Thoughts

Had this big dinner last night with a bunch of Ruks' friends over and was talking about my "time off" in India.

Last year, I always thought of myself as someone who needed to work 80 hours a week. I needed to always be occupied/productive. Work was life for me, and I liked it.

But Delhi showed me, that was just how I defined myself. I can just as easily be the guy who can work 40 hours a week and enjoy life. Doing something completely different helped me see that I can do anything I want. I don't need to be the person who has to work 80 hours. I can choose to be that, or choose to be someone who never has to see the inside of a cubical again.

Now I have a choice.

Chinese miracle or mirage?

I recently added Marginal Revolution to my "blogs I follow" list and read a post on "Totally false and ridiculous claims about Chinese bubbles".

It refers to an article on China's Bubble. A few quotes -

Finally, China can force government-owned corporate entities to borrow and spend, and spend quickly itself. This isn't some slow-moving, touchy-feely democracy. If the Chinese government decides to build a highway, it simply draws a straight line on the map...

...But don't confuse fast growth with sustainable growth. Much of China's growth over the past decade has come from lending to the United States. The country suffers from real overcapacity. And now growth comes from borrowing -- and hundreds of billion-dollar decisions made on the fly don't inspire a lot of confidence. For example, a nearly completed, 13-story building in Shanghai collapsed in June due to the poor quality of its construction.

This growth will result in a huge pile of bad debt -- as forced lending is bad lending. The list of negative consequences is very long, but the bottom line is simple: There is no miracle in the Chinese miracle growth, and China will pay a price. The only question is when and how much.

What do you guys think? I really like the Lucent illustration in the article.

Something else that this article sparked. There is this consistent "price of democracy" that India pays and the reason we lag our bigger neighbor. Is that really accurate? Why is democracy treated as a governor on the Indian engine? How did Western Europe flourish under democracy leaving Eastern Europe behind in the dust?

Last hurrah

The official end of my sabbatical was a road trip back home. Delhi to Bombay, through the Rajasthan desert, the salt plains of Dandi and finally wending my way over the Sahyadri's finally to make it to the traffic snarls of Bombay. All of this in my mother's trusy Wagon R and no A/C (crazy but true).

I've done my fair share of road trips in the U.S, and never associated road trips with India. The romantic Indian railways has always superseded other modes of transport. But the dhaba's and chaiwallah's along NH-8 have changed my mind. Although at the first dhaba I think Andy, Mrig and Nathan can attest to how road food phobic I was. Changed by the end of the trip though.



Most people do the trip in 2 days (1500 km), but we decided on a pace of 3 days. First day we traveled half the distance to spend the night in Udaipur since we preferred spending our time on the beaches on the western coast. We stopped at Chittorgarh on the way - fantastic Rajasthan fort that most tourists skip cause it's a bit out of the way.



We left Udaipur early morning (5 or 6 am) to beat the Indian summer and made it to Gujarat fairly quickly. The landscape changes from barren to green without realizing as you get nearer to the coasts. But as we approached Dandi, where we intended to sell our English travelers for their weight in salt, things started getting dry and barren again. Once you hit the marshes, salt pelts you in the face. Kind of expected some kind of Gandhi memorial but it was just open brackish land. It's just clay mud once you reach the sea. I thought I could walk through it, but I sank up to my knees on stepping in. Nathan thought I was going to sink. Pulling my leg out my flip flops got lost in the mud and soon I was upto my elbows and knees in clay trying to retrieve them. Not a pretty sight - and unfortunately no pics either.



That night we ended up in Umbharat (pronounced ubharat), a small beach outisde Surat, at the Modi resort. With no other hotels in the area, except the "Dolphin water park" that rented out rooms by the hour and had a caretaker who walked with a cane and looked like he would kill us and sell our meat to the local McDonalds, we opted for staying at Modi over Andy's objections of not wanting to support a "Modi" establishment. Getting to the point though - don't go to Umbharat, not worth it.

We had hoped to spend some time on the beach the next morning, but since it was fairly shitty we left early and continued along the Gujarat coast till we reached Daman. Now all beaches north of Bombay are fairly rocky and not the quality beaches you will come across in Goa. But Daman has it's own charm. Jampore beach has quality shacks on the beach that will bring you coconut water & cheap Kingfisher right there on the beach. No hassles over liquor permits or drinking in public. A sliver of paradise squeezed between Gujarat and Maharashtra. I hear it's counterpart Diu is much more charming with it's Portuguese flair and beautiful, but Daman with it's hotel Chinatown was great.



Next day we reached Bombay by 4 or 5. The car stank by the time we reached home. Amazing ability of the human body to adapt to anything.

Credits -
Mrig - This trip was your brainchild. And regardless of all the sniping - you didn't kill us while driving on the highway.
Andy - I think secretly Mrig and I enjoyed the drama of convincing you to come along with us on this trip. And if it wasn't for you, I would have insisted on spending 2 grand a night on hotels and missed out on some of the best parts of the journey.
Nathan - You lived up to your word of drinking non stop on this trip. Well done.

Successful pilot

5 months later, we've conducted a successful pilot in Mathura. We've built the skeleton framework for data to flow from the server, to the cell phone, collect delivery information and then upload back to the server. The delivery executives love the new process (rated it a 4 out of 5), data entry time is essentially 0, and all the retailers we work with are impressed with the new "computer" that creates on the spot receipts.

The pilot was conducted in 2 field tests, and perhaps the most fun part of this experience. Going around rural India in the back of an auto in the middle of the Indian summer has given me a whole new appreciation for modern air conditioning. I'm at a loss for words to describe how searingly hot it is. Normally you'd expect that in a moving vehicle the breeze would cool you down. Not here, because the "Loo" blowing in from the Indian desert seems to singe your skin. I went through 5 liters of water in 6 hours. For anyone who thinks that working in rural India will be a "fun" experience - you really have no idea until you get here.

But if you can look past all of this, then it really is quite an experience. For me though, it was good to split my work between urban India (Delhi) and rural India (Mathura). I'm not cut out for village life :)

The entire Drishtee experience was great. The social enterprise experiment is still young and I think at the end of the day money is still one of the strongest motivator's here (which is a good thing). There is a lot of growing up that still remains. Management practices are weak, no structured decision making framework and I can go on and on and on. But the fact remains that they are out there on the ground working to make a difference. I won't look at this as a glass half empty. It's half full. And in this case the glass is more like a giant water tank that's leaking.

I'll end with a few pictures I took while I was out in the field conducting the pilot.

Space

Since the pilot's in Mathura, I've had numerous opportunities to travel there by train. Usually, it's in AC class, where I spend a comfortable 2+ hrs to Mathura. But with my luck I've had the "fortune" of traveling by general class a couple of times.

When I learnt I had to go in general class - I was not happy (and apprehensive). The general compartment is crowded and you get an up close and personal aromatic reminder that you're in a country of a billion people, running on an infrastructure built in the 1940's.

Both times I was lucky enough to get a seat. I sit down and claim my space. The next 2 hrs are then an Indian lesson in "Space - A Communal Concept". Here I was claiming my space, and everyone around me was making space. Seating for 3 people? Lets seat 5 people. Kids making noise and elbowing you constantly? While I glared at the brat next to me so that he'd settle down, everyone else's response was - it's okay, kids will be kids. Chalta hai. And then this very same brat opens a packet of chips and offers them to me - the crotchety guy who has the window seat. When I was 8 I didn't share anything, unless forced to. I was sort of awed by the generosity of my fellow passengers. There was a humbling equality to the experience.

I can't help but contrast this to my fellow drivers on Delhi's roads. Such an overwhelming culture of "me". Cutting people off, taking a right turn when you're in the left most lane, driving in 2 lanes, because you don't want anyone else to get ahead and cut you off, double parking and triple parking so that you've effectively blocked traffic, honking just because you can. We all zoom around in our AC cars, sealed in our eggs just thinking about ourselves and oblivious to everything else. And I sheepishly admit, I am one of those selfish drivers.

But here in my train to Mathura, I have no egg to seal myself in. There are no veneers. This is a close contact sport. And as we zoom through the Indian countryside we jostle together in unison.

This notion of communal space is a very Indian concept. Lets hope I apply this lesson the next time I get behind the wheel.

Thoughts - 2009 lok sabha elections

Over the weekend, the Indian electorate returned the UPA back to parliament with a thumping majority. My roommates can attest to the fact, that I sat gleefully glued to the TV for the better part of Saturday absorbing every bit of political punditry there was to offer.

Things I liked
Congress crosses the 200 mark - This is clearly one of the biggest macro surprises of this election. No political horse trading for support! No salacious coalition building exercises!
No one, not even the Congress, expected to do this well. Not sure what that says about the Congress, but I was ecstatic to see the Congress win at the cost of the Left, BSP, SP, RJD, and BJP. What a rout for the regional parties! I am not convinced, like some people, that this is the end of regional politics (more on that later). Singh, the quiet statesman has proven that in this era of coalition politics someone of his temperament and quiet resolve is what we need at the helm.
Left is decimated - The Left's citadel in Kerala and West Bengal has been breached. It's ironic, that this is because of pursuing capitalist policies for bringing development back to the state. To be free from the clutches of the communists is a blessing.
Congress in UP - It was when the Congress faded out in it's erstwhile power bastion of Uttar Pradesh, did the regional parties rise to prominence. And with the Mandal report, you had people voting on caste and religious lines, further strengthening regional politics at the expense of national interests (Nitish Kumar openly bartering his support for anyone who gives special status to Bihar is a case in point). The UP Congress' resurgence supposedly signifies the end of caste in politics. I think it's mainly to do with Rahul Gandhi. He criss-crossed the state, doing 200 plus rallies in a month. He is the game changer in UP.
Rahul Gandhi - The hidden strategist comes to the fore. It was his decision to go it alone in the Hindi heartland. It was his decision to bring in gen next Congress candidates. It was his star power that translated into votes. I was hoping he would stick to working on organizational Congress issues and stay out of the cabinet, and he has done just that. What a commendable move. He has done a fantastic job rebuilding the Congress organization from the ground up (as results have shown), but clearly the job is not done and he isn't going to leave it unfinished. As for running the Govt. there are many more qualified people who are good at that, and he seems to understand that and letting them do what they are good at. Politically, he too is "renouncing" the spotlight like his mother. And we all know how deep a chord that strikes with the Indian voter. The seasoned BJP strategists got it wrong, and the "aquariums fish" gets it right.
Maya's myth busted - The "dalit ki beti" is licking her wounds and now giving unconditional support to the UPA. Her PM ambitions have been shattered, and I only hope that all the grandiose statues she has built of herself around Lucknow and UP will fall next.
Nitish Kumar - Nitish Kumar is the poster child of busting the anti incumbency myth. Good governance in Bihar (and friends of mine who work in development can attest that Bihar government is changing measurably) has resulted in a thumping victory for the JD(U), the only NDA partner who is sitting pretty today. Though there is an alternative school of thought. JD(U) got 39% of the vote share, Lalu took home 25% and the Congress got another 10%. So if the Congress and RJD had fought the elections together, they would have had 35% of the vote share, potentially resulting in many more seats. But in a first past the gate system, vote share does not necessarily translate into seats.
Sanyal lost - The much hyped independent candidate from Bombay, Meera Sanyal, lost. I have respect for Meera Sanyal, but I am still glad she lost. She is clearly very accomplished, but is not the kind of change making leader we need. She lost me when she stated that she was on sabbatical and planned on going back to work if she lost. Honest and practical no doubt. But really, if you truly are inspired to have an impact and work for your city and country are you going to give up if you don't make it on your first try? Is that the kind of go getter attitude that brought Sanyal all that professional success? I doubt it. At a minimum though she has raised awareness, and if that was her goal, then I think she did a good job.
Modi on the backfoot - Finally you get to see Modi play defensive. He did well in his home state of Gujarat (people of Gujarat what does this say about you?). The star BJP campaigner. Each state, except his home state, he campaigned for the NDA the NDA did poorly. He didn't campaign in Bihar, and look at those results. He was expected to sweep Gujarat, and instead he brought in 1% less in vote share. Lets see what happens now that the Supreme court has reopened the riot cases.

Things I disliked
Bombay's voting share - A measly 43%. All those candle light vigils, for what? It makes me sick. This is your future we're talking about. Don't you dare complain tomorrow how the government you have sucks.
MNS plays spoil sport to Sena's dreams - The "Marathi maanos" campaign worked. They came 2nd in all seats in Bombay. I'm not sure what my reaction should be. How many people that I interact with in Bombay want me out of "their" city? The only consolation is seeing Thackeray meow in the corner of how hurt he is at this betrayal. MNS proves that regionalism is not dead.
Criminals in parliament - Today we have 153 new "tainted" MP's. BJP leads with 43 (19 have serious charges), Congress follows at 41 (12 have serious charges).
Mohammed Azharuddin - He won the Moradabad seat. This is the man who betrayed his country on the international cricket pitch. I'm not even a big fan of cricket, so why do I care of this particular crime more than some of the others that MPs face? Because this was a huge scandal, and cricket is a religion to many people in this country. Inspite of this, they voted him in. Why? Moradabad has a 70% Muslim population. To all those people who say that there is no longer voting along caste and religious lines, take note.
Varun Gandhi - won a resounding victory (margin of 200,000 plus). Even though it sickens me, his brand of politics pulls in the votes.
Pollsters get it wrong again - This is not so much as a dislike but more of a WTF. 2 elections in a row, they have gotten it incredibly wrong. CNN-IBN came closest by predicting 215 seats for the UPA. What is so complicated about the Indian electorate that makes them so hard to read? Or do we just have poor statisticians?

Customers not beneficiaries

Was in Mathura yesterday and was talking to a bio medical engineer who gave me the 411 on the Honeywell pilot we're running there. It's not going well.

Basically Honeywell has come up with a small diagnostic machine that can be used by semi trained rural women to conduct simple diagnostics like blood pressure, and other health indicators. While the device works fine and relatively easy to operate, people in rural India don't really want to use the service. So we run clinics, but have no patients because villagers don't want to learn they are unhealthy, they want to be cured if they are sick. And obviously a diagnostic machine can't cure them of high blood pressure and you can't have semi trained villagers running the kiosk prescribe medicine.

I was sort of frustrated on hearing this - the age old prevention is better than cure debate. It totally made sense from the villagers perspective - why find out if you're sick, better to go to a temple or mosque and buy an amulet that can cure you instead. But from a social impact perspective, it regular checkups and prevention is so much more effective.

But how does a social enterprise like Drishtee attack this problem?

I then came across this on Monitors website.

"The most common mistake among unsuccessful market-based solutions is to confuse what low-income customers or suppliers ostensibly need with what they actually want. Many enterprises have pushed offerings into the market only to see them fail. People
living at the base of the economic pyramid should be seen as customers and not beneficiaries; they will spend money, or switch livelihoods, or invest valuable time, only if they calculate the transaction will be worth their while."

The answer (whether I like it or not) is simple. Drishtee doesn't attack this problem. If this is not what people at the bottom of the pyramid want, then as a profit seeking enterprise we shouldn't be offering this. Now if Drishtee had deep pockets and wasn't a nascent start-up, by all means - run a re-education campaign on the benefits of prevention. But till then, leave the re-education to the public sector and non profits, or to the big corporations like Honeywell.

On a side note, Monitor has done India focused research on market based solutions for the bottom of the pyramid market. You can read their report here. They are also running a conference next week in Delhi. If you're interested, you can register on their site.

Rajasthan whirlwind

The past few weeks, I haven't done a good enough job updating this blog. A lot has happened. Went to Rajasthan for a weekend, checked out the Bahai temple, went to Bombay this weekend, crazy Indian elections, and my mini pilot starts tomorrow in Mathura (excited about the latter). I'll start with the Rajasthan trip and then (maybe) fill you guys in about the rest in later posts.

My friend Yaron was in town and we decided to go see some of Rajasthan. It was a bit of a blur; lots of traveling - sitting and sleeping in buses, some sight seeing, and a ton of terrible food. I don't think I had a single good meal while in Rajasthan. I take that back, on the way back to Delhi the bus stops at "Midway". I had a decent omelet there. The worst food was in Pushkar.

Rajasthan is a tourist trap. I don't mean it to sound so negative, but everywhere people either wanted to sell me something or take me to a hotel of their choice. And in the searing desert heat - you tend to get a tad irritable :). Going in the summer was not the smartest decision, but it was a great trip. Sorta slummed it a bit - taking local transport at one stage. Here is a pic of one of the buses we almost took to Pushkar.



Very real and gritty Indian weekend. And did I mention it was hot?

The market place outside the dargah in Ajmer has probably been the same for the last 100 years. This small boy in the market decided to adopt me, and everywhere I went he just tagged along trying to sell me something. Tenacious kid. The shrine wasn't all that impressive, but still worth checking out if you're in the neighborhood. I am also guaranteed a spot in heaven - I had to kiss this "door to heaven" and a guy beat me with peacock feathers. Weird and to you pervs out there, there was nothing sexual about it.

Pushkar on the other hand was this small sleepy hamlet, but comes to life during the camel festival and whenever the sun's ferocity diminishes in the winter months. It sas the only Brahma temple in the world, and likely is in the top 5 destinations for Israeli's during their gap year (Hebrew signs everywhere). Has a few small cafe's in the market where you can order stuff that you probably wouldn't even get in Amsterdam (probably what makes it so popular for Israeli's in the first place). If you're in Pushkar, def check out Cafe Pink Floyd - here is the view from the top of the Cafe.







We didn't really spend all that much time seeing Jaipur. Checked out the city palace and the Hawa Mahal. City palace - worth it, skip the Hawa Mahal.

Overall, this was more of a get out of Delhi weekend than lets check out Rajasthan. Which just means I'll have to come back and really see Rajasthan another time.

The view from within

I have a month left here at Drishtee, and the supply chain project is around 2 weeks behind schedule. A number of technical challenges and capacity issues that I won't get into. I know it will get done (after I've left), and in the end we will end up in a much better strategic position and I think they should probably patent this delivery model before it is released. But this post is not just about my project.

It's been a mixed experience, and I'm leaving with a taste of disappointment. I think my biggest issue is the lack of any metrics to measure the social impact of the work we're doing. What is the impact on wages for students who go through our education kiosks? Have the health entrepreneurs measurably changed the health environment in their villages? So many well intentioned efforts lead to minimal impact. It's really hard for me to just take things at face value.

The impressive thing Drishtee has achieved is a real on-the-ground rural network of micro entrepreneurs. But this network is so incredibly stressed and almost every other week I hear of a new scheme to be implemented on this network. Really - people are working 14 hr days, 7 days a week and you want them to run a new project on this network?! The district offices are struggling. We don't have enough people and it is always a challenge to recruit good talent. on the other hand, if we partner with a firm (say Honeywell) to pilot a new project on our rural network, it brings in fresh capital. So the attraction of new business development is real. But at what costs? Again - a lack of metrics makes this post just a gut evaluation.

But shouldn't an enterprise that has been around for 7 years have a good cash flow*? Do we really need to be pursuing new business development ideas? What should the equilibrium be? In this regard, I am disappointed with the brand name investors that Drishtee has brought into the family. How come Acumen is not asking these hard questions? Would Drishtee be unsustainable without the "donor" investment capital? Unless investors don't force good management practices, there will never be any meaningful change.

So I am leaving with more questions that answers on social entrepreneurship. I thought of it as a powerful new idea to tackle pervasive problems through a genuine marriage of private sector innovation and social benefit organizations. But I realize now that you need more than just a powerful idea to succeed. Rebuilding communities in rural India is an inspiring mission. We won't supply tobacco products on our supply chain because of the harmful social impact even though it is the most profitable and fastest moving product in rural India. But at the same time I don't really know if the tools we provide our franchisee's actually contribute towards "rebuilding rural communities" either. The education entrepreneur could just be making an honest living, but the students he services could be no better off after taking the Drishtee English courses or computer courses. If we are not measuring our impact relative to our mission, is it really our mission anymore?

There is one thing that I definitively know - social entrepreneurship is an immature field that needs to grow up quickly.


*I've never perused the financials so can't speak to the sustainability question.

Crying shame

Full disclosure - I have never voted in my life. Before I was eligible to vote I left India, and have never been in Bombay during any election cycle. Since India does not have proxy voting, I have never had the opportunity to exercise this fundamental right and obligation. This time around I was hoping I might have a chance but, in my defense, I would have had to skip work and fly down in the middle of the week to vote.

So who am I to throw stones? Nevertheless - I am still pissed. Less than a year ago the streets were overflowing with throngs of people demanding change and better governance. What a farce! Turn out was the lowest in 4 elections - a paltry 43%. One of the lowest turnouts across the nation!

I don't get the Bombay electorate. After one of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the nation, people came out in force against the poor governance and the weak response. Bombay is no more secure today than it was in November. But when they actually had the chance to do something about it...wait for it...drum roll...THEY STAYED HOME! If a terror siege can't shake people out of complacency, what will?

The theories for voter apathy is the heat and people going away for the long weekend. What a crock. This after I saw some of the most intensive celebrity endorsed get out the vote campaigns. I am embarrassed for my city.

I really would like to see the voting stats. If anyone comes across a breakdown of the voting trends in Bombay, please post a link here. And if you know of any organizations that are lobbying the government to implement proxy voting, I want to know about them too.

Water

My time back here in India has been an interestingly humbling experience. While I am more confident, I am definitely less arrogant. It's a lot like growing up, with a number of illusions being supplanted with reality.

As the summer heat surges past 105 degrees (this is just the beginning), it's natural for water to be uppermost in my mind. But you never really think that water will ever be a problem. Till the taps started to run dry in the afternoon here at Drishtee. I put it off as a plumbing issue. Then the next day I see this elaborate contraption digging right in front of the office building.



Apparently Noida (where my office is located) has acute water issues, and everyone has private bore wells on their property to supplement the municipal water supply. I can imagine houses having to do this, but corporate office buildings!? And it is illegal to have a bore well. And here we are digging in broad daylight. As if this was not alarming enough - the building already has a bore well, but the water levels have dropped so they are digging another 40 feet to access to ground water supplies. Ultimate example of citizens doing what they must - a libertarians paradise. Gives some perspective to why India is so chaotic.

I did a few google searches on water scarcity in India, here is what I found.
* Most fresh water supplies come from inter state rivers, setting up the stage for big water disputes down the line.
* Ground water has been over exploited since 1997-98
* There are promising rain water harvesting solutions
* Things you can do

If you have any suggestions on water conservation I'd love to hear about them.

Mayawati: India's Obama?

Newsweek has an interesting article describing Mayawati as the "anti-Obama". From a certain perspective she is a threat to the established order very much like Obama and comes from the long oppressed section of India and is the quintessential "outsider". I'm still unsure what to make of it, let me know what you think of it.

For starters though I seriously doubt that Mayawati will become PM. So all this comparison to Obama is extremely premature. Personally, I would *NOT* want to see her as PM, and would definitely change my mind on returning to India if she came to power. I have a number of rational reasons I could spout for this position (enunciated in the article), but I wonder if it's just the "established order" in me that's reacting to this remote possibility.

Nevertheless though, she is the poster child for affirmative action and a fascinating example of Indian democracy in action.

The unexpected

I come back from the States to an unexpected incident.

Delhi is back to being sunny and warm, and things are familiar again. The first morning back, my house mate Andy greets me with my car keys and the following tale -

Our landlord had informed Andy a few weeks back that she was interested in selling the flat and that people would be by to look at the apartment. The weekend before I returned, a man shows up at our place on Saturday to look at the place. Andy has asked our landlord to give us a heads up before someone came over, but hadn't heard anything from our landlord about this guy coming over. The guy knew the landlords as well as Andy's name and looks fairly legit, so Andy lets the guy in and gives him the tour.

All of us are anxious about what a future landlord will do with the place and this guy tells Andy that he'd be happy to continue renting it to him. All through the tour the guys talking on his cell phone and he seems to like the place. Andy's just glad that a potential new landlord won't be kicking him out. He wants his wife and brother-in-law to see the place as well and Andy says it's okay for him to wait here for his wife to come over. He sits him down in front of the TV, gets him water, makes him comfortable etc. At this point guys phone, that he's been talking on the entire time, runs out of juice and borrows Andy's phone to call his wife. Andy returns to his room to continue working at his desk. What follows is the sound of the main door closing. Andy comes out to find our potential future landlord has left with his cell phone! This is Andy's first weekend in the house alone (I'm in the States and Mrig's in South Africa), and he gets burgled. With us out, he doesn't know what else could have been taken from our rooms. He tries calling his phone but the bugger has turned his phone off. Next he calls Airtel and they give him the last number dialed from his phone. Apparently this dude called someone else in our neighborhood about a car that the guy was selling. With his phone turned off, Andys got no way of finding the guy.

But wait - it gets better. Now I've never dealt with Indian cops directly because we all know how useless and frustrating the experience can be. It's impossible to get them to even lodge a case let alone hear you out. Andy calls the cops. And 5 cops show up to investigate a stolen cell phone! First 2 come, and while he's trying to communicate with them, there's a knock on the door and 1 more joins, then 5 mins later another knock, and after that again another knock, and we end up with 5 cops in our living room. Now this is a fairly complicated story and Andy's non-existant Hindi isn't going to help him much in this situation. He suggests the policemen talk to his friend on the phone who can translate. The landline being in his bedroom, all 5 cops follow him into the bedroom. So Andy gets to spend Sat afternoon with 5 uniformed men in his bedroom :)

Since then he's been called in to photo ID people. They've shown him 2 pics, one was clearly not the guy and the other was a small 2x2 newspaper print quality picture. But for Andy (like most white people) all brown guys look the same. So I don't see much hope in him every ID'ing the guy.

I joke about it, but in all seriousness it's pretty annoying to have someone walk into your home and walk out with you phone. And even more annoying is that Andy can get 5 cops to show up and register a case but my friends who had their car smashed the other night couldn't get them to register anything. As the saying goes - yeh hai Dilli mere yaar...

Mobile solution - final recommendation

After spending a month looking at different products out there I've recommended that we go with the AMDL bluetooth printer paired with a Nokia 5000 or Nokia 3110C cell phone.

The Access printer is a simple 2 inch thermal printer that is made in India (assembled in Bangalore). This is what makes it very attractive. Anything we import is slapped with import duty, putting the printer squarely out of our price bracket. Having a restrictive price range helped since it quickly narrowed the search down (can't help but contrast this with my profligate ways at the "hedge fund"). The cell phone-printer combination costs around Rs 13000 (~USD 260). This printer is also used by ALW, increasing its attractiveness for us because our bulk numbers increase lowering the price of this device.

This brings us to the next stage of the project - development. The tech team has been working for a week trying to figure out how to communicate via bluetooth etc. etc. Interestingly AMDL provides no software support, no API's no anything. Can you imagine buying a hardware device and not getting any support on how to communicate with the device? I guess this is why it's so much cheaper than any of the other options (Zebra, produced in Europe, costs ~Rs 20,000). There are cheaper printers that we could buy in China (how do the Chinese do it?), but it would make no sense for us since it would come with 0 local after sales support. Someone should try and solve this problem - how can a firm that has a good solid cheap product quickly establish itself in a market to sell it's goods with little upfront costs (an on the ground distribution network that can easily be leveraged by different vendors?).

As we move into the development cycle, I'm getting more downtime. I'm probably going to undertake a microfinance project mapping out Category A loans. More on that in future posts.

Keeping my fingers crossed now for a successful pilot

Delhi parking

Most urban cities have parking issues. This is stating the obvious - like Subho will not lose the 12 kg's he's aiming to this year.

Delhi though seems to be in a league of it's own. It's one of those things you'll never read about in Lonely Planet. Parking spots are guarded zealously and if you talk to any Dilli-wallah you'll always hear "he got away easy, people get killed for parking".

Parking near my place, like every other place in Delhi, is tight. Very few people have garages and will park their cars on the street in front of their house (so far, nothing objectionable about that). This, people believe, is their right. The street in front of the house is treated as a reserved parking spot for them and no one else dare encroach upon this right. I haven't crossed this hidden line and always park near the market down the street if my roommate has his car in our garage.

Last Saturday we had a party at my place and had a ton of people over. A friend must have parked in an "objectionable" spot near my place. One of my neighbors (don't know who) deflated the tires of this car. At midnight, not only is this annoying but glaringly counter productive if your goal is to move said car. Why would someone do this? You guessed right.

Another friend showed up late at my party. Why, because he was over at his sisters house and when they got out someone had thrown a rock at his windshield, cracking it and there was a massive dent at the side of his car. Nothing stolen, and his best guess is that he too had parked in an "objectionable" spot. He called the cops and what do you think the cops did. Asked him why he left his car on the street? Umm - where else is he supposed to park a car, in the trees? Even the cops know of this unspoken law and are ready to defend it. They refused to file a report about the incident (in India, by law, all cops are required to file a report regardless of the situation). How completely exasperating? That too on a Saturday night!

And when I discussed it with people at work on Monday. "He got away easy, people get killed for parking."

Kerala with Amitav Ghosh

I've not spent much time discussing my travels on this blog, since I wanted to really focus on my Drishtee experience. But my short trips are such an important aspect of my India sabbatical, I can't not talk about it.

This past weekend I went by myself to Kerala for 3 days. Things in Delhi have been so busy, so much stuff going on that its all been a bit of a whirlwind. It was great to get away - just me and my thoughts; and an entertaining book - Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh. I would have enjoyed this getaway with a number of seasoned travel partners, but Amitav Ghosh was great company. Absorbing, and I could shut him off whenever I wanted. What more could one ask for?

March is already a bit hot for Kerala. I landed at 9:30 and was immediately embraced by humid salty air. I loved it! Growing up in Bombay, it was nice going back to the sea. Went straight from the airport to Munnar (hill station 3 hrs away from Kochin).

Munnar is tea estates as far as the eye can see.

I rented a bicycle the first morning and rode around the tea estates. I could have opted for a scooter, but the bike gave me a better opportunity to slow down and interact with people. Kids everywhere shout out as you ride by. And the thing that took me by surprise (even thought I expected it) is that everyone spoke English, making it easy to chat with passerby's.

Kerala has the highest literacy rate in India (100%) and was the first in the world to democratically elect a communist Govt. Till today the marxists run the state.

It's an interesting case study. You'd expect with literacy the economy and social infrastructure would rise as well. Instead Kerala bucked the trend, and lags a number of other Indian states. In fact, it is the one state where in some rural villages you will find a higher female to male ratio. This is because, with no industrial goods to export Kerala exported it's remaining valuable commodity - man power. The direct flights from Kerala to the middle east are a the testament to that. Dollar remittances are a big part of the economy here. As a result Kerala is disproportionately affected by the global financial crunch.

After spending a night in Munnar, I sped off to Kochi, the queen of the Arabian Sea. Kochi is a group of islands and is one of the best natural harbors in south India. It's seen Arabs, Jews (it has a section of town called "Jew Town"), Portuguese, Dutch and of course the British. I stayed in Fort Kochi, a small island that is perfect for travelers. Everything is walking distance, and because it is so small you keep running into other travelers, and you quickly become part of this community of visitors. You can never feel out of place when everyone is just like you.

They have a number of great restaurants in Fort Kochi. It's hard not to given how great Kerala food is. And I don't know what it is about fish cooked in banana leaves, it's mouth watering. I wish I had time to take a cooking class there - you can buy your own fish in the market, take it back and they teach you how to cook it followed by an incredible dinner. Guess I'll just have to go back for that.


There was just so much stuff to do there, and I didn't get to do enough. I went to a culture program and saw a Kathak performance, spent the day in the backwaters, sunset at the fishing nets, and of course a great relaxing Kerala ayurvedic massage. I would have loved to have just sat in one of the tea shops and read more of my book, or done some historical sight seeing, or taken a sunset cruise, or gone to some of the surrounding small islands and beaches. Fort Kochi is a great place to come relax and just mellow out. Anyone planning a trip to India - think about spending 4 or 5 days here. You can easily make it your base and do short trips to surrounding tourist destinations.

The last night in Kochi it rained, and I mean REALLY rained. Going to sleep with the sound of a heavy downpour was a perfect ending to this weekend. Too bad I won't be in India for the monsoons...

Here are some pics from my trip -

More on ALW

In my previous post on financial inclusion I talked about how Drishtee is working with ALW in Assam. And in case it didn't come through in previous posts, I am pretty excited about what these kinds of disruptive technologies can do.

I'm tempering that excitement now. I've learnt a bit more on ALW, and I give it a thumbs down. My biggest complaint is that villagers are tied to the access point where they opened their account to withdraw money. The excuse given is that villagers don't leave their village much so it's not a big inconvenience for them to just "bank" at the kiosk they opened their account at. Gimme a break!

Just to refresh your memory, the way it works is that SBI has partnered with ALW to provide a technology banking solution for rural India. Drishtee is the "business correspondent" (BC) that actually implements this solution in the field. Our entrepreneurs/kiosk owner (KO) make money by getting a fee for every account they open and 0.5% of all transactions. This last piece is a bit backward. If a customer deposits Rs. 100 then the KO makes Rs 0.50. Now the same customer can withdraw this money and again the KO makes Rs 0.50. It's a great money making loop [insert favorite reference to the financial crisis in America]. So what does the bank do? They limit the number of transactions in a day. Which sort of sucks because financial inclusion is not just about opening bank accounts, it's getting people to actually use the system. And putting a limit on the transactions just defeats the purpose. The RBI probably said you need to have x number of rural accounts and the banks scrambled to achieve this. Great example of how poorly defined metrics can achieve lop sided results. I just want to scream out - "focus on the goal!".

There are other solution providers out there. I know of eko and mCheck. mCheck is clearly the leading player. They have a tie up with Airtel (leading mobile phone provider in India). You buy a airtel sim card, and you get mCheck pre installed. mCheck just enables mobile payments by letting you connect your sim card to your debit card or credit card. We're exploring with mCheck a proposal to bring to SBI for rural banking. They don't have the silly limitation of only doing banking at the kiosk you opened your account at. You're account is connected to your cell phone, and you can make a mobile payment to anyone with a mCheck enabled sim card from anywhere there is cell phone coverage. Also mCheck is probably going to charge a subscription fee instead of 0.5% per transaction. This way villagers will use the service more and make it part of their everyday lives. We have to figure out how the kiosk owner ends up making money in this model. The right incentive structure is critical.

A side note on how I think they came to this 0.5% transaction fee. I think some smart McKinsey analyst probably calculated that it costs banks around 2% per transaction at a branch and 1% at the ATM. So they just extend this model for rural banking and say at 0.5% I'm saving money. Again, pretty silly IMO. It's a completely new model, requiring people to think in new paradigms.

There are other benefits to the mCheck approach like reducing Drishtee Foundations exposure etc. but I'm not going to get into that (email me if you want to know more). The challenge with mCheck is whether SBI will want to adopt such a technology. ALW uses biometric finger print scans, and apparently that is considered more secure by banks. I don't know enough about the security regulations, but that is a big strike against mCheck. I do use my credit card everyday and I don't really need an eye scan or finger print to authorize a payment. mCheck requires a physical sim card as well as a pin number to authorize transactions - and that maps pretty well to how ATM cards work today and I consider that very secure. I think it's just the issue of a new technology being accepted as normal/standard. HDFC canceled it's banking pilot with EKO (another mobile payment solution) because they claimed it was less secure that debit cards and than people don't see cell phones as a banking mode.

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here of decision makers not visualizing what the future looks like?

More Assam

Went to Assam with Mallory. If it wasn't for her I'd probably have missed my flight.
She's working on a pilot program with Drishtee for education microfinance loans. With a "real" camera her pictures are more interesting than mine. Figured I'd share.

Thanks Mallory :)

Financial Inclusion

There is a large section of the Indian population that lies outside the realm of the banking industry. One takes things like having a bank account for granted. Maybe this is not the best time to blog about the virtues of putting your money in the bank, but its obvious that being part of the financial economy has huge advantages. Not only do you have a safe way of storing and accessing your money, but you can build your credit, have access to credit or access to "safe" and "reliable" investments. Well, most Indian's don't have these facilities.
The RBI has issued a policy for Financial Inclusion, directing banks to "voluntarily" provide banking services to the rural poor and bringing them into the banking system. This is not an easy task. First transaction costs are high. It's not easy opening branches in remote villages or setting up ATM's. Applying urban banking models to rural villages just doesn't work. But there are sustainable and scalable solutions to this problem, involving intelligent technology and innovative business models.
State Bank of India is currently exploring pilot programs to address this. Drishtee's rural franchises provide a ready network of entrepreneurs for this pilot. These franchises (or SBI kiosks) are given a small kit to sign up new customers. The technology solution is developed by A Little World (ALW) who are also partners in this pilot. For every account they open they get a small fee. The kit consists of a cell phone, bio metric blue tooth device and a blue tooth mobile printer.

Note the mobile printer, this right now is the leading contender in my own mobile printer evaluation. Its already proven to work in the field, and is pretty cheap. Anyways - back to financial inclusion. The cell phone comes with a camera, so they also take a picture of the person opening an account. The cell phone is connected to the web, so data can get uploaded and is already in the system by the time the paperwork forms with supporting documents reaches the bank. It's a great system. But the business innovation is that these SBI kiosks can operate as human ATM's. Once the bank account has been opened, the customers get a small card called a tiny card. Using this card they can withdraw or deposit money into their accounts. The tiny card just needs to be swiped to record the transaction (technically its a contactless card, so just needs to be waved). For each transaction the kiosk owner gets a small percentage (and Drishtee also gets a small share). These are very small cuts, but it is the transactions that make the model sustainable. Banks bring in customers and deposits and rural villages get to be part of the financial systems. Drishtee takes a deposit of Rs 15,000 from the franchises, and this protects Drishtee from the franchisee ever just running away with any deposits customers make through him. Fairly well thought through and has a good policy backing. Yup it all sounds great.

Here is a picture of Satyan (Drishtee CEO) opening a rural "no-frills" account





Come on, things can't be that easy. I spent some time in Assam talking to SBI kiosk franchises, and it was a litany of complaints. When we started the project things were going well. Kiosk owners were signing up a good number of rural customers and had a great steady income (~Rs 5000 - Rs 15,000 per month). Obviously this would plateau and we needed them to increase the transaction traffic instead. But the SBI has been slow in issuing the tiny cards. The ALW solution has had 2 to 3 software upgrades. I guess all to be expected in a pilot. But still frustrating for franchises and even worse for the end customer. Specially when you're building a new business, you can't tell a customer come back next week after he's been visiting you for a month to get his tiny card. What's even more frustrating is that they now have a new bank manager at the Sonitpur branch. And he's been sitting on all the paperwork for any new accounts. Saying they're short staffed at the bank. So forget issuing new cards, we can't open new accounts either. The business has by and large stalled! It's so frustrating. Unclear what the new manager's incentives are. It all comes down to relationship management and working with the local branch manager and ensuring he's happy and getting whatever he wants out of this. Disappointing and frustrating.
But I have to stay positive. The kiosk owners have bet their business on this model. It can work. It has to work!

Assam site visit - photo essay

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind, been traveling for the bulk of it. Flew to Guwahati in Assam on Tuesday morning, spent 4-5 hours in the car getting to Sonitpur (the district office). Got there at 8 pm. Spent the next day going out on the delivery route to observe the supply chain delivery process in Assam. 120 km's, starting at 9 am and getting back to the office at 8 pm. And then on Thursday, we leave at 6 am, reaching Delhi at 8 pm that night. It took me 2 1/2 hours to fly from Assam to Delhi and then 2 hours to get through traffic to get to my place from the airport. Out of 72 hours, I spent 30 hours traveling.
Even though I didn't have much time for touristy sight-seeing, going back to Assam was nice. People in Assam were so much more friendlier that Mathura. Drishtee also seems to have a much bigger presence in this state. And the entrepreneurs there really want to engage you in how they can do better. People asking for micro finance loans, discussing new products they'd want us to supply or trying to figure out how they can market their services better. It was great, they were truly entrepreneurial.

On the other hand, the delivery process I observed - not so great. They have only one route, and I can see why. I thought Mathura was disorganized, but these guys are even further behind. The stock room had goods scattered everywhere, with no organization whatsoever.

The normal process is for someone to call the RRP's (rural retail points) and take down the delivery orders the day before. This way when the vans go out, they know what specific goods to take. Not how it works in Assam. These guys had no delivery orders, instead they almost took a mini version of the entire stock room! Given how bad the roads are, its nuts to take so many unnecessary items out and expose them to the jarring journey. And just imagine the inventory reconciliation process at the end of the day, nuts!
Loading the van in the morning -

It was great to go into the hinterland of Assam, even though I was in a 3 wheeler, squeezed up in front on a seat meant for 1 person being shared by 3 of us (driver, delivery executive and me). I spent the entire journey gripping on for dear life, while the delivery executive sat comfortably on the other side, like it was no big thing to almost get thrown out of a moving van every 3 seconds. I tried sitting like him, relaxing my posture and not holding on to anything. Lets just say after the first small bump in the road, I quickly changed my mind.
This is what the 3 wheeler looks like. Gautam is the delivery executive in the blue shirt, with the driver standing next to him.

At some points the road was pretty good -

At others not so good -

We got to a point where they were constructing the road we were driving on. I am particularly amused by the picture above, because at the hedge fund I worked at we were fond of saying working there is like driving at 80mph while they are building the road under us. Here we were literally driving on roads that were getting constructed under us! The van had to take a detour at this point and get into the neighboring fallow fields and go around the trucks. Eventually we had turn around on this path because the road ahead was just not passable. So we end up a diff "road" that is in a much worse state of disrepair. And what do you think happens? Our 3 wheeler gets stuck in the mud. Had to get out and push. If it wasn't for the enthusiastic bunch of school kids that saw us stuck, I don't think we'd have made it out. That's the other thing - wherever we went if there were kids around they would swarm to our van and just stare at what we were doing. Always the center of attention, wherever we went.
To give you guys a sense of how rural this supply chain is, I took this picture of one of the villages we service. It has 1 school, and no electricity. We got there around 1ish. It is as calm and peaceful as it looks. Hard to believe that this place has been suffering from separatist violence for decades now. But with the huge military presence in the area, it's hard to forget this reality.

Ended the day at around 8pm at night. I can't imagine having to come back the next morning for a similar routine the next day. But these delivery guys and drivers do it everyday. Here is a before and after picture of the delivery van. It's crazy that the van returned with more than half the goods it went out with. At Mathura, in contrast, they would come back with maybe 1 or 2 boxes of products.





We visited 12 RRP's (1 was closed) and sold goods worth Rs. 10,067 (~$200). This was less than what we made in Mathura per RRP and we had spent more time in the field. I didn't think it possible to be more inefficient than the Mathura operations. Wrong! I also spent time understanding microfinance and the education operations here. Will leave that for another post though.

SCM update

Been doing a lot of research in the rural supply chain space and it is clear that no one is doing what we are doing. Which really sucks for me, cause I've built a career on plagiarizing from the web. What am I supposed to do now?

The supply chain project is huge, and there is no way we could solve it in my short time here. Instead I've narrowed my scope down to just the delivery aspects of the entire supply chain. I've mapped out a (very) high level diagram of the Drishtee process. It's a pretty simple process.



I am focused on the red box and all the integration that comes with it. (CCE = Call Center Executive)

There are 3 basic hardware solutions -
1) Cell phone paired with a mobile printer
2) 5-7" netbook linux laptops paired with a mobile printer
3) Mobile POS terminals (with built in printers)

The links are just examples of the kinds of products we're looking at. The netbook option is really not viable, given that laptops have sucky battery life. And also, given the harsh conditions in rural India (think monsoons), I just can't see any laptop cutting it.

The best case would be a Mobile POS terminal, because it's just one handy device. But they can be relatively expensive, compared to the cell phone solution. Specially if we want to get a foreign brand - import duty really sucks. The device also has to be user friendly, and the cheaper POS terminals dont come with good input interfaces. The cell phone solution is clearly the most flexible, and given that our requirements are not tied down it is easy to go for the cell phone product that is cheap and so ubiquitous. Lots of small tradeoff's, and we don't really have the time to run a good due diligence process. It's going to have to be a hypothesis based approach. Risky, but I feel fairly confident that we'll be able to pick a good hardware solution.

The challenge will be what is the best approach to developing this solution. Bringing all the verticals on to this single platform will be interesting. I think we're going to have to leave microfinance out for the first phase. Their needs are so completely different that it would be silly to force their requirements in for phase 1. I'm also wary of developing the solution internally. I think the tech group is probably qualified to build the integration with the back end systems, but developing the secure communication infrastructure and a client app might not be the best use of the Drishtee tech team (specially if the client app is on a 3rd party mobile POS terminal). The appetite to outsource aspects of the project is pretty low. I've got to figure out how to make the case for this. It is true though that the budget and timeline increases if we invite external partners in. I also think that there are generic secure communication channels out there that we should just leverage. These are being used for mobile payments etc. We'd have to adapt it for our needs, and there are partners out there who want to include us in their communication environment.

My other big concern is the lack of an overarching program plan. I've defined the narrow scope of my project, but it fits into the larger SCM program and while there is a vision (which others can articulate), there is no high level plan for how to achieve this vision. This really makes it difficult to assess tradeoffs in the long term. For example, in parallel to the SCM process is a separate cash settlement process (which has a bigger impact on microfinance). We could be doing some intelligent design right now to quickly automate some of our cash settlement challenges. There are a lot of moving pieces to this puzzle, and I just don't feel like I've got a handle on the big picture yet. Unnerves me.


PS: My field visit to Sultanpur UP this week to observe the Education and Microfinance delivery processes was postponed. I've come down with a mild case of Delhi belly. It was going to happen sooner or later. I'm a little bummed - was really looking forward to going back into the field.

Celebrating the arrival of the couch

One of the many quirks of Delhi is the "unfurnished" apartment. Since I'm here for just a short while, I didn't want an unfurnished apartment. But that's what I ended up with (and now that I have lived here, I am actually very happy with my place). I figured I needed to buy a bed and that's about it. Little did I know that unfurnished meant no fridge! I guess I should be thankful that I have a sink and shower in my bathroom. It's just one of those things you would never think to ask. Well now I know.

In any case, my roommate who is going to be here long term has bought a fridge, and a couch and a coffee table. So the place is livable. And I am also borrowing his old bed (now do you see why I'm happy with my place?). With all these new accouterments the place was ready for a party. And since I don't really know many people, what better way is there? Threw a house warming party the weekend of Jan 30th. Lots of drink and lots of people. It was a pretty kickin' party. Too bad I can't really remember names or who I met that night.

Here are some pics my roommate uploaded. There is a guy in these pics who looks a lot like me and is pretty drunk. It's not me, he just looks like me. And he really really REALLY needs a haircut.

Rishikesh weekend

My first long weekend here and I knew I wasn't going to waste it. Narrowed it down to Rishikesh and Jaipur - ultimately white water rafting and a weekend in the foothills of the Himalayas won (i.e. Rishikesh). Also, I managed to find a friend from work who wanted to go there too and since she was providing the wheels, I didn't have much of a choice.
It was a fantastic weekend. Rishikesh is not only a holy pilgrimage town for Hindus, but also a popular backpacker destination for those who want to come learn yoga. The Beatles visited and stayed in some ashram, recorded a bunch of music too. Town is crawling with hippies. Unfortunately, I never got to do any yoga while I was there. But I did go white water rafting and do a mini 3 km trek.
It's not that far from Delhi, but for reasons I won't go into we didn't get there until 3 in the afternoon on Saturday. Ended up staying at the "Laxman Jhula Divine Resort" (everything there seems to have the word divine or holy in it's name).
Fantastic view from our room of the roaring Ganga (misty in the morning) -




The river is a bit dry at this time of the year, so I can only imagine how powerful it would look during the summer/monsoon months.
It was great to get out of Delhi for a weekend and breathe the fresh mountain air. One would think that washing away my sins in the holy Ganges would be the highlight of my trip, but the car journey back beat that hands down.
A bit about highway travel in North India (I say North India, because no where else have I seen such flagrant disregard of driving laws in India). The most interesting is when cars and trucks drive on the wrong side of the highway. We're barreling down, and coming straight at you in the opposite direction is a truck.
We left Rishikesh early evening on Sunday, which meant that we would be on the road after sundown. Unfortunately for us, the fog rolled in after dusk. I've never seen anything like it. We couldn't see more than 1 foot ahead of us. And in all this confusion, somehow we ended up on the wrong side of the highway. We couldn't even see the divider on the highway! We basically honked the car for a mile or so until we came to an opening to switch to the right side of the road (in this case the left side of the road). It was pretty entertaining. I have to thank my 2 friends for some fairly sophisticated driving and navigating. Thanks guys.

Some more pics from my trip

Drishtee - Mathura territory office

The Drishtee team at the Mathura office.

Mathura - Field visit

Spent last Thursday (Jan 22nd) in the field. Day started in Delhi at 5:00 am with Daniel (fellow Drishtee employee) and I trekking out to Mathura to spend the day with one of the delivery vans (which had no shocks to speak of) to get a first hand perspective of what the challenges are at the rural level.
Overall, I was amazed at how much they are doing just through hard work and perseverance. Starting from the stock room to the end delivery there is just chaos. The good aren't organized, and the guy in charge essentially just has everything in his head, and directs people about. There is no clear system of inventory management. Retailers aren't buying boxes or packets of stuff, but individual items (2 soaps, 5 cookie packets) so loose goods abound in the stock room.

Then Daniel and I spent the rest of the back breaking day in the back of a small truck making deliveries to different RRP's (rural retail points). Here is a sample picture of the roads we crossed. This was an open drain that had a makeshift "bridge" for cars to go over. In this case, our van of course couldn't make it and we had to hand deliver the goods.

It was interesting to see the laid back attitude of the village retailers. 55% felt it was no big deal to reduce the order at the time of delivery. Either they couldn't recall what they ordered, or they didn't have the money at hand to pay for the order. And the women retailers were clearly the most interested in growing their business, the men were just sort of content and laid back.
We visited 18 RRP's, out of which 2 canceled their orders. Our target for the day was Rs 25,000, we hit Rs 16,992. That's an average of Rs 1062/RRP (around $22). And the margins are razor thin, around 3%. There is just no way they can make money with this kind of efficiency and such low volumes. To be profitable they have to have a higher saturation of RRP's per route and need to quickly scale up. I think they are losing money right now. It's a volume business and they lack volume!
People are working 9+ hours a day and it's at a breaking point. Fortunately there are some clear solutions that we've seen that can help, and its exciting to have this kind of impact.
Ending this post with a picture of Dunkin Donuts coffee in a small retail shop in a village with a population of around 500 people. This is the kind of consumer product penetration in India today! There is demand, the market exists. Let's see who is the first to figure out how to service this demand.

Cashnxt: Low-Cost Banking for the Rural Poor

Came across this really interesting article on the CGAP Technology blog on what this team of entrepreneurs is doing with emerging technologies to transform rural banking. Intriguing approach.

Rural india has poor broadband/GPRS access, but cell phones have really penetrated this space. Interesting use of cell phones and audio technology to overcome some of the infrastructure challenges of providing financial services here.

Details on Mathura

So my first foray out into the field was semi successful.

I spent Friday in Mathura, and participated in the block manager training. It's interesting to see another company talk about it's values and mission and how that permeates into everything including the training session. The training is really meant to inculcate a sense of pride in what the managers do, because they have to project it to transfer this attitude of self reliance at the rural village level. But instead of going into the details on the training, I think talking about the back end supply chain process is more interesting.

The "call center" is basically a cubicle with 2 computers manned by 5 women. The girls basically call up the rural retailers and take delivery orders. The power went out 3-4 times in the 2 hours I was there, and whenever it went out they lost all the work they were doing in excel (they really need to start using auto save). But apparently this is not a common occurrence, I just happened to come in on a bad day. More interesting was the data entry process. The most time consuming and manual process you can imagine. To enter data for one delivery route take approx 9 hrs worst case. They have 6 delivery routes, so they need to hire 6 data entry operators just to keep up. Currently they have only 3! And I can see why it's so error prone. The poor guys work up till 1 to 3 am and they are behind by 3-4 weeks. It was good to finally observe the process, and see the issues they face.

At the end of the day, I asked the territory manager what delivery car I was going to go out with the next day so I can observe the final delivery leg of the operation. That's when it struck him that there are no delivery's the next day since it was a Saturday. Apparently this small fact had escaped everyone's attention when they planned this trip. So instead of spending the weekend there, I came back the same day.

Regardless, the day I spent there was productive. I'll just have to go back to Mathura sometime this week.

What is it that you're doing Rahil?

I owe you guys a bit of information about what I will be doing at Drishtee. Originally the plan was for me to get involved in the finance or education vertical and help them analyze/redesign their business process. Plans changed.

Just some background about Drishtee first.
Drishtee has created a network of rural entrepreneurs and the basic value Drishtee provides is the vital link between manufacturers and the rural retail owners (kirana stores in Hindi). And when I say rural, I'm talking about villages that big distributors ignore (even by the likes of Reliance). As an aside the numbers here are staggering. There are 600,000 villages across India (accounting for 70% of the population). Out of these 100,000 can be labeled as medium size villages, having an average of 1000 households. Household income ranges from Rs 3000 - Rs 5000 per month (that's around $50). This is a market of at least $10-$15 billion dollars (this is a conservative number). Now all someone needs to do is figure out creative ways to link up and provide value. And from the little I have seen, the way people are using technology to bridge this is pretty exciting.

Anyways - back to what I am doing for Drishtee. Drishtee plans to scale up to become sustainable but can't because it's existing supply chain process is paper based, data entry intensive and error prone (the error rate is whats killing them). I am basically trying to find a solution to this problem. Can't really use the existing Supply Chain Management (SCM) solutions, because there is generally no internet access, no computers etc. - very poor infrastructure in general. So something that is cell phone based, with maybe some portable printers. And it has to be easy to use - the guys in the field aren't "tech savvy". We also want to find ways for the finance vertical to leverage this model (think mobile wallets - pay with your cell phone etc.). The ultimate goal is to get all the different verticals at Drishtee on to one SCM backbone. Cell phone's have really opened up a broad array of opportunities for the rural landscape in India. Right now the overhead in the retail space is too high to make the operation sustainable, and Drishtee wants to figure out a way to create a sustainable model here.

So the project is essentially - to research options, run field studies, make recommendations and then run a pilot. All in the span of 5 months.

It doesn't sound too complicated, but I have no clue what I'm talking about. This Friday I go to the district office in Mathura, to participate in the "block manager" training and then on Saturday I get a glimpse of what it is like for an executive to spend a day in the field going from one rural retail point to the next. I've been warned it's going to be a long and rough day. Stay tuned...