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

Base of the Pyramid – Where Business Growth and Needs of the Poor Converge

The World Resources Institute, working with the International Finance Corporation, has released a study that estimates the ’Base of the Pyramid’ (BOP) consumer market - which includes four billion people worldwide with incomes below US$3,000 in local purchasing power - is worth US$5 trillion. Following a recent consultation that IBLF held with support from McKinsey & Co and Unilever, IBLF has produced a set of guidelines showing how companies can develop successful base ...

Source

IBLF

Scojo Foundation and Population Services International (PSI) have signed a five-year pan-Africa agreement to make reading glasses available to the millions of Africans who lack this simple, essential health product and tool for economic development. For most Africans living in poverty, reading glasses are unobtainable due to barriers of cost, access, and awareness. Without reading glasses, people who need to see up close to earn a living, such as weavers, farmers, electricians, and artisans, ...

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Scojo Foundation News

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Measured Progress

It’s no secret how Wall Street looks at a stock; most investment banking analysts play some version of the same numbers game. They gin up models of a company’s financial drivers, then plug in data based on what they know or can guess about revenue and spending. The spreadsheet spits out projections of future cash flows and profits, which imply a certain valuation. The problem, of course, is that there’s much more to corporate performance than what we can glean from traditi...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

?Patient? Capital for an Africa That Can?t Wait

Africa needs many things, but most of all it needs capitalists who can start and run legal companies. More Bill Gateses, fewer foundations. People grow out of poverty when they create small businesses that employ their neighbors. Nothing else lasts. Last week, I was touring northern Tanzania when our car passed the small town of Karatu and we suddenly came upon an open field splashed with colors so bright and varied it looked from afar as if someone had painted a 30-color rainbow on the landscap...

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New York Times (link opens in a new window)

How Magazine Luiza Courts the Poor

Inspiration for a new case can strike at any time. For Harvard Business School professor Frances X. Frei, the time and place was one morning at home while reading The New York Times. An article on the front page of the Business section about an innovative Brazilian retailer prompted an immediate e-mail to Gustavo Herrero (HBS MBA ’76), executive director of the School’s Latin America Research Center (LARC). Herrero responded promptly, and with the assistance of LARC senior researcher Ric...

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HBS Working Knowledge (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Microsoft increases software, education for underserved billions

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it will build on existing efforts to bridge the digital divide worldwide and announced several new ventures, including a $3 software package for governments that subsidize student computers. The software maker said it will sell a Student Innovation Suite, which includes Windows XP Starter Edition and Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, for $3 to governments that subsidize a certain percentage of the cost of PCs for primary and secondary students for u...

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Associated Press (link opens in a new window)

Global Social Venture Competition

Ten social venture finalists from around the world will compete for $45,000 in prizes and exposure to potential funders at the eighth annual Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) at the Haas School of Business on April 13. A record 157 teams from 80 universities in 20 countries entered the competition in 2007. The Global Social Venture Competition, started by Berkeley MBA students in 1999, has expanded this year, with Yale School of Management and Indian School of Busine...

Source

Exduco.net (link opens in a new window)

The Race to Build Really Cheap Cars

How cheap is cheap? Renault-Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn is betting that for autos, the magic number is under $3,000. At a plant-opening ceremony in India Apr. 4, he was already talking up the industry’s next challenge: a future model that would sport a sticker price as low as $2,500?about 40% less than the least expensive subcompact currently on the market. Renault-Nissan is the first global automaker to take up the gauntlet thrown down in 2003 by India’s Tata Motors, which plans...

Source

BusinessWeek (link opens in a new window)