Business Design for Impact

📍 Mexico City, Mexico

Human Centered Business Design

Tienda de abarrote, tiendita, bodega, miscelánea, kiosco

Kirana, warung, hanout, baqala, shohuay, sari-sari, duka, spaza

These “nanostores,” number close to fifty million worldwide, and represent a backbone of communities and economies throughout four continents.

Project Sequence

As a business designer, I have worked closely on projects focused on digitizing "tienditas" in Latin America, specifically:

(i) Ideation & Exploration of a Merchant Marketplace

(ii) Design and Proposal of a Community Group Buying Startup

The following sections highlight core details, processes, and frameworks used during each experience.

Upon arriving in Mexico City in July of 2022, I was tasked with determining the viability of a potential online marketplace for merchants.

The vision, as presented, was to help connect merchants (i.e. nanostores) to a growing ecosystem of digital tools.

While I had previous experience within this sector, I wanted to learn directly from merchants themselves.

Interviewing Merchants in Mexico City

Accompanied by Erika and Oscar, consultants and community members with extensive experience and trusted relationships with store owners, we met with a variety of merchants throughout Mexico City. Our goal was to learn more about each merchant's background, day-to-day experiences administering the store, and current use of and sentiments towards technology.

Leticia, Alejandro, and Eldero shared invaluable insights with us, documented and represented on slides and diagrams to follow. By hovering over the audio selections below, you can listen to excerpts of our interviews (in Spanish).

Visiting the Central de Abastos

From our conversations with merchants, we learned that the Central de Abastos (the central agricultural market in Mexico City) is a key partner for the majority of merchants in CDMX. In fact, every merchant we interviewed cited the Central as a must-visit destination at least once a week, based on access to the lowest prices on the market and unparalleled variety.

Mapping Stakeholder Dynamics

Upon completing interviews with merchants throughout Mexico City, interviews at the Central de Abastos (Central Market) visit, and additional interviews and desk research, I distilled key insights down into stakeholder research & synthesis slides. A selection of these slides are featured below:

Using the data collected from interviews with merchants, I generated a set of merchant personas on a continuum from "digitally cautious" to "digitally native," categories that I detail above.

While all merchant profiles use the technology required by their suppliers, only the "digitally curious" and "digitally native" begin to experiment with alternative online channels and revenue sources.

Through communication with stakeholders, prior knowledge, and research, I was able to chart the flows of goods and services between suppliers and merchants, complemented below.

Using different diagrams and mapping techniques, I began to examine the same data with newfound perspectives, helping to identify "zones of opportunity" and "innovation" for our potential digital marketplace solution.

Analyzing Business Models based on "Jobs to be Done"

“When we buy a product, we essentially “hire” something to get a job done. If it does the job well, we tend to hire that product again. And if it does a crummy job, we “fire” it and look for an alternative.” - Clayton Christensen

Using a "jobs to be done" framework, popularized by Clayton Christensen, I analyzed the data collected from merchants to define different activities that merchants need to complete on a given day:

Once mapping these "jobs to be done," and validating these jobs with my teammates, I examined the degree to which existing solutions were helping to address these jobs on a continuum from "no solution" to "adequate solutions."

By diagramming "jobs to be done" and examining the extent to which jobs are being addressed, we identified areas for further exploration (which would ultimately set the stage for our prototyping process) in the solution space.

Insights from this process proved instrumental in FUNDES Catalyst's further exploration of a merchant marketplace solution.

Prior to the ideation and exploration of a merchant marketplace solution described above, in the latter half of 2020, I worked with two fellow business designers to help design and propose a Community Group Buying Startup.

Framing the Problem and Our Call to Action

Through a different lens, centered around three distinct stakeholders (Fast Moving Consumer Good Companies or FMCGs, Merchants (M&Ps), and End-Consumers), we highlighted the burdensome impacts of existing retail dynamics at the base of the pyramid.

As depicted above, we concentrated on the "poverty tax" that consumers in Latin America often pay when purchasing in small quantities - a method that is often less expensive than larger format purchasing in absolute terms, but more expensive per ounce.

Introducing the Community Group Buying (CGB) Model

Through the Community Group Buying (CGB) Model, aggregated end-consumer demand drives access to discounts. Similarly to how buying in bulk can drive down unit costs at a big box retailers, this model crowdsources bulk ordering so that all members of a given community can access more affordable prices.

Embedding Impact in the Business Model's Core

The impact potential of the CGB business model energized our team of business designers. Our analyses indicated that the model would directly or indirectly capture over half of the UN's sustainable development goals, a guiding benchmark during the business design process.

Capturing the Business Model's Milestones to Date