Why Companies don’t concentrate on Rural Consumers of India

How Technology Implementation is different for Rural areas

Study some technology based products which are changing the lives of villagers in India

Population – 1.2 billion Economic Growth Rate – 8.4 % Among the top 20 economies of the world. IT and Automobiles are the fastest growing

sectors

Year R&D Spending Researchers Patents Number of Graduates as % of GDP per million Publications in 1000s

1996 0.65 154 37 10410 1997 0.69 135 48 10352 1998 0.71 117 94 11072 1999 0.74 114 114 11792 2000 0.77 111 131 12176 20002001 0.75 115 180 12561 21002002 0.73 123 267 13545 23502003 0.72 128 356 14529 28002004 0.69 133 376 51913 33002005 0.8 137 403 89297 35002006 0.79 140 506 39002007 0.81 143 578 48002008 0.8 212 672 2009 0.82 220 720

Over 50 % of the India’s population lives in rural and remote areas, yet most of the consumer products are deigned for urban consumers only.

Even after decades of technological and economic progress, rural areas still face basic problems of water, energy and health care.

Majority of new technology products are for convenience or entertainment related rather than products to solve basic problems.

Tech developers have been catering to needs rather than creating a demand.

Low Purchasing Power – Multinational Companies typically ignore population with lower income levels – known as the Bottom Of Pyramid (BOP).

Low population density, so technologies like broadband internet do not offer good ROI

Different Social, economic structure and environmental conditions requires different product designs.

Technology Adoption is slow due to poor levels of education.

Rugged terrain, erratic power supply, corrosion problems.

Education

Healthcare

Water/Electricity

Information and Communication Technologies

Farming / Agriculture

The simple device, which is charged during the day from a communal rooftop solar panel.

It uses between five and seven watts of power and has a battery that lasts up to eight hours.

It also boasts a socket for charging mobile phones

Source : http://www.physorg.com/news175501636.html

GE ECG machine, Mac I, is a low-cost portable unit that addresses the growing cardio-vascular disease burden. It was developed by GE Engineers in India.

Does not use electricity and helps doctors provide low cost treatment to patients in rural India.

The $100 computer (One Laptop Per Child) Revolutionizing access to education globally.

Providing information to medical personnel in remote villages.

This system allows farmers to accurately monitor soil moisture levels.

Soil Moisture Detection System – comprised of sensor probes, mesh of low power wireless networks.

Every node is connected to soil moisture probes that gather information at 10 cm, 20 cm, and 30 cm depths below the surface to report the soil moisture within the rooting zone of the crops.

The hourly measurements are stored in the nodes, These are sent to the coordinator of the wireless network, and then the collected information is transferred via GPRS on a daily basis to a remote office.

C.K. Prahalad in his book, “The Fortune at the Bottom at the Pyramid” summarizes three points to serving the rural consumers.

There is an untapped market for the large MNCs at the BOP.

(Bottom of Pyramid)

In contrast to conventional wisdom, the MNCs can make profit by focusing on the BOP market; and

3. While gaining profit by selling to the poor, the MNCs can bring prosperity for them.

Data compiled using different sources http://statinfo.biz/Data.aspx?act=5772&lang=2

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/9/41/41850880.pdf http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/7/45/41270116.pdf http://www.nationmaster.com http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cst_all.htm http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev.php?ID=7122_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/ReportFolders/ReportFolders.aspx http://www.most.gov.cn/eng/statistics/2007/index.htm

Providing Broadband Internet in Rural areas is still a challenge due to terrain.

The solution is to channel the broadband internet on the electricity supply so that networking is carried out on power mains. Distribution of internet data on the power lines is called as HomePlug or Broadband over Power lines (BPL).

At the community level, farmers that produce dedicated energy crops can grow their incomes and grow their own supply of affordable and reliable energy.