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Aneel Karnani: Jobs, not microcredit, is the solution
Some clients of microcredit are certainly true entrepreneurs, and have created thriving businesses?these are the heart-warming anecdotes. But the vast majority of microcredit clients are caught in subsistence activities with no prospect of competitive advantage. Most studies suggest that microcredit is beneficial but only to a limited extent and the reality is less attractive than the promise. ? The Nobel Peace Price for 2006 was awarded to the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and its founde...
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A More Powerful Path
But unlike the chaos-theory butterfly, business is not an uncalculating force of nature. It can behave with intention. Indeed, we have left the era in which business leaders were expected to treat their companies as mute, dumb giants, merely swinging pickaxes in a profit quarry. We are waking to the idea that if business inevitably shapes the future, it has a responsibility to choose what that future will be. Business changes the world--at every moment, in myriad ways, for good and ill. Decision...
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AMD drops low-cost PC effort
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) has dropped its line of low-cost PCs that were geared for developing nations, according to a filing by the company. AMD (Sunnyvale, Calif.) dropped the Personal Internet Communicator (PIC), a device that cost $249 for the computer and a 15-inch monitor, according to the filing. It sold the device in China, India, Mexico and Russia, but the company lost $16 million in the first nine months of 2006 on the product. ’’Revenue from sales...
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In Mexico, Banco Wal-Mart
For years, Wal-Mart has tried to get into banking in the U.S. But so far it has come up empty-handed as everyone from rival banks to unions rose up in opposition. South of the border, though, the world’s biggest retailer may soon receive a banking license, paving the way for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to offer checking and savings accounts, loans, credit cards, and more across its network of 863 outlets in 130 Mexican cities. Why is Mexico willing to give the green light while the U....
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SC Johnson Funds Startups in Africa
SC Johnson’s experiment will test a theory about doing business at what’s called the base of the pyramid. That’s where the 4 billion poorest people live. At the top of the pyramid are the 600 million people earning more than $15,000 a year, where most big companies do business. In the middle are the 1.4 billion earning $1,500 to $15,000 a year. Do the slum-dwellers of Nairobi, Kenya, really want Windex and Ziploc bags? You might not think so. But SC Johnson ...
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Microvending in Kenya
MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: Microlending is when small amounts of money are loaned to budding entrepreneurs. MicroVENDING is when small business owners sell tiny amounts of their product. This idea is taking off in the impoverished African nation of Kenya. From the Marketplace Entreprenuership Desk, Kitty Felde reports. ??? NAOIMI WAMBUGE: This is our oven. It has assisted us for a long time, that’s why it is wearing out. KITTY FELDE: The kitchen equipment at Nairobi’s Cor...
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Vikram Akula, Founder & CEO of SKS Microfinance
Vikram Akula is on an economic mission: to empower India’s poor. His drive to fight poverty led to the birth of the Hyderabad-based SKS in 1998. It is a microfinance company that lends small amounts of money, typically $100, to impoverished women. The cash is used to buy everything from animals to irons so clients can start their own homegrown ventures. SKS started out as non-profit but later changed its status and is now one of the fastest growing microlenders in the w...
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What’s Wrong With Profit?
THIS year, as never before, the line between philanthropy and business is blurring. A new generation of philanthropists has stepped forward, for the most part young billionaires who have reaped the benefits of capitalism and believe that it can be applied in the service of charity. They are ?philanthropreneurs,? driven to do good and have their profit, too. Among them are eBay?s founder, Pierre Omidyar, who wants to use investment capital as well as donations to expand the microloan i...
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