BCTA MEMBERSHIP STATUS
Active

SECTOR
Consumer Goods

HEADQUARTERS
India

REGION OF INITIATIVE
Asia & Pacific

SDG CONTRIBUTION

The Impact Goal

Frontier Markets Consulting Pvt Ltd. (FM) envisions that India’s rural households will have the infrastructure, opportunities, digital platforms, and access to products and services that pave way to a safe, happy, and healthy life. They joined BCtA in 2021, determined to accomplish three targets by 2024—first, to help increase productivity and revenue of 4.3 million low-income individuals, 75% of whom are women; second, to increase market accessibility for 50 low-income producers and suppliers of its value chain; and last, to make Frontier Markets’ products and services reach 10 million low-income individuals, 90% of whom are women. Ultimately, Frontier Markets aims to help 150 million rural consumers join the online market experience and build a powerful salesforce of 1 million digital-savvy women.

The Market Gap

Rural India is at the helm of being left behind in terms of progress, with many villages lacking regular electric supply. Reasons such as the absence of local infrastructures and the distance between the villages and service companies have led to this so-called rural energy gap. With little access to electricity, many rural families have not acquired agricultural tools, quality appliances or even smartphones that could have improved their quality of life. Currently, there is a need to introduce modern and practical products to rural households that could make the quality of life more convenient.

On the other hand, it has been found that rural women in India are not earning sustainable incomes. Less than 24% of rural women are engaged in formal livelihood activities, a figure that continues to decline as women are either leaving the workforce or compelled not to enter at all. As a result, rural women lack independent economic power to drive investment decisions in their homes. Reasons such as being married before age 18 and having household responsibilities early, lack of training in market-based skills and exposure to job opportunities, and lack of access to financial services hinder the women to be out of the labour force, making it difficult for them to build financial security.

FM tries to bridge these gaps by introducing a tech-based solution that potentially brings energy-access products to rural areas while at the same time, providing rural women a more stable source of income.

The Business Solution

Frontier Markets is focused on channel development, access to rural customers, and selling products or services. While the company itself is neither a product nor a finance company, it classifies itself as a marketing and sales company focused on a distribution platform. Frontier Markets builds a supply chain that integrates local community members and prioritizes the inclusion of women in the workforce by means of local skilling and partnerships, which have allowed the company to touch the deepest point of contact—the household level.

Frontier Markets has combined two critical elements that may drive rural market influence — technology and women. It transforms local women to become village-level entrepreneurs (called Sahelis) and equip them with a mobile application, called the Frontier Markets Saheli (FMS) app, to assist rural customers in gaining online shopping experience. FMS acts as a digital shop in a rural village.

Local women entrepreneurs aggregate the demand using FMS app, and from there, access products and services that they sell to their neighbours. Women prove to bear the best leverage in reaching the market base, as they have already formed a deep and long-term connection with their neighbours, and they can provide the digital shop with a trusted face.  

The demand from these groups of Saheli is consolidated and serviced using an efficient supply chain workflow that has been mastered throughout Frontier Markets’ years of operation.

About Frontier Markets: Frontier Markets Consulting Pvt Ltd. (FM) has been operating since 2011, building a deep understanding of rural households – economic, cultural understanding of their challenges, needs, aspirations, purchase patterns, cash flow, and more – to connect them to goods and services that help alleviate their challenges through a social commerce platform, a phygital supply chain, and an investment in labour opportunities for potential rural women entrepreneurs.