PATH and the Safe Water Project: Empowering the Poor through User-Centered Design Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

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This case offers an overview of the nonprofit organization PATH and its Safe Water Project-a five-year effort started in late 2006 with $17 million in funds from the global development unit of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal of the grant was to evaluate to what extent market-based strategies might help hasten the widespread adoption and sustained usage of home water treatment and safe storage products by low income populations. Through a portfolio of field-based pilots, PATH thought to experiment with different sales and distribution strategies to enhance consumer access to safe water solutions, including water filters and chlorine-based water purification pills.

PATH and the Safe Water Project Empowering the Poor through User Centered Design Case Study Solution

It also intended to analyze consumer financing models and different pricing to deal with the affordability of these products. Nevertheless, an additional issue was exposed by wide-ranging market research -few goods in the space designed expressly to satisfy the unique demands and preferences of these consumers and were both powerful. So, PATH applied for and was awarded $7 million in additional grant funds from the Gates Foundation to propose a water filter product which will meet high standards of effectiveness, be desired-or aspirational-to low income consumers, and operate successfully within the rural states where the prevailing majority of the poor lived. The PATH team will accomplish this via a process that the entity labeled as user-focused design.

PUBLICATION DATE: April 01, 2013 PRODUCT #: OIT107-HCB-ENG

This is just an excerpt. This case is about LEADERSHIP & MANAGING PEOPLE