Sri Lankan mobile operator Dialog Axiata knows that the rural market is its next opportunity for growth. To reach this consumer base, Dialog has created the 5 Star Partner Programme, which uses “Infomediaries” – a phrase that has been coined to combine the concepts of Information and Intermediaries. Infomediaries are an exclusive corps of highly trained and carefully selected independent rural entrepreneurs that enable Dialog to improve customers’ lives by reducing costs and delays in accessing services, as well as by opening up access to life-enhancing mobile services, such as health, which many currently do not fully utilize or yet have access to. While women currently make up a fifth of Dialog Infomediaries in its 5 Star Programme, the operator sees them as vital to the Programme’s success and is working with GSMA mWomen to evaluate the initiative and strengthen women’s presence in its retail chain.
“Female retailers are vital to Dialog and the social ecosystems they operate within, increasing access to a vital demographic segment,” commented Charithra Ratwatte, Chief Manager – Sustainability, Dialog Axiata. “Female retailers are more approachable and accessible to other women who are subscribers, effectively eliminating one more barrier that exists in providing empowerment to women through mobile usage.” Furthermore, a third of all 5 Star Partners are to be located in the north and east of the country which were worst-affected by civil conflict, and thus where families are over-represented by households led by women.
Becoming a Dialog 5 Star Partner involves multiple sessions of training and selection, beginning with the broader-based Dialog Viyapara Diriya (DVD) programme, a seminar-style training, adapted from the International Finance Corporation’s global SME Toolkit for small- and medium-scale entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs from Dialog’s rural retailer network who demonstrate significant success following DVD training are individually interviewed and assessed in their localities for their suitability to be elevated to the 5 Star Partner programme.
5 Star Partners receive significant investment and support from Dialog to position them as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ambassadors in their villages. In the initial phase of the Programme, Dialog is working towards placing 1000 5 Star Partners across rural Sri Lanka within 2012, 20% of whom will be women.
The Dialog 5 Star Programme was officially launched on the 1st of June 2012 in Dadayamthalawa, Ampara, a village in the East of Sri Lanka. Nearby, Ms. H.D. Ramani (pictured), proprietor of Binara Communication, one of the first women in the programme, also commenced operations under her newly installed exclusive branding as a Dialog 5 Star Partner.
As of July 2012, around 100 of the 400 branded and fully operational 5 Star Partners are women. GSMA mWomen is working closely with Dialog to study the value addition provided by the Infomediary model to the MNO value chain, along with the effectiveness of female entrepreneurs as retailers and enablers of other women in their localities. The hope is to gather insights to further bolster the case for Dialog and other operators across emerging markets to tap into the potential of women for making a valuable contribution to the mobile value chain and VAS adoption.
Have a look at the geographical dispersion of 5 Star Partners here (pink – female retailers, yellow – male retailers, green – dialog service centres)