The four A's+ S+A+T

Innovation according to Jamie Anderson's article, "Strategic Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid", in developing markets is or shouldbe based on the four A's: Affordability, Acceptability, Availability and Awareness. By looking at different examples of successful social innovations, we can easily conclude that they have to conform to the four A's "rule". Let's take the example of the ITC, e-Choupal project in India [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx4gukMYTGA]. Briefly stated, ITC implemented a project in rural india to empower people with information. In the Soybean market, ITC's e-Choupal, which is an application accessible through computers run by local trusted farmers in villages, provides farmers with information crucial to their daily activities and to which they did not have access before: prices, weather, crops management, pesticides... The initiative transformed the lives of the farmers who used to rely solely on local markets and had to give in to first bidders to avoid taking their merchandise back home. Their income increased and so did the income of the e-Choupal "managers" and individuals who used to be commission agents and who became part of the system too. E-Choupal project can be characterized as:

• Affordable: ITC had to bear the costs of installing infrastructure: computers, internet access and looking for local trusted farmers in villages to run the system locally, train them and make sure people in the village know who they are by painting the logo and name of the project outside of their homes, for instance. On the other hand, using e-Choupal is free for farmers.
• Acceptable: ITC made sure it did not re-invent the system. Instead, they opted for a re-engineering process in which they leveraged what was already existing: commission agents as good negotiators and trusted villagers. ITC used the importance of the trust system while implementing its project. People who were going to be responsible for helping the farmers access the e-Choupal platform had to take a public oath in front of the rest of the village as a sign of commitment. ITC knew that that was enough to make them accountable for their new responsibilities. The whole project was designed to fit the local culture and customs.
• Available: e-Choupals were made available to farmers in many areas in the village. In addition, ITC built new warehouses to reduce the burden on farmers and to be able to collect soybean since they were also presenting themselves as potential buyers of the crops. Local farmers knew that they system was available to them and that they had to choice to use it or not.

Also, ITC increased the awareness about e-Choupals. ITC relied a lot on word to mouth to advertise the project. Villagers who started using e-Choupals would share their excitement with their relatives and friends because that was the nature of the culture. ITC was aware of it and used it to its advantage.

All in all, ITC e-Choupal social initiative fits the four A's concept. However, I think that more letters should be added to the four A's to make it more comprehensive and fitting to developing communities:

• S for Sustainability: what would a social innovation in a developing country be without being sustainable? Most social innovations that are not sustainable end up failing at some point in time. Social ventures have to implement a follow up system either by building local capacity, transferring knowledge or putting a system in place to maintain and sustain their projects.

• A for Adaptability: even in the same country, social innovations would have to adapt to different customs, seasons... ITC, for example, had to adapt its soybean system to seafood by adding a traceability functionality and to coffee by offering a marketplace to connect sellers and buyers.

• T for Transparent: social ventures have to identify their objectives: profit, reputation, connection, customer base... Identifying their objectives in a transparent way will prevent them from being deceitful at some point or letting the communities down because they had communicated over-ambitious or over-zealous goals, for instance. Most times, people need to know what to expect from project, are easily satisfied and impressed with the results but can as easily be deceived by it if they don't get what they were promised. A crucial aspect of social innovation is adoption or how many people will adopt or use the product or the service, benefit from it and keep on using it.

In the case of ITC's e-Choupals, many questions can be asked: are they sustainable? did they adapt well to different market segments and populations? is ITC engaging in this kind of projects out of corporate social responsibility? As a tobacco company, ITC has been criticized for trying to spread a socially responsible. Are they being transparent about their objectives?