and
context elements exercise.
We don't know much typically about poverty and environmental issues.
These are nascent and emerging areas where each context is different and
it is all the more important to understand the life circumstances.
For this project, you will look at the need, the drivers of these needs and
the context elements in order to fully understand the need of the problem.
You then have to pick a geography that you want to focus on.
The geography can be anywhere in the world.
Who are the beneficiaries or customers?
In this case it is improvised in Africa and what are the usage situations,
they could be in hospitals, they could be during sleep at home and so on.
So this is how we crystallize the opportunity in terms of geography,
customer and usage situation.
On the right side of the figure, you have the solution, the ecosystem, and
the enterprise plan.
This is what we will focus on now.
The core solution is an anti-malarial bed net
which is effective when compared to alternatives.
It is more durable and it is eco-friendly and safe for people to use.
The augmented solution consists of packaging with education about malaria.
The augmented solution consist of additional features that can added to
the core solution that helps to make the product better.
The ecosystem consists of aspects that are over and above the core and
augmented solution.
The ecosystem is not part of the product or offering, but
enables the product to be used.
These are arenas where deprivation is on multiple fronts, so it is not enough to
offer a product in isolation and assume all other parts are in place.
A case in point is lack of education.
What does the ecosystem that will enable education and use of the product?
It could be a network of people, educational programs, and so on.
So the ecosystem is not intrinsic to the product, it is extrinsic but
it enables the product to be used.
Next we move to the enterprise plan,
which is about how the solution is going to be implemented.
It consists of articulating the sustainable value proposition.
Comparing alternatives, storyboarding the value chain, and
understanding how the value proposition will be communicated and delivered.
It also involves doubling up the exchange model, which relates to different
exchanges that will be happening among the different stakeholders.
The value proposition needs to be clearly explained.
What do I mean by this?
You have to articulate the give and the get for
the customer in your value proposition.
What is a customer giving up and what do they get?
They customer is giving up more than money.
The customer is also giving up time and effort.
And what does the customer get in return?
Next, you need to compare your solution to the alternatives or competition.
Part of the competition in these settings is to do nothing.
Some of the competition involves using low cost drugs or ordinary bed nets.
And you have to compare each alternative in terms of how your solution does.
Here is more information on how this particular solution compares with
alternatives.
It is important to articulate exactly how the solution is better, and in some ways,
how the solution is worse, as well.
In comparing alternatives, a key aspect is to identify
the underlying dimensions on which the comparison needs to happen.
This leads to a positioning map.
And this is really how consumers perceive the different alternatives.
And so here you can see availability and access have been chosen as key dimensions,
along with affordability, which is shown based on the size of the bubbles.
And so here the MosNet solution is considered high in terms of availability,
access, as well as affordability when compared to the alternatives.
Again, it is important to note that doing nothing is also an option that needs to be
considered.
The next step is to storyboard the entire process with particular attention to how
the customer becomes aware of the product, buys the product, and
uses it, and perhaps even disposes of it.
Think of where the product comes from, where it get used, and how it is disposed.
The story board of the value chain includes steps where the customer becomes
aware of a product.
It lays out the entire chain.
You can call this the entire value chain, but
it has to focus on the customer's role in great detail.
So please draw the story board like a process.
With particular attention to the customer.
Here are more details of how the storyboard for MosNet is articulated.
Next we focus on how the value proposition is communicated and delivered.
We have to communicate the value proposition.
In doing so, we can mention a number of different ways in which we will
communicate, but this alone is not enough.
How will you communicate your value proposition?
You will need to double up a specific communication vehicle so
that you can tell the beneficiaries or customers what they are going to get and
what they are going to give up.
Here is a sample pamphlet.
It is not enough to say you will use social media and so on.
Those are very generic ways of responding to this issue of how
you are communicating the value proposition.
We need to develop something more specific like a flier or an instruction manual.
By developing the specific communication vehicle,
you reflect your deeper understanding in terms of how you will communicate.
That's the level of analysis in which we want to work in taking a bottom
up approach.
It will help us to understand how you bring value to the customer.
We use our storyboarding exercise of the value chain as well as other means to
identify how the value proposition is going to be delivered.
Next you need to double up the exchange model.
What is your exchange model?
An exchange model is essentially a list of entities involved and
all the exchanges involved.
These exchanges don't always involve money.
But it does have to be an exchange.
In other words, the way we are using the exercise it cannot So
you have to be innovative and there has to be a revenue stream.
It cannot be just a give or just a get.
It has to be a give and a get and there has to be parity.
I call this an exchange model because there are complex entities
involved in the space, including NGOs, governments and international agencies.
The exchange model is not just about exchanging money, but
a variety of other elements as well.
We have to look at a problem, the opportunity for the problem, the solution,
the enterprise plan, and the sustainable outcomes of implementing this plan.
The heart of the enterprise plan should be economic sustainability.
We focus on all forms of sustainability, but
your enterprise plan must be economically sustainable in order to survive.
There could be win-wins or tradeoffs between different types of sustainability.
These win-wins and tradeoffs need to be understood.
It is a business so you have to make it work economically.
So you can see that all of this is also about making tradeoffs and
finding synergies.
You will also have to look at the social impact in terms of reduced rates of
disease, higher household income, and so on.
And finally, you have to look at environmental impact in terms of
the materials you use, in terms of the effect of human beings, and
the effect on the environment, and so on.
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