Drishtee is a rural based social enterprise that is committed for development of rural communities. It facilitates support to rural micro-entrepreneurs and enables development and implementation of sustainable rural enterprise models that can deliver economic advantages and create livelihood opportunities. It is a hubrid model established in March 2000 as a for profit company and then also enhanced its scope of community intervention by setting up an NPO i.e. Drishtee Foundation in February 2003. Drishtee therefore operates as a company, registered under the company Act 1951 and also as a not for profit Foundation, under the Societies Registration Act 1860, vide Reg. No. S/45468 of 2003., in India with a collaborative capacity and legal status to operate with partners across the globe. Vision Drishtee envisions a world where all communities are empowered to achieve shared prosperity. Mission To engage and collaborate with marginalized communities to develop and nurture 500,000 rural livelihoods sustainably by 2020. Presence & Working Areas: Drishtee activities/ initiatives/ programs, aimed at benefiting the rural communities, are spread across 13 States in India including Assam & North Eastern states, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Uttarakhand, etc). Main activities are focused around inherent areas of work like Agriculture, Textiles, Rural Construction, local production, new Innovative ideas that can add value. Approach: The 4C Strategic Framework For a solution to succeed, it must be integrated and comprehensive. Remote communities could be economically sustainable if they could have a number of entrepreneurs, who have 1. Access & Market linkages to critical services & products (Channels) 2. Relevant capacity or opportunities to develop capacity (Capacity) 3. Capital or Credit to finance their enterprises (Credit or Capital) 4. Have the support of their local communities. (Community)
The 4C framework under which Drishtee operates comprises of: Community Understand needs, Inspire, Induct & Capacity create joint ownership & synergies. Capacity Build, Create or Enhance capacity relevant to available opportunities Capital Organize capital that may be required, particularly for entrepreneurial ventures Channels Create linkages (both Backward and Forward) for aggregation & market support Channel Community Capital Drishtee Foundation is working on the concept and piloting of Model Villages presently and has the intent of replicating the model on a large scale. Drishtee s strucure: how it is desgigned to go deeper 1. Within Communities, remote and rural where there is a need for access to services and products 2. Through rural Micro-entrepreneurs at different levels: a. Licensees/ Franchicees with whom Drishtee has a service level agreement. Drishtee commits backend service support to these entrepreneurs while they market as well as deliver services like Education (Training), Health (care and awareness), Financial products (microloans, banking, etc.) to the rural people; b. Rural Retail Point (RRP) Owners who run their retail points (set up on their own) in the villages and have a distribution relationship with Drishtee. Drishtee delivers variety of products to these RRPs through its supply chain or distribution network, running through deep villages. c. Enterprise Owners : who are the small scale and micro level entrepreneurs in a village. They are the borrowers of small (micro) loans from our Micro credit Franchicees. 3. Through Capacity Building & Community Hub Points Drishtee in Operations Drishtee's Rural Supply chain Drishtee has over 15000 entrepreneurs linked on a network of supply chain routes (like milk-man routes). Most of these entrepreneurs are small village stores. Inter-spaced with them on the routes are entrepreneurs who provide services, including e-governance, health, vocational education, banking and micro-credit. This is how Drishtee is linking up the entrepreneurs for both products and services delivery to them. This integrated model of a supply chain carries Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) to the Rural Retail Points, and critical service delivery items like books for education and money and documents for finance to the service Franchisees, making it a viable model. Research & Need Assessment Drishtee understands and aggregates the demand within the community and analyses the various resources for designing the suitable solution. The rural and BOP segment has a typical way of managing the needs and therefore need the solutions to be well customized, especially to suit the affordability and reach scenario. Drishtee has the background understanding of the segment on the whole and operates within the communities to best evolve and design the solutions that are sustainably possible to implement. To ensure the viability at all the levels community (or possible customers); partners; indirect stakeholders as well as implementation agency, Drishtee takes it through a process-based piloting or testing phase, before finalizing on the shape and size of the proposed solution.
Drishtee & Community Engagement (evolving into a SOCIAL IMMERSION APPROACH in partnership with the outside stakeholder and the local community) The need understanding of the community brings in a certain level of consiousness and sense of deeper relationship within the Drishtee team. A variety of activities and programs have been designed by Drishtee's field teams to enable a deep community enegagement in various geographies of operations. Purpose of Community Engagement mainly is to: Ø Build a relationship of trust and comfort for evaluating the various socio-economic factors within the target community. Ø Be a part of the target community for a long term more sustainable relationship and possibility of partnership in variety of programs and projects Ø Help communicate with the target segment and send out messages needed to be placed with the community ; this also helps build awareness at various level while also bringing sensitization towards various issues and services Ø Understand the growing needs and changing scenarios so as to continuously add value to the community as well as the stakeholders in BOP market and sustainable development Drishtee Franchisee based Rural Services Drishtee supports rural Service delivery points, owned and managed by the rural entrepreneurs for Services like Education, Financial Services, Banking and Health (Planning for roll out after pilots). Service design and its content has been developed by Drishtee supported by its partners, especially customized for the needs of the target communities the BOP communities. Key Values of Drishtee Services ü affordable ü available at their door-steps with relatively good quality, ü suit the rural community needs and capacity, ü brings clear value of the price paid : with reasonable quality, savings on time and money,etc. ü creating livelihood, employment or safety (financial, social or health security). ü run by a local entrepreneur through a low-cost infrastructure set up (to ensure affordability and long term sustainability) Services and Programs: v Agri-based micro-enterprise solution development & Implementation v Textile based rural micro-enterprise solutions development & Implementation. Women based organization, DRAP, Drishtee rural apparel producer company, has been established with Drishtee s support v Rural Distribution: Supply-chain management v Education & Skill Development: (Training & Capacity Building) for rural youth v Financial Inclusion through Banking, Micro-credit and Literacy campaigns (largest Public Sector Bank, State Bank of India, as partner.) v Engagement for Citizen benefit to Governance & e-governance to deliver citizen services v Market Research (Field Surveys/Action Research) v Product / Service Development & Piloting v Entrepreneur Support Programs & Models (Women to Women Retail model) v Piloting & Evolving Sustainable models, like in Health: through Women Health Entrepreneurs v Samaahit Immersion or Rural Immersion leading to HR, CSR, or Social Business Collaboration
Evolving approaches for a scalable sustainable business Drishtee's 4C Approach culminates into a vision village model village where all communities are empowered to achieve shared prosperity. Various tools are utilized to enable a deep and inclusive enagagement with the Communities, understand the need and opportunities of creating value chains and build Capacity accordingly. The core focus is to develop and nurture local enterprises and for this Drishtee plays the role of a facilitator and a catalyst. These rural microenterprises need Capital as well as market linkage support through a strong inward and outward Channel to sustain and grow. These local enterprises are as a matter of fact modeled around the local value chain and therefore have immense capcity to engage most of the local resources, including human, and provide opportunities of local economic and social growth, leading to cultural sustainance. The processes and approaches that can make this model village or 4C concept work, demand an inclusive approach and therefore Drishtee is engaged in building multi-layered stakeholdership and partnerships with various corporates, government, local farmers, producers, banks and various other organisations being a part of the value chains. Social Immersion as an approach Social Immersion would aim to provide product manufacturers and other urban stakeholders an opportunity to get a clear understanding of rural needs directly from the community. Many established corporations, non-government organisations and even start-ups have traditionally taken a top-down approach to developing products and services, driven by an organisation-centric perspective. Most have tried to customize existing urban products by slashing features or size and reducing cost to meet the budget of economically marginalized communities. This leads to a mismatch between community needs and product or service offerings, hindering meaningful economic development. The goal of Social Immersion is to create a program that will facilitate understanding of needs and develop real empathy between providers of products and services and rural communities. Drishtee s Co-Founder Satyan being an Ashoka Foundation Fellow (2004), the concept also leverages extensively on the knowledge contained within the Ashoka Fellows network. The program draws insights Awards & Recognitions from a local rural community where 2014 the team works together to co-create Economic Inclusion Ecosystem Grant Award by ebay, supported by GIZ a model,distribution platform and 2013 integrated networks for replication enmass in India and around the world. National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) partnership 2011 Support to stregthen the model of Social Immersion Drishtee s Social Immersion, is one of the Winners of Economic Inclusion Ecosystem Grant Award by ebay and its partners. Social Immersion has been recognized as a bottom-up process sourcing the real needs of lowincome communities injecting them directly into the design process of BoP products and services of MNCs/NGOs/Social Enterprises. Drishtee team has implemented the basic version of the same model on grounds with few partners in the last 2 to 3 years. Centennial Grant Award by IBM 2010 1. Ashoka Changemakers Award 2. Invitee Clinton Global Initiative 2008 Invitee Clinton Global Initiative 2007 1. Technology Pioneers- World Economic Forum 2. Citation by Dalberg Consultants consulting for IFC Washington 2006 Red Herring 100 Asia Award Zdnet Technopreneur of the year Award Deloitte Winner, Top 50 Companies Invitee at Clinton Global Initiative and Citation 2005 Schwab Foundation- Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2004 Ashoka Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship 2003 World Bank Development Market Place Award 2002 Digital Partners Most Promising Social Enterprise 2001 World Bank Infodev s Best ICT Stories 2000
Founders of Drishtee Drishtee was co-founded by Satyan Mishra, Nitin Gachhayat & Shailesh Thakur. Satyan Mishra, who is also the Managing Director, is an Ashoka Foundation Fellow, of year 2004. Team @Drishtee Drishtee has been fortunate to attract several professionals who have forsaken their corporate sector jobs to work in the Rural sector. At the same time, Drishtee also has in the team, passionate young people mostly drawn from the local small towns and villages, having deep understanding of the local needs. These teammates are effectively making impact at the field positions. In all this, Drishtee gets valuable support from Volunteers from across the world who spend their time and energy mostly on a voluntary basis. Drishtee's Partners Drishtee has been also been fortunate in the support and work it has received from Several Partners. Notable amongst these have been Acumen Fund, Microsoft, Halloran Philanthropies, IFC, ACC, IBM, Novartis, Merck, Pfizer, Nestle, Nike Foundation, IDRC, Amar Raja Batteries, Philips, Oiko Credit, State Bank of India, Ashoka, Clinton Global Initiative, World Bank, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of Bihar, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Central Information Commission, Micro Save, Shell Foundation, Japan Research Institute (JRI), Ricoh, Sumitomo Chemicals, SMBC, Hub Tokyo, Cdot, Greater Impact Foundation, Godrej Industries, TVS Motors, and many others. However, the biggest supporter of Drishtee remain its entrepreneurs and the communities it works with as partenrs.
DRISHTEE; Knowledge Boulevard, Tower B, 8th Floor; Sector 62, Noida - 201301; NCR; UP, India Office: +91-120-4661000 Mobile: 9910220099 Fax: +91-120-4661002 www.drishtee.com, info@drishtee.com