Bosch Power Tools in Rural India
I enjoy reading about companies that are making strong efforts to understand and meet the needs of people in rural, underdeveloped areas of the world.
For the most part, people in rural, underdeveloped areas of the world are shortsightedly ignored by companies and as a result new products and services aren't designed for them. I think this leads to a lose-lose situation for both companies and the people living in these underdeveloped areas.
Bosch a Germany company well-known for its auto parts and power tools launched in interesting expansion into the rural, underdeveloped areas of south India back in 2006.
In collaboration with some Indian banks, Canara Bank and Andhra Bank, they launched Bosch Vaahan, which is a mobile van that provides power tool demonstrations and training to artisans. The mobile van also travels with bank workers that provide info on small business loans and help the artisans through the application process.
In Summer 2006, while working for a microfinance organization I got to travel extensively through rural southern India visiting tons of artisans, craft makers etc.
As you'd expect, they all worked extremely hard but lacked efficient tools. The whole time I was traveling and meeting these rural entrepreneurs I kept thinking, "If only they had this tool they could increase their productivity 10x."
According to the Bosch site, the southern India initiative has been successful. They launched a second mobile van in northern India in April 2007.
The Hindu Business Line reported this about the second van:
The van will reach Delhi and travel towards northern Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Jammu before returning to Delhi. The second phase will cover eastern and western Uttar Pradesh. "We aim to reach 4,000 artisans in north India," says Navin Paul [Business Head, Bosch Power Tools India].
You can read more about the Bosch Vaahan initiative over at the Bosch site. And, Sagar Gubbi has some more insight into this initiative over at his blog.
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