SELCO: Harnessing Sunlight to Create Livelihood

SELCO India is a Bangalore-based social enterprise that makes solar lighting technology accessible to the economically impoverished people of India. SELCO was founded in 1995 by H. Harish Hande. Since his graduate student days, Harish firmly believed in the potential of solar energy for improving productivity of rural households. This case describes the evolution of SELCO as an organization and the various challenges that Harish and SELCO had to face before they could build a viable business model of providing solar light to the poor. Two critical success factors of SELCO's business model have been its ability to customize its products to address specific needs of the poor and to arrange finance for its customers. To date, SELCO has sold solar lighting to 120,000 rural homes and several other institutions, such as clinics, seminaries, and schools in the Indian state of Karnataka. Employing about 170 people, SELCO services these households from 25 service centers scattered all across rural Karnataka. Although SELCO has been able to establish a sustainable business model that realizes Harish's vision of bringing a low-cost energy solution to the economically impoverished, its challenge today is to create greater impact by scaling its business and creating an organization that sustains its success beyond the tenure of its founding members.

• Emerging markets
• Marketing management