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Reality Check at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Most companies trying to do business with the 4 billion people who make up the world’s poor follow a formula long touted by bottom-of-the-pyramid experts: Offer products at extremely low prices and margins, and hope to generate decent profits by selling enormous quantities of them. This “low price, low margin, high volume” model has held sway for more than a decade, largely on the basis of Hindustan Unilever’s success in selling Wheel brand detergent to low-income consumers in India.
- Region
- South Asia
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Hope springs a trap
THE idea that an infusion of hope can make a big difference to the lives of wretchedly poor people sounds like something dreamed up by a well-meaning activist or a tub-thumping politician. Yet this was the central thrust of a lecture at Harvard University on May 3rd by Esther Duflo, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology known for her data-driven analysis of poverty. Ms Duflo argued that the effects of some anti-poverty programmes go beyond the direct impact of the resources they provide. These programmes also make it possible for the very poor to hope for more than mere survival.
- Region
- South Asia
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Lok Capital and Acumen Fund announce Rs. 7 crore investment in Hippocampus Learning Centres
Bangalore, May 2012: Lok Capital, one of the largest dedicated funds in India for businesses focused on serving the lower income and base of the pyramid (BOP) customer segments and Acumen Fund, a pioneering nonprofit global venture firm addressing poverty in South Asia, East and West Africa, today announce Rs. 7 crore investment in Hippocampus Learning Centres (HLC), a for-profit rural education service provider in India. This is Lok Capital’s and Acumen’s first investment in Education and marks the launch of their respective education portfolios. Based in Karnataka, India, HLC provides affordable, quality education by employing and training local female teachers who coach students between the ages of 3-12 in both pre-school and primary instruction.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Nachiket Mor: The Business Of Morality
In India, businesses and businessmen, particularly from the private sector, have always been viewed with some suspicion. Given our underlying socialist ethos, this is perhaps not surprising, but in recent times, this has worsened with reportage about the various means that some businesses have used to gain an advantage, be it bribing government officials and elected representatives, indulging in coercive practices with their customers, misusing monopoly power, concealing information, or ill-treating employees.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Genpact to buy VentureEast-backed Atyati Technologies
Business processing outsourcing major Genpact Ltd has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Atyati Technologies, a technology platform provider for the rural banking sector in India. The terms of the transaction, including the stake acquired and the deal value, remain undisclosed. The deal is expected to close in 3-4 weeks.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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New Apps for the Bottom Billion
When it comes to mobile communications, there's still a lot of room for innovation at the bottom. In Bangalore, India, researchers from the University of Toronto and Microsoft are now imagining new business models for the world's poorest phone owners by adapting a little-known protocol that can receive pictures as bitmapped text messages. The technology could readily be used in the roughly 1.5 billion low-end Nokia and Samsung phones in circulation.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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India Needs to Liberalize Further to Combat Poverty: Pitroda
The U.S.-India Business Council, in partnership with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, held the first annual U.S. India Business Summit-West, titled “Building Bridges, Fostering Innovation,” at the Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel here April 26 and 27 (Read: India-US N-Deal 'One of My Proudest Moments': Condi Rice).
- Region
- South Asia
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Singapore’s Social Enterprise Stock Exchange to Launch Soon
For impact investors and social enterprises looking for ways to link up, the ultimate dream is to have a stock exchange aimed solely at mission-driven companies. That’s a difficult feat to pull off, to put it mildly. You need a critical mass of investors and stock-exchange ready companies, not to mention the wherewithal to meet all manner of red tape and regulatory hurdles, as well as establish the technology capable of supporting the venture.But such an exchange is well underway in Singapore.
- Region
- South Asia
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