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NexThought Monday – The BoP Beyond Income Levels: Exploring the ‘opportunity access’ approach
The focus of the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) has been centered almost exclusively in the economic limitations of low-income communities. But in our report, “Understanding the BoP from an Access to Opportunities,” we expand this focus and recognize the multidimensional concepts of poverty, including an analysis of the BoP through their access to a joining of five basic necessities: water, energy, education, housing, and information and communication technology.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Impact Assessment
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Unilever Wagers Billions on India Economic Revival
In 1888, when Queen Victoria ruled India, the company that would become Unilever (UNA) decided the country was the future. More than a century on, it’s staking $5.4 billion that it still is.The Anglo-Dutch maker of Dove shampoo and Lipton tea, successor to one of the first multinationals in India, plans to spend as much as 292 billion rupees ($5.4 billion) to increase its control over Indian unit Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (HUVR)
- Region
- South Asia
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Remembering C.K. Prahalad : Through Action
As part of the C.K. Prahalad Initiative at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where C.K. Prahalad was a professor until he died three years ago this month, several business students presented the findings of their recent Multi-disciplinary Action Projects (MAP) on Monday. For this particular batch of MAP projects, in which first-year Ross MBA students devote themselves to a specific company or nonprofit organization for a semester, several students were embedded in BoP-engaged companies. Those firms included MedPlus, ICICI Bank, Move the Mountain, and Aravind Eye Care.
- Categories
- Education
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Idb Base Forum: Sharpening Focus On Bop: An Interview With Omj’s Luiz Ros on the Second International Forum in June
OMJ’s Luiz Ros says June’s second annual BASE Forum Colombia will attract more than 1,000 attendees. The focus will be on cutting edge information and new models, bringing together civil society, government, private sector to collaborate and come up with a value proposition for the base of the pyramid in the region.
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- Uncategorized
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Three Messages from BRAC’s Frugal Innovation Forum to the Skoll World Forum
Small is beautiful, but big is necessary. In Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, many development practitioners live by this creed. But at last month’s Frugal Innovation Forum: Scaling Simple Solutions, everyone agreed that they don’t get nearly enough opportunities to talk shop and compare notes within the region. Taking place in Dhaka from March 30-31, the forum was the first ever gathering of South Asian development practitioners, hosted in South Asia, specifically to talk about scaling frugal innovations.
- Categories
- Technology
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TOMS Shoes and Consumerism’s 3 Biggest Sins
Unlike impact investing, which is often funded by rich angel investors, conscious consumerism allows middle class individuals to make philanthropy part of their daily lives. Unfortunately, the movement remains controversial because companies like TOMS don’t prioritize a lot of things that “normal” social enterprises do. Here are conscious consumerism’s three biggest sins.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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NexThought Monday: Strategies for Doing Business in Emerging, Diverse Rural India
Only12 percent of India’s population lives in cities, the remaining 88 percent of people are not reaping many of the economic benefits from the country’s evolving leadership status and associate growth. Rural poverty remains rampant; as a result, innovative thinking is required to meet the needs of India’s majority.
I spoke with Pradeep Kashyap, the CEO and Founder of MART, one of India’s leading emerging markets consulting firm, about the opportunities and challenges of creating innovations for rural Indian markets- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Learning from the Pioneers: Marketing innovative devices for the BoP
Over the last two decades, a range of affordable devices and equipment have been created to provide 4 billion people at the base of the pyramid (BoP) with life-changing benefits. Yet, progress in marketing these devices has been frustratingly slow as marketers struggle to convince BoP families that future benefits (cost savings or increased income) justify their investments. The “Marketing Innovative Devices for the Base of the Pyramid” project analyzed 15 pioneer organizations selling life-changing devices to low-income people around the world.
- Categories
- Education
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