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Serving the Bottom of the Pyramid
Business is brisk for Dheeraj Singh, a small kirana shop owner in Delhi’s Govindpuri area. He stocks a host of brands offered by the Indian fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies in categories such as hair oil, shampoo, biscuit, fairness cream and tea, among many others. But he offers most of these products in their smallest pack sizes costing between Rs1 and Rs10. This just works fine for Savitri, a regular customer at the store employed as domestic staff in a flat nearby. She...
- Region
- South Asia
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Going to See ’To Catch A Dollar’? Tell Us What You Think
Tonight - March 31 - and only tonight, the curtain will go up on the documentary, To Catch a Dollar, in movie theaters around the United States. The film documents the travels of Muhammad Yunus as the Nobel Laurate spreads the word on microfinance - not in Bangladesh, India or Asia - but here ... in America.
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- Uncategorized
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Consumer Goods to Consumer Centricity: Not Easy to Navigate for HUL
It’s lunchtime at the sprawling campus - the walk through inside the corporate nerve centre of India’s largest FMCG Company - the Rs17700 crore turnover (March ended 2010) HUL. The campus is crowded with employees taking their post prandial walk, some using WiFi to work out of their work stations and some milling around the branded food court from the company stable. So there’s Swirl Parlour, Bru Cafes and the latest addition Knorr Food Kiosk. It’s at the Knorr Fo...
- Region
- South Asia
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Guest Post: What Aid Agencies Can do to Boost Social Enterprise
Aid agencies have the capacity to nurture this growing field into a powerful set of new partners in their efforts to rid the world of poverty. But if not handled with care, the growing interest in social enterprise may overwhelm a fragile, nascent network still finding its voice. Five ways aid agencies can constructively engage social enterprise.
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- Social Enterprise
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Africa Election Watch 2011: Niger
One of the biggest determinants of living standards for those at the base of the pyramid too often receives scant attention in the Western press: a presidential election. In 2011, 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa will hold presidential elections. The next presidential election in Africa will take place in Niger, on March 12.
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- Uncategorized
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NextThought Monday: Friending Egypt, the True Value of Social Media
Blotted out in Egypt as an organizing tool by demonstrators and singled out at Davos for its social innovation prowess, Facebook was at the apex of two worlds last week. The uprising shows how quickly social media can fuel protests while exposing income inequality. But social media’s ability to build new enterprises is just finding its footing.
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- Technology
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Participative Innovation: The Transition to a New Model of Social Capitalism
Today, we have a much more complex inter-sector reality. It isn’t unusual to find businesses that act as NGOs, private banks that give donations, development banks that set interest rates above market prices and NGOs implementing profitable projects. One wonders if the sectors are overlapping one another or if they have simply become obsolete.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Practical Progress Via the ’Opportunity Collaboration’
In October, the Opportunity Collaboration convened a group of 300 social investors and entrepreneurs to generate a strong cross-pollination of ideas and action for poverty reduction. In a recent interview, Founder and CEO Jonathan C. Lewis provided an update on the OC’s impact and shared some unvarnished views on the state of microfinance.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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