I worked on three projects, all of which contributed to Tugende’s mission of helping informal sector entrepreneurs increase their economic trajectory and financial freedom. The first project was helping to improve their product development process, specifically refining the stage by which a product moves from the development phase and into operations. This would allow Tugende to expand their product portfolio quicker and work with more clients to put them on the road towards owning their assets. I also worked on augmenting their market expansion criteria and methodology so that Tugende can grow sustainably and continue to create an impact. By tying the expansion criteria to their social impact goals I ensured that all of Tugende’s expansions start with assessing their potential social impact as well as theirpotential sales. Lastly, I worked on creating Tugende’s social metric impact reporting structure whereby they can measure the impact of their operations on their clients based, impart, on the UN’s sustainable development goals.

While at Tugende I applied many of the things that I had learned in my strategy courses, such as Strategy Formulation, as I developed the market expansion methodology. I had to be aware of a number of factors that would have an effect on Tugende’s operations in different countries, and distinguish what were the best market conditions, such as product and client density, for expansion. I used the techniques that I picked up in Organizational Change daily as I navigated the company and tried to understand and influence my project’s stakeholders. When implementing the new product development cycle it was extremely helpful to find champions throughout the organization, and communicate the plan early and often, as Prof. Jick instructed. Furthermore, while presenting over Zoom may be less intimidating than in person, there are still some nuances that it helped to have learned from and practiced in Leader’s Voice, like vocal practices and breathing exercises to better project.

Everything was a bit of a struggle given the COVID-19 pandemic. While understanding the operations of the company went well enough remotely, it was experiencing the culture of Tugende, and furthermore of Uganda, which was a harder task. When I was able to interact with co-workers, it was usually only about work, and there was little time to get to know one another. This proved a challenge when trying to get buy-in from stakeholders who I’ve only talked to on the phone for a handful of times, as they may be more prone to believing that I don’t have a good understanding of their perspective because I hadn’t spent the time working side by side with them. I overcame this challenge by dedicating more time to solely getting to know my co-workers and doing extensive interviews to understand more than just their role and responsibility. Though it was a challenge to set up extensive times to meet given that they were seven hours away, it certainly paid dividends as I presented my final deliverables and handed off the work to those that would eventually use it everyday.

One of my largest takeaways from the experience was that the value you provide for a social enterprise goes a long way, especially if it’s just starting out. Tugende’s product development cycle was heavily based on its flagship product, which presented some limitations when trying to expand into other products. Even though I didn’t have a chance to validate my refined development cycle, the work that I did creating a better process by which products move into operations went a long way toward Tugende quickly moving at least one product into operations while I was there.

I had the goal of experiencing not only a social enterprise but a startup as well, and I definitely succeeded in that. The CEO was more than open to sharing his experience starting the company, fundraising, interacting with investors, and more. I also wanted the opportunity to interact with senior leadership and learn how to manage personalities and stakeholders, which I got more than enough opportunities to do, with the added challenge of working together solely over the phone. I think that this experience will be very beneficial for me moving forward as we (hopefully) begin to work with others offline as well as online.