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Danone May Apply Bangladesh Lessons to India
Groupe Danone, the $18-billion French dairy company, is understood to be exploring a strategy for India which will leverage on its experience in Bangladesh. One of the things Danone is studying is to enter with an affordable initiative, what it internally calls a bottom of the pyramid one. Danone has a joint venture with The Grameen Group in that country, from early 2006, with a focus on easily affordable dairy products. The Grameen Danone Foods model relies on the creat...
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- South Asia
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A Fresh Start – Rural Job Seekers Find a Brighter Future
To get a sense of India’s rural-urban union, drop in on a McDonald’s restaurant in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, where hungry customers scan the brightly lit menu panel above the counter and line up to place orders. The eatery, nestled in a busy shopping mall in downtown Hyderabad, is unique: Most of the youngsters flipping burgers and taking orders are not city slickers, but employees recruited from India’s rural belly. Take college dropout K. Bhargavi, 23, who...
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- South Asia
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Economic Crisis Forces Businesses to Focus on the Poor
In India, the economic crisis may actually be good news. During the salad days of the past decade, India’s entrepreneurs grew fat selling gas guzzlers and palatial homes to the country’s new rich, while ignoring the needs of the biggest segment of Indian consumers: the poor. It was an expatriate Indian, the University of Michigan’s C.K. Prahalad, who first posited that there were millions to be made selling to the "bottom of the pyramid." Now that’s start...
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- South Asia
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Indian Regulations Stifling for Social Investing
Harold Rosen founded the Grassroots Business Initiative (GBI) of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation in 2004. In 2008, GBI spun off into the non-profit Grassroots Business Fund, which, among other things, looks at funding socially relevant projects in India. Rosen spoke to Atul Sethi about the potential of social enterprise funding in India: What makes you want to invest in India? India’s world-class, cost-effective skilled labour force canno...
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- South Asia
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Aavishkar Goodwell Invests in Early Stage Microfinance
SMF will be the first MFI in India to secure equity funding prior to the commencement of its ops. Pune based Suryoday Microfinance (SMF), a micro finance company led by three former bankers, has received an equity investment of Rs 45 million from Aavishkaar Goodwell India Microfinance Development Company. An interesting point to note is that this would be the first MFI in India to secure equity funding from an institutional investor prior to the commencement of its oper...
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- South Asia
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From Chulhas to Defibrillators: Can Philips India Be All Things to All People?
Philips India was once unchallenged in India’s lighting and electronics arena. With more than 75 years in the country, the nearly wholly owned subsidiary of the Dutch multinational Royal Philips Electronics boasts impeccable parentage. But competition eroded its vaunted position, and today Philips has redefined itself as a "health and well-being company." "Through consumer insight, we understood that people perceive health and well-being as a combination of superior lifestyle and av...
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- South Asia
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Real Economic Development in Afghanistan
A successful woman-run rug business has been operating for the last five years in Afghanistan. Arzu Rugs currently employs 600 people and provides direct economic support to almost four times that many. Arzu means “hope” in Dari. In addition to the well-paying jobs created by the rug-weaving work, the company funnels its profits back to the community in the form of medical care, education, and social services that touch the lives of an estimated 100,000 Afghans. Arzu was cre...
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- South Asia
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World’s Cheapest Car Hits Indian Streets
by Phil Hazlewood The world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano, hit the streets on Friday, as the first customer got the keys to a vehicle that its makers hope will transform travel for millions of Indians. Ashok Raghunath Vichare took delivery of a lunar silver Nano LX model, one of three cars handed over in person by Tata Motors boss Ratan Tata at a city dealership. The 59-year-old customs official from Mumbai said only that he was "very happy" to have got his hands...
- Region
- South Asia
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