This document discusses how pay-as-you-go solar companies can use customer behavior data and remote monitoring technology to make strategic business decisions. It provides examples of how analyzing payments, usage, and system health data can help with portfolio risk management, financial choices around loan terms and deposits, and operational planning for regions, agents, and logistics. The document also demonstrates remote monitoring software that tracks customers, invoices, payments, device information, and energy production in real time.

1. Pay as you Go- Solar Tech
By: Douglas K Baguma
M.D, Innovex (U) Ltd
douglaskarugaba@innovex.org September 2018

2. Business Environment
Internal
(Employees,
management)
Micro
(partners, customers,
suppliers, competitors,
intermediaries)
Macro
(Government, industry
stakeholders, policy makers,
investors, donors)
Key questions;
Macro
• Who are the key players in the solar market?
• What are their interests?
• How do I position by business to meet their needs?
• How do they help me grow my business?
Micro
• Who can I work with to better satisfy my customers?
• How do I differentiate my business from the competition?
Internal
• What is within my direct control in satisfying my customer
needs?
• How do I structure my team to better reach and serve my
customers?

3. Share holders
Board Over sight
Strategic Level • Scale to 1 million new connections
• Profitability of 25%
Middle management Set objectives
• New region
• Restructure and new hires
• Price and offering
• M&E
Operational level Implement
• Sales
• Bill collections
• Field installations
• Customer care
• Repossession
Internal Environment
• What does my internal structure look like?
• What are our overall goals and objectives and how do we meet them?
• Can Pay as you Go help? And How?

4. Pay G- Tech features
Records Keeping Payments collection
& tracking
CRM
(Notifications to
clients)
KPI tracking and
Financial solution
Many Pay as you Go platforms on the market will provide you with at least four major basic elements.
Each of these is described in detailed in the subsequent slides

5. Records management
B. Offer
1.Terms of financing
2.Period of payment
3.Deposit size
4.Daily/ weekly history
5.Active/ disabled device status
6.Unlocked/ repaid status
A. Customer
1.Age
2.Average household age
3.Number of members in the
4.household
5.Number of rooms of house
6.Economic activity
7.Level of income
8.Number of children/
9.GPS location
10.Level of education
11.Mobile coverage
12.Asset ownership
13.On/OFF grid
14.Agricultural activity
15.Climate vulnerability
C. Product
1.System specs
2.Pricing
3.Sales and service
4.Agent characteristics
5.Transport costs (freight)
6.Manufacturer/ supplier
7.Purchase cost
8.Storage costs
9. System health
10.Maintenance records
You should collect as much detailed information about your customer especially for unforeseeable future needs.

6. Payments Collection and Tracking
Payment Options
1. Physical payments
• Cash payments
• Bank deposits
2. Mobile money options
• Telecoms in Uganda (MTN, Airtel)
• MTN mobile money (MTN OVA, MOMO pay)
• Airtel money
• Aggregators (Beyonic, Yo Uganda, Pegasus,
Remit, Payway, Jpesa)
3. Agency Banking
• Centenary Bank, Stanbic bank
Notes:
MTN and Airtel OVA: Integrate directly with telecom get a business code that customer will use on mobile money menu
to pay to your mobile money account. Mobile money charges and taxes will apply.
MOMO pay is a product of MTN that is easy to setup and enables you business receive mobile money payments via the
MTN mobile money menue.
Working with aggregators maybe a good approach as they provide continuous support as opposed to direct telecom
integration.

7. Business decisions to be made
‘According to Gallup’s analysis, companies that apply the principle of behavioral economics outperform
their peers by 85% in sales growth and more than 25% in gross margin. This shows the ability to extract
information from what customers do and what want can be strategic to the survival of companies’
Areas are;
1. Portfolio health
2. Financial decisions
3. Strategic operations decisions

8. Portfolio health
Analysing customer behavior and risk management
• Customer behavior; identifying attributes of well performing customers and increasing targeting and
success of marketing material.
• Types of products to offer household
Key variables
• Actions: defaults or late payments
• Circumstances: Household attributes such as; education, size, income, employment status, season
• Attitude: Behavioral preferences during screening process

9. Financial decisions
• Duration of loan
Increasing duration of loan payment makes it more affordable and more attractive to larger portion of population.
This increased exposure to risk means that companies need to charge higher interest rates.
Distribution of loan terms among 5 East African PAYG solar lenders. Clustered into 12, 18 and 24 months, GOGLA

10. • Initial deposit size
This sometimes is an indication of the credit rating and willingness to pay by a client.
Initial deposit size may vary according to geographical location or for each individual household based on historical data
and economic history.
Distribution of down payments for both MF and SHS in East and West Africa, GOGLA

11. • Flexibility of loan payments
This allows clients to adjust their payments according to their cyclical and unpredictable income streams without threat
of repossession, examples could be with farmers and cattle keepers.
More frequent payments e.g weekly have been found to increase the likelihood of a loan being paid off.
Breakdown of Typical Contract Payment Periods for PAYG companies in East and West Africa, GOGLA

12. • Fraud detection
• Mark down strategy
• Credit rating
Financial decisions
Comparison graphs, Dan Amiram

13. Strategic and Operational Decisions
• What Regions to Target
• How to assign Field Agents or Maintenance Crew to Different
Locations
• Delivery logistics
• Market Basket analysis

14. Disaggregation of PayG business models
Source, Dalberg

15. Distribution of Pay Go
Source, Dalberg

16. Remote Solar monitoring
• Data analytics and monetization opportunity
• Results base financing
• Faster scaling
• New service provision (After sales, customer
acquisition)
• Solar for productive use
• Product standardization (CLASP, Gov’t)

17. General discussion
• Future opportunities
• Short comings/ challenges
• Would you apply this in your
business?

18. Remot Pay as you Go & Remote solar
monitoring Technology Demo

19. Remot Demo

20. Customer list

21. Customer details

22. Adding a new customer

23. Adding a new customer

24. Adding a new customer

25. Customer Invoices

26. Customer Payments

27. Quick reports

28. Quick reports

29. Managing devices

30. System health monitoring
Information
• Panel production
• Consumption
• Battery health
• Energy data

31. System Dashboard

32. A product of
INNOVEX UGANDA LIMITED
‘Creating Technologies for Africa’
www.innovex.org
P.o. Box 7062,
Makerere, Kampala
+256 393 216 119
info@innovex.org