Vodafone, Movirtu Discuss B2B Partnerships

February 16, 2012 - Companies today are seeking out corporate partners to improve access to products and services at the base of the pyramid to promote value chain efficiencies, and to improve the enabling environment for inclusive business.

On February 2, the Business Call to Action, Business Action for Africa, and Business Fights Poverty brought together Anastasia Thatcher, Senior Manager with Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP); Axel Nemetz, Head of mHealth Solutions at Vodafone; and Jean-Philippe Labat, Vice President Global Sales at Movirtu for a webinar discussion about the value of business-to-business (B2B) partnerships in doing business with the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). Watch the presentation.

Anastasia Thatcher opened the webinar by providing an overview of the trends occurring in the inclusive B2B partnership space. In today's interconnected marketplace, the traditional roles of the public and private sector are converging in what ADP calls the '“convergence economy'”. In developing markets, this convergence economy is creating an ecosystem in which non-traditional partners are joining together to create new business opportunities at the BoP.

"There is growing recognition that in order to access the business opportunities in the next frontier of development, often in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, businesses need to work together to address complex and interconnected development challenges,"” said Ms. Thatcher. ”More and more we are seeing strong alliances and coalitions, companies coming together across and within industries in order to really access these opportunities.

According to Ms. Thatcher, B2B partnerships that leverage complementary capabilities, knowledge and partner networks to catalyze investment and act as a multiplier to increase scale and reach; thereby reducing the amount of start-up capital required. Watch Ms. Thatcher's presentation. Access PowerPoint.

Axel Nemetz agreed that B2B partnerships are helping Vodafone to reach its goals at the BoP. Vodafone is partnering with Pfizer on the flagship 'SMS for Health' initiative in the Gambia to promote more efficient pharmaceutical value chains. While Pfizer originally approached Vodafone as a potential partner for this particular program in the Gambia, Vodafone had experience implementing a similar program in Tanzania.

Based on its experience in Tanzania, Vodafone was able to develop an appropriate and effective mobile solution which was considered valuable by all parties involved in the partnership, including Pfizer and the Gambian government. Critical to the success of this initiative, says Vodafone, was first and foremost, the government'’s involvement which helped ensure that the program was sufficiently targeted to address Gambia's specific health care challenges.

A second key success factor was attention paid to developing the right initiative, which is a product that represents a win-win situation for everyone involved. According to Mr. Nemetz, this was easier said than done considering competing concerns and the very real challenge the joint Pfizer/Vodafone initiative faced when trying to incentivize health care workers to participate in this program due to existing attitudes and the nature of health infrastructure.

However, the partners’ perseverance paid off. Today, Vodafone is now looking to expand this platform across more countries and to provide additional services such as drug authentication. Watch Mr. Nemetz's presentation. Access the PowerPoint.

Just like with the 'SMS for Health'” initiative, partnerships between companies help to bring unique assets to bear on new initiatives. Whether it is with large companies or small companies, these partnerships are helping to create commercially sustainable business solutions for low-income communities at the BoP.

For smaller companies, such as UK-based tech firm Movirtu, B2B partnerships are critical to business success. Jean-Philippe Labat highlighted how firms such as Movirtu can achieve scale more efficiently by working with larger firms that offer complementary services. Movirtu'’s cloud phone application allows people living on less than $2 per day who typically don't have access to a mobile phone to make phone calls, receive voicemails and send text messages from a unique telephone number.

To guarantee access to the base of the pyramid, we work with operators and NGOs,” said Mr. Labat. The operators distribute and make the technology available, while the NGOs play a key role in providing the understanding of how communities work.

"I do not think that in today's world you can achieve something on your own, and you need to have larger audiences and partners to do that…. Achieving something that will be beneficial to users and providers is a very essential part of these partnership ideas."” Watch Mr. Labat's presentation. Access the PowerPoint.

Susan Chaffin closed the webinar session by noting that while B2B partnership models are a work in progress; many benefits are to be gained by learning from experience and making adjustments to ensure stakeholder alignment for the purpose of meeting consumer needs at the BoP.