Overview
The William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (WDI) was founded in 1992 on the belief that a thriving private sector was essential to the development of an economy. More than 25 years later, WDI continues to embrace this premise by working with firms in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to develop profitable business models and apply business approaches to non-profit organizations working in markets that are not served by the for-profit sector.
We apply our extensive experience working with firms in LMICs to develop business models with a focus on professional education, healthcare, finance, and energy, in addition to offering measurement and evaluation services. Our engagement model involves WDI staff, research fellows, faculty from the University of Michigan (U-M), faculty from other leading business schools, and/or teams of University of Michigan graduate students working with our clients to develop solutions. These solutions are tailored to the clients’ comparative advantage while accounting for the constraints and opportunities specific to the target market.
The following is an overview of ongoing or completed projects during the last 12 months, categorized by sector or service area.
Business & Culture: A Virtual Practicum (USA, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon)
Business & Culture: A Virtual Practicum is a classroom-to-classroom, action-learning course on international business cultures that brings together undergraduate students from Egypt, Libya and the U.S., supported by the Stevens Initiative. The course will run five times at the Ross School of Business, starting in Winter 2020. Participants attend lectures by international faculty, work on interregional teams through synchronous and asynchronous exchange, employ field research methods to learn about one another’s business cultures and create a final project that captures their cross-cultural learnings. The program equips young people in the U.S. and MENA region with the competencies they need to communicate, problem-solve and collaborate in a global team environment—all essential 21st century skills in an interconnected world.MADE (India, Kenya, Senegal, Ukraine)
WDI is a founding partner of the Michigan Academy for Developing Entrepreneurs (MADE), along with Poornatha Foundation in India and the Zell Lurie Institute at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. MADE was established to support small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in low-and middle-income countries through local Entrepreneur Development Organizations (EDOs). MADE connects the resources of the University of Michigan (U-M) with the EDOs in the field and provides other support to EDOs that is based on the EDOs’ needs. MADE has involved students and/or faculty from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, psychology department, Institute for Social Research, Stamps School of Art and Design, Law School and School of Education.Private Equity Support (PES - Kenya)
Assessed PES’ value among SME clients to inform PES’ value proposition, future strategy, and marketing execution.
Poornatha (India)
MADE supported the Poornatha team to develop a B2C Sales & Marketing Strategy. The MAP team provided Poornatha with robust recommendations on the entrepreneur-type to target including product bundling and pricing. Poornatha is already successfully operating in the B2B segment where it serves clients of India Bank and operators of retail electronic outlets through its ‘Empower’ training program. Till date, Poornatha has trained over 1,700 SME owners across 9 states in 7 different languages in India.
Poornatha has also developed an ‘Investor Awareness’ program offered through the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL), which is one of the largest depositories in the world. The course was launched by the Union Minister of Finance on May 7th, 2022. The program has impacted 5,500+ students across 28 states in India.
LvBS Consulting (Ukraine)
We have been working with LvBS to determine the role it can play to support businesses coming out of the war.
Korn Rise (Vietnam)
Working with a new potential partner, a team is investigating which products from MADE and MADE partners could be used to develop an EDO in Vietnam. Project will also include a market analysis and entry strategy.
NGO Leadership Program (Warsaw)
WDI works with the Weiser Center for Europe & Eurasia (WCEE) at U-M to offer NGO Leadership workshops to non-profit leaders from across central and southeastern Europe. The workshops cover strategic planning, resource mobilization, resilience and digital security to help NGOs run more effectively and sustainably. In 2023, the workshop will be held in Lublin, Poland for 25 NGO leaders from Ukraine in partnership with Warsaw-based partner, FED.NGO Leadership Program (Bratislava)
WDI works with the Weiser Center for Europe & Eurasia (WCEE) at U-M to offer NGO Leadership workshops to non-profit leaders from across central and southeastern Europe. The workshop in Bratislava covers marketing, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, fundraising and management to help NGOs run more effectively and sustainably. In 2023, the workshop will be held in June in partnership with Bratislava-based partner, Hekima. Twenty five participants will come from six countries: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, North Macedonia, and Moldova. Supplementary online modules on topics including leadership, social media marketing, and conflict resolution will be available to participants.CIPE Bahrain — Economic Diversification and Access to Finance in Bahrain
The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), WDI, and Tenmou (a Bahrain-based angel investor network) and a consortium of US and Bahraini stakeholders are collaborating to strengthen the Bahraini entrepreneurial ecosystem through encouraging investment, advancing business growth for Bahraini startups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); and increasing access to finance and strengthening the Foreign Trade Agreement-based US-Bahraini commercial relations. Under this project, which is funded by the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) of the U.S. State Department, WDI supported Tenmou with the delivery of a mentorship program, which matched two cohorts of 25 Bahraini MSMEs with a mentor. Mentors provided their mentees with one-on-one guidance over four months. At the end of each cohort, a select number of SMEs participated in a pitch night where they pitched their business to a panel of investors. WDI trained the mentors on how to work effectively with their mentees through a mentorship toolkit, short videos, and live webinars with a mentorship expert. Based on learning from the program, WDI published an article on NextBillion: “Seven Keys to Successful Business Mentorship Programs: How Entrepreneur Support Organizations Can Maximize Their Impact.” Through WDI Publishing, WDI developed two business cases featuring entrepreneurs from the program, appropriate for adoption in both entrepreneurship training programs in non-academic settings and university courses. WDI led two virtual training sessions on gender lens investing (GLI). The sessions focused on inspiring Bahraini investors to promote gender equity and integrate gender considerations into their investing approach, as well as how to apply a gender lens to business operations and understanding financial gains of different GLI strategies. WDI also participated virtually in two training sessions on FinTech which focused on: 1) advantages of utilizing FinTech to advance business growth and 2) returns on investing in the FinTech sector and digitization.Ford Fund Fellows
WDI created an 8-week online course: Starting a Business: Your Entrepreneurial Journey. The pilot program ran in April-May 2023. The course consists of live training sessions, guest talks, short videos, online quizzes, and a capstone project in which participants work in teams to conceptualize and pitch a new business via a video. The video is then judged by the program mentors and winning teams receive a special certificate. The pilot program had 88 participants from 9 countries.FPT School of Business & Technology (Vietnam)
WDI is partnering with the FPT School of Business & Technology’s business school, FPT, on a new general management certificate program: the Advanced MiniMBA program. The program is running August through October 2023 and combines online instruction with in-person training in Vietnam. Topics covered are competition, marketing, finance, strategy and leadership.Seminarium
WDI partners with Seminarium, one of Latin America’s leading training providers, on 4-day virtual programs. In fall 2022, a Talent Management program was conducted for the second time with Dr. Mark Allen of Pepperdine University. The audience for this program was HR executives from throughout Latin America. WDI and Seminarium are planning to run this program again next winter.SSE Riga
WDI’s flagship mini-MBA certificate program, delivered in partnership with Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, is now being offered in a flexible, hybrid format. It includes a blend of synchronous & asynchronous online and face-to-face instruction at SSE Riga. The Strategic Management Programme features six modules which equip participants with a cross-functional approach to business. The program offers access to world-class professors who will share global best practices in the areas of marketing, strategy, financial management, and leadership. It features lively discussions around global management trends and ample opportunity to explore the challenges that participants face every day in their businesses. The program is offered in the spring and fall.Clean Cooking Alliance
WDI is supporting the learning objectives of the Clean Cooking Alliance Market Strengthening Program by developing innovative methods to measure the effectiveness of market strengthening interventions. We are providing programmatic and data support, informing programmatic adaptations and pivots, and contributing to knowledge products targeting clean cooking enterprises, funders, policymakers and other stakeholders.Clean Cooking Alliance Irish Aid
WDI is collaborating with the CCA Market Strengthening Program to generate learnings from projects supported by Irish Aid. This work entails collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data from projects in CCA's Venture Catalyst Program and User Insights Lab. The Energy team is working with the PMI team to synthesize findings across projects based on key learning questions.Chihuahua e-Mobility
WDI worked with the Secretaría de Innovación y Desarrollo Económico (SIDE) and Instituto de Innovación y Competitividad (I2C) of the State of Chihuahua in Mexico to prepare for the transition to electric mobility (e-mobility) in the automotive industry. Through this project, WDI helped Chihuahua develop a statewide strategy to increase its competitiveness and tap into current and future business opportunities in this changing sector. This work included conducting a global e-mobility ecosystem mapping, assessing Chihuahua’s strengths and identifying gaps and opportunities, and developing a roadmap to e-mobility with actionable recommendations for the state’s e-mobility strategy. Two key project outputs include the report “Mapping the E-Mobility Transition: Opportunities and Enablers” and the Roadmap to E-mobility for the State of Chihuahua.Chihuahua Charging Forward (Mexico)
WDI will collaborate with the Secretaría de Innovación y Desarrollo Económico (SIDE), Frente Norte and Instituto de Innovación y Competitividad (I2C) of the State of Chihuahua in Mexico to help cement their position as a leader in the transition to e-mobility. This project will include initiatives to help connect industry leaders with opportunities related to the EV value chain, document e-mobility innovations by local companies, and prepare the talent pipeline for EVs in Chihuahua via collaborations with key stakeholders based in Michigan and in select low and middle-income countries.Wind Energy Market Entry in Vietnam
WDI continues to expand the company’s wind energy artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) products to extend operations in other geographic markets. WDI is working with connections in different countries to identify specific opportunities for Vietnam.Distributed Fertilizer (South Africa, Rwanda)
Building on frameworks developed in other markets, we continued working on the market analysis for a new technology to produce ammonia for fertilizer in a small-scale, distributed way using renewable energy. Over the past six month, a comprehensive market analysis and market entry strategy for South Africa and Rwanda was developed through secondary research as well as field travel and primary research. We have also begun assisting the researchers in developing a new company that will take the product to market.Powertrust (Ghana)
Powertrust connects corporate climate leaders with renewable energy projects in emerging markets by facilitating the issuance and sale of renewable energy credits (RECs). A team of MBA students worked with Powertrust to analyze the current interactions and potential market in Ghana.Solagron (Vietnam)
Solagron is a Vietnamese company producing various types of microalgae using solar power. A team of MBA students identified priority markets and developed marketing recommendations for this company’s new line of human consumption products, based mainly on spirulina production on a large scale.Busoga Health Forum (Uganda)
This project is designed to extend the business of an Ethiopian company providing imaging services in Ethiopia to Uganda. The initial work has involved market analysis and working with the different parties on governance recommendations.Identifying Sources of Economic Development Funding for a Digital Health Organization
WDI is supporting an Africa-based private sector organization with obtaining grant funding to develop its digital health product further to prepare it for use by potential public sector clients. During the first phase of the project, the WDI team identified potential funding sources and captured key information on each to help inform the client's fundraising strategy. The second phase of the project was focused on making outreach to potential funders.Clinica de Familia (Dominican Republic)
Clinica de Familia was established to serve as a comprehensive family care clinic that provides quality care to people throughout La Romana province. Over the past year, work with DR has focused on potential revenue generating models that could be used by CdF to support its overall cost structure. The first project developed recommendations on imaging equipment. The second focused on the profitability of a gastroenterological clinic.Grip Forté Hand/Wrist Rehabilitation Device (Ghana)
WDI is partnering with the U-M School of Engineering’s Global Health Design Initiative, the Aerospace Engineering department and a doctor in Ghana to iterate on a design of a hand rehabilitation device with an eye toward commercialization in a Ghana Rehabilitation facility. The latest prototype was produced using 3D printing and the new “Grip Forté” is currently being field tested in Ghana.Global Fund – National Strategic Plans, Performance for Results
The Global Fund works closely with countries to help them achieve long-term sustainability of health programs so they can maintain progress and continue to expand services after Global Fund support ends. WDI is providing ad hoc support to Global Fund teams working with countries. Examples of this support include estimating the costs of providing specific types of services and developing frameworks that countries can use as they prepare to transition away from donor support.Global Fund – GeneXpert
WDI is conducting a review for the Global Fund with the goal of leveraging ongoing Diagnostic Network Optimization initiatives, as well as performance metrics in selected countries and other existing data sources on investments in GeneXpert technologies, to support robust cross-country comparisons, and develop a conceptual framework for addressing cost efficiency questions for multi-disease integrated testing platforms. The work entails developing a Theory of Change that recognizes the complex relationships between cost-efficiencies and other components of the Global Fund’s Value for Money concept, including effectiveness, equity and sustainability.Hospital Management Education Modules
WDI’s Healthcare Delivery sector is offering an online program to equip management executives of private hospitals, clinics, and healthcare delivery enterprises in low- and middle-income countries with the skills to improve efficiency through better processes, and to allocate costs more accurately for better strategic and pricing decisions. The program includes modules on Process Analysis and Optimization and Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing. The program consists of online, asynchronous training for each of the two modules; synchronous remote class sessions via Zoom; and a team-based action learning project based on a real business challenge at the participating institutions. To date, six hospitals from Mexico, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Pakistan have participated in the courses.They are: Nyaho Medical Center, Ghana, Grupo OSME, Mexico, Evercare Hospital Lekki, Nigeria, AfyA Care, Nigeria, Avenue Healthcare, Kenya, and Evercare Hospital Lahore, Pakistan.International Finance Corporation, Africa Medical Equipment Facility
The Africa Medical Equipment Facility (AMEF), launched by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and supported by the government of Norway, connects lenders and medical professionals to improve the availability of medical equipment across Africa. The program has three pillars: 1) financial risk-sharing for banks, 2) training for lenders, and 3) training for leaders of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) focused on healthcare. The funding is focused on increasing essential healthcare investments in the region, while the training for lenders and healthcare SMEs was developed to ensure a smooth process. To date, IFC has engaged WDI to deliver AMEF training courses to both client financial institutions and healthcare focused SMEs in Côte d’Ivoire.International Center for Rehabilitation (Ghana)
The International Center for Rehabilitation (ICR) is a new rehabilitation clinic in Kumasi, Ghana opened by Dr. Abena Tannor, the first practicing physical medicine and rehabilitation physician in Ghana. This project evaluated the financial and execution implications of doubling the current level of service.International Clinical Laboratories (Ethiopia)
ICL has been operating a successful lab in Ethiopia since 2004. In partnership with Cerba Lancet Africa and ICL, this project evaluated the feasibility of setting up a manufacturing hub and supply hub in Addis Ababa Ethiopia for diagnostics laboratories located throughout the continent.Kisii Hospital Vision Center (Kenya)
Develop a protocol for establishing 7 Vision Centers around Kisii and develop recommendations on location of Vision Centers. Kisii Eye Hospital is also expanding into Kisumu with a second hub hospital. A second project this year is designed to put together an execution plan complete with financial and market analysis for the Kisumu market.Medicines for Malaria Venture – Long-Acting Injectable
Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) developed a target product profile (TPP) to help guide the development of a long-acting injectable (LAI) product for malaria prevention. There are ongoing efforts to develop LAI drugs and the WDI Healthcare team is working to provide insights into the trade-offs between LAI product characteristics from the perspective of key stakeholders in several target countries. The insights generated from this work will help to inform future product development decisions and, if applicable, a revised TPP.OSME Board Seat (Mexico)
Grupo OSME in Mexico has invited WDI’s Senior Director of Healthcare Delivery, Ioan CleatonJones, to join their company’s board as an independent director. Grupo OSME is initiating the construction of a new private hospital in the city of San Luis Río Colorado in Northern Mexico, and the business added to their board as part of their expansion. OSME currently operates a large medical clinic that offers primary care, 24-hour urgent care, medical imaging, selected specialist consultations, and a pharmacy.Poovanthi (Livewell) (India)
Poovanthi is a rehab facility that was started over 10 years ago. At that time, WDI supported work on developing the business plan. This year, WDI supported a team of MBA students in developing a five year strategic plan to support Poovanthi’s expansion plans. In addition WDI has an MBA intern working at Poovanthi for the summer to determine unmet medical needs that may be addressed with engineering solutions. This is in partnership with the College of Engineering.Primary Care Modeling Grant
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates Foundation) is making time-sensitive decisions for addressing challenges in primary healthcare, polio eradication and other priority areas. Light-touch research on efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery would add significant value for decision makers as they navigate a range of potential investment and implementation options. Given the quick pace and dynamic context, research should build on existing knowledge and tools, utilize small samples and rely on short feedback loops. To address this need, the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (WDI) proposed conducting a set of discrete research activities. Each activity draws on WDI’s deep experience applying a business lens to healthcare challenges in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The activities include:• Capturing both quantitative and qualitative data related to how problem solving, decision making and “running a business” is done at the district level, to better understand management practices and their effects on healthcare efficiency and quality.
• Utilizing WDI’s proof-of-concept simulation model to capture the effect of technology and/or process interventions on the efficiency and quality of immunization services in various LMIC healthcare settings.
• Evaluating the current state of the Gates Foundation’s investments in supply chain, and providing guidance on what future supply chain investments might look like
WDI research outputs to facilitate data-driven decisions by Gates Foundation staff, grantees and government partners, leading to more efficient and effective healthcare systems, is the primary outcome of the work.
TIP Global Health
TIP has been expanding its EHeza product, a digital health platform, in Rwanda and has been approached by other countries as well. This project involved a complete cost analysis of the product and the implementation of the product.Validating and Applying Vaccine Investment Tools (Global)
Through previous grants, WDI developed two proof-of-concept tools for evaluating and prioritizing investments in vaccine-related technologies. The Health Investment Prioritization (HIP) Coverage tool estimates changes in vaccination coverage rates by quantifying how well a vaccine presentation addresses technology-addressable barriers to vaccination. The HIP-Valuation tool uses a cost-benefit analysis structure to identify a price window acceptable to both vaccine buyers and sellers, if such a price window exists. In the current project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, WDI built on the progress to date by using these tools to answer the real-world questions of global health donors and country partners. WDI validated the HIP tools through an external committee of academics and global health donors, and applied the tools to technologies such as microarray patches and thermostable formulations.Business & Culture: A Virtual Practicum (USA, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon)
Business & Culture: A Virtual Practicum is a classroom-to-classroom, action-learning course on international business cultures that brings together undergraduate students from Egypt, Libya and the U.S., supported by the Stevens Initiative. The course will run five times at the Ross School of Business, starting in Winter 2020. Participants attend lectures by international faculty, work on interregional teams through synchronous and asynchronous exchange, employ field research methods to learn about one another’s business cultures and create a final project that captures their cross-cultural learnings. The program equips young people in the U.S. and MENA region with the competencies they need to communicate, problem-solve and collaborate in a global team environment—all essential 21st century skills in an interconnected world.Clean Cooking Alliance
WDI is supporting the learning objectives of the Clean Cooking Alliance Market Strengthening Program by developing innovative methods to measure the effectiveness of market strengthening interventions. We are providing programmatic and data support, informing programmatic adaptations and pivots, and contributing to knowledge products targeting clean cooking enterprises, funders, policymakers and other stakeholders.Clean Cooking Alliance Irish Aid
WDI is collaborating with the CCA Market Strengthening Program to generate learnings from projects supported by Irish Aid. This work entails collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data from projects in CCA's Venture Catalyst Program and User Insights Lab. The Energy team is working with the PMI team to synthesize findings across projects based on key learning questions.DAI MSP ROI Tool
WDI's Performance Measurement and Improvement team is working with AlphaMundi Foundation (AMF) to provide guidance and dissemination support for a Women's Inclusion and Empowerment Return on Investment tool. This tool is being developed by MarketShare Associates under USAID's Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP) activity, which is led by DAI. MSP seeks to build the evidence base for the return on investment of women's empowerment in low- and middle-income countries. WDI and AMF will contribute to the development of the WIEROI tool, extract lessons learned from pilots, and foster update of the tool. This work will build off of WDI and AMF's work together on the Gender-Smart Enterprise Assistance Research Coalition (G-SEARCh project).Developmental Evaluation Pilot Activity (DEPA-MERL), Digital Strategy
Developmental evaluation (DE) was created to evaluate innovative programs that operate in complex environments and are thus expected to adapt over time. The Developmental Evaluation Pilot Activity (DEPA-MERL), developed under the U.S. Global Development Lab’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning Innovations (MERLIN) program at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is testing the effectiveness of DE in the USAID context. The DEPA-MERL consortium consists of Social Impact (prime), Search for Common Ground (Search), and WDI. As part of the consortium, Social Impact and Search are implementing DEs while WDI is serving as an evaluator to assess the effectiveness of this approach in the USAID context.In early 2020, USAID launched its first-ever Digital Strategy in order to align the Agency’s vision for development assistance with the world’s evolving digital landscape. USAID’s Innovation, Technology, and Research (ITR) Hub, formerly the U.S. Global Development Lab, is responsible for leading the strategy implementation. DEPA-MERL launched a new DE in mid-2020 to support up to four of the Strategy’s 15 implementation initiatives by providing insights into how the initiatives work within their teams and with each other as well as timely input for decision making. For the first time at USAID, the Developmental Evaluator is being embedded remotely into the initiatives due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The WDI team also conducted an analysis across the three DE pilots that occurred during the first five years of the MERLIN award. The report, Advancing the Use of Developmental Evaluation: A Summary of Key Questions Answered during a Multiyear Study of Developmental Evaluations Implemented at USAID, shares findings and lessons learned across the experiences to facilitate learning from the implementation of DE in the USAID context.
To learn more about the previous pilots or to access guidance the consortium has developed for organizations, managers, and evaluators that seek to implement the developmental evaluation approach please go here.
Primary Care Modeling Grant
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates Foundation) is making time-sensitive decisions for addressing challenges in primary healthcare, polio eradication and other priority areas. Light-touch research on efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery would add significant value for decision makers as they navigate a range of potential investment and implementation options. Given the quick pace and dynamic context, research should build on existing knowledge and tools, utilize small samples and rely on short feedback loops. To address this need, the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (WDI) proposed conducting a set of discrete research activities. Each activity draws on WDI’s deep experience applying a business lens to healthcare challenges in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The activities include:• Capturing both quantitative and qualitative data related to how problem solving, decision making and “running a business” is done at the district level, to better understand management practices and their effects on healthcare efficiency and quality.
• Utilizing WDI’s proof-of-concept simulation model to capture the effect of technology and/or process interventions on the efficiency and quality of immunization services in various LMIC healthcare settings.
• Evaluating the current state of the Gates Foundation’s investments in supply chain, and providing guidance on what future supply chain investments might look like
WDI research outputs to facilitate data-driven decisions by Gates Foundation staff, grantees and government partners, leading to more efficient and effective healthcare systems, is the primary outcome of the work.