Product Sourcing & Design
Where do social enterprises get their products from? We saw 3 major distinctions among the organizations surveyed:
Customized vs. Uniform Products
Do they use uniform products (solar lanterns, clean cookstoves), or do they customize the product for each customer (often solar home systems, community projects)?In-House vs. Outsourced Design
Do the organizations design their products themselves or do they distribute someone else’s products?Foreign vs. Local Production
Are products manufactured locally or sourced from a foreign larger-scale supplier (generally China)?
Foreign vs. local production
In-house vs. outsourced design
Trading companies
Uniform vs. customized