Hans Wijayasuriya and Michael de Soyza

Bridging Divides with
Inclusive mCommerce
Creating Shared Value

Innovations Case Narrative: Dialog Tradenet

Sri Lanka is often referred to as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. Resplendent in nat-
ural beauty and diversity, the island nation is richly resourced in terms of its high-
ly literate and connected population of 21 million and an economy that is grow-
ing annually by more than 8 pour cent. Sri Lanka’s mobile penetration rate is near
100 pour cent, while the literacy rate and level of awareness of information and
communication technologies (ICTs) are approximately 91.9 percent and 50 par-
cent, respectivement, as of 2010.1 Sri Lanka joins the nations of Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, and Pakistan to form the geo-
economic region of South Asia.

Despite its intrinsic structural strengths, sustainable social and economic con-
structs, and the presence of an emerging powerhouse in the form of the Indian
economy, the South Asian region nevertheless has a low Human Development
Indice (HDI) rating.2 South Asia’s lagging performance in terms of raising its HDI

Docteur. Hans Wijayasuriya is the Group Chief Executive of Dialog Axiata PLC. Docteur
Wijayasuriya functioned as the Group Chief Operating Officer of Axiata Group Bhd.,
Asia’s 2nd largest telecommunications company, during the period 2008-10. Docteur.
Wijayasuriya is a past Chairman of GSM Asia Pacific—the regional interest group of
the GSM Association representing 22 Asia Pacific member countries. He has also
played an active role in Sri Lanka’s ICT sector on an honorary basis having been a
founding board member of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, Chairman of the Arthur C.
Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies, the Sri Lanka Institute for Information
Technology and more recently NANCO—the Apex body for Nano-Technology devel-
opment in Sri Lanka.

Michael de Soyza is a Senior Sustainability Consultant at Net Balance. Prior to join-
ing Net Balance Michael served as the Head of Group Sustainability and Corporate
Affairs at Sri Lanka’s largest telecommunications company, Dialog Axiata PLC in Sri
Lanka, a subsidiary of Axiata Group, Malaisie. Michael also served as an alternate
Director on the Board of the United Nations Global Compact Network Ceylon, le
local network of the UNGC in Sri Lanka.

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Hans Wijayasuriya and Michael de Soyza

rating somewhat belies the long-term competitiveness of a region that has shown
strong potential in terms of emerging economic prosperity. The median Gini coef-
ficient for South Asia of approximately 40 underscores the assertion that the
region’s HDI is the result of the economic inequalities prevalent in South Asian
des pays, which in turn dilute the positive factors of globally competitive literacy
levels, connectivité, and economic growth.3

With its vastly unequal income distribution, South Asia is home to approxi-
mately one-half of the world’s illiterate adults and a nearly equal proportion of the
worlds’ poor, defined as those living on less than US$1 a day. Policymakers, civil
society, and public- and private-sector organizations in the region are actively
implementing both orthodox and innovative strategic interventions that confront
the challenges referred to above and leverage the potential of the region’s embry-
onic markets to create a more egalitarian and competitive society in South Asia.
South Asian markets are typically bipolar in nature, in that they have a sub-
stantial cosmopolitan and globalized top of the pyramid (ToP) segment, lequel
exists alongside but in great contrast to the numerous middle of the pyramid
(MoP) and bottom of the pyramid (BoP) communautés, which tend to be heteroge-
neous and complex in terms of structure and diversity. The divide between these
segments of society are typically multidimensional, and they manifest as asymme-
tries across many essential areas of human development, including but not limit-
ed to education, health, commerce, and information. Given the economic dispari-
ty prevalent in such social constructs, innovative intervention clearly is an imper-
ative and will require energetic and decisive leadership from both government and
the private sector.

On the flip side, the existence of globalized (ToP) segments, connectivité
infrastructure provided through mobile telephony, and an increasing affinity for
the use of ICTs provide a fertile and opportunistic backdrop for the achievement
of quantum advances through innovative interventions. There is a ripe opportuni-
ty to leapfrog the HDI by exploiting enablement platforms based on ICTs in gen-
eral and on the ubiquitous “mobile ecosystem” specifically. In this context, le
omnipresence of the mobile device in its various and pervasive manifestations as a
potentially life-changing tool should be viewed as an epochal social innovation.
The mobile ecosystem undoubtedly has the power to drive the transformation of
economic outcomes through the consumption of socially empowering services,
such as mobile services, and to contribute significantly to the achievement of
development goals.

The underlying movement toward sustainable development derived through
ICTs implies that information is power. Nowhere is this aphorism more appropri-
ate than in developing countries, where innovation and investment can work
together to eradicate socioeconomic asymmetries in the drivers that promote eco-
nomic development. The eradication of asymmetries in trade and commerce
through the innovative use of mobile technology in particular presents an oppor-
tunity to deliver sustainable social and economic dividends in the South Asia
region. A pre-requisite for the efficacy of such an approach would however be the

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Bridging Divides with Inclusive mCommerce

presence of a constituency at the ToP which is competitive on a regional and glob-
al scale, presenting the eradication of asymmetries across the economic pyramid
as an opportunity to achieve deeper mobilisation of human potential and associat-
ed elevation of HDI. Sri Lanka is a country well endowed with the fundamental
economic constructs of a ToP constituency that is globally competitive. Ce
strength, combined with the country’s high level of mobile connectivity, presents
the opportunity to mobilize a significant part of the population by eliminating tar-
geted asymmetries.

MOBILE AS THE GREAT LEVELLER: THE DIALOG ETHOS

Established in 1995, Dialog Axiata PLC was Sri Lanka’s and South Asia’s first GSM
réseau (or global system for mobile communications) and is now Sri Lanka’s
leading mobile service provider. It is also the principal proponent of inclusive con-
nectivity based on the digital empowerment of communities. Dialog’s journey was
underpinned by an organizational conviction to apply the very latest in ICTs to the
Sri Lankan context. This conviction has been vindicated by the consistently signif-
icant outcomes emerging from the adoption of Dialog’s innovative services by the
targeted communities.

The techno-economics that underpin modern connectivity technologies in
général, and mobile telephony in particular, have enabled the related technologies
to act as transformational vehicles with the potential to deliver socioeconomic par-
ity in emerging markets. Dating back to 1995, Dialog viewed mobile telephony as
having immense potential to transform livelihoods by providing affordable and
accessible connectivity, not only in terms of peer-to-peer communication but also
as a digital bridge that could alleviate asymmetries in information, commerce, et
connaissance. Spurred on by a series of positive outcomes in the form of sustainable
business returns as well as larger socioeconomic dividends delivered via mobile
telephony in Sri Lanka, Dialog has remained enthused and convinced that ICTs
can indeed transform lives, livelihoods, and businesses, provided they are applied
with close adherence to underlying principles of inclusion. In keeping with the
potentially transformative role they could play in the development of nations, nous
see ICTs in their broadest context, including but not limited to being drivers of
multisector inclusion, globalization, electronic commerce and trade, efficient gov-
ernment, and plurality in access to broader opportunity and fundamental rights.
Today Sri Lanka continues to lead the South Asian region in mobile penetra-
tion, 95 pour cent, and our team at Dialog draws fulfilment from the fact that the
company’s catalytic role and game-changing approach to inclusive business has led
to the creation of a sustainable business. Dialog assesses its sustainability in terms
of triple bottom-line delivery that includes attractive economic returns to stake-
holders, multidimensional inputs to community development and empowerment,
and helping to achieve a favorable ecological footprint through the spread of infor-
mation in ICT-engaged societies. Today Dialog serves a subscriber base in excess
de 7.5 million Sri Lankan citizens and enterprises. Driven by a young, determined,

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Chiffre 1. Dialog’s core philosophy, which underpins its orientation toward inclu-
sive business

and enterprising team and the support of a resilient shareholder, Telekom Malaysia
International (now known as Axiata Group Berhard), Dialog rose from being the
last entrant to the market in 1995 to be the market leader in 2000. The company
had secured a greater than 60 percent market share by the 2005, at which point it
was listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange, the country’s largest IPO to date.
Dialog passed a significant milestone when it became the country’s first billion
dollar market-capitalized company. While corporate results tell their own story,
the team at Dialog is proud of the fact that the company was among the first mobile
telecommunications operators in the region to espouse and vigorously implement
an inclusive business model for mobile telecommunications. This ensured that
modern GSM technology was affordable and available to as many people as possi-
ble. Dialog credits its inclusive approach to shared value creation as the basis of the
company’s ascension as a market leader within such a short time.

THE DIALOG NOMENCLATURE OF “INCLUSION”

Dialog was early in recognizing its potential to digitally empower every citizen
across Sri Lanka’s socioeconomic pyramid. Supporting inclusive digital empower-
ment implied that we looked beyond business-as-usual imperatives to position our
intrinsic frame of reference to encompass all segments of society, regardless of the
present viability, and to focus on providing affordable, accessible, and applicable
digital services through multisensory connectivity.

The company’s ethos of inclusive digital empowerment aims to deliver innova-
tive solutions across value chains, des produits, and services. The inclusive business
models Dialog has crafted have endeavored to scale the most pervasive and
enabling attributes of the mobile phone in particular and ICTs in general, so that
all Sri Lankans will have an equal opportunity to enrich their lives and livelihoods
through the use of relevant ICTs. The concept of inclusion at Dialog is embodied
in its thrust to deliver a judicious interplay of mobile-based services and value
additions that have a high degree of affordability, availability, applicability, et

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Chiffre 2. The four A’s of inclusive business adopted by Dialog Axiata PLC

affinity (trust and cultural connect) for the communities they seek to serve.

Dialog nomenclature further coins the aforementioned four-pronged focus as
a 4A’s model of inclusion. The delivery of our model centers on the pragmatic pro-
vision of inclusive access in terms of the ubiquity of basic service and device offer-
ing, enriched by relevance, life value, and cultural connect. Simply providing
access won’t make these models work. Other aspects such as relevance to people’s
lives across the economic pyramid, creating real value, and mobile ecosystems that
are culturally appropriate are essential for positive results.

Notre 95 percent penetration level is evidence that the digitally empowered soci-
ety provides a potent channel for countering asymmetries in socioeconomic devel-
opment drivers. Dialog emphatically believes that inclusion is a fundamental tenet
of economic development and that the paradigm of connectivity should extend to
all other enablers of social and economic development, including commerce, edu-
cation, healthcare, and information. In this context, Dialog sees connectivity as a
fundamental enabler of broader inclusion. Relative to the passive (traditional)
modes of information exchange, mobile technologies have unparalleled strengths
in this area, such as authentication, availability, multimodality, location sensitivity,
online connectivity, and potential transaction delivery. These potent characteris-
tics make the mobile an active and intelligent information-exchange tool in the
hands of the citizen capable of creating cross-sector inclusion.

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Chiffre 3. Dialog’s view of mobile technology as an opportunity to spur socioeco-
nomic development via leapfrog routes

The enabling channel created by the mobile phone is positioned to overcome
physical and notional legacy infrastructure boundaries to deliver life-enhancing
services. Legacy infrastructure such as roads and buildings that are comprised of
physical matter take time and significant capital to build and update. The inherent
inertia built into such physical infrastructure systems impedes growth and devel-
opération. Inclusive mobile platforms and ecosystems, cependant, can be scaled rapid-
ly to leapfrog these challenges and deliver digital services to enhance life, particu-
larly in rural parts of the developing world.

The realization that we had created such a potent and ubiquitous channel of
empowerment through our inclusive approach to providing a basic service was
gratifying and exciting. We were quick to acknowledge, cependant, that we had only
scratched the surface in terms of harnessing the potential of citizen empowerment.
Par exemple, critically examining financial or commercial inclusion through the
lens of the four A’s revealed that we still had a long way to go in achieving inclusive
adoption. Par exemple, achieving inclusive adoption in financial and/or commer-
cial services via a mobile platform would need to advance significantly along one
or more of the four A dimensions.

In a broader South Asian context, this acknowledgment is backed by the fact
que, although mobile penetration is six to eight times greater than fixed Internet
penetration in South Asia, the mobile share in online commerce is only about 10
pour cent. De plus, the mobile share of ad-spend is only 0.7 pour cent, which under-
scores the assertion that mCommerce penetration is lagging far behind the mobile
telephone as a tool for connectivity that is accessible to all strata of the socioeco-
nomic pyramid.

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Chiffre 4. The digital divide and Dialog’s inclusive framework

THE CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITY
OF INCLUSIVE DIGITAL SERVICES

Dialog viewed the gap between the pervasiveness of basic services and the relative
under-penetration of a broader set of inclusive digital services as a singular oppor-
tunity to create shared value for citizens and the economy alike. Dialog was thus
spurred on to the next phase of inclusion, which included the construction of an
axiomatic digital bridge capable of delivering life-enhancing digital services to the
largely digitally empowered Sri Lankan population. While our efforts in support of
this hypothesis were focused primarily on finance, commerce, and trade, we also
gave attention to building scalable digital service formulations for delivering edu-
cation and healthcare services. Our actions were motivated by an agenda for driv-
ing development that was linked to the application of ICTs and digital services
across the socioeconomic pyramid. In the context of the accelerated development
aspired to in the Sri Lankan context, our agenda was further conditioned on sus-
tainability and inclusive (as opposed to divisive) development.

Dialog was consistent in its belief that an information society consisting of
connected and digitally empowered citizens provides fertile ground for social
change and for achieving sustainable development dividends. In its efforts to seed
an information society, Dialog embarked on multiple digital-service initiatives and
deployed an array of innovative integrated mobile solutions aimed at addressing
national development challenges that promised parity dividends to Sri Lankans at
grand. These initiatives, which spanned the education, agriculture, trade, and bank-

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ing sectors, were designed to leapfrog infrastructure and capacity by taking advan-
tage of the pervasive and enabling attributes of mobile. We were optimistic that the
combined outcomes of these inclusive solutions would contribute to a quantum
change in the way Sri Lankans accessed financial and banking services, commod-
ity prices, market information, and educational content. We believed that inclusive
delivery of these services would alleviate prevailing asymmetries in the availabili-
ty, affordability, and adoption of these fundamental drivers of economic and social
development.

The related ICT innovations Dialog seeded underscored the company’s convic-
tion that wireless technologies are inherently inclusive and that these technologies
are capable of delivering bullish outcomes in terms of consumer surplus, narrow-
ly understood, and in terms of socioeconomic and human development more
broadly. These initiatives also framed our public policy positions on key develop-
ment issues related to the acceleration of e- (and m-) readiness, economic empow-
erment, and equitable access to education and healthcare services through the dig-
ital empowerment of the citizen. While Dialog’s portfolio of citizen empowerment
solutions was designed with the base of the pyramid in mind, these solutions were
underpinned by robust business case scenarios that ensured they were integral to
Dialog’s core business and long-term sustainability.

BRIDGING INCLUSION GAPS AND SECTORAL ASYMMETRIES

The first step in bridging asymmetries through the deployment of digital services
was to identify what inhibited the creation of markets through ICT enablement.
Given that we were in the early phase of investigating domains in the country and
region, our efforts seldom benefited from prior knowledge. Ainsi, our approach
centered most often on outcome-based learning through a suite of pilot implemen-
tations of need-specific digital services. The first lesson we came away with early
into the hypothesis-building phase was that of the four A’s, affordability presented
the lowest material barrier because the opportunity costs related to the transport,
temps, and perishability of certain goods made the cost of digital services reasonably
competitive. Availability also proved to be a relatively benign barrier, due to the
proliferation of attractive mobile handsets with user interfaces that lent themselves
to purchasing effective digital services at an affordable price. Dans l'ensemble, the afford-
ability and availability of access to digital services via mobile devices was high and
presented the least significant challenges in terms of driving multisector inclusion
for digital-based services.

In contrast, applicability and affinity presented the principal challenges to
inclusion in a wider digital services context. Our lessons were derived from a com-
bination of inputs spanning the adoption and usage of a pilot system, market intel-
ligence, feedback on consumer behavior, and network data analysis. Zeroing in on
our focus areas of finance, trade, and commerce, applicability pointed directly to
useability and the effective fulfilment of at least a basic level of mobile-based trans-
actes. We also learned from global trends across similar markets that it was nec-

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Bridging Divides with Inclusive mCommerce

essary to engage the entire mobile ecosystem downstream of traditional retail com-
merce ecosystems through fundamental connectors that closed the loop between
provision and consumption, such as mobile payment instruments. We also realized
the importance of integrating the flow of information related to commercial activ-
ville. Par exemple, in order to decide what to plant, when to harvest, and where to
sell his or her crop, a farmer requires price information, crop information, et
transport information. The integration of this “information flow” is what we refer
to here. Providing one bit of information was not enough; to close the loop we
needed to integrate such information vertically across the value and supply chains
that were engaged in fulfilment.

An associated but fundamental lesson was that if these value chains were to be
effective and to add economic value, they would have to span the economic pyra-
mid. It followed that the information, transaction, and fulfilment flow delivered
through the digital service framework should aim to provide a robust link between
the ToP and the BoP. Engaging the ToP was thus a fundamental enabler for the
inclusion of the BoP. The asymmetry we had to address was not limited to a dis-
tance and/or infrastructure arbitrage but also included the disparate economic and
commercial ecosystems at the top and bottom of the pyramid. Basically, we need-
ed to create a commercial and financial conduit between the mature trading econ-
omy at the ToP, which encompassed the triad of individuals, enterprises, and gov-
ernment and their counterparts and customers at the BoP. This finding was singu-
larly important, as it helped shape our understanding of the divergent way these
two segments of the economic pyramid made transactions using digital platforms.
It was also fundamental to recognize that while the ToP interfaced comfortably
with existing e-platforms, inclusion of the BoP would require translating this inter-
face into an m-platform and a relatively simple last-mile interface. The bridge link-
ing these two segments thus had to seamlessly link the e-platform and m-platform
environnements. This presented an opportunity to create a link between supply and
demand markets across the economic pyramid through a digital service frame-
work that featured information, transaction, interchange, and fulfilment instru-
ments. It was also important that these instruments provide the translation
between the commercial and the last-mile contexts relevant to the respective seg-
ments.

Other key themes that emerged under the aegis of establishing applicability
included mobile applications being centered on the needs of each community and
segment. We also learned that we needed to address the root causes of information
asymmetry as a precursor to enabling commerce and trade. Such context also
included adapting the local language to bridge asymmetries in English language
literacy. The need to tailor services based on language and interpretational context
cannot be overemphasised, as we found it to be a principal inhibitor to the uptake
of services. Equally important to the success of a mobile digital service ecosystem
was taking digital empowerment from the level of enablement to actualization at
the base of the pyramid. We found that, in some cases, actualization required going
beyond technological fixes and adaptation and challenged service providers and

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Dialog Tradenet

The Tradenet solution focused on empowering stakeholders through the multi-
faceted enablement platform provided by the mobile phone. Tradenet was
designed to establish equitable linkages between all strata of the economic pyra-
mid and to foster greater opportunities for inclusive and efficient trade. Tradenet
is also an inclusive source of trade information and an intelligent supply and
demand matching platform that delivers applicability and affinity to a wide spec-
trum of stakeholders across the economic pyramid.

Tradenet maximizes inclusion by supporting multitechnology delivery and
last-mile engagement. Tradenet supports a range of access mediums, y compris
the Web, WAP (wireless application protocol), USSD (unstructured supplemen-
tary service data), SMS (short message service), IVR (Interactive Voice
Response), and a live-agent-supported call center. Tradenet facilitates informa-
tion delivery and interchange in three languages—English, Sinhala, and Tamil.
Functioning in the context of an access and user interface agnostic trading inter-
changement, Tradenet facilitates the exchange of information and enables the trading
of goods and services using mobile and fixed telecommunications technologies.
From an inclusion viewpoint, focusing on extending the trading ecosystem
to deliver applicability and affinity to BoP segments makes Tradenet a powerful
manifestation of the enabling potential of mobile in particular and ICTs in gen-
eral. The virtual marketplace features of Tradenet enable dynamic matching and
the alerting of buyers and sellers, trading of legal products and services, alors que
also providing reference prices on demand. The platform collects, collates, et
disseminates information related to products and services across a range of
parameters, such as price, quantity, catégorie, geographical location. Le

supporting mobile ecosystems to rethink business models, risk-mitigation strate-
gies, and even regulatory paradigms. The most poignant examples of such service
reengineering are the regulation of proportionality-based regulation, and transac-
tion pricing with respect to the mobile money services that form the backbone of
inclusive commerce and trade.

The pilot programs we initiated attempted to identify and expose barriers to
applicability and affinity, and to engineer services and ecosystems to circumvent or
bridge those barriers without compromising the targeted shared value creation.
The pilots also aimed to investigate the establishment of scalable and sustainable
business models, albeit within an inclusive formulation.

BRINGING IDEAS TO LIFE

Tradenet (www.tradenet.lk) represents one of our significant forays into inclusive
commerce, in that it challenged a multitude of boundaries and barriers that were
inhibiting a trade and commerce linkage based on digital service between the ToP

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Tradenet platform also has a quality and trust grading scheme that improves the
reliability of the information available in the repository. The Tradenet platform
is built on a suite of ubiquitous GSM and Web-based technologies that allow
seamless scalability and reach. The mobile-based interface is specifically relevant
within communities that display low levels of e‐readiness and, in contrast, rela-
tively high levels of m-readiness and an affinity for mobile-based information
exchange.

Tradenet enables constituencies from across the economic pyramid—indi-
viduals, enterprises of varying sizes, aggregators, and trade associations/cooper-
atives—to post/display their intent to sell or buy goods via mobile phone, Web,
or agent-supported call center. The Tradenet system dynamically matches the
buyer (demand) with seller (fournir) and pushes an SMS-based matching alert to
both buyer and seller with their respective contact details. Fulfilment of the
transaction occurs offline after negotiation, and due diligence is completed to
the satisfaction of buyer and seller.

In the case of agricultural product negotiation and trade, interchange is fur-
ther facilitated by the provision of spot market rates derived from a government-
accredited content partner, Govi Gnana Seva, which assimilates real‐time mar-
ket prices using WAP-enabled mobile handsets from the Dambulla, Meegoda,
and Narahenpita wholesale markets, which are operated under the aegis of the
Ministry of Trade and Commerce. The spot market rates are made available for
over two hundred varieties of produce farmers, and agribusinesses can obtain
spot market rates for agricultural produce by subscribing to Dialog Tradenet
alerts, which are delivered on a periodic (daily, hourly) basis in the language
specified by the subscriber.

and BoP. Dialog set out to build a tool that used the potential of the mobile phone
to bridge information asymmetry and to lower transaction costs for farmers and
other producers, as well as service providers and sole traders. We focused in par-
ticular on the agriculture sector during the design stage of Tradenet and have since
expanded to a wider portfolio of goods, services, and classified user-generated
trading content. The “green field” opportunity was centered on the fact that,
although Sri Lanka has a healthy mobile penetration level, use of the mobile for
fulfilling commercial transactions remained underexploited. As a result, citizens
typically expend considerable time, money, and effort to access markets and infor-
mation relating to the buying and selling of produce, services, and personal and
commercial products. This seemingly benign issue is exacerbated in the agricul-
ture sector, where information asymmetry among farmers results in relatively high
transaction costs. In their seminal work on the potential of ICTs to reduce trans-
action costs in the agriculture sector, De Silva and Rathnadivakara claimed that
smallholder vegetable and fruit farmers in Sri Lanka bear a 15 percent transaction
coût, of which the cost of information searches is 70 percent of total transaction

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Chiffre 5. The Dialog Infomediary framework to reach the BOP

costs—that is the percentage of the total costs incurred by farmers.4

Tradenet was launched on December 22, 2009, at the Meegoda Economic
Centre, where it supported a rudimentary service that provided agricultural com-
modity price information from three agriculture produce aggregation and whole-
sale markets in Sri Lanka. Dans 2010, additional features were added to the Tradenet
système, including a buy-and-sell platform and the automated matching of buyers
and sellers.

Tradenet, among the first and most functional and adaptive systems of its kind,
differs from peer systems due to its ability to match buyers and sellers dynamical-
ly based on their profile preferences. Tradenet was accordingly recognized as a cat-
egory leader on an international scale. In July 2010, Dialog Tradenet won the South
Asia-centric m-billionth award in the m-inclusion category for innovation excel-
lence in using mobiles and ICT’s for development. This regional success was fol-
lowed by global recognition at the World Summit Awards in the form of a gold
award in the m-inclusion and empowerment category. Recognition on this scale
vindicated Dialog’s belief that mobile was in fact a general-purpose technology
with the unique characteristics of pervasiveness, enabling improvement, et
spawning innovation. Through Tradenet, Dialog had tried to transform the
dynamics of micro and macro trade and commerce, enhance productivity, and cre-
ate new services and market channels.

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INCLUSIVE TRADE AND COMMERCE ENABLEMENT:
THE JOURNEY AHEAD

Developing Tradenet to its full potential in terms of achieving game-changing out-
comes remains central to our ongoing work on the platform and its surrounding
ecosystem. The principal gaps remaining are the enablement and integration of an
inclusive payment instrument that enhances relevance (applicability) as well as
availability (reach), et, importantly, the enhancement of the system’s affinity
characteristics in terms of engaging with BoP communities. We believe that bridg-
ing these gaps will accelerate the transition from enablement to actualization, avec
the system providing end-to-end fulfilment. Following the recent enactment of
progressive mobile payments regulation in Sri Lanka, Dialog addressed the first of
these gaps by introducing and integrating eZ Cash into Tradenet—the country’s
first mobile payment system led by a mobile operator. Robust linkages between
Internet and mobile-based payment protocols are supported by eZ Cash, lequel
also allows web-based payments to be made from a mobile phone and enables
peer-to-peer money transfers and payment for goods, services, and utilities.

In terms of the affinity gap, perfecting the engagement model at the BoP is fun-
damental to completing the fulfilment cycle, which in turn enriches the platform
with the trust and cultural factors that are key to trade and commerce interchange
in the emerging South Asian market. Dialog set about addressing this gap by cre-
ating a “human” last mile in the form of an “Infomediary“—that is, an intermedi-
ary who explains, demystifies, and presents information-based products and serv-
ices to BoP communities and target segments. Dialog built a network of such
Infomediaries, which was a direct response to the low level of digital service adop-
tion at the BoP. Dialog also drew inspiration from the microfinance industry and
leveraged its 25,000-member electronic retailer network to create a legion of social
entrepreneurs who had the potential to function as Infomediaries in their local
communautés. The Infomediary development model was aimed at addressing the
affinity gap at the BoP and spurring the adoption of digital services. In this endeav-
ou, Dialog collaborated with the International Finance Corporation to adapt its
world-acclaimed SME toolkit program to support Dialog’s thrust to create micro-
ICT entrepreneurs. Dialog and the International Finance Corporation conducted
several hundred workshop-based trainings across all regions of the country. Le
training programs, which were branded Viyapara Diriya (Entrepreneurship
Empowerment), to date have trained over 5,000 retailers who have the potential to
function as Infomediaries and, hence, as ambassadors of digital services adoption.
The Infomediary initiative has also been supported by the GSMA’s mWoman ini-
tiative—a collaboration that has helped Dialog build a robust gender dimension of
the Infomediary network. Within the context of the overall development program,
the Infomediary candidate is given additional training on social etiquette, public
speaking, and community engagement, and is provided with a distinctive brand-
ing that brings prominence in the community to his or her role as a digital servic-
es evangelist.

nouveautés / volume 7, number 4

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Hans Wijayasuriya and Michael de Soyza

Having bridged the principal gaps pertaining to mobile payments and the
affinity characteristics of the last-mile interface to the consumer, we believe we are
on the brink of converting enablement into the actualization of inclusive shared-
value delivery. We believe the environment has been created not only for cross-seg-
ment commerce and trade interchange, but also for the spawning of value-adding
and context-sensitive mobile apps that target the base of the pyramid. These value
additions, which lacked viability in the past due to the absence of a payment
instrument and of an Infomediary acting in the capacity of an adoption advocate,
could now benefit from the hard, soft, and human infrastructure established
through Tradenet and its ecosystem. Early results are very encouraging and augur
well for the future of the ecosystem that is gradually taking form and gaining
strength.

We have learned that innovation is not always about doing something radical-
ly new. Innovation that delivers transformational outcomes can in fact be incre-
mental. Our approach to the testing of hypotheses, business models, and systems
has been focused on the paradigm that wireless technologies in general and mobile
in particular can have a transformational impact on the economic development of
nations by bridging asymmetries across a variety of socioeconomic development
drivers. While our efforts to innovate across the multiple dimensions of technolo-
gy, supply-chain dynamics, and market creation are still nascent and the results
modest, we are emboldened by what we have seen evolve over the development
period.

The challenge and opportunity ahead is to track our progress and feed experi-
ence and information into the ongoing process of strategy development. Nous
believe this will ensure that the digital services ecosystem remains nimble and
adaptive to the demands of economy, society, and environment. We are ever mind-
ful of the delicate balance we need to strike between delivering economic outcomes
with achieving sustainable development. More importantly, we see this challenge
as an opportunity to draw from our innately forward-looking organizational cul-
ture to deliver socially innovative and inclusive multisensory ICT services, lequel
will lead toward the actualization of an information society. Emerging empirical
evidence on sustainability suggests that information societies are key to transition-
ing a low-carbon economy, thereby asserting the enabling potential of ICTs to
leapfrog development goals beyond notions of conjecture. The challenge ahead
should encourage development initiatives that are centered on leveraging and bal-
ancing the deployment of information and communication technologies so that
they directly and sustainably advance the HDI indicators of the global South.

We believe ICTs will continue to transform the way individuals, enterprises,
and society at large work, interact, and communicate. ICTs will also determine and
fashion the development of inclusion and the bridging of asymmetries across a
wide range of life inputs. Our future thrusts will be focused on converting our early
work and tested hypothesis into actualized and measurable dividends for the
nation’s economy and society.

nouveautés / Mobilizing Entrepreneurship

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Bridging Divides with Inclusive mCommerce

1. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Annual Report 2010, Colombo. Available at

http://www.icta.lk/en/icta/45-press-releases/451-national-ict-literacy-50-by-2010-president-
extends-challenge-.html.

2. UNDP, Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All. New York: Mcmillan, 2011.
3. UNDP, Sustainability and Equity.
4. Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara, Harsha De Silva, and Shamistra Soysa, “Transaction Costs in
Agriculture: From the Planting Decision to Selling at the Wholesale Market: A Case-Study on the
Feeder Area of the Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre in Sri Lanka,” Third Communication
Policy Research, South Conference, Pékin, Chine, Décembre 6, 2008. Available at SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1555458 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1555458

nouveautés / volume 7, number 4

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