Product Development

This compendium of MicroSave's Briefing Notes and India Focus Notes focuses on a wide range of opportunities, issues and challenges in the area of product development. The booklet comprises publications that emphasize the need for a systematic approach to market research and product development.

A number of factors influence demand for financial services, which are complex to understand and assimilate in product design. The papers discuss:

• Core components of the market-led approach in microfinance;
• Need for market orientation among MFIs to scale up operations and address needs of the poor on a sustainable basis;
• Importance of MFIs to keep pace with the changing world;
• Effects of competition and implications for Indian MFIs;
• Questions that need to be asked prior to beginning new product development;
• Stages of systematic product development;
• MicroSave's toolkit for market research on microfinance;
• Costs and benefits of market research for product development;
• Process mapping for risk management and process improvement;
• Lessons from implementing process mapping with partners;
• Roles and benefits of proactive risk management;
• Customers perspective on pricing;
• Lessons learned on pilot testing and the importance of pilot testing;
• Strategies to handle institutional issues;
• Key lessons from Equity Bank's experience in designing, testing and rolling out a cash flow-based individual business loan product.