From: Vaidyanathan R
(Extracted from R Vaidyanathan 's forthcoming—Jan 20th-Book – "India Uninc" -Publisher TataWestland. Price Rs 395, Paperback. 373 pages)
http://centreright.in/2014/01/leveraging-on-the-mobile-phone-revolution/#.Us-BbftpPo1
Leveraging on the Mobile Phone Revolution
By Professor Vaidyanathan / In Books / January 10, 2014
The impact of telecommunications on the self-employed and more particularly among the poorer groups has not been fully understood or appreciated. Mobile phones have created a sort of tsunami among lower level entrepreneurial groups like plumbers, carpenters, masons, small time construction contractors, painters, cooks, etc. In the long run, telecommunications will be a major competitor to the financial institutions since already more than 60% of the cost of operations of many global banks is software and telecom cost.
It was just a board hanging on the branch of a tree in a rural part of Bangalore. It was a computer printed sheet of paper, pasted on a cardboard and said, "Manju the Plumber — Contact…." followed by a ten-digit mobile number. Professors are supposed to be curious and I decided to reach him. I learnt that his income had trebled in the last few months after the acquisition of the mobile phone [thanks to a loan from a friend at 6% per month]. Manju has been getting calls from many and he was planning to graduate from his cycle to a moped. People who earlier visited his home in the mornings to catch him were now able to reach him at all times. He no longer worried about losing a customer and did not have to rush back home during lunch time to find out if anyone had come to his one room tenement to ask for him.
The impact of telecommunications on the self-employed and more particularly among the poorer groups has not been fully understood or appreciated. Mobile phones have created a sort of tsunami among lower level entrepreneurial groups like plumbers, carpenters, masons, small time construction contractors, painters, cooks, repair mechanics, winders, welders, water suppliers, tea suppliers, vegetable vendors, retail traders, flower vendors, auto drivers, priests, astrologers, etc. Actually, more than three hundred categories of self-employed entrepreneurs.
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1 comment:
So arguably, low-cost and easily accessible telecom is helping to extend down the rungs on the economic ladder, to help people get on who'd otherwise have much more difficulty getting on.
And I think we've also discussed things like camera-phones for citizen journalism, since personal consumer electronic devices can do more than just communicate.
Eventually, that plumber may use a smartphone and store his business contacts on there. He may pay bills and place parts orders through it. It may require development of a whole class of easy-to-use intuitive apps which can cater to the needs of poor, simple entrepreneurs to help them in their routine business activities without requiring a lot of fiddling or training.
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