This is similar to a story which I learned from a marketing guru at Philips Pakistan and one of the most respectable teachers at my Alma meter Institute of Business Administration.
THE JOURNEY FROM HILL-TOP WATER SOLUTIONS TO HILL-TOP HOUSING SOCIETIES (STORY OF YOUNG BUSINESS GRADUATE, TAHA, USING HIS SALES, MARKETING AND ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS).
MISSION: TO FACILITATE THE LIFE OF PEOPLE LIVING IN THE MOUNTAINOUS AREAS
VISION: INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT IN A MOUNTAINOUS AREA
Water is a necessary aspect of our life; every human being on the globe requires it to survive. They require water just as much as oxygen to breathe. According to estimates, the average human being consumes 3.2 liters of water every day.
The first thing that comes to mind when a person considers settling down in a new house pertains to the basic essentials of living. Either the area where he is considering a living provides reliable water, power, gas, and oxygen, or it does not. Then he makes a decision.
This is a case study based upon entrepreneurial thinking of a young business graduate who wanted to put his newly learnt knowledge of sales, marketing and entrepreneurial skills to ameliorate the lot of the society. It is story about a place where there was no or very little access to water and the people who lived there barely managed to survive.
This was a place in the highlands where families lived for many years, but two of them eventually departed because of the severe shortage of water. They hardly had water for anything other than cooking. Because of it being a mountainous terrain, there was no adequate infrastructure for individuals to collect and store water sufficiently. After some time, it was noticed that the remaining ten households were also considering to leave the mountainous abodes also due to water storages.
But there was a young and fresh business graduate who had different ideas. He thought out-of-box and started thinking of fulfilling the genuine need of the residents by starting his own water supply services. He wanted to be a successful entrepreneur using his newly acquired selling, marketing skills to the benefit of the society. Community services was the main motivation behind his endeavors.
One day while on a hiking trip to the mountains he noticed a couple of families packing up their belongings and intending to leave the place for good. His name was Taha, and he decided to investigate the problem by asking the locals what their main concern was. All of those families had one major issue that they wanted to be addressed: they were unable to have sufficient access to water because they lacked the necessary equipment and arrangement to bring water from the rivers and lakes flowing abundantly at the foot of the hill. They travelled all the way down to fetch a pail or two of water a couple of times every day just for cooking and toilet purposes and didn’t have enough water for other necessities e.g. bathing, washing clothes, gardening etc.
Because he had just completed his business graduation and was particularly interested in community services through entrepreneurial thinking, he immediately thought of an idea to supply water to the residents at the mountaintop through jerrycans using horses which he could easily hire for rent from a farmer living nearby.
People in the area were ecstatic after they started receiving water sufficiently and inexpensively. They were relieved that they would finally be able to have enough water for bathing, laundry service also.
Soon their requirement for water increased further as they wanted to have water for growing their own vegetables, fruits in their backyards etc. Young entrepreneur replaced horses with rent-a-van services. The population of the area started to grow. As there was no road network, the vans took some time to drive up and down between the mountaintop and rivers gushing at the ground level. The young business leader, through his efforts and connections with local municipality, laid a katcha road from mountaintop to the its feet to facilitate movement of his service vans for water supplies. Increase of availability of water led to more people opting living at the mountain top as it was very peaceful, airy and afforded healthy living found nowhere else. As number of families grew very rapidly due to clean, healthy atmosphere, the young business guru stumbled upon an idea of replacing van service with water supply pipelines. He developed a business plan and due to viability of his project in terms of low payback period, high Internal Rates of Return etc. he was able to secure loans at very low, subsidized rates from the local government. As a result, he built water reservoirs at various levels on the mountain and equipped them with water pumps and network of pipelines. He built water tanks at each household also at very small, affordable price. Now the residents had the facility of tap water on a 24 by seven basis.
Number of families started to increase dramatically. As the number grew, new needs were identified. Taha realized unless the need of cheap electrical power is fulfilled and electrical connections are not provided to the residents, it will soon become a point of dissatisfaction for the residents. As a result, he formed a Joint Venture with a power generation company which installed its power plants, built substations and started providing electricity to the households. Prosperity and convenience of the residents increased remarkably. More and more families started to move to the mountaintop and started to live there.
Soon the resident started to become desperate as they had to travel up and down the hill to fetch groceries for day-to-day living. Taha stumbled upon another idea. He discussed his plans with a top-of-the-line grocery chain. By means of his viable business plans and commercial acumen, he was successful in convincing the grocery chain to open its outlets at the mountaintop. This virtually revolutionized the life of the inhabitants.
It is in the blood of the people to start looking for more and more facilities. Taha soon realized that number of families on mountaintop has plateaued and no more families are arriving here. He started to use his marketing knowledge acquired at the Business School and started placing billboards, hoardings etc. along the route to the mountains in the surrounding area within a diameter of few miles. He also started distributing hand bills; placing small advertisements in the local newspaper announcing the hilltop society and its facilities. Taha also knew a little bit about digital marketing and he started to use this platform also so that more families could be attracted. This paid dividends and many new families decided to move to the mountaintop to enjoy the clean, comfortable and natural atmosphere there.
Now the number of families at mountaintop had increased considerably. By mixing and mingling up with the inhabitants (his networking activities) Taha uncovered some more latent need of the inhabitants. They wanted their kids to have schools close by; they also wanted to have small dispensaries, medical stores, bakeries, meat shops, shopping centers, clothing stores etc in the close vicinity.
Taha’s water business (renamed as Hilltop H2O solutions) had become extremely profitable. So, he started to develop new product development strategy and decided to diversify into new business avenues.
He opened up his own schools, set up his own dispensaries, bakeries in conjunction with their respective experts, selling business plans to the financial institutions along the way for necessary funds.
Thus, what once was a deserted mountaintop with few dissatisfied families which were also seriously thinking to abandon the place; became a sprawling mountaintop society with hundred percent satisfied customers. This was made possible by selling, marketing, business and entrepreneurial skills of one boy namely Taha.
At the time of completing this writeup, it has been learnt that Taha has been contacted by government agencies to go for geographical diversification by repeating and developing the same model on other hilly tracts also. Taha is now very seriously thinking about new market development strategies.
Finally, we learn how to capture the market place by keeping three crucial points in mind: research the problem, understanding customers’ needs, and providing solutions to the problem
• RESEARCH THE PROBLEM
Research the problem basically means to research for the problem customers are facing and capturing that problematic solution.
Just like in the above mention case study, we learned that people living in mountains were facing water problems and were unable to fetch it due to lack of adequate equipment. Taha researched this problem by conducting surveys and asking questions from the families that were living in mountains
• IDENTIFYING THE NEEDS
Identifying the needs is defined as to pinpoint the needs of your customers and planning solutions accordingly. In the case study, Taha identified the needs of people that they need water for survival and with that one pinpoint, he constructed a city in the mountains by providing necessary facilities.
• PROVIDING SOLUTIONS
It’s all about expressing how a customer’s pain is eased in solution marketing. Similarly, in the case study Taha provided solutions to the people of mountains like developing products in terms of proper facilities starting with water equipment.