Founded in 2013, this social enterprise aims to provide electricity across Zambia, especially to the 96-97% of rural Zambians who do not have access to the grid. These people live in what is termed the “bush.” Given that these underserved communities are so far from the headquarters in Lusaka and it takes tremendous effort to reach them, VITALITE is considered a last-mile distributor. Although their main product is solar home systems, they are product-agnostic—distributing everything from agro-solutions (solar irrigation pumps and seeds) to cell phones to cleaner cookstoves. Their focus is on quality products that are affordable and durable. Partnering with many different suppliers, they have already created a huge impact in Zambia and are on their way to even greater changes.
A sales agent's store in Mpashya
To distribute their products, VITALITE employs independent sales agents who operate out of existing shops selling all kinds of goods and services to different customers in their communities. Although they don’t have a fancy title (like Pollinators for Pollinate Energy), VITALITE hopes to teach these agents business knowledge to help them become entrepreneurs and community leaders. These agents then report to Sales and Service Representatives (SSR) who report to Regional Coordinators who then let HQ know. This is referred to as a hub-and-spoke model which can be seen in the image below:
Hub-n-Spoke Model for VITALITE (Source: VITALITE GSBI Pitch Deck)
VITALITE uses a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) model for their solar home systems (and a few other products) to lower the cost and enable low-income families to invest in a useful product. This means that people only need to pay $0.30 - $0.40 each day to get electricity for 7-8 hours (that’s how long the basic solar panel, battery, and lamp package last) and within a year to a year-and-a-half, they own the system. Currently, many are paying for batteries for flashlights, using candles (which cost $0.40 - $0.80 each day), and kerosene lamps, the latter two being bad for one’s health and are quite costly.
Therefore, this model set-up by VITALITE is quite effective; however, as they’ve started scaling and increasing their business, they’ve run into a few problems. Defaulting customers (people who stop paying for their solar systems) have started to become a larger issue and it appears that these sales agents are not reminding their customers to pay because they get a lot of money from the initial sale of the product and would rather get that than the “meager” amount from the payments.
The types of Solar Home Systems for VITALITE
Since these sales agents represent a key component of VITALITE’s business model, our goal this summer is to improve the training methods used to teach these agents. Working closely with the training team, we get to travel around Zambia, interviewing and surveying existing and new agents, modifying the training manual, working on the script for a new method of teaching through videos, and finding methods to inspire these sales agents to go out and create change.
Training in Mpika
Follow Drew and me as we Zoom Through Zambia to carry out action research and learn more about the culture
From left to right: James, Frank (training team facilitator), Drew
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