Market Research for Microfinance : Detecting the Needs Beyond the Numbers Caribbean Roundtable

1. Market Research for Microfinance : Detecting the Needs Beyond the NumbersCaribbean Roundtable Presented By : Langgeng Samiyanto Hertily Surviva Tania Febrina

2. The success of Microfinance depends on delivering products and services that are responsive to their client’s needs. So, Microfinance should shift from product driven to market or clients driven. To understand client’s need the MFIs should do market research.

3. Market research offers : • A way to understand not only the use of financial service. • How to deliver products dan services that best response to those need. • Generates information that can be used to determine the most appropriate product • Determine how to assess and consoliudate a MFI’s position within the market

4. If the goals of market research are to attract and retain clients, Market Reserach should look clients’ perspective on threelevels : • Products • Institution • Markets

5. Clients and Products • Teba Bank Case • Teba bank learned important lessons : • The approach had been too directive • The bank should thought what people actually need not what they thought people need to know. • They should make market research to asssess client preferences for the product and factors that could influence its adoption

6. Equity Bulding Society (EBS) Case The strategis are reviewing interest rates and charging the rates more transparent. EBS’s initiatives were : • Restating these loan & savings terms in client friendly languange • Printing brochures which outline the changes by product • Displaying bank tariffs in the banking halls The clients shows the huge positive response on those initiatives. The EBS does not do aggressively the new refinement measures on the market. Rather, they took a ‘wait and see’ approach with the new initiatives. Both of these cases, the goal was product refinement

7. Clients and Institution The focus is in systems and institutional changes that MFIs make as they seek to instituionalize a clients focus. Two issues : • Client data base • Human resources: there needs to be a product or client champion within the institutions and the capacity to manage, if do not, market research.

8. MFI in Honduras Case The strategies : • Training some of its front line staff to do market research on clients satisfaction • Setting a place for reporting system that easy for the loan officers, generates credible findings, and encourages vertical information flows between senior management and front line staff.

9. Clients and Products Attracting and retaining the clients depens on the value of your products to the clients. • EKI Case The operation manager EKI (one of MFIs in Bosnia Herzegovina) said that the business can onle succeed if we understand 4P; not product, price, place, promotion, but People, People, People, and People. The MFIs should conduct to position it self in the market and to distinguish its ‘brand’. So, market research is valuable because the staffs have the different perspective with the clients.

10. Conclusion • To reach sustainibility and success, MFIs should deliver product that are responsive to client’s need. • To provide the appropriate products, the MFIs should shift from product driven to market or clients driven. • To understand client’s need the MFIs should do market research.

11. Thank You The End