Exploring a new distribution and sales model for safe water

PATH and Medentech (www.medentech.com) are pleased to announce the launch of a pilot project in Uttar Pradesh, India, to evaluate the potential of a new distribution and sales channel for Medentech’s inexpensive water-purification tablet product, Aquatabs (www.aquatabs.com).

This is the first of a number of pilot projects that PATH and partners will be launching in India to find ways of overcoming distribution and marketing barriers that make it difficult for manufacturers of household water treatment and safe storage products to penetrate lower-income markets. More information about the barriers and strategies to overcome them can be found in our literature review of commercial approaches to providing safe water.

In this pilot project, a leading, emerging markets consulting firm, MART (www.martrural.com), has recruited and trained a team of bicycle entrepreneurs who will serve as a mobile sales and marketing force, working in Uttar Pradesh with a total population of about 410,000. Medentech is interested in seeing how much market penetration it can achieve in 12 months. Their success will be measured against a baseline survey of safe water knowledge and practices that was completed prior to the launch.

“We like this micro-distribution model because it has the potential to address three major challenges at once. It reaches customers directly into geographies where traditional distribution models shall be too expensive to reach, provides employment and training to local entrepreneurs, and it offers reliable and personal support for the product,” says Sidhartha Vermani, team leader, Safe Water Project (India).

If this model shows promise, it could be scaled up within India and possibly in other countries with similar distribution challenges and low labor costs. “We hope to learn what kinds of messages and distribution models might help us succeed. Then again, if we get the reverse information, we’ll learn that we need to concentrate on a separate route,” says Michael Gately, product manager for Aquatabs.

Though the distribution model was designed around one particular fast-moving consumer goods water treatment product, Aquatabs, it has been applied to other consumer goods in the past. MART has implemented similar bicycle-sales distribution models with companies such as Colgate-Palmolive, H.J. Heinz, and Eveready Battery Company, Inc. PATH is also working with several companies to design pilots and test the feasibility of the approach with larger products, like pumps and filters that also need to penetrate low-income markets. “Ultimately, we’d like to contribute knowledge that will help companies develop a sustainable and profitable market among consumers living at the bottom of the economic pyramid who do not have access to safe water,” explains Glenn Austin, project director for PATH’s Safe Water Project. “These are the people whose children are dying from preventable waterborne diseases like diarrhea. These are the people we are trying to help the commercial market serve.”

About the Safe Water Project

PATH's Safe Water Project was launched in December 2006 to assess gaps in the household water treatment and safe storage market and to determine how well private-sector companies can successfully and sustainably reach lower-income consumers with effective household water treatment and safe storage products.

Additionally, PATH is working to help the millions of children who are at risk of dying from diarrheal disease caused by unsanitary conditions and unsafe water. Read more about our work to control diarrheal disease.

About Medentech

Medentech is a tablet disinfection specialist company that exports to more than 60 countries and has been in operation for more than 25 years. Under the brand Aquatabs, Medentech is the world's leading supplier, technical authority, and production quality standard setter of water purification tablets. In 2008, more than 1 billion Aquatabs were used internationally for household water treatment and in emergencies. For more information, please visit Medentech's website and the Aquatabs website.

About MART

MART is a leading, emerging market consultancy firm, working in India and neighboring countries to enable the poor to improve their quality of life by delivering innovative, high-value, end-to-end solutions through clients. MART has worked with a variety of multinational corporations, corporate foundations, development-sector organizations, and governments. It has conceived, designed, and developed successful low-cost and high-impact product and service-marketing models, including pioneering models like Project Shakti with Hindustan Unilever Limited, affordable cooking gas provision through Community Kitchen for HP Gas, and quality health service through Arogya with Novartis AG healthcare. MART’s chief executive officer, Pradeep Kashyap, has authored a definitive Rural Marketing Book for students and practitioners and is known as “the father of rural marketing” for his outstanding contribution to low-income consumer markets. For more information, please visit the MART website.

Photo: MART.