PROJECT OVERVIEW
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
System: Sales and Supply Chain
Sector: Clean Energy
KPIs: 43,800+ customers, 10,200+ systems, 5,800 + tonnes of CO2 displaced
THE ORGANIZATION
Since 2010, Iluméxico, a Certified B Corporation, has been providing solar energy to rural Mexican households. Iluméxico aims to transition families away from a reliance on candles, or diesel lamps, which pose negative health effects and risk fires. Interested residents purchase products through a loan-based program and families can choose the payment plan that works best for them. Iluméxico also engages residents in community trainings and financial literacy sessions to ensure the solution is sustainable in the long run. Eight years after its founding, Interested residents purchase products through a loan-based program and families can choose the payment plan that works best for them. Iluméxico has served more than 43,800 users, installed more than 10,000 solar lighting and electrification systems, and displaced over 5,800 tonnes of CO2. THE CHALLENGE
Although all Iluméxico staff originally worked out of the organization’s Mexico City headquarters, many team members are now located at 12 ILUCentros, or local service centers, spread out across Mexico. These new facilities, which Iluméxico started opening in 2014, allowed staff to provide solar technology, add-on solar products, and maintenance services as needed to existing and new customers, but the expansion also complicated operations. The organization lacked an effective data management application to keep track of the growing sales chain covering an increasingly expansive geographic area. Iluméxico staff were using Salesforce to manage their contact and sales information, but the team needed additional functionality in order to track inventory and payment.
THE SOLUTION
Collaborating and working largely in Spanish, Vera’s consultants designed a sales and supply chain application on the Force.com platform to help Iluméxico keep track of the many moving parts of its scaling operation. The customized application allows field workers at 12 ILUCentros across seven Mexican states to input real-time updates about sales and supply at their respective ILUCentro, information that staff can then access at the central Iluméxico office.
The Force.com application has also streamlined Iluméxico’s management of its micro-financing model. Working in collaboration with TaroWorks, Vera designed an application to create and manage payment plans for each transaction. TaroWorks is a social enterprise that developed a mobile data platform capable of collecting data about sales and inventory while users are offline. With the TaroWorks app, which features a survey with questions about income and desired products, field workers can now easily keep track of the products within an order by scanning the barcodes of purchased products right into Salesforce. As Iluméxico continues to scale, the Force.com application will free up limited staff to better support Iluméxico’s mission and allow team members to return to communities down the road with a data-driven understanding of local trends.
Key Features: Secure cloud, Real-time data reporting and visualization, Process automation, Community Cloud, Chatter, Offline mobile data collection, Streamlined UI Photos provided by IluMéxico.“The consultancy in place [Vera and TaroWorks] is helping us better understand the risks and cash flow implications without compromising our social mission.”
Iluméxico Team Member
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