Delhi/NCR

Business Leadership

Outline India conducted an RCT with IT entrepreneurs on behalf of the University of Tokyo to gauge the impact of providing reminders about goal setting on the performance and output of their startups.

Using principles of game theory and behavioural economics, the randomized control trial comprised a series of experiments administered to the test group in order to assess the entrepreneurial skills of micro and small-scale entrepreneurs.

Following the baseline evaluation conducted by Outline India, the University of Tokyo hosted workshops on Business Management Diagnostic Test (BMDT), whereupon participants were asked to set goals and KPIs, (Key Performance Indicators) to be followed for one year. An RCT of quarterly reminder interventions, applied to the micro-entrepreneurs with reminder calls made for all the treatment groups, and observation methods used for two treatment groups.

For the end-line survey of this study, Outline India administered a survey to capture the status of the same entrepreneurs after a span of 1 year to understand the completion of their targets as mentioned in the baseline and estimate any differences that occurred in the results between the treatment and control groups. The evaluation also sought to understand the characteristics of their firm, operations and finances, KPIs met, the influence of KPIs in influencing their goals, as well as external factors if any. In fact, as the end-line evaluation was conducted post-demonetization period, a significant portion of the survey focused on Demonetization, to understand if this affected the growth, supply or finances. In addition to the data collection activities, Outline India was responsible for the tool review, training and recruitment of facilitators and data entry.