A Business Innovation Case StudyBusinova WorkGroup 2009

Diana Conrad - Indranath Sen Gupta - Jaikar Mohan – Jiahui Huang - Jie Zhou - Qifei Zhu - Tomás González

2008 GSM Award for "Best utilization of a mobile phone for Social and Economic development"

2008 GSM Award for "Best utilization of a mobile phone for Social and Economic development"

THE INNOVATION

Mobile phone market

Focus on rural regions

the innovation the story the impact

Easy-to-use

IVR

THE INNOVATION

the innovation the story the impact

THE INNOVATION

Internet is not ubiquitous in a developing country like Bangladesh, thus cell phone short message becomes the most widely accepted means for C2C business.

[SMS sell video]

[SMS buy video]

the innovation the story the impact

NOVEL INNOVATION

Cell Bazaar e-Bay Apple

- Social motivation. - Profit through fees. - Profit from the telecommunication operator when user use the iPhone.

- Not only web, but cell phone.

- Focused on the web platform.

- Uses only one telecommunication operator to distribute their service.

- Educates and trains people to use the technology

Comparison with other C2C services

the innovation the story the impact

THE INNOVATION STORY

the innovation the story the impact

1) Concentrade on rural market:

Employ salesperson and train the users.

Reduce instruction to minimum to keep it simple.

Teach rural people how to use it.

Costumer-to-Costumer service provider.

2) Revenue model:

GrameenPhone: Signed contract with the largest cellular operator in the country: 20 million subscribers.

Fee for service.

CONTEXTUALIZATION / SITUATION IN THEIR FIELD

the innovation the story the impact

- People depended on middlemen for trade.

- Rather poor country (per capita income $1400 in 2006).

- People work mostly in field of agriculture, conservative to technologies.

- No existing business firm providing such C2C cell business.

THE IMPACT Game changer:

Changed way of doing business by eliminating middlemen.

the innovation the story the impact

CUSTOMER CLIENTMIDDLEMEN

CUSTOMER CLIENT

THE IMPACT Revolutionized the field of C2C

business in Bangladesh by teaching and training people how to use mobile phones for other purposes beyond communication.

the innovation the story the impact

Inspired another initiative called „Trade At Hand“ among market people in Liberia, by the Liberian Ministry of Commerce in association with a Geneva based NGO.

WHO BENEFITED AND HOW

the innovation the story the impact

People in the rural areas of Bangladesh.

Other customers of Grameen Phone.

[Video of “Story of Abdul”]

WHO LOST OUT?

Loss of jobs for middlemen

Other cell phone service providers might lose customers

We look forward to an interaction with Mr. Kamal in the next couple of weeks to fill in more here

the innovation the story the impact

SOURCE OF THE IMAGES:

Cell Bazaar website: http://www.cellbazaar.com

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameenphone

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/2736560904/ (CC licensed

photo) http://www.flickr.com/photos/16822508@N05/2184015178/ (CC licensed

photo) http://www.flickr.com/photos/minliu/1349445584/ (CC licensed photo) http://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/3328255520/ (CC licensed photo) http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianauer/2145934290/ (CC licensed photo) http://www.flickr.com/photos/ppdigital/2054988302/ (CC licensed photo) http://www.flickr.com/photos/arifbd111/3421300275/

Other sites: http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/arsenic/countries/

arsenic_project_countries.html http://www.intracen.org/trade-at-hand/