A brand manager once told me their campaign had failed. I asked how they knew. They said sales were flat. I asked whether the product was even on the shelf. Nobody in the room could tell me.
Their own reps had reported eighty per cent distribution. Nobody had checked. The media budget was about to be cut for what turned out to be a distribution problem.
That gap — between what a company believes and what is actually happening in a duka in Temeke — is where a great deal of money in this country quietly disappears.
We could not close it the way it gets closed elsewhere, by hiring an army of enumerators. Too slow, too expensive, and the numbers arrive two months after the decision was made. So we did the only thing that works at Tanzanian prices: we asked the person already standing in the shop.
Ten thousand ordinary Tanzanians with a phone in their pocket can tell you more about your distribution in ten days than a field force can in two months. They only need to be asked properly, in their own language, and paid on time.
That last part matters more than anything technical we built. If the airtime does not arrive, there is no panel. So we pay on completion — even for the answers we go on to reject.