157
6.3.5 Evaluate and Follow-Up
The final stage of the process is to evaluate the pilot and to prepare the business
champion for follow-up, which often consists of a strategy to either scale active
marketing and distribution support by 2SCALE or exit the program and continue
independently. This stage often starts with a meeting, during which the business
champion reflects on the pilot, develops lessons learned, and shares ambitions
toward the future. Based on that, together a follow-up strategy is developed. Looking
back at the portfolio of pilots, there are four different outcomes of this stage:
• Optimization: The first outcome is when the business champion requests to continue to work together with 2SCALE to optimize the BoP marketing approach.
This, for example, happened in the soybean partnership in Ethiopia with business
champion GUTS Agro. During the evaluation, they realized that after successful
product development and marketing, the next challenge was to safeguard the
affordability of the product – a challenge that occurred mostly in their distribution model. Based on this workshop, GUTS Agro and 2SCALE designed a second phase of the pilot focusing on last-mile distribution.
• Replication: The second outcome is when the business champion sees potential
to replicate the pilot activities in another geographical location but is not yet
ready to do this alone. For example, with Shalem Investments in the sorghum
partnership in Kenya, it was decided to replicate the pilot, which mostly focused
on product launch and market activation. The pilot was originally implemented
in Meru and was to be replicated in Thika.
• Financing: The third outcome is when the business champion sees opportunities
for scale but is lacking the capital to finance growth of the model. In this scenario, 2SCALE supports the business champion in their business plan development and making relevant connections with the finance sector. For example,
during our pineapple partnership with business champion Promo Fruits in Benin,
2SCALE supported Promo Fruits in developing a business plan to attract investments to scale its newly established micro-distribution model.
• Exiting: The fourth outcome is when the business champion feels sufficiently
capacitated to continue independently. Eventually, all business champions will
“exit” the program one way or another. However, that does not mean that all ties
are broken. On the contrary, the business champion remains part of the 2SCALE
network and often functions as a role model or mentor for other business
champions.
6.4 Key Tools, Approaches, and Implementation Strategies
In this section, we present the tools and approaches that we use in the steps mentioned under Sect. 6.2 to develop implementation strategies for the pilots.
Subsequently, we present the four generalized implementation strategies that we
have seen materialize in the different pilots implemented over the past years.
6 Innovating at Marketing and Distributing Nutritious Foods at the Base…
6.3.5 Evaluate and Follow-Up
The final stage of the process is to evaluate the pilot and to prepare the business
champion for follow-up, which often consists of a strategy to either scale active
marketing and distribution support by 2SCALE or exit the program and continue
independently. This stage often starts with a meeting, during which the business
champion reflects on the pilot, develops lessons learned, and shares ambitions
toward the future. Based on that, together a follow-up strategy is developed. Looking
back at the portfolio of pilots, there are four different outcomes of this stage:
• Optimization: The first outcome is when the business champion requests to continue to work together with 2SCALE to optimize the BoP marketing approach.
This, for example, happened in the soybean partnership in Ethiopia with business
champion GUTS Agro. During the evaluation, they realized that after successful
product development and marketing, the next challenge was to safeguard the
affordability of the product – a challenge that occurred mostly in their distribution model. Based on this workshop, GUTS Agro and 2SCALE designed a second phase of the pilot focusing on last-mile distribution.
• Replication: The second outcome is when the business champion sees potential
to replicate the pilot activities in another geographical location but is not yet
ready to do this alone. For example, with Shalem Investments in the sorghum
partnership in Kenya, it was decided to replicate the pilot, which mostly focused
on product launch and market activation. The pilot was originally implemented
in Meru and was to be replicated in Thika.
• Financing: The third outcome is when the business champion sees opportunities
for scale but is lacking the capital to finance growth of the model. In this scenario, 2SCALE supports the business champion in their business plan development and making relevant connections with the finance sector. For example,
during our pineapple partnership with business champion Promo Fruits in Benin,
2SCALE supported Promo Fruits in developing a business plan to attract investments to scale its newly established micro-distribution model.
• Exiting: The fourth outcome is when the business champion feels sufficiently
capacitated to continue independently. Eventually, all business champions will
“exit” the program one way or another. However, that does not mean that all ties
are broken. On the contrary, the business champion remains part of the 2SCALE
network and often functions as a role model or mentor for other business
champions.
6.4 Key Tools, Approaches, and Implementation Strategies
In this section, we present the tools and approaches that we use in the steps mentioned under Sect. 6.2 to develop implementation strategies for the pilots.
Subsequently, we present the four generalized implementation strategies that we
have seen materialize in the different pilots implemented over the past years.
6 Innovating at Marketing and Distributing Nutritious Foods at the Base…