Based in southern India, Essmart builds an innovative last-mile distribution channel that enables socially impactful goods, such as improved agricultural tools and efficient household devices, to reach and impact their intended end customers. Essmart does this by connecting a catalogue of over 150 life-improving products to the local, mom-and-pop, “kirana” retail shops that account for 90% of India’s retail market. By providing local shop owners with appropriate marketing, quick distribution, and reliable after-sales service, Essmart helps local shop owners become active selling points of innovative, impactful technologies in their communities.

Essmart aims to build the world’s largest network of kirana shops selling socially impactful goods, and currently has a network of 600 kirana stores that reaches deep into rural areas. Manufacturers and suppliers leverage this shop network to distribute their impactful products, to gather valuable customer data on end customer needs, and to test new products. “We are connecting a broken supply chain,” said Jackie Stenson, Chief Executive Officer at Essmart. “Rural businesses and end customers should be able to access goods that improve their lives and livelihoods, while at the same time their voices should be heard up the supply chain so engineers can design better products that meet real needs.”

“Rural distribution of useful products is a key challenge for improving livelihoods at the base of the pyramid,” Adrian Ackeret, CFO of elea, noted. “Essmart’s well-conceived and efficient approach has convinced elea from the beginning. Creating a network of existing mom and pop shops generates impressive economic and social value for shop owners and for end consumers alike, and at the same time spearheads the transformation of informal retail in India. We are excited to add another innovative model in last-mile distribution, one of our investment focus areas, to the elea portfolio. As an active investor, we are very much looking forward to working alongside Essmart’s founders and management team in the years to come, providing strategic support and sector-specific insights.”

To date, Essmart has enabled life-improving products to impact over 185,000 people living in peri-urban and rural India. These products range from efficient cookers to solar lighting to organic pest control devices for farmers, and have helped local businesses and end users increase productivity by 37M hours and generate 79M Indian rupees in cost savings. Essmart’s innovative logistics and supply chain software, which addresses the unique complexities of moving unfamiliar durable goods into rural markets, and strong relationships with local shops has been key for creating life-improving technology access at the last mile.

With this new funding, Essmart will embark on a phase of growth and expansion throughout southern India. “This funding is a key milestone that allows us to begin scaling our operations while also implementing the operational structures that will let us continue to operate efficiently and effectively at scale,” said Prashanth Venkataramana, Director at Essmart.  Tobias Bidlingmaier, Development Programs and Business Support at DEG, which provides funding from its Up-scaling program, says: “With the Up-scaling program, DEG finances innovative pioneering investments of local small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in developing countries that are in the start-up phase. We are happy to partner with Essmart and help them  boost their performance and increase growth.”

“PG Impact is very happy to partner with Essmart’s management team to help the Company define and execute a growth and governance strategy that will optimize and accelerate both the commercial growth of the Company, and as a result – the social impact on rural base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) customers (kirana owners) and end users,” said Krysten Crainshaw, Global Head of Partners Group Impact (Verein). “As the charitable entity of a global private markets investor, we are committed to creating non-financial value alongside our patient capital.”

DEG: More than finance
For more than 55 years DEG has been a reliable partner to private-sector enterprises operating in developing and emerging-market countries. We provide our customers with tailor-made solutions, including financing, promotional programmes and advice tailored to individual needs. They can thus develop successfully and sustainably, while generating local added value and creating qualified jobs. With our portfolio of around EUR 8.3 billion in over 80 countries we’re one of the world’s largest private-sector development financiers. Learn more: www.deginvest.de

elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization
elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization fights absolute poverty with entrepreneurial means. As a professional and active philanthropic impact investor, elea supports social enterprises and entrepreneurial organizations in creating sustainable and measurable impact. Guiding its partners towards achieving self-reliance and autonomy, the foundation not only invests financial capital but also provides them with business know-how, coaching and access to its network. As such, elea is a growing community of committed entrepreneurs and philanthropic investors. Learn more at elea-foundation.org

Partners Group Impact (Verein)
Partners Group Impact (Verein) is the employee foundation of global private markets investment manager Partners Group. Founded in 2006 and funded by employee donations, it aims to support entrepreneurial projects and organizations that create positive, high-impact and measurable social and/or environmental benefits. Since inception, the foundation has invested in 50+ grants and impact investments to social enterprises addressing issues including, but not limited to, hunger, education, and healthcare.

Swiss Re Foundation
The Swiss Re Foundation reflects the social and humanitarian values of Swiss Re. We partner with social entrepreneurs, aid organisations, researchers and Swiss Re clients and employees to help communities increase their resilience. Our initiatives address the causes and effects of risks in four areas – climate, natural hazards, society and water – both in emerging and developing countries and in regions where Swiss Re has offices. For additional information, visit www.swissrefoundation.org

This is incredibly exciting for us. We have been working hard on reaching our break even for the past year. There are some factors that make this very difficult for an enterprise like Essmart – most notably the fact that, at our current size, we can’t take advantage of some of the economies of scale that other distribution enterprises have needed to break even. But even with these constraints… we did it!!

This really speaks to the core idea behind Essmart’s model. Peri-urban and rural markets are full of aspirational, intelligent consumers who deserve and demand access to life-improving essential technologies. And rural shop owners are the portals of commerce than can provide this access while also improving their own businesses and livelihoods.

These past several months have seen some major improvements to our operations that have helped us get to this point. We tightened up logistics, supported by launching our own proprietary last-mile logistics software. We increased our catalogue offerings to over 100 types of essential technology products. We helped our Sales Executives focus on a smaller number of retail shops so that we could provide more tailored support to these shops, making the Essmart network stronger and more sustainable. Our Sales Executives have been continually building to this point, and now the first ones have made it.

I am incredibly proud of our team, and how hard they have worked. And I am incredibly excited for the future. There are opportunities for continued growth and operational efficiencies. There are opportunities for economies of scale, as we have barely scratched that surface. There are opportunities to deepen our impact on the livelihoods of shop owners and lives of end customers and to broaden our impact throughout India. This is just the beginning.

Early members of the Smart Farmer Association.

On June 14^th our Director of India operations, Prashanth Venkataramana, and the undergraduate Intern, Nick Stewart, kicked off a new Essmart initiative in style when they were quickly ushered inside the NABARD tower in Bangalore for a private meeting with the Chief General Manager.

Spearheaded by Prashanth, the meeting was arranged to discuss his brainchild, the Smart Farmer Association, and our team had come to seek advice on the proposed activities of the Association from the premier agricultural and rural development bank in India, NABARD.

The Smart Farmer Association (SFA) was sponsored by Essmart and launched this summer to provide a range of services to farmers and customers across Tamil Nadu. The goal of the organization is to provide helpful content to farmers about new agricultural practices and technologies that improve farm productivity and quality of life. SFA was also formed to help farmers across the state connect with each other and share farming strategies.

Finally, the association will serve farmers and their families by hosting social events and technology training sessions to teach people in rural areas about the benefits of smart phone and Internet technologies.

Nick Stewart with a farming family.

Motivated by the positive encouragement and feedback the team received in early meetings with NABARD and others, recruitment for the SFA has accelerated in the past few weeks. We are thrilled to announce that the group has over 200 members participating in its Facebook and WhatsApp groups online, and an additional 135 members offline using our cellphone content service.

We are currently scheduling more events throughout Tamil Nadu later this year! Feel free to check out the SFA Facebook page for more information: https://www.facebook.com/smartfarmerassociation/

Nick, an Essmart team member, and farmers.

1) Please tell us about your family!

“We have 4 members in my family. My mother and father are farmers, and we have 5 acres and 4 cows. My two elder sisters are married. I was married two years back. And now recently I have a baby too.”

2) What is your favorite hobby or pastime?

“Probably you know that I spend most of my time with the baby!”

3) What are 3 tips you can give other sales executives for how to best educate shop owners about Essmart products?

“First clearly explain to dealer where we come from and what we do, and make a judgment about what products they require. When I am introducing myself I figure out what they need and after that I tell them about our products. I give credit only to the best dealers!”

 4) What is your best advice for how to close orders?

“Honestly visit at least once a week. And if you’re unable to visit just give them a call and ask what they need.”

5) If you had to tell your #1 sales secret what would it be?

“I make a good relationship and become friends with my dealers.

6) What is your favorite part about working with Essmart?

“I feel comfortable working with the people here!”

It was a nice and sunny on the morning of 12th Jan 2015 when Jackie, Diana, Lokesh and Preethi left to attend the Facility Managers training and meeting at the DHL Regional Distribution Center near Namakkal. Poonacha and the facility mangers from the 6 Distribution Centers were already there for the training. Bala Saravanan from DHL spent half a day with our managers to talk about inventory management, warehousing, housekeeping and safety. Our managers made notes, asked relevant questions and discussed how the training would help them optimize their time in their respective Distribution Centers.

The training session was followed by a good lunch, hosted by DHL. Post-lunch, the facility managers and the team from Bangalore had a meeting on the sales progress at the 6 locations. The hospitality extended by the DHL team at Namakkal was amazing. After the meeting, we met the entire DHL team which included loading-unloading team, security staff, admin staff and a host of other team members who make the DHL model work efficiently.

We extend our thanks to the DHL team led by Mr Bala for planning and organizing the training and the meeting for Essmart!

Building Essmart’s brand name while also selling a large number of branded products is no easy feat. So it has been very exciting for us to watch the shops in our network recognize the value of the Essmart brand and the importance of our seal of approval.

We’ve recently seen this value manifest itself in a tangible way. A few of the shops in our network have taken it upon themselves to create and print their own Essmart signage! One shop created his own poster during our Aadi sale, while another stuck the Essmart logo on a sign along with Airtel, Vodafone, and a few other brands that are clearly more famous than ours. This initiative taken by our shop owners makes us incredibly excited and proud to be building a brand that rural India can trust for providing life-improving goods.

One shop added Essmart’s logo to his personal shop sign, right alongside those of India’s major telecom players.

This shop created its own Essmart-branded promotional poster during our Aadi sale.

As a company, Essmart is taking concrete actions to address some of the steps that may have led to this tragic event. It’s unfortunate that a tragedy had to occur before some of these steps could be implemented, but we hope to make the most of this situation.

1. We are procuring high-quality helmets for not just our employees to wear but also to make available through our catalogue. These helmets exceed ISI standards (India’s standard for industrial products), and they are generally not available in rural areas.
2. We are implementing a new company-wide policy: when any of our employees ride motorcycles, they are required by company policy to wear helmets. In Tamil Nadu, the south Indian state where we operate, helmets are not mandated by law, so the policy itself is counter cultural.
3. We are working to provide medical and life insurance for all of our employees. This is not the most straightforward process and has been on our to-do list for some time now, so we are hoping to finalize the arrangements as soon as possible.

We can’t expect that helmet adoption will be taken up naturally, without a hassle or a fuss. At a societal level, helmet adoption is no easy feat! However, Essmart is in the business of innovation adoption, and it is our mission to make life-improving technologies not only available but also demanded in the marketplace. This is how we change lives: through one technology at a time.

Essmart is unlike any company I have been exposed to. Despite having part of the team stationed across the globe in Boston (until Jackie arrived in Bangalore two weeks ago) and having a serious language barrier to overcome in field operations, everything is run efficiently with an amazing cyclical communication and decision-making style between the managers. It is truly an environment filled with trust, respect and a communal passion for product dissemination and the opportunities it creates.

If you can imagine the management team as the backbone of the company, the sales teams make up Essmart’s heart. At each distribution site I visited I was met with smiles and people who were proud of the work they were doing. All the sales executives are on a Whatsapp group message where they send stories and photos of their daily triumphs. These stories, updates and photos are always met with support and words of motivation. In the Pollachi distribution center the team has written, “If you believe in yourself, things are possible” on its white board for daily encouragement. It is clear to me that Essmart is affecting the lives of more than the end users of their products but is also empowering their local sales workers to become agents of social change.

Last week while I was in Pollachi, Chandru, the Pollachi Facility Manager, invited me to his nephew’s first birthday celebration. Along with many other members of Essmart team, I was welcomed into Chandru’s family’s home where we enjoyed a home cooked feast that has by far been my favorite meal in India. The hospitality of Chandru’s family, friends and relatives was amazing. It was also really nice to spend an evening chatting with the Essmart team outside of the office, something that the local team seemed to do often.

When I was not being invited to birthday celebrations or working in the office while I was in Tamil Nadu I had the chance to meet several end users of Essmart products. The first I met was a man who used the Chotokol cooler in his small stand to keep drinks cold for his customers. He gave a packet of peanuts that I initially tried to refuse but he insisted. They were delicious. In my next visit to Pollachi I visited a group of people who were not connected to the electricity grid. After dark, they use Essmart solar lanterns as the only source of light in their homes. When we arrived to check in on these families, it was already dark out, and we found one women cooking for her family, a task she was not able to do at night before she got the solar lanterns. From this, I realized that these products were so much more valuable than I had originally thought. These solar lights gave the inhabitants of this small area extra hours in the day, which is a priceless gift.

India offers its own set of unique challenges with power outages, transportation limitations, and a constant hunt for good Wifi, but these minor inconveniences do not compare to the amazing sense of accomplishment and fulfillment I have gained from my work here. When entering college, it was my goal to become an engineer who would not only understand the mechanics behind products I would create but also how they moved through a global economy and affected the lives of their users. And while I still have a lot to learn, I feel that my university has given me the tools to understand mechanics, but my work at Essmart has given me a first-hand view of the latter.

Here’s an update on our numbers:
Number of distribution centers: 4 (Pollachi, Anthiyur, Mettupalayam, Karur)
Number of stores in our network: 250+
Number of essential technologies sold through our network: 1650+
Number of employees: 31
Number of essential products in our catalogue: 26 in October 2013; 45 in January 2014

As you can see, we’ve been working very hard. We’re thankful for the team that’s been making it happen:

Pollachi Team

Anthiyur Team

Mettupalayam Team

Additionally, Essmart has been recognized by two organizations for its work in essential technology dissemination. Jackie and Diana were named as 2013 Echoing Green Fellows, and Essmart was awarded the first-ever D-Prize! You can read the Press section of our website to learn more about how others are recognizing Essmart’s work.

We’ve also been thinking through our experiences to distill lessons on social impact technology dissemination. These lessons have been presented in the forms of webinars and articles, which you can read in the Presentations and Publications section of our website.

That’s about it from us for now. We’ll continue updating when we can, so please subscribe to our blog or check back with us often. Our Facebook page and Twitter accounts are updated more frequently, so you can follow us through these avenues to get the most up to date news.

All the best,
The Essmart Team