Concept and Impact of Market Oriented Value Enhancement (MOVE)

Basic marketing education is a fundamental need for anyone starting a new enterprise. Issues regarding government policies, accessing foreign markets, and building the necessary infrastructure to produce on scale, need to be addressed as a business grows, but teaching marketing fundamentals precedes all of these concerns. Oftentimes micro-enterprise schemes ask the poor to invest time, capital, and hope in learning how to manufacture a specific product and then leave them to struggle to actually sell it. Instead, entrepreneurs should examine the scope of the market first and then activities should be decided upon based on demand. Although highly sophisticated methods of studying the market may be out of reach for most micro-enterprises, the very basics of marketing can be taught at a grassroots level. In our experience, these lessons have resulted in tangibly greater success.

As part of the DFID funded project, “Natural Resource Management and Livelihood Enhancement in the Peri-Urban: Hubli-Dharwad,” Dr. M.S. Subhas of Karnatak Institute of Management Studies (KIMS) adapted a set of modules called Market Oriented Value Enhancement (MOVE), designed to teach illiterate, landless, rural women how to understand the markets. MOVE was implemented in five villages surrounding Hubli-Dharwad, Mugad, Mandihal, Kotur, Gabbur, and Channapur. It was piloted over a period of two years with one group in Mugad and then replicated in five more groups across all the targeted villages over a period of four months from April – August 2005. Thus far, every group has seen an immediate return of profits to their businesses. MOVE was created for well-established SHGs to orient themselves to the market, research the market themselves, choose activities based on their research, and finally to enter the market as entrepreneurs.

The first module begins with basic team building exercises and motivational games. The next module asks participants to create an imaginary wedding card production company and also to attempt retailing by setting up a hypothetical grocery shop. These scenarios are designed to teach participants about the profit margins on sales and a customer-centric approach to business. Next, the participants are taken on free-format and formatted market visits to observe the dynamics of different types of shops and the sales of different products. Through informal interviews with business owners the participants find out details on profit margins, daily sales, seasonal sales, wholesale prices, and other strategies for selling different products. Armed with this information, the group decides on five products to focus on and then they discuss the needs and wants of each of the products and then analyze them in terms of product strategy, pricing strategy, selling strategy, promotion strategy, and distribution strategy.

After this analysis the group is ready to perform a Participatory Market Appraisal (PMA). Like a PRA, the PMA uses the same method of employing visual symbols so participants can conduct empirical market research themselves. Participants create symbols for each product, for the different needs and wants of each product, and any other information that may be relevant depending on the product. For example, if a group wants to research bangles, they will need to know the number of female members in each household, if a group is thinking of selling cattle feed, they will need to know the number of livestock in each household. Participants then use these symbols to create visual survey that allows them to enter in information through checks or tallymarks. A distributive sample of rich, middle-class, and poor households is chosen and each participant is asked to interview their share of the sample. When the participants complete their interviews, they consolidate the information from their surveys and are immediately able to get a clearer picture of the market for each product they have researched. The PMA allows the participants to estimate the total size of their market, the amount of potential profit, the key factors that influence a customer buying the product, and other relevant data that will point to a product with a high demand and a high profit. By doing the research through the PMA, participants enter business with their eyes wide open to the potential scope and profitability of selling certain products.

The key difference that the PMA provides is a grassroots approach to market research. At every point, the participants themselves are the ones who collect information from the market, then they themselves prioritize potential products to research, they themselves design, conduct, and analyze the results of the PMA. By using the process of PMA the participants capacities are built to research the market themselves whenever necessary without relying on the expertise of an outside source.

After researching which product has the highest chance of success in their market, the participants begin retailing or small scale production, sample selling, and gradual upscaling. After a few sales cycles they conduct in-depth customer feedback sessions and adjust their products accordingly. As they develop a customer base, they continue to solicit feedback to find out potential avenues for value enhancement. Finally, the participants draw up a business plan that incorporates a vision for future expansion.

We have conducted a few preliminary focus group discussions and have found that, even in the initial stages of business, groups who have undergone MOVE experience a 50% rise in income. The women who participated now do their MOVE business as their primary activity and have largely given up coolie labour. Even more striking is the market resilience that the women who have undergone MOVE exhibit. When we conducted a focus group discussion with sanghas who are doing income generating activities but were not trained on marketing principles through MOVE, we found that they did not know what to do if their business began flagging and overwhelmingly said that they would simply give up their business and go back to coolie work. Women who had gone through MOVE, on the other hand, stated that if their specific enterprise ceased to become profitable they would not have a problem switching to another enterprise. They felt confident that they could undertake any business, not just their current one, because they saw defined as entrepreneurs rather than narrowly defining themselves according to their product. This adaptability has already been demonstrated in the Mugad group. Although they sell clothes, they went to an exhibition and saw that pottery was selling extremely successfully. They had no qualms about approaching the pottery retailer and asking him where he got his supplies. At the next exhibition they sold pottery in addition to clothes and were so successful that they actually won an award. For MOVE groups, this kind of flexibility is expected of any business person.

Once participants are given the tools to understand the markets, we have found that they are able to recognize potential market niches and pursue them on their own. More importantly, when they are armed with knowledge, they have the confidence to undertake any business, so their success or failure isn’t dependent on the success or failure of a specific product. MOVE builds the capacity to adapt with a changing market, so the participants can continue doing business, whatever form it may take. Therefore MOVE is a grassroots approach to marketing that ensures sustainability.

MOVE is still in its infancy and it can be applied in many other contexts. Veterinary services, health services, natural resource based products, and many other enterprises can be approached using these techniques for market education. In addition, specific strategies for rural participants to study and penetrate urban or even international markets can be developed.

In a globalized marketplace, it is almost impossible for small-scale enterprises to match the prices and economies of scale that huge multi-national producers can offer. Therefore, MOVE can be used as a tool to identify ever-more specific market niches and provide value-added services that the big players simply cannot provide. The large scale industries may be able to produce more at a cheaper price, but the small-scale micro-enterprises can provide doorstep delivery, customized products, and meet other specific needs in ways that huge producers simply cannot. In this way MOVE can give participants the tools to understand their customers so they can compete not by producing more for cheaper prices, but by providing tailored products and services that only they can offer.

There is a huge scope for innovation in the field of teaching landless, illiterate women how to understand and adapt to the markets. MOVE is a bottom-up strategy for micro-enterprises to approach the markets that could potentially be complemented by top-down strategies that utilize sophisticated market expertise. In our experience, even the very basics of marketing that have been taught to illiterate, landless women have resulted in a substantial rise in income, business confidence, and market resilience.

If you are interested in the MOVE process, Dr. M.S. Subhas and the Best Practices Foundation have published a training manual for community based organizers that has been published through Books For Change (http://www.booksforchange.net/Move.html). A film on the process can also be seen at http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~afs082/videos.htm.