UNCDF is assisting six innovative digital solution providers in West Africa to support the resilience of MSMEs affected by the COVID-19 crisis. In our last blog and through two webinars in December, we shared insights about how the six solutions selected support the resilience of MSMEs in the region.

In this new blog, we share the achievements of our partners Club Tiossane and JALÔ, two enthusiastic digital solution providers based in Senegal. Both partners received the technical assistance from Amarante Consulting to better understand their market and tailor their products to the needs of MSMEs.

“The goal of Club Tiossane is to support and help producers to grow and live better”, stated the Head of Marketing at Club Tiossane. To achieve this goal, Club Tiossane has focused on its relationship with producers and the recruitment and sourcing of producers. Club Tiossane first worked with Amarante on analyzing its internal processes. The diagnosis identified improvements to be made in the formalisation of establishing a business relationship. This also applies to the purchasing, payment and supply tracking processes.

Club Tiossane and Amarante co-created a new set of measures formalising the relationship with the producers. The first measure concerned the purchasing process that now must encompass everything from the initiation of the order by the logistics department to the registration of the supporting documents by the accounting and marketing departments. The second measure systematized the issuance of a purchase order signed by the producer for better protection. The third measure formalizes the reporting from sales representatives as they return from the field to better track expenses, the list of suppliers, inventory, price history and so on. Another achievement of the technical assistance was the setting up of cleaned and consistent databases of more than 200 producers, and order registrations . A team training was conducted to support change management.

For the other partner JALÔ, a web and mobile platform integrating instant payment and logistics monitoring services, the focus was on end-users registration and their activation on JALÔ marketplace. The user experience was improved by allowing registration on the website with the phone number as an identifier while registering an email address became optional. Another change brought by the technical assistance was the creation of a centralized database system of prospective customers as well as customers who had contacted the organization through different channels.

On top of these changes, the technical assistance supported the JALÔ team, with the deployment of marketing actions to boost registrations and customer activation. A marketing and sales plan was launched at the end of 2020. The plan included promotional campaigns, contests, incentives for registration and ordering, flash sales. Incentives were provided to shopkeepers to promote registration on the marketplace toward their clientele. On-ground task force was set up to collect and document the feedback of shopkeepers and their customers present in the store through a mini questionnaire of five questions administered via a tablet. The results of these questionnaires and the use of the sales force of more than 150 JALÔ freelance salespeople, helped to build the customer transformation plan that was put in place at the end of the technical assistance.

These achievements underpin JALÔ CEO’s tagline, “We can promote your (the shopkeeper’s) products on our platform and take care of the final delivery. They will become more visible and accessible and they will reach a clientele that might not have come to your store - this is our value proposition!”

Moreover, a very remarkable result was the number of prospective clients who registered on the platform. Within a period of two weeks the platform went from 123 to 928 registered customers.

Club Tiossane and JALÔ are two of the six partners selected as part of the project for the resilience of MSMEs, below we share more insights on the other partners.

Baobab+ equips small retailers with a visual and simplified digital checkout solution that optimizes business performance by keeping a track record of the sales, manage stock and monitor margins. This turnkey digital solution also enables retailers to place their product catalogue online in just a few clicks on an e-commerce platform. Through this technical assistance, Baobab+ was enabled to identify the different levers to be activated in order to improve the sustainability of its business model. The technical assistance received by Baobab+ focused on the adequacy between the offered services and the needs of the MSME as well as the pricing scheme. In depth analysis of sales data as well as qualitative survey have been conducted and helped Baobab+ redefine the services they offer.

In Benin, Open SI received technical assistance for its digital payment solutions KkiaPay, POS merchant payment and KkiaPay Direct for online payment. The objective of Open SI was the recruitment of merchants and their activation for KkiaPay’s services. Strengthening the network of merchants and the overall ecosystem to increase the likelihood of the adoption of the services by customers was the primary focus of the technical assistance. Thus, a field sales force was deployed to create awareness, enroll and train merchants. The marketing campaign was carried out in areas of high merchant concentration in order to face competitors and tenors with much greater capacities and therefore a head start. Electronic collection and validation of merchant identification documents was also tested to increase merchants’ trust in the service. Thanks to these actions and only over a period of two months, Open SI has surpassed its initial objectives by almost 20 percent. By the end of 2020, about 300 merchants have been recruited and activated!

Microensure is an insurance intermediary dedicated to serving the poor throughout the developing world with an affordable and appropriate range of insurance products. In Ghana, MicroEnsure offers 7-in-1 digital insurance that covers the risks related to the life insurance of the MSME owner, accidental disability for MSME owners, the MSME owner's hospitalization, maternity, daily call service to a doctor (telehealth advice), weekly health advice and income protection in case of flood, fire or loss of property. In order to improve customer segmentation, guidance was provided to Microensure on existing delivery partnerships and future expansions for Ghana MSME targets. A gap analysis was done on business processes and data infrastructure around MSME segmenting. A marketing strategy was designed to educate consumer on digital microinsurance products which included direct-marketing strategy and advertising approaches. A review was done for digital marketing channels and recommendations were provided to enhance customer experience.

Digistore is an initiative of iPay Ghana in partnership with Ecobank Ghana that provides MSMEs with a simple point-of-sale solution to sell cashless (online, mobile and in-store) and deliver their goods to customers without contact. Digistore offers online payment, inventory management and a web shop. For iPay, a gap analysis was conducted and recommendations were made regarding the structure of the database to better know and understand customers and their consumption habits. The support also consisted in improving the communication and marketing strategy. To this end, a complete and detailed marketing plan was elaborated. The technical assistance helped to create a sales team development strategy and to help iPay better develop its key partnerships, distribution networks and acquire new users.

The above cases stand as evidence on what the project has achieved within a matter of two months. In the current situation where the world is still battling the COVID-19 crisis, these innovations can go a long way to help MSMEs to bounce back, stay grounded amidst the pandemic, because they are the backbone of our economies. Sabine Mensah, UNCDF regional manager for West and Central Africa noted that “these innovative digital solutions for MSME are part of UNCDF Recovery 2 Resilience (R2R) initiative in line with our ambitions to leave no MSME behind in the digital era.”