Innovative Content, Actionable Insights and Process Rigour

We recently collaborated with Re-emerging World for a field immersion project aimed at understanding the challenges and opportunities in last-mile distribution for our business, mooGrow. Their team conducted an in-depth survey, engaging with farmers and retailers to gather valuable insights. The thoroughness of their work and the quality of the insights they provided were remarkable. The subsequent two-day workshop they facilitated was informative and instrumental in shaping our project plan. Re-emerging World’s expertise, dedication, and professionalism exceeded our expectations, and we wholeheartedly recommend their services to anyone seeking a reliable and insightful partner in the field of market research and strategy development.

We had equally enjoyed working with both Swayam Shikshan Prayog and Re-emerging World team on the project- Empowering Women Agri-Entrepreneurs through technology (ICT /Digital Upskilling) in Latur & Osmanabad districts of Maharashtra.

This was a short-term project with all the tight deadlines & was delivered very smoothly by all the teams. ReW’s contribution as SSP’s knowledge partner in the research has been commendable. Even with all the rigid deadlines, they conducted an in-depth baseline cum need assessment as well as end line successfully with all the insights and well-articulated reports. They had also captured & delivered quite focused, indelible case stories representing the project outcomes. Beyond it, their presentation designing abilities were also very impressive. ReW has also believed in mutual learning thereby proving the true sense of working in partnership and in tandem for delivering the outcomes of the project. We really enjoyed working with a team of research experts and a team who is well aware of all the ground realities

Re-emerging World has been referred to us by a lead global NGO as a potential strong partner in India for developing our projects in responsible sourcing. Accordingly, we have engaged Avik and his team from Re-emerging World’s to work on sustainable sourcing of Jasminegrandiflorum value chain. This implied in depth analysis of Socio-Economic Conditions and Farm Practices of small holders in Tamil Nadu, on a large number of farms, and with a detailed questionnaire. All steps of the process were perfectly executed, from the strategic thinking at the start of the survey, the deep dive into the questionnaires, the execution of the survey and the restitution of results. It’s an easy-to-work on partner, very responsive, with ability to understand the expectations of multinational companies. The result restitution is was perfectly clear and could help us leverage best this project for business and sustainability purposes. We were actually hesitant to provide this recommendation as we would like to keep Avik team available to work for us!

We had the opportunity and chance to get a first experience with ReW in a supply chain in India. When we decided to realize a socio-economic and environmental baseline in another supply chain in the Philippines, we directly thought about ReW as our partner. Our collaboration has been very smooth and exciting while we were exchanging on the results and the recommendations to empower our supply chain. We really appreciated this team work, ReW understanding of our needs and recommendations that would fit our willingness to empower the supply chain. ReW really provided great insights and angles during our field review. And I must say that ReW has its trick to highlights the outcomes of such study that are great and very self-explanatory.

As a development professional I have engaged and commissioned the services of Re-Emerging World (ReW) on several occasions in the last 9 years. The engagement revolved around incubating, evolving and completing variety of assignments; baseline studies, situational analysis, business development plans for social entrepreneurship of people from the bottom of the pyramid.

As programme planner as well as one who oversees the execution of the programme I have always found the quality of work carried out by ReW insightful, relevant, focussed and completed within the given time frame. ReW team and its leadership has always been open to discussion and adapting the enquiries to suit the unforeseen changed
scenarios.
Very recently, ReW completed a baseline cum situational analysis in a supply chain which has been a volatile and complex even at the global level, ReW systematically enquired with recommendations which turned out to be base for carving the future pathway for the supply chain improvement. In brief, one can rely on ReW for pulling out
relevant knowledge and wisdom to shape up a development intervention with a business case. ReW by doing it consistently has proven its leadership in knowledge driven development planning.

In 2014 we engaged Avik Roy of Re-emerging World to support our team to carry out the market system assessment and intervention implementation design for Pork subsector in the states of Mizoram and Nagaland in North East India. Avik and his team supported us in quantifying the demand and supply gap, conducted expert interviews as well as in-depth field interviews to identify the key challenges and opportunities for engaging the private sector in pork value chain. At the end of the 8-week study, we conducted 3 stakeholder workshops in Mizoram, Nagaland and Guwahati in which the findings and emerging recommendations were presented by Avik. We appreciate Re-emerging World’s effective support which gave us insights, ideas and prioritized the intervention projects with the assignments, we will definitely hire Re-emerging World.

I formally wanted to thank you for the work and effort that you and your team put into our BOP project in Bangladesh. Re-emerging World is well equipped in conducting primary and secondary research in emerging countries and BOP projects. The time you spent with us in-country was highly productive and invaluable. Had Shaklee tried to go about this kind of project on our own we would have far longer to come to the conclusions and
level of information that Re-emerging World was able to obtain and distill down to the most pertinent details in several weeks. You truly accelerated our ability to drive towards a cohesive strategy and next steps. I think what Re emerging World brings to any BOP project whether that is a BOP study or a product or services launch in a BOP market is years of experience, intimate knowledge of the BOP, project management skills, and contacts with many NGOs, government agencies and constituencies operating within the BOP. I was impressed with the process of observation that Re-emerging World uses to garner how people at the BOP “truly” do things.
As we move forward with our project, we look forward to continuing to work with Re-emerging World as our trusted advisor to help us navigate successfully in the BOP.

Avik Roy, as a member of Hystra, has been advising Total E&P Myanmar from April 2013 to June 2014 in the implementation and development of Total’s Access To Energy Program in Myanmar. Having launched a pilot of distribution of off-grid lighting solutions in the South East of Myanmar in July 2013, Total requested Avik’s support in generating insights and lessons learnt from pilot, articulating a country business plan and scale-up strategy as well as seizing the opportunities for Total in the broader solar energy market (SHS and microgrids).

Thanks to his operational mindset and to its extensive knowledge of Last-Mile distribution models, Avik was able to elaborate concrete solutions to supply chain and organizational issues in the pilot phase. Avik’s capability to analyze the key success factors and foresee the key challenges of the scale-up phase proved extremely useful in designing a sustainable and efficient business model in a complex environment (competition, logistics’ challenges, low ability to pay of the targeted customers,…). He delivered a detailed financial plan incorporating the key learning’s from the pilot phase and which has been the basis for Total Access To Energy program’s development in Myanmar since. Finally, Avik’s contribution has been critical in helping Total to understand the opportunity and challenges represented by solar minigrids in Myanmar. We particularly appreciated his ability to understand the local context, present a fair picture of the market and propose concrete solutions supported by a financial model.

We have been very pleased with Avik’s contribution and totally recommend his services to any organization needing operational, strategic or financial modeling support in the fields of Last-Mile distribution and service to the Bottom Of the Pyramid in general.

We look forward to working with him in the future.

Mr. Avik Roy was actively involved on the ground with us from April — December 2011 insetting up the solar social business in Indonesia. As an advisor he supported us in designing the commercial pilot model, recruitment of the operations team, product pricing, distribution model, preparation of annual financial plan & budget and business review. He took an active role in the preparation and execution of the soft launch of the business in our pilot area in Jember-East Java. His hands on approach in translating what was a business model in a business plan document to a start- up business is very much appreciated. After the commercial launch in November 2011, as part of the business review, Mr. Avik Roy continues to assist us in evaluating the performance of the company particularly with regard to the development of the last mile distribution.
We find him a person with full of expertise, high efficiency and commitment to the work assigned to him and capability to build good relationship/communication with all TATS Indonesia team.
We look forward to work with him in the future.

Avik Roy, as a member of Hystra, has been working Total Access To Solar (TATS), a social business developed by Total, for the last 3 years. He more specifically worked on the pilot project that was launched in Indonesia, helping the team to create the business model, to develop the business plan and to launch the operational phase. This support was provided between April 2010 and November 2011. Since November 2011 Avik Roy is still providing support to the team in Indonesia, but on a less regular basis.

Thanks to his extensive knowledge and experience on social business, Avik Roy was able to provide a very effective and accurate support to develop the business model. He helped us identifying the type of networks we needed to put in place in order to reach our target population. He also helped us identifying the exact needs in energy of the population we were targeting, and to understand how we should approach them.

His support was extremely useful when developing the financial aspects of the project, as it was particularly difficult to create a model that would be economically viable as we were targeting households in rural areas who were isolated (no access to the public grid) and who had little and irregular revenues.

Finally Avik Roy helped us recruiting the local team, proposing an organizational chart, writing the job descriptions and selecting the right candidates. None of the team members have left for the moment, and we believe the team is well structured.

The most important is probably that Avik Roy succeeded in gaining the trust of our local team but also of TATS Paris. He listened to the needs of the local communities, the needs and expectations of TATS, the points of view of external stakeholders such as private companies or government agencies, and provided a support that took the interests and points of view of all the interested stakeholders.

Herewith you receive a reference on Mr Avik Roy and his consultancy Re-emerging world. I worked with him in Indonesia during 1 year (June 2011- June 2012) on:

• Analyzing the Indonesian market for nutrition, targeting the low income families (Base of the Pyramid), who suffer from malnutrition.
• Developing options for DSM to bring in its competences of micro nutrients, business modeling and scaling up. We selected business options for incubating and investing by DSM.
• Identifying public-private opportunities.
• Working out a sustainable business model: the model itself, financial business case, ready to implement and working out avenues for scaling up.

Competences

• Mr Roy is a top professional in his area.
• He has a wealth of knowledge in the area of Base of the Pyramid business modeling and inclusive business. He is strong in last mile distribution models.
• He is familiar with many areas in developing countries, and he is able to get familiar with new areas and topics very quickly.
• Where and when needed he brings in his colleagues and network (former clients, Ashoka-network, companies, universities and NG0s), to enrich his own experience and the project he is working on.
• He is strong in conceptualizing, innovating and linking partners and programs.
• In interviews and meetings he illustrates the strong combination of timing his input, connecting opinions, and addressing issues and actions.
• He delivers more than you ask for. He joins in extra meetings or workshops if that helps the project. He picks up things before having asked. That really helps in reaching progress and speed.
• He is very familiar with development programs and business models.
• Mr Roy is familiar working with all type of organizations, from micro enterprises to big companies, from women organizations to government departments, from donors to NG0s.

Above all, Mr Roy is a very pleasant person to work with. His broad interest and knowledge, in combination with exploring and entrepreneurial mind set, gave many fruitful brainstorms and much fun.

Kind regards,

Robert van den Heuvel Head New Business Development Nutrition Improvement Program

DSM is part of a worldwide group of companies active in the research, development, manufacture, marketing and sale of ingredients for the feed, food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, such as vitamins, carotenoids, PUFAs, UV filters, enzymes, other fine chemicals and plant extracts.

Avik has worked closely with “on the ground” BP teams in India, South Africa and Vietnam over the last 3 years in developing solutions and business models for the emerging consumers. He has demonstrated business acumen from both the strategic and operational point of view. Avik has been an asset to the teams in developing practical and concrete steps towards building the business case and leading the project management element of the different activities. His hands on and pragmatic approach, his ability to work and stimulate diverse international teams have been of great help to me and the BP business.

In the 2 years I have had the pleasure of working with Avik, I would describe him as boasting a selfless and professional dedication to working with partners to identify, develop and deploy sustainable business solutions that have a lasting effect in the transformation of the lives of many and making a contribution towards poverty alleviation. His laser-like attention to detail, balanced with an eagle-like high-level and strategic perspective and fresh approach to challenging social and business issues will certainly and materially benefit any organization he works with.

Avik is a thought leader. He understands the emerging consumer and rural markets very well. He brings his meticulous approach and positive attitude to any assignment he takes up. Avik worked with BP’s Emerging Consumer Markets’ team in Vietnam for around 8 weeks spread over 5 months in 2007. He helped plan the project and actively contributed in the research phase. He provided the team with various frameworks to aid discussions and also played a role in forming the excellent team spirit in our diverse team. Avik has keen commercial acumen and he returned in the last weeks of the project to sense check assumptions and helped us build a robust business plan. Avik always adds value.

Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) learning and development organization that brings women and communities from the margin to mainstream by building competencies, collaborative at platforms and partnerships. SSP was awarded the “Partnership on Women’s Entrepreneurship in Clean Energy (wPOWER) program by USAID India. The 3-year program, launched in October 2012, focuses on  creatin 1,000 clean energy women entrepreneurs and promoting sustainable clean energy access for rural end users. SSP is implementing the program across six districts of Maharashtra and two districts of Bihar.

We hereby confirm that Re-emerging World Consulting Private Limited (Re-emerging World), a strategic advisory firm, was contracted for supporting: us in designing the wPOWER India model and as the programme and knowledge management partner for the program. As a part of the engagement, Re-emerging World conducts quarterly field research for generating insights for supporting and improving the implementation of the program, prepares quarterly program newsletters for all stakeholders and manages quarterly reporting to USAID. Re-emerging World also working a process manual for facilitating replication of the wPOWER India model.

We find the services of Re-emerging World very satisfactory have no reservations in recommending their research and consulting services.

For the last 2 decades. Swayam Shikshan Prayog’s (SSP) mission is to empower grassroots women in underserved communities to attain economic self-reliance through entrepreneurial and business skills, acquire new roles and social identities, and lead local planning and development.

In the last 8 years, SSP’s interventions have incubated over 1,45,000 rural women entrepreneurs, farmers and business leaders. who have in turn impacted over 5 million people to date in 7 states of India.

From 2007, SSP has appointed Re-emerging World as Program Management Support and Knowledge Partner on several projects related to grassroots women entrepreneurship. In 2018, SSP appointed ReW as a Program Management Support and Knowledge Partner for a 3-year , USD 1 million project funded by Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives. The project aims to empower 8000 women as decision-makers and change agents in their community through the practice of climate resilient farming in drought-prone areas of Marathwada in Maharashtra.

Re-emerging World is supporting SSP to distill pertinent field insights every six months to fine-tune SSP’s intervention model, prepare public documents to be used for multi-stakeholder workshops and dissemination, documentation and updating of Standard Operating Procedures to scale up the model beyond 2021.

We have a pleasant and productive partnership with Re-emerging World and would not hesitate to recommend their advisory and knowledge management services.

It was indeed a privilege & honor to work with Avik. He is one of the most effective persons that I have worked with. He has a very good understanding of the rural consumer and the BoP market. He brings with him the passion to deliver his best with deep rooted moral values and philosophies. His in depth business knowledge with a holistic approach has helped us to think through one of our project. We would like to work with Avik in future as well.

Avik has been instrumental in successfully designing and documenting a case study of a Social Enterprise, for the LEAD India Associates. This helped the Associates in getting the in depth knowledge of the enterprise along with the people involved and how it impacts the economies of their households as well as the society at large. The case study
was documented in a very professional manner yet the language was very simple and uncomplicated, which was very important as the Associates were from different backgrounds/fields. The flow of the case study was perfect and highlighted the important turn of events in the growth of the enterprise, thus helping the Associates understand and grasp these events for formulating further strategies. The skills highlighted in this case study were mainly related to systems thinking, which helped the Associates to formulate strategies for the growth of the enterprise.
Avik was also a co-facilitator for introducing the case study as well as helping the Associates understand the growth of the enterprise as well as the people associated right from the conception till date. His gentle and easy going manner endeared him to the LEAD India family yet as a professional he guided the Associates in the right direction
with his clear thinking and valuable guidance.
I would like to wish him the very best of success in his future endeavours.

AEPL and Aharam managements are enormously benefited by Avik’s inputs to operations. The insights that he brought into conceptual discussions and business plan development to build these organizations have been beneficial immensely. During the course of his engagement in the last three years or so he was instrumental in bringing a professional approach in planning and implementation. With growing hands on experience he will be an asset to the emerging social enterprise sector. He is an enthusiastic and energetic person to work with. Cheerful in attitude and easy to get along with people from different walks of life yet remain focused on work in hand is a major attribute in his relationship management.

We wish him all the best in his endeavours.