Question 1: In a partnership between a mobile network operator and agricultural partners...

Thanks to GSMA for starting off this very important discussion thread on e-Agriculture Forum. We expect many insights from the participants in coming days. Here are a few thoughts of mine as I think about today’s discussion question.

I think the key success factor for any service, that mobile network operator may be interested to launch, would be the scale, because that’s the only thing directly linked to their profit and will determine whether they would invest that service or not.

However, unlike entertainment VAS, Mobile Network Operators cannot sell agriculture service through promotion alone, since the customer would expect continuous value derivation in terms of better crop yield and higher economic profit from the advices, and currently the customers (farmer) are not very sure about how these things will be delivered through mobile operators. Hence they are sceptic and uptakes of agro-services are low.

Hence, any agriculture partner, should bring in clear distinct experience and expertise in these areas in terms of understanding of farmers need, ability to solve their problems and ultimately to help them with inputs and services to implement the solutions. 

This as a whole determines the serviceability of the agriculture partners and if that match the scale, the mobile network operators are looking at, would be a winning partnership to evolve into a successful business model and long term profitability.

I will begin by arguing that we need to define what we mean by “Agricultural Partners”? Are we talking of any group or organization involve in agricultural development services such as NGOs with agricultural service provision; community-based organizations involved in agriculture; farmer-based organizations; national agricultural units such as extension services? This is because the goal of this type of investment should go beyond "Service Delivery".

With that, I will take a different perspective on the question! The main goal for this type of partnership, I think, is to develop new and relevant communication models/approaches to ensure timely exchange of knowledge between knowledge generators and users. So we need to know whether the "telcos" and "agricultural partners" that we are talking about have the necessary expertise and capabilities to achieve that.

The role of the telcos can easily be predicted (as some other discussants have started outlining) but when it comes to the 'agricultural partners', we need to understand the complexity within agricultural innovation systems, especially within the context of smallholder farmers.

Any good partnership aimed at improving knowledge sharing between local farmers and the other stakeholders through ICTs/mobile technologies should encompass all four functions of "Knowledge Brokering Role (KBR)" that I have been working on for sometime now – demand articulation function; network formation function, process management function, and supply activation function. This model is purely socio-technical.

I can explain these further for those interested in the KBR construct.

Great contributions to this discussion. Thanks for your valuable input on Day 1 of this event.

I would like to add onto bkaddom's comments and ask: how do we define success when evaluating mAgri business models that involve partnerships between telcos and "agriculture partners"? TechnoServe has done some analysis in this space and found that there are very few models to date that are profitable. In part, this is due to the fact that many initiatives are still in early phases of development. However, other initiatives are based on business models that seem not to be designed for profitability.

If models are fully or mainly subsidized, can we call that a success? We would argue that if there is not a clear strategy for full cost recovery beyond donor funds, this is not a sustainable model.

I would very much like to hear the thoughts of the group on this question.

Thanks, Hilary.  I agree with your points.  I have a few comments on this thread so far.

First, given governments have a tradition in many countries of providing AG information to farmers as a public good, I'd extend Hilary's definition of success by leaving open the option of an on-going subsidy from a government source.  In fact, a government could consider outsourcing its provision of valuable AG information to a third-party service.  Of course the government's subsidy would have to be reliable and not dependent on donor funds itself.

Two other thoughts:  how would a model work that included two or more MNO's as the service delivery partners?  In most cases where success seems most likely, one MNO is involved and that of course increases the odds that the MNO's focus and market reach will be sufficient to reach scale and sustainability.  But many countries have a mix of MNO's with no dominant player.  In these cases, how can we hope to reach sustainability and scale by, of possible, tapping more than one MNO?

Third thought regarding the value of the AG partners.  They are most likely in the best position to make sure that the mobile "channel" is used well to augment other info delivery channels including traditional ones like face-to-face training, demonstration plots and radio, or newer ones such as stand-alone video.  The mobile channel is great for delivering certain types of information, but not all.  It can be used well to complement these other channels.  For example, farmers might learn via face-to-face training how to graft a tree (something that is hard to teach via text messages), but wel timed reminders sent by text message could increase the probability that a farmer new to grafting does it correctly.

Judy

Dear all,

i would like to comment on the multiple MNOs thought. I'm convinced that it is a key aspect in a scalable approach as mentioned in one post, but it is also the best way to design solutions that could be then ported to different countries, or used by other organizations.

So all the question is to know how to make such a case possible. It is clear that if the origin of the project is a partnership between one mno and one or more agri partners, then it is almost impossible to open the market later. Surely from a contract perspective, but also because the service would have been designed to fit with the specificities of the VAS platform of the mno.

Therefore, there are, imho, different requirements to enable the integration of multiple MNOs.

1- first of all, a partnership is necessary between Agri partner and a technology partner. An organization that has expertise in mobile technologies and can develop the technical service

2- then the service itself should be easily implementable accross mnos: -use open standards -use non-proprietary technology (e.g. this is ruling out USSD) SMS works perfectly, Voice technologies, mobile web technologies, on-device apps are all possible.

The second part of the question is when the partnership with one or more MNOs is required. I believe that all the investigation and proof of concept does not need any mno. For any kind of services and technologies, a small pilot does not require mno infrastructure. The only real and essential need for a MNO is really on the scale-up and as mentioned in a couple of posts on the financial aspects (collecting money, etc.). But then, the negotiation can be, and perhaps should be only on the infrastructure provision and amout of traffic generated. MNOs value traffic, and are happy to share revenues with provider of traffic.

There are imho many advantages with such an approach where an MNO arrives late in the pipe and is not the owner of the service. First of all, the ownership of the service is on the agri partners who has more flexibility to improve the service and increase its usefulness (even create a full portfolio of services as the need appears)

Second, for the community at large, it increase replicability and more global uptake around the World. I personnally feel that one of the problems of the domain is the competition, due largely to the commercial aspect.

I think it is essential to integrate ideas and not oppose them, and in the best World having one platform that improves over time. This is not an utopia, but a very common model in ICT. few examples: linux for operating system, apache for web server, mysql for db management, etc etc.

Particularly in this domain, services for social and economic development, it would be imho essential to go in that direction.

The last point i want to react on is related to two points that have been enlighted as strenghts of MNOs:

*marketing

*trust of quality of content

I respectfully disagree on these. In my own experience in at least 4 countris in west africa, east africa and india, I haven't seen any farmers willing to integrate an agri advice from an untrusted unknown unseen source. It is just impossible imho to believe that one can spread such a service to farmers directly without relying on an ngo which has already links in the field. The trust is coming from this human links which is required. It might be different on other services, e.g. finance services, but my experience with farmers let me think a bit differently on this.

stephane

Stephanie makes some interesting points about a multi-MNO approach.  I'd like to hear others' perspective on this.  I hear usually that, in order to really scale, one needs a single MNO approach so you can get the full force of that MNO's marketing engine.  I don't know of any multi-MNO approach that has worked.  Does anyone know?  

We may see something like this with the USAID/GSMA/Gates mFarmer Initiative where the shared content database is used by several MNO's and each MNO then adds its market differentiation by localizing information or improving its delivery.  Is that possible?  Could a MNO-neutral platform provide access to the shared database and perhaps payment services? 

Judy

I anticipate problems with multiple MNOs in this type of partnership. With good telecommunication policy issues such as interoperability in place, good partnership can take place between one MNO, agriculture partner (s) and/or sometime a third party software developer.

For example - a mobile application designed by a single MNO for mango farmers who subscribe to multiple MNOs in a given country should be possible. M-Kilimo in Kenya uses that and the farmers who are subscribers to different MNOs are charged accordingly.

Ben

There are lots of initiatives in different sectors that is following the multi-mno approach. It is not presented as a multi-mno approach but just the branding is the service itself, and it is independent of the MNO.

Almost all multi-country projects are multi-mno.

Some examples: txteagle  or mpedigree.

Other successfull examples that are not backed-up by a mno: agriculture lifeline india. Somehow, the case of grameen knowledge worker in uganda is on the edge. It is a partnership with an mno, but it is not branded as such, and it is perfectly portable to other mno imho.

There is imho no question on the need for an mno, particularly for the infrastructure and the payment aspect. I'm not convinced at all that the branding and marketing is required. People are interested in useful services and the provider of service (the brand) might be more the service itself than the mno behind.

In that regards there is no particular need for differentiation, as the deal would be more based on business contract than really co-branding.

All MNOs, in the generic domain of VAS, have  a two options offer, which is integrating the service in their portfolio as the mno service, or just providing infrastructure and revenue sharing as a business contract. this is the case in all countries of the world.

My point in this thread is pushing for the later case. I do think that the ownership of the service, and its evolution is a key approach, and it is likely handled more efifciently, and with a greater flexibility by an organization outside the MNO. In the traditionnal internet business chain, i think that the role of mnos is something close to ISP+Paypal but nothing else

Stephane (a french male ! so no i)

Stephane, consider uploading a photo to your e-Agriculture profile. That would avoid any confusion! :-)

Thank you for all your comments.