July 2012- May 2022
Summary
This case study showcases Project Last Mile’s contribution to improve the operational effectiveness of two social enterprises working to improve the availability of family planning products: Total Family Health Organization in Ghana and Healthy Entrepreneurs in Uganda. The project increased organizational effectiveness, service delivery, and impact on the community by providing technical advice, coaching, and mentoring. This contributed to increases in households serviced, improving the distribution of family planning products and the livelihoods of local distribution workers. The project demonstrates the potential of Project Last Mile’s hands-on support model to improve organizational effectiveness in social enterprises.
Context
Family planning is essential for promoting safe motherhood, healthy families, and economic opportunities for women. However, globally, more than 218 million women have unmet family planning needs. The COVID-19 pandemic further strained under-resourced health systems, worsening access to reproductive health services.
Social enterprises play a vital role in bridging this gap in meeting family planning needs. By using sustainable business models and local knowledge, they can drive social behavior change, last mile distribution, and private sector engagement to ensure family planning services reach underserved communities. However, many social enterprises need more operational and marketing expertise to scale their impact.
Recognizing this, Project Last Mile partnered with USAID to strengthen the operational effectiveness of two social enterprises poised for growth and needing support to enhance their operations and reach.
The intervention
Collaborating with USAID, Project Last Mile supported Total Family Health Organization and Healthy Entrepreneurs to improve their market reach and customer engagement strategies. Poised for growth, the social enterprises were matched with a Project Last Mile Subject Matter Expert to receive technical advice, coaching, and mentoring in route-to-market and point of sale marketing.
Private sector models
The intervention aimed to create a robust and scalable approach to delivering health products and services by applying proven methodologies from the fast-moving consumer goods industry. Drawing on expertise from Project Last Mile and the Coca-Cola system, strategies were implemented to improve organizational capacity and optimize last mile delivery. This included developing efficient delivery routes and transport configurations to ensure timely product distribution and providing training in effective marketing techniques at the point of sale, including the ‘Steps of the Visit’ approach, to enhance market reach and customer service.
“This opportunity to share our knowledge and expertise allowed us to showcase the ‘real magic’ behind our work and the reach into the communities. We believe the ‘real magic’ happens when we come together and find connections with people. That’s what we did; we spent a day looking at our systems, processes, and people. We hope their visit helped bring some life to the recommendations and solutions that Project Last Mile has developed with Healthy Entrepreneurs.”
-Charles Kazooba, National Route to Market Manager, Coca-Cola Beverages Africa Uganda.
Approach
In collaboration with USAID, Project Last Mile selected two social enterprises through a rigorous and competitive application process: Total Family Health Organization in Ghana and Healthy Entrepreneurs in Uganda. They were chosen because of their strong networks and dedication to improving family planning services.
Project Last Mile provided subject matter experts with over 20 years of experience managing supply chain projects for The Coca-Cola Company, ensuring relevant and practical solutions tailored to the African market. Initially, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the experts engaged remotely with the enterprises to learn about their daily operations and route-to-market approaches. They then co-created practical solutions to address specific challenges.
In 2022, a Project Last Mile route-to-market subject matter expert spent four weeks on-site with each enterprise, providing hands-on support for in-field implementation of recommendations and deliverables developed during the co-creation phase. This enabled Project Last Mile to observe challenges and opportunities and tailor the solutions to each enterprise’s needs. The experts focused on optimizing organizational capacity and infrastructure to improve distribution efficiency. These measures aimed to help the social enterprises streamline operations, enhance service delivery, and expand their reach to the last mile.
Project Last Mile provided hands-on training in marketing strategies. The community-based sales agent training consisted of workshops and demonstrations focusing on customer engagement, product benefits, and addressing common concerns. The objective was to empower sales agents to effectively deliver family planning products and services, boost product demand, enhance customer satisfaction, and educate customers on product offerings.
Additionally, Project Last Mile partnered with the Coca-Cola Beverages Africa Uganda bottler to organize field visits for the Healthy Entrepreneurs team. This allowed them to learn about stock management, performance monitoring, and customer development directly from Coca-Cola distributors, specifically focusing on route settlement and product promotion best practices—two critical aspects of the enterprise’s current operating model.
Finally, Project Last Mile worked with Total Family Health Organization and Healthy Entrepreneurs to set up performance metrics and data collection methods. By regularly collecting and analyzing key performance data, the organizations tracked their progress, pinpointed areas for improvement, and made informed business decisions. This also enabled Project Last Mile to assess the impact of our efforts.
“Before I got the training, my confidence level was very low. Sometimes, if I had to go to the villages, I did not know how to go about it, but after the training, now if I want to go, I follow all the steps. I would speak without any hesitation. I did not have much to say, but now that I know what I am doing, I get a lot of time to speak to my customers.”
– Community-based sales agent, Total Family Health Organization.
Results
Project Last Mile used a multi-method evaluation to assess its technical assistance to the two enterprises, including collecting and analyzing business data at baseline, 6 months post-technical, and 12 months post-technical assistance, along with in-depth qualitative research with enterprise leadership, operations, and frontline staff at the 12-month post-technical assistance mark. The evaluation findings included:
Increased organizational effectiveness
- Increased professionalism and standardized processes.
- Improved staff capacity to streamline stock and distribution.
Increase in operational and sales agents’ capacity for last mile delivery through enhanced communication practices
Enterprise operation benefits
- Improved communications resulting from adherence to Project Last Mile’s “steps of the visit” protocol.
- Supervisors find their jobs easier.
- New interactive training methods enhance productivity and knowledge retention.
Community-based sales agent benefits
- Community-based sales agent benefits
- Clearer role understanding.
- Increased confidence and knowledge in engaging with the community.
- Higher sales and profits.
- Greater job satisfaction and motivation.
Sustained uptake and scaling of Project Last Mile’s approaches
The customer service model and other Project Last Mile recommendations were implemented by both enterprises. Additionally, Project Last Mile’s recommendations were adopted in new territories and regions beyond those originally targeted.
Contributing to the scaling of the enterprises
The support led to the increased productivity of sales agents and contributed to enterprise scale.
Household service growth
- Total Family Health Organization: 285% increase in households serviced.
- Healthy Entrepreneurs: 317% increase in households serviced.
Revenue and distribution boost for one enterprise (12 months post-project):
- Revenue increase: From $0.14 to $2.55 per day.
- Distribution increase: From 1,865 to 11,096 products per month.
This activity was Project Last Mile’s first project focused on providing support to social health enterprises that are advancing government health priorities across multiple markets. The project results demonstrated the potential of Project Last Mile’s model to improve organizational effectiveness for social enterprises.
“The Project Last Mile health innovator program offers great value for Healthy Entrepreneurs because we’d like to further improve the way we operate as a professional organization using knowledge and experience from Coca-Cola Beverages Africa in Uganda’s years and years of distributing.”
– Joost van Engen, founder and country director of Healthy Entrepreneurs.
Lessons
The intervention yielded invaluable lessons that illuminate the path forward for similar projects. These lessons underscore the importance of adaptability, collaboration, and data-driven approaches in driving impactful interventions.
Key lessons were:
In-person support yields superior results.
Project Last Mile’s hands-on approach enables its experts to immerse themselves in the day-to-day operations of the enterprises.
This leads them to deeply understand the organizations’ challenges and opportunities and tailor their assistance accordingly. Direct observation of workflows, interactions, and challenges provides valuable insights that may not be apparent through virtual communication alone—additionally, being on-site fosters stronger relationships and trust between Project Last Mile experts and enterprise staff, resulting in effective collaboration and problem-solving.
Engage roles at different levels and across functions.
Successful implementation of solutions relies on the active involvement of stakeholders at all levels of the enterprise.
While leadership buy-in is crucial for initiating change, it is equally important to engage with operational staff with intimate knowledge of the day-to-day workings of the enterprise.
By involving a diverse range of roles, including frontline workers, supervisors, and managers, solutions can be developed that are strategic but also practical and feasible to implement. This inclusive approach ensures that the perspectives and needs of all stakeholders are considered, leading to ownership and commitment to the proposed changes.
Learning by observation is invaluable.
Practical demonstrations and real-world examples, mainly through field visits and collaborative engagements with industry partners like Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, provide powerful learning opportunities for enterprise staff.
Specialists can showcase best practices and successful strategies in action by organizing field visits and partnering with industry players. Observing how these approaches are implemented in similar contexts allows enterprise staff to visualize the potential impact on their operations and gain inspiration for improvement.
Additionally, partnerships with industry players provide valuable insights into industry standards and benchmarks, enabling enterprises to benchmark their performance and identify areas for improvement.
Close alignment on performance metrics is crucial.
Establishing clear and relevant performance metrics is essential for monitoring progress and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions.
By working closely with enterprises to define key performance indicators and data collection methods, Project Last Mile’s experts ensured that the metrics were meaningful and aligned with the organization’s goals and objectives.
Regular monitoring and analysis of performance data enable enterprises to track their progress over time, identify areas of strength and weakness, and make data-driven decisions to drive continuous improvement.
Additionally, sharing performance data with Project Last Mile led to understanding the impact of the support and adapting where needed.
