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Innovative Mobile Services in Developing Countries: Challenges
in Scaling Up
Rekha Jain
Executive Chair, IIMA-Idea Telecom Centre of Excellence
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India
[email protected]
Mobile services in most countries have taken off very rapidly.
Falling costs of technology and
enabling regulation in most countries has resulted in this rapid
proliferation. Developments in
technological features of mobiles such as text and video
delivery increase in the computing
power and storage capacity has led to development of a variety
of innovations and value added
services (VAS). Development of innovative services is usually
done in the context of start ups
or as pilot projects in large organizations. Both these kinds of
organizational forms have
challenges when they move to the next stage of growth.
VAS, do not only have the potential for providing high returns
to private enterprises that launch
them, but are also an effective mechanism for provision of
development oriented services. Given
the high penetration rates of mobiles in developing countries,
governments and public service
agencies have recognized the value of mobiles in delivery of
such services and incorporated
them in their development agendas. While in many developed
countries, mobile service augment
existing service platforms/channels, in developing countries
mobile platform may be the only
one through which services may be available. For example, mobile
banking may be the only
available channel for banking for people living in far flung
areas, since physical bank
branches/ATMs may not be available. Similarly, poor quality
roads and transport services make
it difficult to provide agricultural advisory services that
could now be made available using
mobiles. Disbursements of government employment guarantee
schemes through M-banking,
highly customized agricultural advisory services, tele medicine
are some examples of highly
contextualized services that have evolved in India in response
to the existing poor level of
services.
However, design of such services and development of commercially
viable business models,
especially in the context of public service delivery has several
challenges. Organizations that
seek to provide such services need to take into account the
higher cost to serve, lower propensity
to pay of potential customers, possibly larger numbers of
smaller value transactions, dispersed
population clusters, poor infrastructure, lower levels of
literacy in general and digital literacy in
particular. These attributes require innovations focusing on
dramatically lower cost of
production, distribution and new payment methods for service
delivery. This makes the scaling
up issues referred to earlier more complex, as poor commercial
viability leads to concerns
regarding future sustainability.
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This paper examines two case studies in the context of delivery
of a) government employment
scheme related benefits and b) tele medicine. Preliminary
analysis suggests that a combination of
an appropriate policy and regulatory environment, business or an
operating model and or
redesign of roles within the organization are critical for
scaling up. Also, it is important that such
services are widely adopted.
Context of the Present Study
Although it is recognized that there is great value of the
innovative services using mobiles, there
are very few that have scaled up successfully. M-PESA the
pioneering “payment service for the
unbanked” (M_PESA: Mobile Money for the “Unbanked” Turning
Cellphone into 24-Hour
Tellers in Kenya,Hughes and Lonie) that has proliferated
successfully is an exception. The
opportunity to move money amongst various entities in the
context of a poorly developed
banking or financial services infrastructure had given rise to
the SMS based service involving
various actors in the money supply chain such as vendors, retail
outlets, customers or any two
persons wishing to transfer money. Though most studies of
M-PESA, have focused on the
mechanism of service provision rather than on the organizational
challenges, paper by (Hughes
and Lonie) provides a first hand account of the organizational
issues as a new service was
conceived. Despite the fact that M-PESA was launched by
Safaricom (a part of the Vodafone
group), it faced severe challenges in initial deployment and its
subsequent spread. The present
paper focuses on the organizational challenges in service
provision in two different areas as
identified above.
Methodology
We chose to adopt a case study method, as it provides a rich
method of documentation of the
context. As there has been little work (to our knowledge) in the
area of scaling up of innovative
services using mobile services, we thought this would be the
most appropriate mode to build
empirical evidence. We used business processes as the unit of
analysis, as it helped us to
establish linkages of the mobile application with the business
performance.
For the selected case studies, in depth interviews (semi
structured) were undertaken with the key
designers, proponents, and users of the service. This helped us
to analyze the drivers and
constraints in the successful implementation of such models.
Policy and regulatory issues related
to the provision of such business models were also identified.
The document case studies were
sent back to the organizations for validation. The changes
suggested by them were incorporated.
Selection of Case Studies
In order to select the case studies, we explored those
organizations where mobiles have been
used to introduce new business models, especially where the
target customer referred to those
living in rural areas, and those that did not have access to
services of commensurate level
available to those living in urban areas. Further, by developing
and analyzing the case studies,
we not only identified the Critical Success Factors but also the
constraints and challenges to
scaling up.
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Since new ventures play a very important role in innovation,
especially in the telecom sector*,
we wanted to pick up at least one case study of one such firms A
Little World (ALW)
(www.alw.com). We also selected one study from an existing
organization – Narayana
NetralayaNarayana Netralaya (NN), an established eye hospital.
The variations in the case
studies would bring out the implications of introduction of
innovative mobile services.
An important factor that was taken in to account in the
selection of case studies was that there
should have been a significant spread of services. For example,
in the case of the new venture,
there should have been at least 5000 points of implementation
and in the case of NN, a
significant number of patients should have been screened.
In order to understand the impediments to scaling up, we
analyzed the service delivery chain,
business processes, drivers and constraints of selected
organizations in adoption of new services.
Case Study 1: A Little World (ALW) (www.alw.com)1
ALW was the developer of ZERO and mZERO, payment system with
specific focus on
reaching out to masses claiming that it had the lowest cost
available communication
infrastructure (www.alw.com). The ZERO and mZERO platforms
enabled timely
disbursements of cash benefits under various government schemes
such as housing
assistance, employee guarantee disbursements, pensions,
scholarships etc. in villages to
the underprivileged. We examine the case study of ALW’s
provision of m-banking
facilities, either as a stored value card or as an extension of
a physical bank.
Introducing Mobiles for Banking
ALW set up Zero Microfinance and Savings Support Foundation
(ZMF) to act as a
Business Correspondent2 for its banking operations and provided
field operations for the
ZERO platform. ZMF managed the field force, account creation,
appointment of
representatives for Customer Service Points (CSPs), management
of cash and other
logistics at the last mile (village locations). ZMF in turn
collaborated with strongly placed
local organizations, district and state administrations to
ensure smooth deployment and
operations. Its last mile operations network in villages worked
under pre-defined service
* New ventures not only play an important role in the economy by
creating new jobs, they distribute wealth and
innovate much more than the established firms. New ventures in
the telecom sector face significantly higher
challenges than those in other sectors as they must not only
contend with high levels of knowledge intensity in their
sectors and regulatory challenges but also face other factors
common to other new ventures such as lack of
knowledge on their business environments, shortage of and
hindered access to qualified personnel, access to
finances, limited internal know-how to manage the innovation
process effectively and efficiently, and restrictive
laws and regulations (Andrews, 2006; Tiwari and Buse, (2007)
quoting Ylinenpää (1998), Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
(2004), Acs and Audretsch (1990), Baldwin and Gellatly (2004),
Rammer et al. (2006), Mohnen and Rosa (1999)).
1 This case study is excerpted from another paper by the author.
2 Since bank branches are usually far from rural locations, the
Central Bank in India; Reserve Bank of India had identified the
concept of “Business Correspondents” (BC) as bank agents. It
identified NGOs, post offices, e-kiosks,
ex armed forces personnel to act as BC.
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agreements with banks and front-ended the delivery of
full-featured transactional services
on behalf of banks. One of the governments’ developmental
schemes that promised 100
days of paid employment for rural National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme
(NREGS) required that all beneficiaries needed to be paid
through banks. Since most
beneficiaries had no bank accounts (either due to
non-availability of banks in the rural
areas, or had not opened bank accounts due to the high cost of
service relative to the
deposits, or were not used to banking services), it would have
been difficult to get those
entitlements. ALW had a mobile banking product that was a
modified mobile augmented
through biometric authentication, mobile camera and the
associated software. ALW felt
it could deploy this solution to enable the beneficiaries to
open bank accounts and do
transactions while at the same time, helping the banks reach
their financial inclusion
targets (that had been recently imposed by the government) in a
cost effective way.
Figure 1 provides a schematic data flows for a specific
implementation of ALW solution
with the State Bank of India (This should not be taken as
representative across all banks
and across the country). It is evident that this is a long
complex process and could be re-
engineered for simplicity. However, the banks, and the
government had not actively
shown keenness to do so. Therefore, ALW adopted the process flow
as it was, while at
the same time, superimposing its mobile based solution. In the
absence of a simple flow,
there would be some additional operational costs borne by ALW
that could possibly be
avoided if the service delivery chain was re-engineered.
Integrating Physical Delivery Channel with the
Product/Service
ZMF trained the representative at CSP to
• Use the modified mobile phone (that had a digital fingerprint
capture device and camera for the enrollment process).
• Carry out enrolment and transactions (augmented through voice
prompts) and provide a printout of each transaction to the
villager.
The combination of the hardware and software, both for
enrollment (including biometric
authentication) and disbursements specially designed to handle
the requirements of
NREGS and Reserve Bank of India (the Central Bank) guidelines
(in terms of meeting
KYC and security requirements) etc made this initiative unique.
Figure 2 and Figure 3
shows the enrollment process involving capture of facial
photograph and finger print. The
CSP’s mobile was updated whenever there was a transaction at the
bank. For withdrawal,
the CSP verified the identity through capture of the finger
prints and matched it with
those of the stored facial photograph at the sever end with the
person.
The business model for ALW was that even though most individual
account deposits in
rural areas were likely to be small, the huge base of such
accounts would justify a
business case. First mover advantages were significant. The
increasing base of mobile
would ensure volumes. The existing platform could also be used
for deployment of micro
insurance and other financial products.
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The uniqueness of the service model lay in the provisioning of
an end-to-end solution to
leverage the existing mobile infrastructure and the design of
business processes that were
compliant with those of its partners (banks, government
agencies) and the regulator, RBI.
Its ability to provide secure transactions as per RBI guidelines
made it a strong candidate
for further deployments by banks to reach their financial
inclusion targets.
Outcomes
As of the date of writing, ZMF operated in 21 states and 83
districts and had been able to
set up partnerships with 22 banks. There were 5800 CSP and 1.96
million customers with
the current rate of enrollment being 20,000 per day. However,
given the rural profile of
population and its partners (government department and public
sector banks), there were
bound to be implementation delays. In order to design the
specific handset that is used by
CSPs, it had successfully partnered with Nokia and NXP.
Challenges
Like other start ups, ZMF faced challenges in getting funding
but had been able to
successfully overcome the same. It had been able to get funding
for its initial operations
and attract venture funding. In the past, ALW had been able to
create commercially
viable innovative technology solutions that had been hived off
as separate business
entities after receiving investment from renowned investors. For
example, MCHQ (now
mChek), mobile to mobile payment solution developed by ALW was
sold off in mid
2006 to an independent SPV. Go-Mumbai, that was a low cost
contact-less smart cards
(branded GO-Mumbai) for automatic fare collection used on
high-tech validaters in
Mumbai buses and platforms of local suburban railway stations
was sold to an
independent SPV formed by Khaleej Financial Investments (KFI,
Bahrain – now
Capivest) in May 2006. Such initiatives were a necessary and on
going part of its funding
strategy.
In the recent past, there had been some reports of ALW finding
it extremely challenging
to get continued funding. Partly it was because of global
recession and also because the
government was not willing to pay the total cost of service
provision as worked out by
ALW.
Other business concerns were the ability of ALW to maintain
partnerships and establish
new ones for future growth. In the past, ALW had successfully
managed such
partnerships. Such partnerships provide access to new
technologies, customers and
possibly financing. Identifying and developing new business
segments, such as insurance
or microfinance for future growth were important areas of
growth.
Acceptability of the solution by the villagers was a challenge.
Identifying village level
CSPs, integrating the physical supply of chain of transactions
with the electronic one,
managing the required regulations with respect to the government
and RBI were
demanding management issues
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Case Study 2: Narayana Netralaya
Narayana Netralaya is a specialized eye care, including
pediatric eye health and ocular
hospital in Bangalore. Although it began as an eye clinic, it
had expanded into one of the
largest eye care centers in Bangalore (300 beds, 900-1400
Patients per week). It also
focused on research and teaching. It was probably one of the few
eye centers in the state
to have dedicated research facilities. Its focus was on applied
research in areas such as
Stem cells, Molecular techniques (Polymerase chain reaction),
Genetics, Ocular
Immunology and infectious diseases. Right from its initial
stages it focused on switch
over to Electronic Medical Records in a phased manner. A new
department of Medical
Informatics had been set up to exploit information technology to
improve patient care and
create knowledge form data. Adopting Electronic Medical Records
also required
compliance with specifications of various international
regulatory bodies.
NN started a unique project of using mobiles for managing
Retinotherapy of Prematurity
(ROP), a biological condition associated with prematurely born
babies. ROP can cause
blindness, if not detected and treated in its early stages. If
detected early, it can be treated.
Since a lot of the premature births happen amongst the lower
socio-economic group of
people, especially those in rural areas, awareness about the
condition is extremely
limited. In almost all such locations, there are no systematic
screening processes in place
and there is a shortage of ophthalmic surgeons. All these
factors make the detection and
treatment very limited. However tele-opthamology can provide
solutions to some of these
problems, as a large part of the diagnosis (>90%) depends on
images unlike several other
fields such as dermatology where nearly 70% of the diagnosis is
based on touch and feel3.
In this context NN devised a novel project in Karnataka, one of
the southern states in
India (Karnataka State Internet Assisted Diagnosis of ROP
(KIDROP)). This project
applies “tele-ophthalmology concept to diagnose ROP using a
high-end portable pediatric
digital imaging camera (RETCAM, Clarity MSI, CA, USA) to examine
the retinas of
these babies in outreach areas of Karnataka state. Over the past
one year the project has
screened over 500 babies and offered free consultation and
treatment to the babies who
could not afford the treatment in the outreach centres.
Peripheral ophthalmologists and
pediatricians are also being simultaneously trained to manage
ROP in the centres that the
project team visits.
On a weekly basis the project personnel cover over a 250 km
radius of neonatal care
centres and travel over 1200 kms to accomplish this. The project
is committed to spread
the sphere of screening and treatment to the other underserved
areas of Karnataka state”
(www.narayananethralaya.org)
The project uses a specially designed ophthalmic camera which
may be mounted on a
vehicle to reach remote areas. This camera can take ophthalmic
images of infants and
3 This write up is based on a talk “Delivering Subspecialty
Health Care to Rural India using the Mobile Phone”
by Dr Anand Vinekar at National Broadband Initiative and
Research Agenda Workshop , New Delhi, 16th April
2010
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babies. These images are then uploaded to a specially designed
server. From here, the
images may be remotely viewed either on a PC or an iphone by
ophthalmic surgeons
(Figure 4). Diagnosis and reporting tools on the iphone help to
manage the entire project
(Figures 5a, b, and c)
Since there is a scarcity of ophthalmic surgeons who can take
these images for diagnosis,
the KIDROP project trained technicians to take these images,
process and store them.
Further, with a growing database of such images, technicians
were trained to triage the
screened infants. This training has taken over 18 months and had
used more than 50, 000
stored images. Although there could be concerns regarding
replacing a doctor with a
trained technician for this aspect of the job, the accuracy with
which technicians could
predict the different stages of ROP is extremely high. Partly
this could be due to the large
amounts of images that are used for training.
iphone was selected as platform and i2i Solutions, a start up,
provided the software
solutions for the KIDROP project. iphone enabled standards
compliant (DICOM and HL
7 standards related to medical images and information) image
compression and
transmission. Further, iphone’s large screen, easy to use pinch
and drag capabilities, high
resolution, graphics capability, good picture quality and
security were other factors that
contributed to the choice. Further, features on all iphones are
similar, leading to lower
efforts in developing code, in contrast to other phones, where
handset features vary
across different models ( iPhone App for the eyes- Deccan
Chronicle- November 20,
2009, you light up my eyes).
I2i had to work closely with ophthalmologist with KIDROP at NN
to understand the
clinical requirements for viewing, diagnosing and reporting. The
Apple development kit
available on a Mac platform was used to interface it with
patient images and data
available on servers, and compression algorithms were used to
wirelessly send data on
the available low bandwidth channels.
NN has funded this pilot project so far, both in terms of the
equipments required, cost of
logistics, and professional time, as a part of its corporate
social responsibility.
Outcomes: the KIDROP project has covered 18 centres within a 350
km radius in the 14
months it has been in existence, screening nearly 2000 babies
within this time frame.
Given its success rate, it has very recently become a part of
the National Rural Health
Mission, a national level integrated program aimed at increasing
the health indicators of
the rural population.
Learning from the Case Studies
In order to exploit the business opportunities provided by the
rapid spread of
mobiles and new technological innovations in services, both the
enterprises
modeled their business process in unique ways. Both
organizations had
“innovation capacity” - the capacity to respond to changes in
the external
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environment, and to influence and shape it (Burgleman 1991-
Child 1997).
(http://www.brunel.ac.uk/2146/brese/docs/lam_wp1.pdf).
The innovation lay in uniquely identifying very specific
technological advances (for
example, finger print testing using mobiles in ALW and digital
compression techniques
in NN) and developing appropriate management processes around
them. For example,
ALW created ZMF so as to become a banking correspondent and
created space for using
its mobile banking solution. NN created the KIDROP project with
a project coordinator
and trained technicians to effectively capture, screen and
diagnose ROP images. Without
these kinds of interventions, both organizations would have
found it difficult to deliver
services.
Innovations in the Core Processes: Both ALW and KIDROP have been
successfully
innovated on the core process. ALW provided a banking solution
to the “unbanked” and
where there was no physical bank or ATM available using mobile
services. KIDROP
provided diagnostic services for ROP using mobile services in
areas where there were no
ophthalmic surgeons to do so.
Development of a Supportive “Innovation Ecosystem”: Besides
innovation in the core
processes, both ALW and KIDROP developed strong innovation
ecosystem comprising
the supporting business processes and IT for the core processes.
As an example, ALW
was able to integrate the various processes related to the
government departments, bank
and its selected technology to offer a working solution. KIDROP
was able to tie up
linkages with neonatal centres around Bangalore, develop a
schedule where the special
camera could be mounted on a vehicle and transported, and worked
with i2i to develop
the relevant applications.
Capability to work with the IT solutions provider was an
important contributing factor to
the ability to deliver innovative services, both for ALW and
KIDROP. The partnerships
with variety of other stakeholders was also important (such as
government departments
for ALW and neonatal centres for KIDROP). This includes
understanding, appreciating
and formalizing the role, relationships and deliverables
appropriately (Paavilainen, 2002;
Rulke et al., 2003).
Design and Management of Linkages with Rural/Government
Institutions:
Designing businesses processes for a rural context is a
challenge, as rural organizations
may not have formal processes. Further, since many villagers may
not be exposed to
mobile/IT based systems, they find it difficult to adopt the
more rigid approach embedded
in such innovations. For the success of these relationships,
while some formalism is
necessary, at the same time, some degree of flexibility in
roles, relationships and
deliverables may be necessary. This is so as in the rural
context the services available
through a mobile/IT enabled context may be the first time
villagers may be experiencing
the service at all and to facilitate their acceptance, it may
require changes to the service
template. For example, in ALW, the first experience of banking
would be through a
mobile based handset for several rural people and in the case of
KIDROP, the experience
of tele medicine may be the first encounter with a formal
medical system.
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Changed Role of Intermediaries: Both ALW and KIDROP recognized
the importance
of intermediaries – village level entrepreneurs for ALW and
technicians in the case of
KIDROP.
For ALW, the uniqueness of this service model lay in the
provisioning of an end-to-end
solution to leverage the existing mobile infrastructure and
design of business processes
that were compliant with those of its partners (banks,
government agencies) and the
regulator RBI. Its ability to provide secure transactions as per
RBI guidelines made it a
strong candidate for further deployments by banks to reach their
financial inclusion
targets.
The business model adopted by ALW integrated the needs of the
rural population it
intended to provide banking services by developing the CSPs,
using voice enabled
responses (for illiterate or digitally not-so-literate
population) and developing
applications on a device that has an almost universal
proliferation potential.
KIDROP’s ability to envisage the role of mobiles in telemedicine
in the rural
health delivery chain was dependent upon trained technicians.
There have been
very few initiatives that have been able to exploit the ever
increasingly pervasive
technology for more inclusive growth. Leveraging technology for
villagers
required considerable evangelization effort and time in
designing appropriate
interfaces.
Key Challenges in Scaling Up
Given the potential of mobiles to offer a variety of mobile
services, a large number of
innovative services have sprung up. Few cater to the specific
needs of disadvantaged
populations in developing countries. From amongst these, some
successfully demonstrate
end to end solution provision. Despite the potential to
significantly influence the
development programs of the government, and innovative pilot
projects, not many
services have proliferated extensively. There are obvious
problems in scaling up.
Although the two contexts –ALW and KIDROP are different – in
that the first is a start
up and the second is a small program in a large corporate
setting. Despite these
differences, in our assessment, both organizations face similar
challenges. As brought out
in the case study on M-PESA (Leoni and Hughes), at the strategic
level, early
involvement of all stakeholders is important. A formal
relationship between a variety of
institutes, each bringing its own complementary resources is
crucial in a one of its kind
innovation. These stakeholders should be open to experimentation
and trying out options.
For example, as the service to be rolled out is new, the
requirement specification may not
be known apriori and may evolve over time. At the operational
level, decisions about
build or buy, user interface design, identifying target customer
are important
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Technological Challenges
Proprietary Platforms and Interoperability: Both ALW and KIDROP
have chosen
proprietary platforms for implementation. At the given point in
time, these platforms
possibly provided unique functionality critical for operations.
But as they scale up, there
could be concerns regarding interoperability with other systems
as well. For example, if
KIDROP wants to build synergies with existing similar programs,
then, unless both
systems work on similar technological platforms, there could be
problems.
While both ALW and KIDROP systems have been designed to run on
any
GSM/CDMA network, the handset for CSP software is based on
proprietary
systems in ALW as is the i2i solution running on Apple iphone.
However, as
both systems run on any telecom service network,
customers/doctors could
switch their service providers and yet continue to use services
as before. For
ALW, the issue of interoperability with respect to banks does
not arise (for the
specific application that has been documented), as various banks
have worked
out mutual agreements about operating in usually non-overlapping
territories.
However, if the concerned government agency wanted to change its
bank, then it
would have to work with the selected bank and ALW, as ALW
incorporates
some bank specific processes. If the bank wanted to change from
ALW, there
would be costs to the bank for redesigning the system interfaces
of the bank
applications with that of ALW. This provides a competitive first
mover advantage
to ALW.
In the case of KIDROP, there is no issue of first mover
advantage, as this is not a
commercial service yet. However, when it does scale up, the
issues of interoperability
and ability of the IT solutions provider to provide solutions
across different handset
capabilities and possibly different reporting formats may be
important.
Influence of High End Mobile Devices on Business Operations:
Innovative
applications may require a wide variety of handset capabilities.
But most people in the
target rural and SME group in India are likely to have lower
level handset capabilities.
Also, such handset deployments may increase the cost of
deployment. In ALW, the high
end handset is required only by the village CSP, and in KIDROP,
only surgeons require
iphone. In KIDROP, the current state of technology does not lend
to the retina
photographs being taken by an iphone, as such photographs
require very wide angles
which the phone cameras do not have.
This means that in general, application designers must take into
account the limited
handset capabilities. Further, lower levels of literacy also
mean that text based
menus/messages have limited role. Further, sms usage is fairly
low in India, further
increasing the impediments to easy developments and
deployability.
Availability of Wireless Broadband: Although network operators
have upgraded
networks to offer VAS through GPRS, the non availability of 3G
and other wireless
broadband services is a constraint for service delivery. Both
ALW and KIDROP have
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faced this constraint.
The government has delayed auction of 3G and other broadband
services, to the
detriment of take off of innovative services. While most
operators view wireless
broadband services a being relevant for only economically well
off as they can afford to
pay for the higher bandwidth costs, the government and public
agencies have
overlooked its potential to deliver development oriented
services and mitigate the poor
quality of physical infrastructure. This leads to a vicious
cycle as the lack of scale of
such applications does not permit the benefits to be visible. In
the absence of visible
benefits, public support for such applications is reduced.
Financial Support
As the two projects scale, financial support for scaling up
(hiring additional people,
deploying additional resources etc) is necessary. In the case of
ALW, it planned to
become commercially viable at a significant scale of operations
and being able to sell its
software products for other applications. However, as of the
date of writing, it had not
reached commercial viability. In the case of KIDROP, the initial
project funding was
provided by NN. Going forward, some funding may be available
from the National Rural
Health Mission Project. However, with conflicting priorities in
terms of health outcomes
for the rural poor, it is not certain how much support would be
forthcoming in the future.
In this context, the role of public funding is important as
brought out in the case of M-
PESA, especially during the development and launch phase (Leoni
and Hughes). M-
PESA had received funding from Department for International
Development. In any
commercial organization, internal competition for money for
projects and the need to
reflect ROI may not allow socially relevant projects to come
forward. In the case of start
up, such funding could be in the form of a grant, which could be
turned to equity if the
project is commercially viable. Control mechanisms need to be in
place to ensure that
public grants are provided to projects with high impact
potential. Usually this is done
through a competitive bid mechanism. For corporates, such as NN,
this could be through
access to public funds. Organizational mechanisms to facilitate
tapping in to such funds
are important.
In India, the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) of India,
that is mandated to
spread rural telecom services, has a provision for supporting
innovative applications.
However, in the absence of formal and ongoing processes for
scouting, screening and
formally supporting such applications, there have been extremely
few applications that
have been supported through the USOF.
Developing Formal Organizational Systems
As the pilots transform in to full fledged projects, it is
important to develop a variety of
formal systems and processes. This could be perceived as being
bureaucratic by the initial
team. Literature reports demise of several start ups in this
process due to inappropriate
systems of incentives, human resources, and inadequate finances
for growth. This
-
challenge is significant even for innovative projects within
well established firms. For
example, the training process currently used in KIDROP where
only a few technicians
need to be trained will have to become more formal if and when
the project scales up.
This may require setting aside time in contrast to the more
informal nature of training
prevalent now. The development of training material would need
to be geared towards a
more diverse audience. Evaluation would need to be formalized.
The costs of such effort
are often underestimated leading to poor or inadequate scaling
up strategies.
Conclusion and Summary
Developments in technology, especially mobile, has given rise to
opportunities for
innovative business models to emerge. Effective service delivery
for underserved
populations requires public funding and supportive policy
environment such as
framework for mobile wireless broadband.
Scaling up issues are significant and if these can be handled
properly, mobile services are
effective mechanisms to serve underserved population in
developing countries.
Developing and contextualization of IT interventions as a part
of core innovation in
business models has challenges in a rural/underserved population
due to the low
propensity to pay and/or high cost to serve, and low functional
or digital literacy. On
another dimension, developing linkages with rural based
institutions that could enhance
effective service delivery is difficult.
-
A 13 Update beneficiary account
1
2
Village level
List of NREGS
8 KYC compliant data
survey result
beneficiaries
Selected Bank
Link Branch
Government
Head Office
Department
9
Textual data NREGS Enrollment form
Beneficiary data on disbursement
as per KYC with some data fields filled in
updates BC’s mobile
7
3
12 Updated beneficiary account
at Head office
Scanned copy of barcode on beneficiary card
KYC compliant data
+ authentication
10a Stored photograph of beneficiary
11 Debit/credit transaction
6
ZMF Server
Printed forms
4 with unique
Collect Disburse cash
ZMF id
BC’s mobile
Photograph of
physical form
10b
5a (with ZMF id)
barcode from
beneficiary
Finger print authentication
BC’s mobile
via special device
5b + barcode card (specific bank id) laptop + camera
Physical bar + photograph using mobile + fingerprint capture
device
coded card + 6 finger prints + pre bar coded physical
given to + details of physical id cards of select banks
beneficiary (ration card etc) + specially equipped mobile
for record keeping (2GB memory
purpose + enrollment software)
1.
Numbers indicate sequence of data flow
Village level
enrollment team
BC
b
c a
Beneficiary
2. Processes operated within the mobile:
a
Match stored beneficiary with photograph
b Display amount held by beneficiary
c Do the debit/credit transaction
Figure 1: Schem
atic Flow of Data
-
14
Figure 2: The beneficiary being photographed using a mobile
Figure 3: Finger prints being taken for storing for
authentication at the time of disbursal
-
15
Figure 4: Ophthalmic Workflow and Information flow
Sources: “Delivering Subspecialty Health Care to Rural India
using the Mobile Phone” by Dr
Anand Vinekar at National Broadband Initiative and Research
Agenda, 16th April 2010
-
16
5a) iPhone Log-In Screenshots
Sources: “Delivering Subspecialty Health Care to Rural India
using the Mobile Phone” by Dr
Anand Vinekar at National Broadband Initiative and Research
Agenda, 16th April 2010
-
17
b) iPhone Worklist
Sources: “Delivering Subspecialty Health Care to Rural India
using the Mobile Phone” by Dr
Anand Vinekar at National Broadband Initiative and Research
Agenda, 16th April 2010
-
18
c) iPhone Viewer Screenshots
Sources: “Delivering Subspecialty Health Care to Rural India
using the Mobile Phone” by Dr
Anand Vinekar at National Broadband Initiative and Research
Agenda, 16th April 2010
-
19
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