Design for Affordability or for Quality

For a very long time now (almost two semesters) we have been told continuously that the poor need products that are affordable. I get this and I think that we all get this. The poor cannot afford a car, so we sell them a bicycle. But over time, they no longer want a bicycle and they come back demanding a car. Why? Simply because it troublesome to drive 30 km or ~15 miles carrying a heavy load to make money delivering goods to the market. Now they want a car. Fine…we will give them a car that is a Toyota corolla but without air-conditioning and all the other fancy accessories so that it is affordable. Well…really… a four-seater car for a poor person who wants to deliver goods to the market. This is exactly where our team comes in. Before I go ahead I want to inform you that I used the car analogy to describe our situation of working with diesel engines and their need by the farmers.

We spent the entire last week interviewing 100 odd farmers in the northwestern region of Bangladesh asking them what they wanted. The unanimous answer is that they want a smaller car not a Toyota corolla. We took a step further and conducted an exercise with them. “All of you claim that you want a smaller car, but what should this small car be? Please tell us what features you would like this car to have?” So we went through an exercise called Building a Super Engine (my teammate Angie’s brainchild idea). In this exercise the farmers built the type of diesel engine they wanted with features like intended horsepower, weight, size, water pumping capacity, land irrigation capacity, utility, price, etc.

What ended up happening was that farmers were desiring an engine that is 1-2 hp, small in weight (25-30 kg), irrigated 2 acres of land (at least), lasted for 15 years (at least), priced at 6000 – 7000 Taka ($80 - $100 using $1 = 68 Taka conversion factor) and could be used for irrigation mainly but also for post-harvest activities. We asked this of all the farmers we interviewed and consistently this was their response.

Wait a minute; I was under the impression that poor people desired affordable products only. Where did all these other requirements for quality come from? Well, turns out they are people too and they too like all of us desire the most for the least. So, this means that a product needs to be designed that is not only affordable but has quality as well. Why is quality important? According to them, if they can use the product for 15 years straight without major repairs and lower fuel consumption, that is their operational costs are low; then they have the potential to increase their income even more.

It then seems that products for the poor or the base of the pyramid (BOP) market have to be designed not only for affordability but for quality also. Well then here’s a question for you, would rather buy a mp3 player from a Chinese company or from a Japanese company like SONY, the difference being the former is affordable and the later is durable. I guess you might answer that it depends; maybe it depends on its functionality, which is to listen to music. If the same question were about buying a car, you would go with a Japanese manufacturer and not a Chinese one because now you want durability and efficiency. In our diesel engine case then the need is for both functionality and durability i.e. a Japanese product made in China.

Bangla Chronicles - Day 10

We are back from a long and exciting journey to the Northwestern part of Bangladesh called the Rangpur Division (see google map in last blog). In total, we visited 6 villages, met with at least 100 farmers (women and men), visited manufacturers of pumps and retailers of engines and lastly met with a government organization called Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC). We took tons of pictures and videos, conducted various focus groups, watched engines and treadle pumps being operated.

There were some frustrating, sad and happy moments. It was sometimes frustrating to get information from farmers because our perception and their perception of the questions or the answers was always different and getting through the communication barrier was not always a smooth process. This required asking similar questions in different ways. Plus it was a learning experience for us since we had to understand the land, the people and the environment being that it changed village to village.

One particular interview was a sad moment for us. There was a group of women and a group of men. All the men owned their own land and worked on it, while the women did not own land so would work on other people's land. When we would ask any questions, only the men would talk and provide opinions. Many times we had to ask the men to keep quiet in order to get responses from the women. This part was not the sad aspect. The sad aspect was that because the women did not own land, they did not want to provide any opinions or comments. To them, our interview was of no use to them because they were under this constant fear of losing their jobs every season. Because of their lack of a sustainable job, they did not show any intent to buy an engine that could help solve their problems. When you don't own land, why would anyone want to invest in a new technology? This was sad to see. And no matter how we put the question to try and understand their situation better to find an appropriate solution, it always felt hopeless.

There were happy moments as well primarily when farmers would say that they want to buy our product now if available. We saw a lot of interest for our product and were encouraged by the response we received.

Overall, our stay was smooth. The last three days, however we stayed in a hotel that wasn't very clean. I was fine with the living condition, but Angelina was grossed out. She also had a tough time dealing with insects since this city had a lot of flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, and other bugs you would normally not see. The temperature was pretty hot the whole time. And humidity was high also. When we sat with the farmers, we would be sweating profusely. One particular day the temperature was easily 37 C.

Life here is the same as it would be in India. But Bangladeshi people are very different. Not a lot of work is available so people generally gather around any new event or phenomenon and constantly stare at you. You feel like asking them, "kuch aur kaam nahi hai kai" (translated - "don't you have any other work?") ....lol.... but you tend to realize that this is the situation all over the country whether in the city or in the villages. And it doesn't matter if you are a tourist or a local, they will still behave like that.

I'm having fun and enjoying my stay here. We are now going to be in Dhaka for the whole week, preparing for our next trip. We plan to visit all the regions of the country. This week we will also try to meet with government agencies, institutions and private organizations.

Bangla Chronicles - Day 2

There's lots to talk about on day 2, but for now here's a map of what we have planed for our field trip to the northwest region of Bangladesh. See google maps link below.


View Larger Map

We leave on Sunday (it's the start of the week here) and come back on Friday spending two days in Bogra and Rangpur and a day in a place not identifiable on the map called Kurigram (Chars region). Chars refers to the river islands that a river makes along its path and Kurigram is a place close to the river Brahmaputra (or Jamuna in the local tongue).

Bogra is known for its rapid industrialization of agricultural products including diesel engines. This is where we hope to meet with retailers and manufacturers. Rangpur also has a similar industry but here we hope to meet more of the farmers and the same is the case for Kurigram.

More detail stories on why these being the choice for our first field trip and more interesting tales from Dhaka to follow.

Allah Hafiz.

Bangla Chronicles - Day 1

We made it to Bangladesh this morning at 6:15 am. I have to say, I felt like I was arriving into Bombay airport; the same look, feel and even smell…that smell of moist air inside a damp building.

However, unlike Bombay airport immigration and customs went real smooth, in fact so smooth that the customs guys were drinking chai in one corner not bothered about passengers leaving or entering the airport building.

OMG…. another reason why I felt like I was home was because of the roads, the people, the cars, buses, trees all lined in the same way, traffic maneuvering the same way, double decker buses made by the same company as in Bombay; everything’s the same except the language.

My teammate Angelina on the other hand is meeting her first challenge, the HEAT. It was 6am and the captain on the British Airways flight declared that the outside temperature was 23C, which is like 86F…yes can you imagine temperatures above 80F and its only 6am. She’s already drinking tons of water, getting paranoid. She’s asking around the IDE staff about malaria, Internet access, electricity, etc. It is interesting to observe someone asking a lot of questions, trying to cover their bases when they are not local to a region. Me on the other hand, I feel like I know this place already. Let’s see how long this feeling will last for me…lol.

Our first interaction with the IDE staff and I’m already worried. Information is being thrown at us, suggestions are being made and judgments are being passed. I’m feeling the pressure of heeding to their statements instead of focusing on what our team needs to achieve. On this first day I realized something that I had forgotten about that is people in the developing world have strong opinions that can alter your thoughts and plan. Our goal now is to stick with what we believe in and to achieve what we came out to do here.

Our first task will be to organize ourselves, plan our trip and share this schedule with the IDE staff.

In case if you're curious to know where I am exactly...here's a link to the map.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=115636423745751691386.00044dcca19d1db4ecaca

Onward to Bangladesh

So the time is finally here when we head out to our countries of interest. My team of 4 is breaking up into two to conduct market study in Ethiopia and Bangladesh. We spend 6 weeks there to meet with farmers, conduct focus groups, meet with distributors and retailers and to meet with potential manufacturers of micro-diesel engines. That's right, we're doing all this to find out if we can sell our 1 horsepower micro-diesel engines to the poor farmers for irrigation purposes.

My team, then gets together in India to meet with some other successful organizations to learn about their business models of selling products to the base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) market for two weeks.

Exciting times. I hope to keep everyone abreast of our activities in Bangladesh (since that's where I'm going). Pictures and exciting stories coming up.

Cheers.