Understanding and adapting to complex market systems: Course preview

Read a preview of an online course that aims to help market development professionals learn about, and apply, complex adaptive systems to real challenges.

Markets are fascinating entities that are forever changing. We are fortunate as a field and as professionals working in inclusive market development because we see up close how a decision in one part of the world can affect markets in remote areas across the globe — for good or worse. 

As we have learned more about inclusive economic development in the last 15 years and more, our field has evolved and gone through various iterations from Business Development Services (BDS) where we focused on improving the competitiveness of individual firms. This approach did not have much of an impact at the project level as we only reached a hundred or so micro-enterprise operators. 

The value chain approach was introduced in 2004, and this assisted in our understanding of the chain of a product's transformation as it made its way to the final consumer. Our work found that the vertical approach to analysing a market was too deterministic and ‘neat’ to fit the reality on the ground, which is messy and convoluted. 

Now we are moving towards a systems approach, seeing the interrelations and understanding that the market is not the sum of its parts: there are many more elements affecting how markets operate which are very much part of the market system. 

The key distinction between the value chain approach and a systems approach is that the latter looks at the whole of the market system from a systems perspective. In systems thinking the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, meaning that a market is not just the elements of input suppliers, producers, processors, retailers and wholesalers. The market also includes support systems like finance, information, communications, infrastructure and rules such as informal and formal regulations, standards, and licenses. A system is about relationships and how the elements in the system relate to each other, and in many cases do not relate hence we have our work cut out for us. 

In our discussions on BEAM Exchange and MaFI we have been using systems terms like feedback, leverage, boundary, functions (input, processing, output), among a few others. The complex adaptive systems elements of self-organisation and emergence have also been used in our dynamic discussions. But what is the meaning behind these concepts? And more importantly, how do we apply the elements of systems theory to inclusive market development? 

We have your back on this! SMDP Online is offering an online course: Understanding and Adapting to Complex Market Systems. From June 15 there will be two weeks on how to use the learning platform. Starting on June 29 we will look at the content where I will facilitate a learning process that begins with demystifying several elements and concepts in systems theory and then we will be applying these concepts to your work. Each participant will select a challenge they are currently grappling with in their work and learn how to convert the challenge into a research question to guide an action research assignment. Participants will learn how to develop processes to receive feedback from the market system and adapt their activities to respond to the feedback and influence systemic change in the market.

This online course is open to anyone with at least two years of experience and is currently working in inclusive market development. You will need to have access to the internet to participate in this four month certificate course. Watch a recent webinar video where I explain how the course will be laid out and what subjects will be covered. 

Learning by doing, and reflecting on what you have done, while being supported by peers and an experienced practitioner while still working in the field is a whole new way of learning. I hope you will join your peers from across the globe and myself on this exciting learning journey!

Mary Morgan has been involved in human rights and economic development work since 1986. She started as a human rights witness with El Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo por el Aparecimiento con Vida de Nuestros Familiares - GAM (the Mutual Support Group for the Live Appearance of Our Relatives) in Guatemala. Recognising early on that having the opportunity to earn an income is a basic human right, Mary’s work morphed into microfinance and then market development. She has taken on senior management roles with CARE and Katalysis Partnership, and has consulted for SEEP, Katalyst, CIDA, UMCOR, IRC, ARC, MEDA, IFC-SEDF, ACDI/VOCA, IDE, Omidyar Network, Mercy Corps, Aid to Artisans, Street Kids International, as well as various other organisations.