Generating Income for Telecentres: [Bridging] E-Commerce Services to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Jimena Betancourt Coordinación TIS Talks [email protected] @jimebeta

1. 2.

3.

Building Knowledge

Finding Solutions and Partners

Planning and Managing for Innovation, Technology and Sustainability

THREE PHASES:

2. Finding Solutions and Partners for Technology, Innovation and Sustainability

•  Identify partners to develop distribution channels of ICT products and services such as e-health, distance education, telecommunication solutions and many more •  Identify system management solutions based on open

applications

•  Identify solutions to lower hardware cost

•  Identify partners to develop applications for greater impact in the communities served by telecentres

Goals:

Daniel Salcedo Founder OpenEntry

OpenEntry.com

Generating Income for Telecentres

By Enabling Them to Provide E-commerce Services to Local

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

by Daniel Salcedo, Founder & CEO, [email protected]

•  Telecentres are a noble approach to democratizing the benefits of ICT

•  Most struggle for sustainability precisely because they target users of limited means

•  Key is offering services to local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that can afford to pay enough to subsidize usage by the rest of users

Telecentre Sustainability

Early Promise of E-commerce

•  Poor people generally produce stuff to sell or work for somebody who does. More efficient markets help the poor as producers as well as consumers.

•  Development experts in the 1990’s, “level the playing field for the little guy”

•  Bill Gates – disintermediation will enable “friction free capitalism”

Everybody thought it was a technical challenge of getting SMEs online •  Complicated - needed to know HTML or hire an

expert or buy software •  Laborious – had to hand code every catalog page

instead of pulling from a database •  Expensive – own domain and hosting, credit card

payment required •  English required •  Logistics of international payment and shipping

Even if a SME managed to build a beautiful catalog…

•  Buyers couldn’t find it among the billions of websites on the Internet

•  Even if they did, they wouldn’t trust it •  So, besides the technical obstacles, the

main challenge of e-commerce is visibility, credibility, and trust

Recent Advances Change Everything •  Proliferation of low cost devices (mobile

phones, netbooks, tablets) greatly expands the hardware choices for Internet access

•  Internet costs continue to drop while its reach/speed increase. Corporations now offer powerful "cloud computing" services

•  Social networking services enable millions to publish their information with images and demonstrate the power of trusted networks

OpenEntry is a Development Organization

•  Mission – to help artisans and SMEs to benefit from e-commerce

•  Support from World Bank, USAID, IDB, Rockefeller, Oracle, eBay, individuals, more

•  Developed an e-commerce platform for artisans and SMEs worldwide

Free Catalogs in 44 Countries on Google Cloud Computing

•  Gmail - account security •  Docs/Drive – information storage •  Picasa - image storage •  Translate – instructions in 57 languages •  Checkout - also PayPal, 2Checkout •  Apps Engine - execute programs on

powerful/reliable Google severs •  Android - offline mobile operation

Catalog Features •  Build in one hour from any computer or

smart phone •  Multi-lingual instructions and output •  Personalize with own banner/logo, choice of

templates, fonts, colors •  Enabled for credit cards or Request for Quote •  Live User Support, chat from Nepal •  FREE (100 products), $200/year for 1000

products and more catalog features

Example Catalogs

Selected from Implementations in 45 countries

OpenEntry.com/Catalog

Youtube video of creating a catalog

www.youtube.com/watch?v=170FwlhdInI&feature=player_embedded

(three minutes)

To build your own free catalog, go to Catalog.OpenEntry.com

However, even if a SME builds a beautiful catalog…

•  Buyers can’t find it among the billions of websites on the Internet

•  Even if they do, they won’t trust it •  The main challenge of e-commerce is

visibility, credibility, and trust

OpenEntry Network Markets •  Any high profile business network •  Chamber of Commerce •  Export Promotion Agency •  Industry Association •  Trade Show

•  Aggregates the catalogs of all its members (large & small) into a network market

•  Generating visibility, credibility, trust •  Amazon.com EC2 Cloud Computing Facility enables

scaling for mainstream business networks

Example Network Markets

OpenEntry.com/Network+Market

Does it Work? http://goo.gl/EWd4b

Does it Work? http://goo.gl/EWd4b

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UNDP Conclusions •  The largest impact of implementing this “pro-poor”

e-commerce approach was on income and employment.

•  Firms using it reported jobs directly attributable to on-line promotion . . . 3918 women

•  A relatively inexperienced group of young IT professionals could, with the proper tools, create employment for themselves while providing e-commerce services to local SMEs.

Additional Considerations •  Don’t need credit card payments – for every

$1 transacted online, $4 are influenced by the Internet

•  Can start with local cash on delivery sales, 2CheckOut.com works everywhere

•  Most international sales are B2B •  Shipping easier now - consolidated shipments

can cut costs by 80%

•  100 million SMEs will need help moving online in next 10 years

•  Women and youth entrepreneurs earn income building catalogs for local SMEs

•  Modest marginal cost of including e-commerce in projects for youth, women, employment, trade

Potential Impact Huge Compared to Costs

Opportunity for Telecentres •  Most SME owners are busy running their

businesses and often not proficient with computers

•  OpenEntry enables telecentres to offer paid services such as training, catalog setup and maintenance, and banner/template design

•  SMEs will also pay telecentres for the use of computers and digital cameras

Generating Income for Telecentres

By Enabling Them to Provide E-commerce Services to Local

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

by Daniel Salcedo, Founder & CEO, [email protected]

Thank You!