NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

This week saw the release of two pieces of literature that advance the knowledge on market-based approaches to poverty alleviation. We’ll make sure to update our BoP 101 piece accordingly.

The first one, Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid, offers a series of reflections on how the concept and practice of “Base of the Pyramid” business have has evolved since the term was first introduced by the late CK Prahalad. It is co-edited by BoP academics and NextBillion advisors Ted London and Stuart Hart, and includes writings of several practitioners and thought leaders in the BoP domain.

From the press release:

(…) Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid, offers a new approach to business with the BoP domain by analyzing the experiences and lessons learned by successful innovators over the last 10 years.

In the initial BoP framing, businesses approached the market with the philosophy of “finding a fortune at the base of the pyramid.” Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid urges readers to reconsider this conception, and instead view the market with the perspective of “creating a fortune with the base of the pyramid.”

Staring next week, NextBillion will publish a series of interviews and reviews of the different chapters. For now, consider placing an order and adding it to your holiday list to start the new year afresh in your Base of the Pyramid knowledge.

The second piece is Impact Investments: An Emerging Asset Class, a report authored by J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Impact Investing Network. I had a chance to read through most of it this week. It ties together insights from previous important pieces, like Monitor’s and WRI’s, along with survey responses and actual market data provided by impact investors around the world. The result, and the main argument made by the report is that impact investing is now an asset class in and of itself. This assertion merits a closer look and we’ll be sure to add it to our list of upcoming topics.

In case you missed it: NextBillion this week

• Discussing Disqus, the Next Step in NB’s Interactive Community (by Scott Anderson)
• In Search of Innovation: Flexible Capital (by Josh Cleveland)
• Gold Stars: The Best of November on NextBillion (by Scott Anderson)
• Peace Dividend’s P2P Model For Financing Entrepreneurs in Post-Conflict Sudan (by Kishor Nagula)
• Rewind: A Closer Look Wharton Social Impact Conference (by Jia Han)
• Why Hybrid Value Chains Matter (by Chloe Feinberg)
• Will Prizes Help Fight TB and Other Neglected Diseases? (by Amrita Palriwala)
• iuMAP: The Next Level of Micro-credit is Distributor Finance (by Shital Shah)
• An Update from the Financial Services for the Poor Team at the Gates Foundation (by Ignacio Mas and Clara Veniard)
• Introducing The (BoP) Project: Photojournalism at the Base of the Economic Pyramid (by Francisco Noguera)
• An Update from the Financial Services for the Poor Team at the Gates Foundation (by Ignacio Mas and Clara Veniard)
• Introducing The (BoP) Project: Photojournalism at the Base of the Economic Pyramid (by Francisco Noguera)
• NextThought Monday: Pakistan: A Land of Misunderstood Opportunity (by Bryan Farris)

Make sure you don’t miss it: Upcoming events and opportunities

The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management is accepting submissions for its 2010-2011 Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Short Essay Competition. This competition seeks to highlight the challenges of implementing business in underserved markets and identify innovative business initiatives or solutions to those challenges. For more information click here.