Mobile Apps for NGOs

Has your NGO faced the challenge of connecting with stakeholders? If your NGO is working in a domain where your stakeholders have all easy access to laptops or desktop computers, then probably you must have figured out that the easiest way to stay connected is through your websites.

However, chances are that the profile of your majority stakeholders is such that they belong to low-income groups, illiterate people, living in remote areas, lacking 24x7 electricity support, poor data connection / network, and to expect your stakeholders to be easily accessible to you is almost impossible. First, they may not have easy access to laptops or desktop computers to stay connected through your website. Then, they will have electricity coming on and off, and it would be difficult for them to keep even their devices in charged conditions at all times. And even if they somehow manage to do that, then the data network would be so bad that accessing internet could become a task in itself.

A mobile app can be a great switchover for NGOs in changing times. We have seen that the success of mobile platforms has brought about a revolution in various industries.  Today mobile phone has become the most popular device for accessing Internet. With India emerging as the country having the highest number of Internet users, it is the right time for NGOs in India to invest in mobile apps, rather than invest on having a website.

NGOs have been engaging with their stakeholders through their websites for donations and volunteerism, but a mobile app can quickly emerge as an entirely new way to connect with constituencies. Mobile apps are all about approaching and engaging with members in an altogether new technological setup, and offering them a totally different experience for receiving information as compared to websites.

A mobile app is technologically far superior to a website for any interaction between companies or institutions on the one hand and the end user on the other. A customized application downloaded to the smart phones or tablets is easy to use and can facilitate not only easy communication but also direct and open communication with users, because mobile phones are carried by the users all the time, wherever they are and whatever they are doing. There can always be push messages delivered to target groups and also ensure its immediate delivery.

So, if your NGO is working on farmer’s literacy or women’s health, it is far easier for you to reach out to your stakeholders and pass on important information to them through mobile apps. This is not just easy to operate and download, but this medium can be easily used to collect or pass on desired information through this channel on almost real time basis. This is much easier and cost-effective compared to making physical contact every time.

NGOs get a substantial part of their funds through sponsorship and raising fund is always the most tedious tasks for them. They often times hire professionals who are assigned the responsibility to approach potential donors to be able to carry out their activities. Mobile apps increase their base of potential donors multiple times and this can ease their fundraising task. While personally approaching the big donors may still be required, the facility to donate with just a click on their mobile phone can motivate a number of people who were earlier not connected with the NGO at all.

Because the majority of stakeholders are from rural and low-income groups not having access to English language, the mobile apps can only be effective if they are presented to end users in their vernacular language. Anant Computing Platform facilitates vernacular app development tools with robust vernacular keyboards so that there is no barrier to communicating with people in different linguistic regions.

If your NGO is working in different domains, you can segregate your apps and then put them in a common AppWallet for easy access. The apps developed on Anant platform are designed to be light without consuming lots of memory space and they run on every OS, so that your NGO doesn’t have to worry about the compatibility issues with different kinds of mobile phones, both high end and low end and different operating systems.

High Time for FMCG Brands to Occupy Mobile Screen Space

Indian FMCG sector has reached that stage in its lifecycle where it is poised for an exponential growth and there are clear indicators for this scenario in the market. The income levels of the working class and the rural population has been increasing at a phenomenal rate in the last few years.

There is a market segment out there waiting to be captured for all kinds of consumer goods. As per report of India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), about two third of the revenue from FMCG sector is generated from urban market, whereas only one-third is from the rural population. This is quite in contrast to the urban rural demographic profile according to which the majority of the Indian population is living in rural areas. Of course, there is an issue of the income-driven demand, or rather lack of it in rural areas, but the increasing income level in rural areas is also translating slowly and slowly into brand consciousness among rural masses.

The single biggest reason, however, for the projected upswing of the market in FMCG sector is the digital revolution taking place in India at phenomenal speed. India stands at the threshold of rapid growth in Internet usage and e-commerce activity. According to a study by Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB International, India has already surpassed the US market to become the second largest base of internet users in the world after China. The study also indicates that the online penetration here could reach well over 50 percent by the year 2020.

The growing demand can be encashed by manipulating technology. FMCG sales were traditionally driven through retail outlets with a market driving or push strategy by local vendors. Marketing of the product was usually done on radio, TV or daily newspapers. The Internet boom signaled a paradigm shift from retail stores to websites. Brands improved their visibility by enhancing their web presence.

The digital revolution through mobile phones or smart phones is bringing about yet another revolutionary change, which has not so far been well captured by FMCG market players. It is surprising to note that despite the huge number of mobile phone users in India, the e-commerce market is a very small percentage of the total market size in FMCG segment.

Mobile phones could offer FMCG companies the chance to create greater shopper loyalty because of ease of purchasing experience. However, to achieve any significant success on this front, FMCG brands need to first of all reinvent or rewrite their relationship with shoppers. They have to spend less time thinking about how to influence a single purchase decision and think more about what better ways they could devise to connect with individual shoppers of different demographic profile on an ongoing basis.

Market experts believe that to make you mobile app a hit it is essential to make it relevant and provide a good user experience. Brands while creating an app must focus on how their prospective customers will like to interact with them. By simply replicating their existing web presence and transporting that concept to mobile screens will not serve the purpose. Companies need to invest in having the right kind of features as well as functionalities on their apps to help their brands evolve and grow.

In the coming years, rural population of India will be the main customer base driving the growth of FMCG Sector. App in all Indian languages by Anant Computing Platform is a brilliant concept to interact with customers with the idea to speak with them in a language that is understood by them. AppWallet feature allows companies to push their campaigns through mobile apps downloaded by the customers. With an automatic update feature, the customer has the information about the latest and most updated product launched by businesses right at their fingertips.

Bringing M-Banking services to the fingertips of rural India

Mobile banking services emerged as a tool to facilitate transaction of money for bank customers in developed countries involving domestic and international remittances, mobile payments such as merchant payments or payment of utility bills. However, in recent years, its scope and coverage has widened quite significantly.

Mobile banking today has become very popular in developing world as well to provide better services for existing customers as well as acquire new ones who are living in remote areas and where even the nearest bank could be quite far off. It is because of this reason that this mode is being adopted by various non-conventional sectors in recent times. Microfinance institutions are also realizing that using mobile financial services is much more efficient and convenient, and much less costly than the traditional model when it comes to delivering microfinance services.  

The microfinance institutions in India have played an important role in bringing the low income people into the mainstream of financial services. However, there is still a huge population in India which is yet to be tapped for microfinance services, and one of the possible reasons may be the on the part of microfinance institutions not utilizing the modern technology. 

Microfinance institutions face two key barriers to achieving scale. One is the operational inefficiency and the other is high operational cost. Both these factors are responsible for high interest rates. Most microfinance companies are concerned about ways and means through which infrastructure and operational costs can be reduced, and branchless banking is one such viable solution for them.

Looking at the state of development of mobile technology as well as a greater affordability of mobile devices including smart phone as compared to the situation a few years back, mobile money has great potential to help microfinance institutions transform their business model and achieve economy of scale. This is particularly true in a developing country such as India, where a person from lower economic strata is more likely to have a smart phone than a bank account. And the rate at which mobile subscription is increasing day by day, it is only a matter of time before every company adopts mobile banking as its principal mode of financial inclusion.

M-Banking could mean better reach to poor and rural people more efficient operation which may allow MFI’s lower loan costs and higher repayment rate. Mobile banking that provides banking facilities in an efficient and convenient way can play an important role in facilitating microfinance services to population so far out of the system. Adopting M-Banking platforms by microfinance institutions as an alternative delivery channel can facilitate greater outreach to remote areas, reduce costs and enhance existing customer convenience. It can be used for loan repayment, checking account balance and voluntary savings deposits. M-banking can provide microfinance clients greater flexibility by managing their payment and deposits right at their fingertip.

Mobile phones have not only the potential to develop more cost-effective microfinance business models, but can also provide an opportunity to expand financial inclusion by way of reaching the unbanked. Moreover, the mobile phone can also improve existing services through greater transparency and more convenient access to various services outside the normal banking hours.

Mobile banking has been adopted very successfully in some countries, such as Kenya. However, while mobile banking was a rapid phenomenon in Kenya, its adoption rate was painstakingly slow in even the neighbouring countries of Kenya, such as Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. In India, a few pilot projects focusing on mobile banking services in microfinance were carried out in a few states. But, the key learning from such experiments is that every mobile financial services package has to be tailored not only to the country, but to the region as well, and it is even more important in a country like India having so much of linguistic and cultural diversity resulting in vastly different profile of the clients in different geographical regions.

Before the market is cluttered by the companies getting involved in a cutthroat competition, the right time is now for the microfinance institutions to adopt this as the principal tool of their business. The need of the hour is to align with mobile app development companies, get the right apps for their products and get to their customers before others start doing it. It is important to seek partners who can help them shift their operations seamlessly to the mobile devices through robust mobile apps.

The services offered by Anant Computing can prove to be the game changer for this industry. Anant Computing Platform has been developed by the company that facilitates creation of mobile apps that can work on both feature phones as well as smart phones, and the apps can run smoothly even offline. It is possible to develop rich apps with size less than 1/10th of usual mobile applications, and are designed to run perfectly on low memory phones. The platform also allows personalized on-screen keyboards in various Indian languages and the user gets to choose the language they prefer from the same app.

The Digital Solution to Problems of Micro Finance Institutions

Micro finance is a fragmented but huge industry, close to $70 billion in terms of aggregated loan, serving about 150 million people globally and consisting of not less than 10,000 micro finance institutions. These are indeed impressive figures, but ground realities are much less rosy, and the industry suffers from some fundamental problems.

The industry suffers from certain client related problems such as attracting new clients, retaining existing clients and lack of information about existing and potential clients. Then there are staff related problems such as educational level and skill development of staff.  

However, the more fundamental problems faced by the industry are the system related problems such as high cost, profit performance and interest rate. Any micro finance institution lending out small loans has to keep doing a balancing exercise between the interest rate and loan repayment. To ensure a high rate of loan repayment, companies need to employ lots of field force who can work in the field doing background checks, disbursement of loan, follow-up on the clients and loan collection. But these activities cost money, which increase the interest rate that borrowers have to pay. On the other hand, there is always the pressure to keep the interest rate low because of repayment ability of borrowers who are mostly poor.

Micro finance companies often try putting more emphasis on high repayment rates, which means they recruit field staffs for all types of jobs and seem inclined to open offices in all their areas of operations. But this obviously leads to very high interest rates, and in turn affects the growth potential and profit performance of the industry. 

This is where the digital solutions have the potential to revolutionize the industry. You can cut cost by a huge margin if you take everything online. There are no offices; there are minimum field staffs with all the client information stored in their portable digital devices. And the best and easiest digital device for this kind of activity is the mobile phone well supported by a robust mobile app. 

The solution offered by Anant Computing has the potential to prove a game changer for this industry. ACP or the Anant Computing Platform, the company is building to facilitate creation of mobile apps can work on both feature phones and smart phones and it work on all kinds of OS. The microfinance companies can hugely benefit from this enabling technology and develop their robust microfinance app to help their field staffs carry out their usual activities, keep all the client information for loan disbursement and also for recovery of loan. 

Apps once developed on Anant do not require the user to keep track of upgrades, as the platform facilitates automatic upgrade of the app without any intervention from the user end. In addition, it is possible to develop rich apps with size less than 1/10th of usual mobile applications. The apps can run smoothly even offline, and are designed to run perfectly on low memory phones. The platform also allows personalized on-screen keyboards in various Indian languages and the user gets to choose the language they prefer from the same app. Using these mobile apps, the field executives can tap and serve the market much more efficiently than with their paper-based operations.

Digital technology is transforming various traditional industry sectors in brilliant ways. Today when technology is affecting almost everything making it efficient, micro finance industry cannot remain untouched for long. However, this may not come easy; there will be hiccups, but they will certainly get eliminated eventually, just as it happens in any emerging industry.

Tapping the Power of Vernacular Microfinance Apps

Digital technology has the potential to help microfinance institutes become more effective and efficient. In today’s digital world, carrying a laptop in the field has become a passé, and the in-thing is to carry whatever you need in your mobile. There are mobile apps that can help loan officers of these companies working in the field maintain their data and help them operate efficiently.

Microfinance companies play a huge role in funding needs of low income population, who do not have access to the banking services. By their very definition, these companies target the customers at the micro level.

This connection is not faceless, however, as it is in the banking sector where there is often a pre-decided check list of documents required for processing any loan application. You approach the loan officer, submit the required documents related to your paying abilities and the loan needs. The system feeds your details into a software module that decides whether you are a safe borrower or not, and comes out with a credit score to assess the risk involved in bank extending credit to you. The repayment of the loan is also more or less automated and every month, a fixed amount goes out of your bank account towards repayment of the loan.

In a microfinance institution, this interaction is at a very personal level. The decision to sanction the loan depends on a lot of factors that are often not clearly defined or articulated by the head offices, because ground realities at the rural level among the low income group are vastly different from the scenario of a typical small or middle income borrower from a regular banking institution. The loan officers often have to create an emotional connection with their borrowers before loan reaching maturity, because they get to know about borrowers’ personal life as well as family and they also demonstrate affection in different ways as a part of their strategy to generate pressure or facilitate recovery.

In such a scenario, it is not difficult to see why the loan officer in a microfinance company has to be a local man or woman, speaking the language of the people he or she is interacting with and conversant with the socio-economic milieu of the area of their operation. It is also important from the point of view of cutting cost as most microfinance companies do not have much scope for overhead expenses and they often try to minimize their cost on this account. Hiring someone from local area is definitely much less expensive than cost involved in retaining an English speaking field executive from urban setting.

It is precisely this reason that makes the digital inclusion in microfinance institutes a difficult task also, because these local recruits are generally not very comfortable with English language which is the main language of majority of the apps. A vernacular microfinance app that works in the local language that people of the region speak can be the best bet for someone recruited locally to cater to the needs of the village itself.

Making vernacular apps by Anant Computing has been a highly innovative move with the kind of language support it offers. It can provide support in all Indian languages, even if the operating system does not support them, and the app comes with personalized OnScreen Keyboards in all languages, and the audience gets to choose the language they prefer from the same app. A loan officer working on a mobile app with the local language displayed on the mobile screen has definitely a better chance of getting the confidence of the local population one is trying to connect with to generate business for the company.

Microfinance apps: Getting the last mile connectivity of the market

Microfinance Institutes or MFIs tap entrepreneurial resources at the lowest level of economic stratum and create opportunities for those with limited pocket size. They may have limited penny in their pocket to execute their entrepreneurial ideas, but taken together they constitute a huge market for microfinance companies through microcredit.

They empower unbanked entrepreneurs with adequate funding and enable them to grow their business. In the last decade, the industry has experienced a significant growth and now, it is the right time to leverage mobile technology to use it to improve their operational efficiency as well as better control over the process of selection of potential customers and loan recovery.

It has been estimated that by the end of 2016, 75% of India’s population will have a mobile phone and MFIs must explore ways to use mobile technology effectively. Mobile applications can be very helpful for microfinance institutes mainly because the potential customer base is extremely fragmented geographically and it may not be possible for the field staff to carry their laptops everywhere while approaching their existing or potential customers. The wireless capabilities of mobiles like bluetooth, GPRS/3G can be quite convenient for field officers even in the remotest corners of India. Mobile apps can streamline their operation, reduce the overall cost and can also in turn increase their reach apart from improving the quality of service.

The Microfinance industry in India is still largely paper based as far as the process of customer acquisition, loan collection system and loan disbursements are involved. This system makes the task quite tedious and also increases the overall operational cost. There is also less control over field officers who are responsible for the distribution and collection of the loan. MFIs need to rethink their traditional operating models and reevaluate their future strategy for improving their operational efficiency.

Automating the process of customer enrolment, distribution of loan and collection process, based on cutting edge, full proof and efficient mobile technology, MFI can handle large amount of data quite conveniently. It can also overcome various challenges and limitations that the sector faces in the present paper-based loan disbursement and collection process.

With India’s large base of low income group population and the increasing popularity of smart phones across all levels of socio-economic strata, there are some microfinance companies, which have already started adopting mobile apps for their smooth functioning. However, one of the greatest challenges that MFIs face is in this regard is to have an app that is compatible across all kinds of phones and all OS.

There are a few companies, such as Anant Computing, which are addressing this very issue in the new platform the company is building to facilitate creation of mobile apps, which work on both feature phones and smartphones, work on all kinds of OS, and there is no need to upgrade the app if the operating system is upgraded. In addition, the company has also worked on the technology to make the rich apps with size less than 1/10th of usual mobile applications. With apps running smoothly even offline, and designed to run perfectly on low memory phones, these mobile apps could be the game changer for the microfinance companies in the sense that their field executives can tap and serve the market in a much better way than they used to do with a largely paper-based data system.

Digital Education: Is It Really A Panacea to All Cures?

The number of students attending schools in Indian villages is rising, but another shocking study shows that the majority of the students of class sixth in rural India cannot read even a class second text book and are unable to solve simple mathematical problems.

The statistics is a clear indicator that even though the education sector has witnessed a significant horizontal growth at the national level in the last few years, yet the access to quality education is confined only to urban and semi urban population. There are reasons for this state of affairs. The poor infrastructure, lack of committed teachers, lack of good study materials and textbooks and an extremely high students-teacher ratio are some of the main factors responsible for this state of affairs.

The issue is - how to address this problem! It’s a huge task given that it’s not easy to solve some of the basic challenges confronting this sector. Is there some out-of-the-box solution for this problem! Technology is often seen as the panacea for all the problems and this has been the focus of the policy makers in recent times for addressing development related issues in various sectors including education. The government is putting in a lot of effort to make technology-enabled schools in villages to improve the quality of education, but without a clear vision and direction, this is yet to translate into some positive and concrete results. As a result, huge amount of government fund is going down the drain.

But implementing digital education in villages has its own sets of challenges. Some of the main deterrents are poor Internet connectivity and limited exposure of technology to rural teachers given their low to average level of exposure. Language is also supposed to be a big barrier as teachers as well as students are not comfortable with English language which is the main language in the digital world.

There is probably a big opportunity waiting to be uncovered through some path-breaking innovative technology to address these basic, yet fundamental problems facing the rural spectrum. Can digital technology firms, companies involved in developing digital learning apps, mobile apps rise to the occasion to meet the challenge? Only time has the answer whether digital technology can help bridge the gap between urban and rural education, which is more of a haves and a have-nots divide.