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Market Access Program
The primary objective of Integra's Market Access Program is to create a sustainable market access tool that will contribute to Integra's mission to help women who, for economic or social reasons , have difficulties sustaining their own livehoods and those of their families. This Market Access tool will aim to give Integra's clients the opportunity to reach consumer markets, and become skillful players in them.
The Integra Market Access Project involves the creation of the following interventions:
- Consulting and Market Access training capability
- Branding
- Integra wholesaling of client products and services
- Integra retail store featuring clients' products and services
- Increase of Integra's clients' products at Shell stations
- Market Access club
- Client product catalogue
The target group for this project is “women at risk”. By women at risk, we mean single mothers, divorcees with young children, refugee women, women who are victims of domestic violence, women with alcoholic or chronically unemployed partners, women who are not able to re-enter the work force after maternity leave, women with disabilities, and women from ethnic (mainly Roma) minorities. Other women may participate, but the primary focus of the program is the Women-at-risk group.
A significant number of women from this group are motivated and skilled enough to want to solve their socio-economic problems by starting their own businesses. However, even with the provision of training and small loans (by Integra), marketing and market access consistently remains the major obstacle to the development of their businesses. Because our target group of women at risk who have started their own businesses face many difficulties in penetrating their markets. While they are capable of producing products and services which are relevant to potential customers, many challenges prevent them from reaching larger numbers of consumers, and closing sales. The following are typical of the challenges they face:
- Distribution logistics (bringing their products to market)
- Complex channel negotiations with traditional retail outlets, and inaccessibility to modern retail outlets
- Unfavorable payment terms
- Low awareness of product positioning, branding, and consumer targeting
It's in order to help increasing numbers of these women succeed that Integra has decided to design a market access strategy that can serve a majority of these women. The main purposes of Integra Market Access Program is to empower clients succeed and be competitive in an increasingly demanding retail market and to help women build their businesses by finding and providing suitable channels for their products. We also help clients improve the range and quality of their products. The growth of this Market Access Program will contribute to Integra's self sustainability. |
