THAMEL: reducing the social, cultural and economic cost of immigration through the power of ICT

Author : Bal K. Joshi & Robert E. Granger
Date added : 2003-09-23

Brief Project Background

The thoughts swirled around in my head in the middle of another sleepless night. “What is going to happen to these talented young people now that they are out of work? Are they going to have to leave Nepal, like so many others? I know we have problems here at home, but can’t we do something that will help us create opportunities and move our society in a new direction?

They were “techies”, college graduates; those people referred to when talking about the “brain drain” from under-performing economies like ours. And there were others, too; those with little or no education and a slim hope of finding a decent job at home. They also had brothers and sisters living around the world, working hard, sending money, dreaming of their homeland and of better lives and times for their loved ones.

It was from the union of this persistent feeling of anguish and determined sense of hope that Thamel Dot Com was born. It started as an idea; as a desire to do something new and useful. It was 1999 and the “dot com bubble” was still afloat. We thought that a web-based business might be the best way to use our technical, business and marketing expertise. Thamel Dot Com started out as a web-based directory for local businesses. Our first customers (“Affiliates”) were unsure of what they were signing up for, but the price was right so they gave us a chance. We now had to deliver some value, or our bubble too would be short lived. We initially tried a number of things with limited success. Then came Dashain, and suddenly we arrived.

Nepalese have celebrated Dashain for centuries. It is the greatest festival of the year and spiritually unites all Nepalese. It is fifteen days of preparation, homage and family blessings. An important part of the Dashain celebration is the sacrifice of a ceremonial goat (Khasi). To be able to include Khasi in the celebration is a blessing and, for many, a significant expense. We asked ourselves, “What if a family member living out of the country could send the gift of a Khasi to their loved ones back home?” And this is exactly what we made happen. No, we didn’t ship goats from around the world to Nepal as some people thought. We simply married the tools of information and communications technology (ICT) with the age-old traditions and supply chain of the Nepalese market place. When a person orders a goat on the Thamel Dot Com website, a gift certificate is delivered to the recipient in Nepal by one of the Thamel staff. The recipient is instructed to take the certificate to the goat market and redeem it for a Khasi of their choice. But the process doesn’t stop there. Once the person has selected a Khasi, a digital picture is taken of them. This picture is then transmitted back to the gift giver as both a delivery confirmation and a visual “thank you”. A circle of love is completed in substance and image. We created value through the identification and fulfillment of many unmet wishes and needs to celebrate everything wonderful about our families and our culture; and through this simple process Thamel Dot Com found its niche. (http://thamel.com/ICD4D/goat/pictures.htm)

Nepal has over a million citizens living and working all over the world. They go in search of work to support their families. Given a choice, they would rather stay home. They miss their culture -their families, their friends, their food, and their homeland. Thanks to the postal and telephone systems and wire services people are able to stay in touch. The Internet has now added another significant way for people to stay connected. After our success in providing Khasi for Dashain, we decided to make Thamel Dot Com the information and transaction “portal” for Nepalese around the world.

Thamel Dot Com started with a limited number of services. We provided local news, links to other related sites, and a catalogue of gifts that people could send their friends and family. These gifts were all supplied by our local Nepalese business Affiliates, with fulfillment provided by the local employees of Thamel Dot Com. All the gifts were selected to match the cultural interests and traditions of Nepal. We offered a birthday cake from a famous bakery; a silk sari; even special food items like yak cheese. Our local staff designed the site. The operating systems were designed to match the infrastructure of the region. Marketing took place by word-of-mouth as satisfied customers told their friends about our site. Thamel Dot Com began to grow in a truly organic way, as an authentically Nepalese enterprise.

As Thamel Dot Com grew, we faced and overcame many challenges. For example:
- Local Nepalese ICT systems and services do not meet our needs for systems reliability, security and financial transaction management. To overcome this problem, we located these system elements in other countries, thereby employing the global ICT infrastructure provided by the Internet for the benefit of our customers throughout the world.
- Our customers needed some form of order verification to prove that we had delivered their gifts. Our solution, sending a verifying digital picture, not only provided them with the assurance they needed, but had the added effect of producing a lasting visual keepsake, with often emotionally charged content, such as smiles or tears of appreciation on their loved one’s faces. The compound value of this solution has proven to be a huge benefit in terms of customer loyalty and repeat business volume.
- The delivery of gifts in a city and country without street addresses creates a real logistics problem. Often it is difficult for delivery people to find their destinations. To overcome these challenges, we worked with the Municipality of Katmandu, using their GIS mapping system, to create delivery zones around well-known landmarks. Our customers now tell us the general location of the order recipient by giving us a reference landmark which we communicate to the delivery team assigned to a corresponding delivery zone. As a result of this improvement to our logistics process our daily delivery rate has increased 300%.
- When we started to build our portal we discovered that ecommerce tools available in the IT market were either too simplistic or too sophisticated and costly. We chose to address this problem by having our bright, creative technical staff design and develop our own systems. While time consuming, this approach proved a less expensive alternative to external solutions, with the added benefit of allowing us to tailor the building and customization of our e-commerce capabilities directly to the growth of our business,.
- One of the most challenging aspects of developing Thamel Dot Com was educating our staff on the fundamentals of our business. Web portals and ecommerce sites were new concepts in Nepal. We needed our staff to move beyond their basic understanding of work tasks and operating procedures, and fully internalize the goals, values and rationale of our work. We discovered that one of the best ways to do this is by actively involving the staff in the design of our work systems and tools. For example, the delivery staff helped design our Shopping List system, assuring that these tools and procedures meet our goals for delivery quality and customer satisfaction. As our staff grows in their understanding of the business, they are able to independently innovate new and better ways to meet our goals.

Four years after those initial sleepless nights, Thamel Dot Com is a thriving part of the Nepalese community and economy. By listening to our customers and affiliates, and applying our own creative and development expertise, we have built a place where Nepalese in 25 countries are sending gifts from a catalogue of over five thousand items. We have designed a portal where people are getting local news from home, exchanging emails or chatting with their family and friends. They are finding the most economical airline tickets to Katmandu or supporting a local charitable service. And, starting this year, they are sending money home at a fraction of the costs of competing services. The Thamel organization is now divided into five groups: the Thamel Dot Com portal operations; the technical development and IT services organization called IT Chemist; the delivery services operation; Thamel financial services; and the newly formed international business development organization, Thamel International. With a local Nepalese staff of over fifty people, Thamel Dot Com currently contributes over one million US dollars a year in revenue to the local economy.

Today, Thamel Dot Com provides a beacon of opportunity in an otherwise gloomy picture in Nepal. Not just because of the economic contribution it is making, but because it is helping the Nepalese community around the world stay connected and united. It proves that there is a viable, valuable and sustainable way for us to use ICT tools to help us live and work in, and for, our world. And it is some of those very bright young people I worried would abandon hope and home in 1999 that are making it happen.

Results

Here are some “snapshots” of what has happened over the last four years:

REAL VALUE CREATION: The growth of our customer base tells us that we are helping fulfill a strong desire by Nepalese all over the world to stay connected with their roots. At the same time, our Affiliates are getting new business. We are now serving over 18,000 people in 25 countries; and over 500 local business Affiliates in Nepal.

CULTURAL PRESERVATION AND INTEGRATION: One of the most difficult aspects of living outside your own culture is the loss of the communal celebration of feasts and holidays; especially religious holidays. The cultural context of Thamel Dot Com has allowed Nepalese all over the world to stay connected to these important cultural events. We have also found that new celebrations are entering our lives via their host countries. Holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day, that are now a part of the lives of Nepalese living in Western countries, are being shared with family and friends back in Nepal. Thamel Dot Com is helping preserve our own tradition and culture, while helping Nepalese at home share in the cultures of other peoples.

CREDIBILITY AND TRUST: Trust is the soul of any web-based service. People have to trust you with their intentions, their orders, and their personal and financial information. You cannot fail them. The sad truth is that Nepalese don’t necessarily trust Nepalese businesses. For us, building credibility required a high level commitment to business integrity and customer satisfaction. The growth of our customer base and business volume is a strong indication that we are meeting these goals. This is one of our most valued accomplishments.

EMPLOYMENT: Shared wealth is partially delivered through living-wage jobs. We now have over 50 full-time local staff directly employed by the Thamel organization. During the festival seasons we add another 50 people to help with operations. We conservatively estimate that our Affiliates have added another 50 new jobs as their own businesses have grown. Best of all, the value of these jobs and all the associated benefits are accruing in Nepal.

NARROWING THE “DIGITAL DIVIDE”: The majority of our customers have never made an on-line, Internet purchase prior to working with us. In many cases we have to “hold their hands” through the ordering process. This type of active “transaction”, whether it’s placing a gift order or sending an email, helps the learning process. We also work with our Affiliates to help them understand the benefits of ICT tools. Today, a third of our Affiliates have added some type of IT to their businesses; and with our assistance, over 80 of them have by now established their own web sites. We have formed IC Chemist in order to give us additional capacity to educate and support local organizations in their use of ICT. It is through this kind of grass-roots support that we are truly helping narrows the “digital divide”.

EDUCATION: In addition to educating our customers and affiliates, we are educating our staff on what it takes to run a high-quality, web-based business. We are creating an environment in which people are motivated to learn. A similar educational process is taking place with our partners, the National Bank of Nepal and the Municipality of Katmandu. As they learned about our infrastructure needs, they were able to make changes that have supported and enhanced our work. Through this collaborative educational effort with government partners we are creating a more conducive environment for other local ICT-based applications and businesses.

APPROPRIATE APPLICATIONS AND SYSTEMS: As a “home-grown” business, we were required to work within existing infrastructure. We have designed all our systems and operating procedures to work within these constraints. We have built our own applications. We have set up our own protocols. But most importantly, we have all internalized what we are doing and why we are doing it. This learning-by-doing approach is proving to be our most valuable intellectual property.

NEW ENTERPRISES: Our success has not gone unnoticed by others. Our Affiliates have recognized our ability to help them grow their businesses. Now some of them are coming to us to help them reach the international market. We have helped start (or motivated the startup of) over 10 new web-based Nepalese businesses. Some of these are offering complementary services; some are competitors. All of this adds value to both our economy and to our community.

COMMUNITY SERVICE AND SOCIAL CHANGE: We want to be more than an Internet business, so we are using our portal and services to enhance the social foundation of our local and extended community. We have assisted a local women’s floriculture cooperative with their designs. We have used our portal to raise visibility and support for a Nepalese bicyclist who is cycling around the world. We have run holiday programs to support homeless children in Katmandu. In addition to these planned efforts, there have also been unexpected social benefits. Our Nepalese society has many customs and practices tied to a very rigid caste system. When we started our gift delivery business we were unsure what was going to happen when we sent a delivery person from a “lower caste” to the house of an “upper caste” family. We have found is that our delivery of gifts is actually breaking down caste barriers. Our experience is that our delivery people are being treated like guests or honored messengers who actually represent the gift giver. We believe this small but important change has begun to enhance the way we interrelate and to strengthen the foundations of our community

ECONOMIC RETURNS AND SUSTAINABILITY: Thamel Dot Com has now achieved the kind of financial returns needed to support its ongoing economic sustainability. Our direct contribution to the Nepalese economy is in the millions of dollars (US). The aggregate societal return includes additional spending on education, health care and other social services and programs created by this incremental revenue. There is additional investment by infrastructure providers. And there is the physical return of oil and kerosene carried by the Mongolian goat herders as they travel back to their homes after successfully delivering their “Khasi” to Katmandu for Dashain. We formed Thamel International in order to help expand this return. We want to play a role in the global effort to create ICT-enabled enterprises in underserved parts of the world.

However ardent our efforts or vocal we may be about them, we believe that our customers are the best spokespeople for the value of our services:

“thanks a lot for that delivery at the right time. i am very very thankful to u guys. to be honest i don't have words to thank u. my dad he is really very happy to get the things on father's day by his son who is living abroad. really appreciate that. cheers for that. really happy for tht. will be
ordering soon for my rest of the family in near future. thanks a lot once again.”

Lessons

We are learning a lot from our successes, our mistakes and the surprises that have popped up along the way. Here are a few of the more important lessons we’ve learned:

ICT IS A TOOL FOR DELIVERING VALUE, NOT THE VALUE ITSELF. It is tempting to focus too heavily on ICT tools because they are fun and critical to the business. However they are not, in and of themselves, the real value created by the enterprise. Thamel Dot Com is all about connecting people with their roots and with Nepal. The portal, the gifts, the pictures, the news reports, and the financial services are all means through which we strengthen this connection. Our ICT tools simply, and importantly, enable us to transmit the value these services deliver.

WE CAN OPERATE WITH LIMITED INFRASTRUCTURE. In Nepal, as in a large part of the world, we have to deal with very basic electrical power and telecommunications systems that more economically advanced countries consider obsolete. We have had to train all of our staff in the workings of our business. We have to deal with local legal and cultural constraints that do not match or favor our type of enterprise. By understanding and confronting these limitations with the determination to succeed we have found ways to work through them. The results may not be ideal, but we are off to a good start. Our progress thus far has provided us with a real-world example that doing something productive, even with limitations, is better than doing nothing because of them. And living by that example, we continue to innovate and in many cases exceed our own expectations.

TRANSACTIONS DRIVE VALUE CREATION: Value comes in many forms. One form is through a tangible transaction where a person or group gets a benefit in exchange for their effort or contribution. Thamel Dot Com is a transaction-oriented site. Whether a person is simply searching the site or sending a gift, they have to actively engage in order to receive value. These engagements or transactions are our opportunities to generate a return. By understanding this process and applying fair and just business practices we create sustainability for our enterprise. Transactions are the heartbeat of our business. Good business sense helps us to regulate the heartbeat effectively for the good of the whole.

UNDERSTANDING OUR CUSTOMERS MEANS UNDERSTANDING THEIR VALUES AND CUSTOMS: Understanding the needs of our customers requires more them simply analyzing web site hits and sales trends. We have to understand their motivation and rationale in the context of their culture, their values and the world in which they live. Some of us have been or are Nepalese immigrants. Most of us reside and work in Nepal. This gives us a personal sense of our customers and helps us to know how to approach them, how to interact with them, and how to understand what they expect from us. The development of our site continues to evolve on the basis of what our customers demonstrate they want, rather than what we want or what we believe they need.

TRUST AND HONESTY ARE OUR MOST VALUABLE ASSETS: We didn’t start out with a specific business goal related to trust and honesty. We knew that both of these characteristics were necessary for a successful web-based business and the right thing to do. We discovered along the way that these attributes are absolutely critical when you are trying to attract new customers to a new medium like the Internet. We have to prove to them every time they put their trust in us, which is every time they interact through our business at any level, that we are honest and will fulfill our promises. As we continue to gain and build their trust, we are committed to protecting this and the equally valuable asset of the honesty that has enabled us to build that trust.

WE HAVE TO KEEP GETTING BETTER. The more we learn the better we get. We discover new and more effective ways to do things. We discover what doesn’t work because it’s too difficult, too time consuming, or causes too many errors. This ongoing process of trial, error, discovery, and improvement helps us continuously make the improvements needed to be more effective and productive. We have learned that everyone in our organization must understand and live by this process in order for our company to be successful.

WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE. We have been pleasantly surprised by the level of a contribution we have made to the communities we serve. Not just the business contributions, but the amount of education we have done, services we have offered and role modeling we have provided. We feel like we have brought a piece of the “new economy” to Nepal and to Nepalese people around the world. Even though we are young, we are regarded as leaders in our field. This reinforces our desire and strengthens our determination to continue working toward the greater good.

Development Impacts

The following summarizes the development impact of Thamel Dot Com woven throughout the previous sections:

1. JOBS AND REVENUE
Thamel Dot Com and our affiliates and suppliers have created over a hundred new jobs and a million dollars (US) of new revenue for Nepal and Nepalese society. These are real, tangible benefits based on the creation of a new ICT-based economy in Nepal. These jobs and this revenue are also fundamental building blocks in the development of our country.

2. WEALTH SHARING
Wealth creation is necessary but not sufficient for sustainable development. New wealth must be shared in order to have the most impact.. The economic benefits of Thamel Dot Com are reaching all the participants and are being multiplied as they spread across the local and extended Nepalese community. Hard-working Nepalese around the world reduce the costs of sending gifts and money to their loved-ones at home. Small businesses with very limited resources get cost-effective access to new markets. The Thamel Dot Com staff earns a living wage. And new possibilities are being created. For example, a young boy we hired to sweep the floors and clean the bathrooms showed great interest in our computers. He wanted to learn about them even though he had no formal education. We respected and supported his interest. He then wanted to help with the delivery of gifts, which involves the rather complicated process of taking and uploading of digital pictures. We taught him how to do this. To make a long story short: Earlier this year we set up a separate business dedicated to our delivery services; this young man is now the manager of that business.

3. LOCAL LEADERSHIP
Thamel Dot Com is directly and indirectly creating new leaders for Nepal. We are helping grow that leadership locally for local benefit. We are utilizing the talent our country has invested in over the last thirty years. We are young, energetic and have a new way of looking at the possibilities for our country in the world economy. Our impact reaches beyond our business interests to the broader needs of the Nepalese community.

4. EVOLUTION OF VALUES AND SOCIAL CHANGE
We are doing business differently than in the past. Quality, customer service, trust and efficiency have all taken on a new meaning as we compete in the global information economy. We are creating a new standard of excellence in order to be effective and competitive. We are helping to redefine existing communication lines, and open new ones through the imposing barriers of a caste system. Helping build a new economy based on fundamentally sound values is helping all those who are part of, or do business with, Nepal and the Nepalese community.

5. ROLE MODELING
We are beginning to get a lot of visibility within Nepal and around the world. When other young people around the world see what we are doing, they want to start their own businesses. Competitors look at our offerings and make adjustments to theirs. Others see a business model that can work for their country or region, and begin to act creatively to realize that vision. Our example is stimulating new ideas and new possibilities.

6. SHARING LEARNING
Experience is a great teacher. However, experience is most effective when it is shared with others. We formed Thamel International in order to share our experience. As a small ICT business in a transitioning economy we put a face and a voice to the needs of grass-roots entrepreneurs around the world. We are actively assisting other entrepreneurs in building similar ICT-based businesses. We recognize the importance of being an active part of an ICT and development network and have made a commitment to that end.


We believe the ultimate impact of our work goes beyond development. This summer we received a long distance telephone call from a Nepalese woman living in the US. She was crying. She had sent her father in Nepal a Father’s Day gift through our web site. He had received the gift and his picture had been forwarded to her in acknowledgement of the delivery. She was overwhelmed with joy. This was the first time she had seen her father’s face in 13 years. (http://thamel.com/ICD4D/images.htm)

In Nepal, our name for Father’s Day is “Buba ko much herne din”, which means “the day that we look at our father’s face and appreciate him for everything he has done for us”. We were able to help this woman, and her family, celebrate this special day in a way that empowered her to pursue and create happiness for herself and her loved ones and, by virtue of her own initiative, to experience fully our acknowledgement and support of Nepalese culture.

This is what Thamel Dot Com, as a business and an institution, is all about.

Project Information

Organisation : Thamel Dot Com; Granger & Granger, LLC
URL : http://www.thamel.com
Total budget in US$ : Start-up: US$20,000; Ongoing operating budget is confidential.
Country of activity: Nepal [NP]

Are there any partners involved : Our partners include:
- 500 Nepalese business affiliates
- Linked websites and services in our portal
- Local government agencies
- Local financial institutions
- ICT and financial service providers in host countries around the world
- Education and development organizations

What is partners role?: - 500 Nepalese business affiliates: They are the product and service vendors for the gifts offered on our website. These vendors range in size from the largest businesses in Nepal to street vendors with revenues under US$1000 per year.
- Web links: These affiliate sites provide additional portal content.
- Local financial institutions: They support our remittance services and provide investment capital.
- ICT and financial service providers (located in various countries): They provide the web hosting, ICT hardware and software, merchant account systems, telecom services, etc.
- Development organizations: They provide advice, support, and networks to other resources

Contact Information

Bal K. Joshi & Robert E. Granger
baljoshi@thamel.com, robert@grangerandgranger.com
1 Jefferson Parkway #80, 97035, Lake Oswego, OR, +1-503-675-7071

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