See CommCare in Action
Watch as our team takes you through the design of a basic
app in CommCare
MOBILE DATA COLLECTION
Small Business
Many small businesses have recently entered the market by employing vendors to sell poverty-alleviating products at the Bottom of the Economic Pyramid (BoP), including cook stoves, pay toilets, tampons, and solar lanterns.
These products often pay for themselves through reduced fuel and healthcare expenditures, while reducing disease and increasing access to education. However, in order to achieve profitability at scale and to expand access to these products, businesses need tools that help increase sales penetration, expand their market size, and sustain product innovation. That’s where mobile technology comes in.
Small businesses and their vendors can benefit from the versatility, flexibility, and portability of custom mobile applications. They enable small businesses to make more timely decisions, increase productivity, reduce overhead, improve organizational agility, offer prompt customer services, and gain a stronger bottom line. Dimagi is uniquely positioned to offer a product that can serve frontline workers with limited education and technical literacy to increase organizational agility, enhance workforce management, and improve customer satisfaction.
Benefits of Mobile Data Collection for Small Businesses
Collect information on customer demographics to monitor market expansion and penetration opportunities, while supporting customer relationship management efforts.
Monitor the daily activity of vendors in real time through web-based reports to minimize supervisory gaps and increase workforce efficiency.
SMS capabilities offer easy-to-use customer satisfaction surveys and promotions, as well as simple promotion of new products and sales follow-up notifications.
Multimedia, such as audio clips, pictures, and videos enhance credibility and facilitate discussion of sensitive topics with customers.
Scalable technology allows organizations to quickly deploy go-to-market strategies.
Access sales records and track progress against monthly sales targets in comparison to other vendors to increase workforce motivation.
Featured CommCare-Based Education Projects
Pollinate Energy
India
Pollinate Energy uses CommCare to manage the stock of their energy solutions, complete surveys, and track payments.
UN WFP Case Transfer
Zambia
The Republic of Zambia is using CommCare to implement a more accurate social cash transfer system to reduce poverty and vulnerability.
HOPE Mobile Money System
India
HOPE is a mobile payment system that integrates with CommCare to submit payments based on the data collected in the program.
Pollinate Energy
India
Pollinate Energy uses CommCare to manage the stock of their energy solutions, complete surveys, and track payments.
Pollinate Energy is an Indian-based NGO whose mission is to eradicate energy poverty through clean energy solutions, including solar-powered lights. Pollinate Energy’s CommCare application is used by the NGO’s “pollinators” to manage their energy solutions stock, complete community profile surveys, and ensure that communities provide accurate and timely repayments for solar-powered lights. In addition to supporting Pollinators, the application also provides a solar-powered light installation guide for beneficiaries.
UN WFP Case Transfer
Zambia
The Republic of Zambia is using CommCare to implement a more accurate social cash transfer system to reduce poverty and vulnerability.
The Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ), with support from DFID, UNICEF, and Irish Aid, is currently implementing social cash transfers (SCTs) in 13 districts with the objective of reducing extreme poverty and vulnerability. The program is transitioning from a paper-based system used since 2004 to CommCare, with the aim of addressing problems of data accuracy and completeness during registration and follow-up activities. Enumerators, CWAC leads, and District officers are equipped with a CommCare application to manage the enrollment, support, and tracking of all beneficiaries in the system. Case management enables field staff to review and update details to existing beneficiary data within the mobile application. Follow-up visit forms take into account beneficiary details and are customized according to the history of a given case. SMS reminders enable communication with beneficiaries and field staff without direct access to the application. Reminders are automated based on the information stored in each beneficiary's case record. This solution goes beyond accurate data collection and closes the loop in the approval, payment distribution, and follow-up processes.
HOPE Mobile Money System
India
HOPE is a mobile payment system that integrates with CommCare to submit payments based on the data collected in the program.
HOPE is a system to pay existing incentives directly to mothers/ASHAs in their bank accounts. HOPE currently allows computer-based input of events for mothers. These are approved by the block accountant, which triggers payment to the bank account. An API has been developed to integrate data captured through another CommCare app with HOPE. The API exposes a list of all mothers and the “HOPE” events that have occurred for those mothers, which will eventually lead to payment. The API matches mothers with those in HOPE using the bank account number.
The Latest on Mobile Data Collection for Small Businesses
Updates and advice from our world-class partners and Global Services team:
Using Mobile Data Collection to Improve Life for Farmers in Haiti
BRANA, a Heineken subsidiary in Haïti uses CommCare to improve the sorghum supply-chain for their “Brewing a Better Future” strategy.
Casa Flor Ixcaco: Using CommCare to Support Guatemalan Artisans
This Q&A explains how USAID uses CommCare to help female artisans in Guatemala develop a greater understanding of what their customers are looking for.
How CommCare is Improving the Work of a Salesman in Senegal
A dairy salesman in Senegal uses CommCare to track deliveries, expired products, and number of sales to avoid stock outs and spoiled milk on the shelves.
Learn more about CommCare
Learn how the world’s most powerful mobile data collection platform can help your program
More than 2000 projects across 80 countries rely on CommCare for their mobile data collection and reporting needs.
“We are ready to design
applications that are everything
from simple and straightforward to
those with challenging and unique
designs and use cases.”
- Ted Barlow, President
“CommCare gave us the ability to
control the experience of our fieldbased
data collectors, which
drastically reduced human error.”
- Bhawna Mangla, Senior Research Associate
“Thank you for helping us to
gather data, refine programming,
and spread the message about our
impact in fighting global climate
change and extreme poverty.”
- Sarah Baird, Executive Director