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

Switch to the Low-Income Customer

?We?ve changed our standard of innovation so we can serve more of the world?s consumers. So it?s now a better brand experience for the target consumer and a lower product cost structure than the competition can deliver.? Gilbert Cloyd, Procter & Gamble?s chief technology officer, unfolds a disposable nappy on a table at the company?s Cincinnati headquarters. With a lightly elasticated edge and a basic inner lining, it is a prototype that, if proven commerciall...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Pro Mujer Launches Integrated Microfinance Program in Argentina, Targets the Most Impoverished

Pro Mujer, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Latin America’s poorest women help themselves through micro-credit, business training and health care linkages announced today the launch of operations in its fifth Latin American country, Argentina. With financial support from the JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Pro Mujer plans to initiate operations in the province of Salta, Northern Argentina at the beginning of December 2005. An Argentine wine tasting event will be held Nov...

Source

Yahoo! Finance (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Latin American companies find new business partners in unexpected places

?We need to provide opportunities all the way down to the base of the pyramid to alleviate poverty? International companies in Colombia and El Salvador are learning what it takes to do business with the low-income communities in their own backyards. Sustainable livelihoods is a practical way to do business in Latin America, sa...

Source

WBCSD News (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Banco Uno Panama and Banco Uno El Salvador are granted a seven-year loan totaling USD 27.5 million by the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) and its German partner DEG. The loan is to be used to extend Banco Uno’s credit card services to lower-income households. This will give many such households in Central America for the first time access to financial services. This will allow them to borrow and save money and thus gain access to the formal economy. Grupo Financiero...

Source

Finance for Development (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Mexico’s Cemex Feeds Kilns A Cheap Refinery Leftover Called Petroleum Coke

Cemex’s success in reducing its energy expense offers an unusual lesson in global business, showing what a developing-world company can do when forced to deal with competition from the developed world. In some cases the difficult operating environments of emerging markets -- economic turbulence, high borrowing costs, creaky infrastructure and corruption -- can act as a rigorous corporate boot camp, breeding the kind of innovation that makes for lean competitors on the world stage."...

Source

The Wall Street Journal

Region

Latin America

6 Truths about Emerging-Market Consumers

They?re brand-aware, savvy shoppers who like mom-and-pop shops more than modern markets, a new pan-Latin study shows. Selling consumer products to Latin America?s 250 million low-income consumers ? men and women who constitute 50 to 60 percent of the region?s population and wield some $120 billion in annual purchasing power ? is more than an attractive opportunity: It is a necessity for large corporations trying to accelerate their growth. ...

Source

strategy+business

Region

Latin America