VyapaarSEWA™ - a business service platform for improving the livelihood of rural Women Self-Help Groups

Women Self Help Groups (SHGs) in rural areas of India are involved in livelihood activities that include production of items from locally available raw material. The SHGs face challenges in terms of marketing and distribution, scaling of production, access to market requirements, and lack of branding of their products. One of the many reasons for this is the prevalence of buyer monopoly in most of the rural SHG markets and the inability of the SHG members to travel to markets in non-immediate neighborhood. Despite prior attempts through web based solutions, these gaps continue to exist due to limitations in computer literacy, accessibility, and connectivity. Now, with a high mobile penetration in rural India, a mobile based Value Added Service platform with web interface for use by the rural SHGs to perform various transactions in the order to cash cycle is developed. The platform is designed to provide easy accessibility, vernacular support and personalization as key features to improve adoption. We present the unique characteristics of the platform and indicate how they support the stated hypothesis.