Business plan to launch microfinance company in a professional way

About the organisation
Nirantara Community Services is a non-profit organisation (NGO), registered under Karnataka Societies Registration Act of 1960. This organisation was initiated in 2006 with a mission to provide financial services to the underprivileged segment of the population to improve their living standards. The organisation supports livelihoods of poor families through a powerful tool called microfinance. The microfinance portfolio is being taken over by a private Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC), recently acquired by promoters of Nirantara Community Services. This is a for-profit and regulated company and soon it will be renamed as Nirantara FinAccess Private Limited. The NGO will take role of a mother organization and will promote new entities (Social Enterprises for Value Added Services - SEVAS) and support those entities in achieving vision of a Society without Poverty. The proposed SEVAS, Nirantara Livelihoods Private Limited will be a for-profit Private Limited Liability Company.

The company will:
1. Organize farmers into groups, create appropriate awareness and motivate them for right approach towards livelihood enhancement

2. Support farmers with backward integration: Linking farmers with input suppliers (such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.), financial institutions (for working capital - loan for crop cultivation, farm implements, technology adoption, etc.). This will save farmers from buying adulterated farm inputs

3. Provide Technical Assistance: Appropriate on-site Sustainable Crop Production Techniques to increase farm productivity

4. Support farmers with Forward Integration: Linking farmers with mainstream market, help them to get best possible price for their produce

5. Provide all services at the farm-step, which improves efficiency and effectiveness of agriculture value chain

6. Support family members of the farmer to involve in agri-allied livelihoods to improve family income

7. Link family of the farmers with mainstream financial services and create financial inclusion Social impact: The company will be providing integrated agriculture extension services to underserved segments of farming community to improve their living standards.

The company improves living standards through:
Backward Services Integration , Technical Farm Production Techniques , Market Linkage ,  Introduction of new sustainable services and Financial Inclusion
 

Business case
The new entity SEVAS is in the initial state, the support of the Capgemini team helps Nirantara to launch the company in a professional way. The main target group for SEVAS will be dairy female farmers and the legal entity will need to be a community based organisation. The team was asked to deliver a business plan and an implementation plan to set up the Nirantara Livelihoods PL company. The members of the Capgemini Talent Programme were selected for their knowledge on consultancy on business strategy. They are experts in business models, business planning and business development. At the same time, they are asked to practice and help each other to reach personal learning objectives. Also they coached owner of Nirantara, Niranjan Sheelavant, to analyse, structure and enrich his ideas.

Analysis
To facilitate the start up of Nirantara Livelihoods a high-level business model has been developed. The business model describes how Nirantara Livelihoods intends to make money using nine basic building blocks. The nine blocks cover the four main areas of a business: customers, offer, infrastructure, and financial viability. This way of analysing is called the Canvas Business Model and is a well-known tool at Capgemini.

Outcome
The main outcomes of the programme are:

• Stimulating the ability and knowledge of the farmers will benefit their families and communities
• Nirantara provides opportunities to farmers by facilitating Integrated Sustainable Agricultural Management Solutions
• The farmer will benefit substantially from the offered services for only one hundred rupees per year
• Nirantara livelihoods will receive the revenue from the buyers, suppliers and the subscription fee

The Capgemini team has written a strategic business model for 2011-2016 to give insight to how farming would look like in 2016. They give insight into the issues the farmers currently face, the impact Nirantara livelihoods can make and how the farmer and Nirantara Livelihoods can benefit from it.

Personal and professional development

The Capgemini experts found the assignment was quite a challenge, there was a short time window to get familiar with the situation and write a business model. The circumstances to deliver were basic by comparison with the facilities the Dutch participants are used to in the Netherlands. The cultural differences between India and the Netherlands made the assignment a challenge, but brought also many insights and great fun to the Indian and Dutch participants. The team has learned a lot from the different working methods.

Paul Custers: "The team members had all a different back ground and working styles, some were more process focused, meanwhile the other members focused on the content."

Niranjan Sheelavant describes his major learnings as delivering results through group work. "There has been a single focus within the team and sharing responsibilities, which all have been delivered on time." Niranjan has been able to improve his presentation skills including preparation/organization of slides.

Follow up
The Capgemini team and Niranjan have planned monthly meetings on skype to stay in touch about the progress of the organisation. The Capgemini team has delivered a Project Implementation Plan, starting at March 1st 2011 to March 31st 2012. On the short term Nirantara Livelihood Resources PL got registered, the Business Model will be Finalizes and there will be a started pilot interventions in Gulbarga district. Further on the Capgemini team will assist Sevas in finding investors for their business. In November 2011 Niranjan will bring a counter visit to Capgemini and SharePeople.

Nirantara and SharePeople maintain a two-year partnership. Both organisations will keep in touch (a.o. via the SharePeople liaison, at least every 6 months), and with the expert as well. After this Programme, an official update on the status of the organisation takes place every 12 months. With this information, a new Programme is one of the possibilities to boost the organisation if needed.