Take-aways from our interventions at the sessions "Choosing the Right PAYGO Platform and Business Model: A Look Ahead" and "Operationalizing the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Framework for the Off-Grid Solar Sector: Training for industry and investors".
From the 22nd to the 24th of January, GOGLA held one of the most important events of the year of the Off-grid industry which gathered more than 670 delegates from 64 nations.
During such event, our team had the opportunity to connect and engage with distributors, manufacturers, investors and facilitators of the industry in discussing the most efficient ways forward to bring a greater access to energy to the over 1 billion people who remain without.
Solaris Offgrid had also been invited by GOGLA to take part to two speaking sessions to share its vision and ideas as a rising player of the “Pay-As-You-Go” scene. We take advantage of this article to express our gratitude for such opportunities offered, as well as handing out a few highlights of these interventions for the ones who could not attend.
In this session, we had the privilege to share the spotlight with our peers from Angaza and Mobisol, as well as our partner Omnivoltaic, to debate trends and orientations of the “Pay-As-You-Go” on aspects such as interoperability, connectivity, data protection and evolution of decision-making tools. In substance, Solaris Offgrid (by the intermediary of its Co-founder & CMO, Thibault Lesueur) discussed the following:
We advocated on the need for a greater interoperability between systems and third party PAYG softwares, which would greatly benefit distributors with more options on the ground (doing so, we encouraged manufacturers on releasing integration protocols more systematically).
We disclosed the next set of tools coming up on Solaris PAYG Platform such as a set of dedicated dashboards after GOGLA KPIs Framework to bring distributors and financiers closer together (see below), as well as a new data warehousing feature (business intelligence tools allowing distributors to create their own metrics on top of ones already displayed on our platform).
Alongside our peers, we agreed exploitation of data collected at the household had to respect the most ethical and confidential practices while allowing some form of extraction of value that could benefit the entire industry in meeting its social mission.
In this session, Solaris Offgrid Co-founder and CTO, Benjamin David, took the time to share with the industry how we implemented the GOGLA KPIs in our Tanzanian operations and in the Solaris PAYG Platform in general. We were presenting alongside DrivenData, the creators of the KPIs, and discussed in particular:
How we had been using some of the GOGLA KPIs for some time to track our Tanzanian operations, which facilitated a standardized discussion with investors. We showed as an example how the tracking of the average credit period allowed us to make our portfolio more attractive to debt investors by focusing the field teams on moving towards a majority of 2 years leases.
For some other KPIs, we adopted different measurement methods for decision-making purposes. In particular, we detailed why we think it is good to keep two versions of the KPIs in some cases (e.g. churn), one more targeted at the day to day operations, and one higher level for decision maker and investors.
Following such standardized framework pushes distributors to focus on a few critical dimensions that they may not be aware of in the first place, helping them to gain focus on the profitability and sustainability of their model. As the main takeaway, we believe the implementation and use of such a framework was a positive move both for our operations and for our relationship with investors. As a result, we are now sharing them as a feature of the Solaris PAYG Platform to help distributors using such a management tool.
About Solaris Offgrid :
Solaris Offgrid supports distributors of essential services to build strong customer traction and greater relations with investors through flexible and inclusive Paygo solutions, designed for last-mile operations. Adopting a bottom up approach in the design of its solutions and creating synergies with a strong network of partners to solve last-mile challenges, the company has already deployed Paygo solutions in more than 30 countries through PaygOps, Solaris Offgrid in-house software solution built “In the Field, for the Field” and its product development services. Leading reference in the off-grid solar market, PaygOps, is engineered to deliver modular and interoperable solutions to address off-grid energy access challenges and distribution complexity. For more information on PaygOps, please contact enquiries@paygops.com.