Organization: Mercy Corps Kenya

Project / Program: Youth Impact Labs

Assignment: COVID-19 response and recovery strategy support for Youth Impact Labs partners

1. Programme Background

About Youth Impact Labs: Catalyzed by funding from Google.org, Mercy Corps’ Youth Impact Labs (YIL) identifies and tests creative, technology-enabled solutions to tackle global youth unemployment, accelerating job creation so every young person has the opportunity for dignified, purposeful work.

In Kenya, YIL focuses on digital marketplaces and platforms that offer services to micro and small businesses; agricultural supply chain management; and digital work. The programme supports these enterprises through financial and technical support, issued in the form of milestone-based grants.

Through our post-investment support, on-boarded partners also get access to advisory services to support development of technology solutions and tailored business support service to actualize scale.

About Get Boda: GetBoda is a local on-demand logistics platform connecting retail and e-commerce companies with customers across Kenya with the best quality logistics services at the lowest possible price. Founded in 2018, GetBoda has completed over 200,000 deliveries using crowdsourced transporters for various clients in the food and beverage, e-commerce and manufacturing sectors.

Through a stringent screening process, we have created a reliable & robust delivery network of over 1000+ transporters around Kenya. GetBoda owns a mobile app that allows businesses to access our transporters efficiently and reliably. GetBoda operates a commission-based model with transporters paying GetBoda a commission on any money earned from delivery jobs sourced from GetBoda’s clients.

Since COVID-19 pandemic affected Kenya, the firm has been experiencing both an increase in demand especially in home delivery of goods and food from restaurants but also a significant decrease in supply of transporters.

There has also been a reduction in earnings from some of the MSMEs partners and beneficiaries. Some of the e-commerce customers have been hit hard as they solely rely on imports from China, which has decreased the volume of the goods, forcing some MSMEs to close down. As a result, Get Boda is looking to pivot its business to focus on the areas that promise highest returns, while identifying ways to sustain other sections of its business.

About Herdy: Herdy is an ecommerce platform that connects agro producers such as farmers, fishermen and pastoralists to urban local markets for their produce. Herdy is based in Nairobi, Kenya and currently only serving clients within Nairobi city but with farmers in adjacent towns forming the bulk of the supply chain.

The firm currently serves just over 820 clients predominantly on boarded via referrals over the past one year. We are looking to grow our customer base to 15,000 households over the next two years to enable us to provide access to market to over 1,000 farmers and agro producers.

In the last two months, the company has experienced increased demand for delivery services driven by customer shift to online platforms necessitated by the social distancing and isolation guidelines given by the government.

On the supply side, the company has witnessed an influx in suppliers requesting to sell produce. This has been driven by the reduced demand from restaurants which are major customers for the suppliers. The capacity to meet demand has however been a challenge as the firm as it seeks to meet the pent demand. The firm has however taken the initiative to identify ways to bump up its capacity, while streamlining its operations.

2. Purpose of engagement: In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current crisis globally and specifically in Kenya, Youth Impact Labs has designed an emergency response plan to help SMEs develop continuity plans, build resilience and preserve their workers’ jobs.

As part of this response, YIL aims to provide strategic support to selected companies in its portfolio during this period by focusing on opportunities that they can leverage, pivoting of operations and enhancement of resilience with the objective of ensuring business continuity and employment retention for the thousands of workers and suppliers within their business value chains.

Youth Impact Labs is seeking Kenyan-based consultants with experience of providing consultancy services, to support Herdy Fresh and Get Boda in line with the highlighted intervention as detailed below.

For each of the businesses, the consultant will:

  • Conduct a rapid market assessment to establish the structural and business changes in the business’ market due to COVID-19 crisis. The consultant will highlight resultant effects and identify strategic opportunities that the businesses can leverage during the current period and post COVID-19 epidemic, including a COVID and post pandemic scenario planning
  • Conduct an internal assessment to identify the implications of COVID-19 on the respective businesses’ operations including supply chain disruptions, cash flow, internal operations and evaluate the viability of their current business models going forward.
  • Provide strategic and actionable business and operational recommendations to the businesses to help them pivot and take advantage of the identified opportunities. This includes but is not limited to cash flow management, supply chain restructuring, human resource and operational adjustments and any other relevant business functions.

To achieve the above, the consultant will be expected to undertake the following activities:

  • Desk review of primary company documents including strategies, financials, regular reports, etc. to understand the company’s products, services, existing market, operational processes and recent performance, in order to have sufficient background information for the exercise.
  • Conduct interrogatory meetings with the respective company teams and stakeholders, and secondary research to understand the companies’ model and operations and the effects that COVID-19 has had on each of the companies and their respective industries
  • Synthesis of findings from the desk review and interviews to provide a detailed analysis of findings and recommendations for the respective company
    develop a well-defined and documented COVID-19 response and recovery strategy that includes key findings, recommendations and an implementation framework

Youth Impact Labs anticipates that these assignments will be conducted in parallel, preferably with specific teams dedicated to each of the two companies to ensure delivery within the proposed timelines.

3. Deliverables:

The key deliverables from the project are:

  • Inception report that captures revised work scope of work, adjusted work plan, preliminary information request and draft information gathering tools
  • Draft COVID-19 response strategy report that outlines an overview of the implications of the pandemic on the respective business, a market assessment that highlights effects on the industry and business and potential pivoting opportunities for the business, and detailed strategic recommendations and an implementation framework outlining how the company should adjust its internal management and operational processes in order to pivot during this period
  • Final COVID-19 response strategy report that is a refined version of the draft strategy and that incorporates feedback from the Mercy Corps and respective business team
  • Thought leadership article: A 2-pager style thought leadership document that provides actionable recommendations on key challenges facing start-ups in the ecommerce and logistics industries and actionable steps that they can take to build resilience and recover post COVID-19

4. Application

To apply provide a brief proposal of no more than 10 pages/ slides containing the following:

  • Summary of approach/ methodology and sample work plan;
  • Team structure and brief bios of team members; if applying as a firm, include firm registration documents (certificate of registration)
  • References, web links or electronic copies of at least three examples of recently completed projects of a similar nature
  • Detailed budget, clearly outlining each cost, the quantity, and the total anticipated project cost

Proposals will be evaluated on the criteria as captured in the annex section.

Proposals must be sent digitally by 2359 HRS, Friday 3rd July 2020 to ke-pr@mercycorps.org

5. Reporting Lines

The consultant shall work under the direct supervision of the respective CEOs, (Get Boda and Herdy Fresh) and will report to the post investment and learning advisor, Youth Impact Labs

6. Ownership and control of work / publication

Ownership and control of all work products related to this scope of work and partner engagement shall belong to Mercy Corps and the respective partners. Any use of material, learnings or publications derived from the work product will require prior written approval from the partners and Mercy Corps

7. Timeframes and Budgets

Youth Impact Labs anticipates that the assignment will take up to 25 – 30 working days, but can take a shorter duration depending on the consultant’s proposed methodology. The works shall be executed between 13th July 2020 and 21st August 2020. The total costs of the assignment will be negotiated with the service providers.

Annex 2: Selection Criteria

YIL-COVID-Response-Criteria

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