**WASH refers to water, sanitation and hygiene, and the logic that when people gain access to clean water, they can take better steps to practice good hygiene and sanitation.
2.5 billion people globally lack access to improved sanitation which represents more than 35% of the world’s population. Of the 783 million inhabitants in Sub-Saharan Africa, 40% are without access to improved reliable drinking water sources, 80% of illnesses are water-related diseases, and 70% of rural women and girls are tasked with fetching water.
Our client is a California-based social impact organization delivering decentralized, off-grid water treatment centres and is looking to attract investors to accelerate their growth and impact in these hard-to-reach areas.
Four nationalities with combined professional backgrounds of engineering, marketing, supply chain and finance, makes our team well equipped to formulate a solution that contributes to closing the inequality gaps in water access, is cost-effective and efficient in last-mile distribution.
The project provides a golden opportunity to practice our leadership learnings so far, especially in the ideation process. Within our team, we also have competing priorities at this time (also known as job search and interviews) and now more than ever, being direct and providing context helps maintain clear information flows. We constantly find ourselves asking these three questions:
- What is happening that should be protected at all costs?
- What is happening that should not be happening?
- What is not happening that should be happening?
Last week we presented the industry analysis to our client and now we are going into week 4, where we refine the company analysis. We maintain a critical eye on the organisation’s competitiveness and market attractiveness. Constantly, we debate among ourselves on which products are the cash cows, the stars, the question marks, and the dogs. This way we can better dissect the business strategic position in terms of brand portfolio and potential. We also realise that market share and industry growth are not the only factors of profitability, hence we are looking out for external factors and synergies between different products that may come into play down the line.
Now with 6 weeks left to graduation, and the final client deliverable even sooner, we are incorporating all the learnings across all the modules this year, from mind maps, to continuous improvements, to ecosystems, to strategy, and most importantly, storytelling.
