5 Field research and visits
5.1 Workshops in India and Bangladesh
The producer consultation/workshops in India and Bangladesh were conducted with a representative sample of individual artisans to gather producers own perceptions of the Internet and e-commerce, and their business needs.
As part of the consultations, various participatory exercises were used with producers to gather the producers views. These included focus group discussions, mapping out their own business activities, modelling their business, and design exercises (with and without computer assistance). These exercises were designed as a way of capturing perceptions and identifying information and resource flows. The various models were used to discuss the Internet and the possible benefits to them. The details of this process are recorded below.
Group Exercise 1
Producers were asked to bring a sample of their work to the meeting. The presentation of their work to the rest of the group gave them an opportunity to present their business – people working, skills available, range of products etc.
Group Exercise 2
Modelling the business.
This exercise considered information flows in business
After the introductions, using their products as a
starting point, the groups were asked to build a model of their
business. The idea of this exercise
was to model and discuss the material and information flows for taking a
product from raw material to final market.
The group used their own products and other materials available to
illustrate the parts of the business.
This has been summarised below.
Figures 14 and 15 show the models created by producers in India and
Bangladesh. Photos:
Producers at the workshop in Dhaka, Bangladesh used their own products to
build a model of their business activities. Key stages in the process were
described in Bangla on separate sheets of paper (see below).
The key points the model brought out concerned the
information flow surrounding the purchase of raw materials for making the
product and that this was actually an interactive process. The producers haggled with the tradesmen
about the price, they insisted on seeing the materials, and they could specify
what they wanted. If the product
then turned out to be bad ( a tree trunk that was rotten inside), they
could return with the bad product and negotiate. This discussion was important for increasing understanding of
how their own products are perceived by consumers and the need for
interaction between consumer and seller.
This led on to a discussion about how far the producers are from their eventual customers, and how they do not have sufficient feedback.
The discussion included acknowledging that the producers often created items that they liked without due consideration of the tastes of the consumers. One or two suggested that they looked at magazines to see what people liked, but that often the magazines were quite old.
Regarding the supply side, producers noted the expense of sending samples and getting feedback from the ATO. They often sent photos and these proved to be a significant expense. The discussion progressed to explore the possible role of digital cameras and Internet cafes. The group identified the risk of designs being stolen through public Internet cafes.
As part of these discussions, producers also drew a map of how they thought the Internet could be used to buy and sell craft goods (Figure16).
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Figure 1 Information flow as mapped by producers during the workshop in Mumbai, India