News
There’s Money in Thirst 
By Claudia H. Deutsch, The New York Times, August 10, 2006
Everyone knows there is a lot of money to be made in oil. But a fresh group of big businesses is discovering there may be even greater profit in a more prosaic liquid: water.
You’ve got exploding urban populations, increased pollution and a need to address those things in a meaningful way,’’ said Ian Barbour, general manager of Dow Chemical’s Water Solutions unit. “Of course, we’re investing significantly in the water business.”
>> More Details | created on: 08/14/2006
'One lakh' car to roll out from 3-4 places: Tata
The Economic Times - India, July 7, 2006
NEW DELHI: Tata Group Chief Ratan Tata on Friday said the ambitious Rs 1 lakh car will be manufactured from three-four places, including West Bengal and Uttaranchal.
>> More Details | created on: 09/13/2006
Haier sees growth at bottom of pyramid
TMCnet, July 2, 2006
Haier India is on overdrive as it plans to launch an India-specific range of products by mid-'07. This is as per its strategy of capturing the low-end of the consumer durables market.
>> More Details | created on: 07/06/2006
Indian motor maker gives the go-ahead for £1,200 'people's car'
By Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian, May 20, 2006
One of India's biggest motor manufacturers announced ambitious plans yesterday to launch a cheap, small "people's car" in 2008 for about £1,200.
Tata Motors, a subsidiary of one of the country's largest conglomerates, said it would invest 10 billion rupees (£120m) in the plant near Kolkata in West Bengal. Initially the plant will employ 2,000 people.
>> More Details | created on: 07/06/2006
Six Trends Will Drive Sustainable Development, According to PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers, April 10, 2006
Sustainable development will steadily advance over the next 10 years, with six major trends influencing industry world-wide, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers' report, "Corporate Responsibility: Strategy, Management and Value." The challenge of creating strategies that meet immediate needs without sacrificing the needs of future generations will be driven by the growing influence of: global market forces; revisions in corporate governance; high speed innovation; large scale globalisation; evolving societal requirements and communication, the report says.
>> More Details | created on: 04/11/2006
Making the market work for the poor 
By Ann Bernstein & Paul Zille , Business Day, April 6, 2006
AS a new development approach, making markets work for the poor (MMW4P) can have a big impact in SA because it is about changing the circumstances that prevent the poor from participating more effectively and extensively in the market economy.
>> More Details | created on: 04/11/2006
HK explores new ways to help poor people
China View, April 6, 2006
More than 300 participants from various sectors on Thursday attended the Conference on Social Enterprise to discuss new approach to helping the poor.
>> More Details | created on: 04/07/2006
Sales Effort Gives India's Rural Poor an Opportunity
By John Lancaster, Washington Post, April 2, 2006
This article discusses a Hindustan Lever initiative that enlists about 20,000 poor and mostly illiterate women to sell products.
>> More Details | created on: 04/07/2006
Bottled Water Big for Multinationals
By Mark Stevenson, Yahoo News, March 21, 2006
Violent protests have driven away corporate investment in desperately needed municipal water systems in developing nations. So the world's poor buy bottled water from Coke, Pepsi and other multinational companies.
>> More Details | created on: 03/30/2006
Building Wealth by the Penny
By John Lancaster, Washington Post, March 14, 2006
With its open sewers and mud-walled homes, this impoverished farming village of 2,200 in southern India did not look like fertile territory for an entrepreneur. But Srilatha Kadem was undeterred. Oblivious to the midday heat, she marched briskly along the unpaved streets, her cloth bag filled with soaps and shampoos and her heart with vaulting ambition.
>> More Details | created on: 03/14/2006
Grameen teams up with Groupe Danone to set up food plant
By Reaz Ahmad, The Daily Star, March 13, 2006
Microcredit guru Prof Muhammad Yunus launches a joint venture food enterprise in collaboration with one of the world's major food producers -- Groupe Danone.
>> More Details | created on: 03/22/2006
The Business of Giving
By The Economist, February 23, 2006
Philanthropy is flourishing as the number of super-rich people keeps growing. But the new donors are becoming much more businesslike about the way their money is used, says Matthew Bishop.
>> More Details | created on: 02/28/2006
The Birth of Philanthrocapitalism
By The Economist, February 23, 2006
RELATIVE to the corporate environment, we are in the 1870s. But philanthropy will increasingly come to resemble the capitalist economy, predicts Uday Khemka, a young Indian philanthropist and a director of the SUN Group investment company owned by his family.
>> More Details | created on: 02/28/2006
Q&A: C.K. Prahalad
Red Herring, February 6, 2006
>> More Details | created on: 02/17/2006
Business Prophet
By CK Prahalad, Business Week, January 23, 2006
This article discusses how strategy guru C.K. Prahalad is changing the way CEOs think.
>> More Details | created on: 01/27/2006
Putting Paid to Poverty
By Al Hammond & Bill Kramer, January 17, 2006
"Putting Paid to Poverty" provides a hopeful scenario for the development of the 'base of the pyramid' over the next ten years.
>> More Details | created on: 02/17/2006
Can Africa Join the Investment Revolution
By Africa Business, November 29, 2005
>> More Details | created on: 01/09/2006
AMD to jointly sell cheap personal computers in India
Agence French Presse, October 14, 2005
US-based semiconductor maker AMD said it would enter a joint venture with an Indian firm to sell personal computers for the same cost as cellphones.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
Calling an End to Poverty: Mobile Phones and Development
By The Economist, July 7, 2005
Discusses how mobile phone firms have found a way to help the poor help themselves.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
Pennies from the poor add up to fortune
By David Ignatius, The Korea Herald, July 1, 2005
>> More Details | created on: 01/03/2006
A Richer Future for India
McKinsey Quarterly, July 1, 2005
Analyzes Indias growth potential beyond IT and outsourcing services.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Selling to the Poor: There is a Surprisingly Lucrative Market in Targeting Low-Income Consumers
By Kay Johnson & Xa Nhon, Time Magazine, April 25, 2005
Identifies the lucrative market in targeting low income consumers.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Selling to the Poor: Mobile Firms Plan Cheap Handset
BBC News, February 1, 2005
An alliance of mobile phone firms has launched an ultra-cheap handset in the hope of connecting millions more customers in developing countries.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Senegalese Villagers are Learning to Use their Natural & Cultural Heritage to Make a Living
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, January 1, 2005
It is in partnership with the Nicolas Hulot Foundation (NHF), and the Ademe, the French agency for the environment and energy efficiency, that EDF has begun to engage in projects where local communities in developing countries take responsibility for the protection of their natural and cultural heritage, and turn it into an opportunity for growth.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
PEOPLink and CatGen: Empowering a Global Network of Artisans
By Nia Ujamaa, Digital Divide Network, December 1, 2004
Discusses the success of PEOPLink and CatGen in empowering a global network of local artisans.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
The Global Compact: A Business Perspective
International Chamber of Commerce, July 1, 2004
A look at the Global Compact as businesses begins to take more of a role in International Development.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Local Entrepreneurial Skills & Sustainability in Rwanda's Community Internet Centers
DOT-COMments e-newsletter, 2004
Addresses how local entrepreneurial skills are leading to sustainable growth in Rwanda’s Community Internet Centers.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Shanty Town Seamstresses Fuel the Fashion Industry
By Shannon Walbran, Changemakers.net, June 1, 2002
The article addresses the success of the Coopa-Roca sewing cooperative in bringing many women out of poverty.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Balancing Sustainability with Service to the Poorest of the Poor
By Sharda Naidoo, Changemakers.net, May 1, 2002
Discusses Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF) in South Africa which is one of the world's most financially successful and efficient microfinance programs, having reached a level of sustainability critical to the viability of microfinance lending.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Strategic Innovation: Hindustan Lever Ltd
By Rekha Balu, Fast Company, June 1, 2001
Highlights Hindustan Lever's success through soap marketing and distribution at the BOP.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Cases
Procter & Gamble: Treating water at its point of use
WBCSD, October 17, 2006
Did you know that Procter & Gamble, in collaboration with non-governmental organizations and governments, is working in developing countries to provide safe drinking water to people directly in their homes?
>> More Details | created on: 10/20/2006
Unilever in Brazil:Marketing Strategies for Low Income Consumers
By P. Chandon & P. Pacheco Guimaraes, INSEAD, January 1, 2006
Unilever is a solid leader in the Brazilian detergent powder market with an 81% market share. Laercio Cardoso must decide: (1) whether Unilever should divert money from its premium brands to target the lower- margin segment of low-income consumers; (2) whether Unilever can reposition or extend one of its existing brands to avoid launching a new brand; and (3) what price, product, promotion, and distribution strategy would allow Unilever to deliver value to low-income consumers without cannibalising its own premium brands too heavily. This case deals with the question of whether marketing and branding create value for really poor consumers.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
Thamel.com: Diaspora-enabled Development (Nepal)
By John Paul, World Resources Institute, December, 2005
Thamel.com is a Nepal-based marketing and development company that has tapped the resources of the diaspora to create new opportunities for Nepalese workers, generate cultural value, and help move local businesses in a new direction. The company’s unique combination of e-commerce, remittance, and business development services demonstrate how combining the power of IT and diasporas can create opportunities at the base of the pyramid.
>> More Details | created on: 03/15/2006
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING A
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0266-SSRN, 2005
This series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution pursuant to C. K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond's theory of the worldwide four-tiered market, in which the bottom of the pyramid is an untapped and potentially lucrative market.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Serving the Poor: Do Embedded Ties Matter?
By Pablo Sánchez, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez & Joan Enric Ricart , IESE Business School, January 1, 2005
In the past, the 4.6 billion people living in poverty were considered anything but a market. Recently, however, several authors have suggested that by stimulating commerce and development in low-income segments, multinationals could radically improve the lives of billions of people and help create a more stable and inclusive world. In order to succeed at this challenging goal, companies need not only to innovate strategies, business models and products, but also to better understand the market and local customer needs.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
Solar Energy in Rural South Africa
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No. UVA-E-0145-SSRN, 2005
This case describes Solar Electric Light Fund's pilot project to deliver solar-energy units to a rural, nonelectrified village in the Maphephethe region of South Africa. What appears to be an innocuous project with positive social dimensions ends up causing social stratification in the village's poorer class. The case presents students with some interesting ethical dilemmas as traditional community values of equity and social class are challenged by an attempt to improve living standards. It may also be taught as an environmental-ethics case concerning alternative-energy options (see also "SELF (A)" [UVA-E-0112] and "SELF (B)" [UVA-E-0113]).
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Eskom and the South African Electrification Program A
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0162-SSRN , 2005
Eskom, a South African electric-utility company, is currently spending $400 million annually (roughly 30 percent of its annual profits) to implement a national social-initiative project. This project is a countrywide infrastructure-development program to provide electricity to the citizens of South Africa, who were often denied access to basic services under apartheid; thus, the company is hoping to fulfill its goal of becoming a "model corporate citizen."
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Eskom and the South African Electrification Program B
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0163-SSRN , 2005
After Eskom implemented a viable plan for providing electricity to more than 1.75 million South African households, many of its customers failed to pay for service, which resulted in a debt of approximately $400 million by 1997. This negative consumer behavior, however, was not necessarily unjustified, as South Africa's black citizens had historically used consumer boycotts as a means of protest against the apartheid state. Consequently, the country's consumer base had evolved in an environment where nonpayment was often seen as a social norm rather than negative behavior. Recognizing that consumers' behavior was the result of living under an oppressive regime, Eskom needed to address this seemingly intractable situation. See also the A, C, D, and E cases (E-0162, E-0164, E-0165, and E-0166).
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Eskom and the South African Electrification Program C
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0164-SSRN , 2005
Eskom had committed to spending approximately $400 million annually to provide 1.75 million South African households with electricity by 2000. The company had to forfeit an additional $300 million because of consumers' nonpayment for service. Moreover, the company also faced rising operational costs as a result of consumers' illegally tampering with their electrical connections. In fact, these costs had increased to such an extent that annual costs were higher than annual sales in many of the areas Eskom served. This illegal behavior, however, had evolved under an oppressive regime that forced many consumers to steal from the existing infrastructure in order to access basic services. Following the end of apartheid, Eskom hoped to receive an adequate return on its investments in the electrification program. See also the A, B, D, and E cases (E-0162, E-0163, E-0165, and E-0166).
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Eskom and the South African Electrification Program D
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0165-SSRN , 2005
The D case concerns Eskom's commitment to provide employment in rural areas by training residents to work on local electrification projects. The company discovers, however, that its employees, for a small fee, often help customers make illegal connections to power lines, thus avoiding payment for service. In some communities, as much as 80 percent of the electricity is illegally obtained. How should Eskom deal with this problem? See also the A, B, C, and E cases (E-0162, E-0163, E-0164, and E-0166).
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Eskom and the South African Electrification Program E
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0166-SSRN , 2005
Eskom produces the world's cheapest electricity by using coal-fired plants, most of which have not been retrofitted to meet World Bank standards. Moreover, most South Africans without electricity burn wood, which creates even more air pollution than coal. Should Eskom retrofit its coal-fired facilities and raise the price of electricity or continue to expand its inexpensive electrification program? See also the A, B, C, and D cases (E-0162, E-0163, E-0164, and E-0165).
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
The Volta River Project
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0161-SSRN, 2005
In 1998, Ghana was considering new ways to generate electricity to solve the recurring problem of power shortages due to droughts. This case discusses the Volta River Project, which was conceived by Kwame Nkrumah, the founder of Ghana. Built in 1963, the Volta River Dam was a joint project between Ghana and Valco, a multinational aluminum company that was to be the largest consumer of the dam's electricity. Various difficulties, including repeated droughts and a long-term low negotiated price for Valco's electricity, have created a shortage of electricity in Ghana. The case poses the following question for students: What is the best long-term solution - should Ghana build another dam or develop other solutions to this recurring problem?
>> More Details | created on: 01/20/2006
SELF A
By Patricia H. Werhane & Scott B. Sonenshein, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0112-SSRN, 2005
This series of cases (see also the B case, UVA-E-0113) describes the choices facing Neville Williams, founder and president of SELF, in his attempt to provide environmentally friendly electricity to rural China. SELF is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to improve the standard of living in developing countries. The A case encourages students to choose among three alternative-energy sources - hydropower, photovoltaics, and clean coal - that are technologically sufficient and environmentally sustainable. Students are not told what the acronym SELF stands for until the end of the A case.
>> More Details | created on: 01/20/2006
SELF B
By Patricia H. Werhane & Scott B. Sonenshein, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0113-SSRN. , 2005
The main purpose of the B case is to demonstrate that corporate and managerial ideologies play a role in determining how to finance projects. Williams must decide how to fund rural-electrification projects in such developing countries as China. Given SELF's ideology, students must evaluate the alternatives of government subsidies for energy development, partial subsidies, and individual payment plans for energy. See also the A case (UVA-E-0112).
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Sustainable upstream development: BP Trinidad and Tobago
World Business Council on Sustainable Development, April 16, 2004
BP enables capability development among the local supplier community in a way that enhances their ability to support its growth agenda and enlisting the support of other operators, suppliers, state agencies, financial and learning institutions to create maximum socio-economic impact.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Insuring fair prices for farmers in developing countries: Rabobank International
World Business Council on Sustainable Development, April 16, 2004
This partnership between private and public sector organizations explores new market-based approaches for assisting small-scale producers in developing countries to better manage their vulnerability to commodity price fluctuations.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Promoting Fair Trade and Increasing Profits
By Rochlin, Stephen & Janet Boguslaw, 2004
The partnership between Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, a leader in the specialty coffee industry based in Waterbury, Vermont and TransFair USA, a nonprofit fair trade certification organization, has resulted in increased profits for Green Mountain Coffee, a significant boost in fair trade coffee sales in the United States, and fair compensation and direct access to international markets for poor coffee growers.
>> More Details | created on: 04/03/2006
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING B
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0267-SSRN, 2004
Set in India in the 1980s and '90s, this series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. The upstart, low-priced Nirma detergent, manufactured by a former chemist, has overtaken HLL in the detergent market primarily because Nirma is being distributed and sold to this previously ignored segment of India's population. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution pursuant to C. K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond's theory of the worldwide four-tiered market, in which the bottom of the pyramid is an untapped and potentially lucrative market.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING D
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0269-SSRN, 2004
Set in India in the 1980s and '90s, this series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. The upstart, low-priced Nirma detergent, manufactured by a former chemist, has overtaken HLL in the detergent market primarily because Nirma is being distributed and sold to this previously ignored segment of India's population. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution pursuant to C. K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond's theory of the worldwide four-tiered market, in which the "bottom of the pyramid" is an untapped and potentially lucrative market.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING C
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0268-SSRN, 2004
Set in India in the 1980s and '90s, this series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. The upstart, low-priced Nirma detergent, manufactured by a former chemist, has overtaken HLL in the detergent market primarily because Nirma is being distributed and sold to this previously ignored segment of India's population. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution pursuant to C. K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond's theory of the worldwide four-tiered market, in which the "bottom of the pyramid" is an untapped and potentially lucrative market.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Real Microcredito , Brazil
By Frederico Moura & Yerina Mugica, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2004
ABN AMRO Real Microcredito is providing self-sustaining micro-finance programs to help Brazil's poor:
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Businesses Are Helping to Overcome Global Poverty
By Stern N, Richard Ivey Business School, January 1, 2004
The facts today point to a decline in global poverty and to the reality that global economic development is working. These positive developments are due to policies pursued by both public organizations and the international business community. But as the Chief Economist of the World Banks says, business can do even more to help the world's poorest countries.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
CrediAmigo , Brazil
By Yerina Mugica, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, 2004
Highlights the overwhelming success of CrediAmigo at serving almost 70% of the rural and industrial loans in it region of Brazil.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
ICICI Bank , India
By Todd J. Markson & Michael Hokenson, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, December 12, 2003
Reviews how the ICIC bank experience made customers out of the poor and empowered them at the same time.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
PRODEM FFP's Multilingual Smart ATMs for Microfinance , Bolivia
By Roberto Hernandez, World Resources Institute Digital Dividend, August 1, 2003
Discusses how PRODEM FFP is delivering financial services to rural populations in Bolivia.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
e-Choupal , India
By Kuttayan Annamalai & Sachin Rao, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, August, 2003
Highlights the success of e-Chopals at connecting subsistence farmers with large firms and the global market through internet information centers.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
AKASHGANDA, India
By Ajay Sharma & Akhilesh Yadav, World Resources Institute Digital Dividend, August 1, 2003
This case dicussess the work SKELPL, a small bussiness in India, which has used innovative solutions to automize the milk collection process at local dairy cooperatives.
>> More Details | created on: 04/13/2006
Coca-Cola: The entrepreneur development program
World Business Council on Sustainble Development, March 20, 2003
Coca-Cola’s Southern Africa division, in conjunction with local bottling companies, have developed the Entrepreneur Development Program in South Africa to help new entrepreneurs enter the supply chain and profit from new sustainable business ventures.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Corpomedina: Social and Economic Development, Venezuela
By Luis Sanz & Lawrence Pratt, World Resources Institute, 2000
As part of its strategy to develop tourism in an economically depressed zone of Venezuela, Corpomedina formed an independent foundation aimed at improving the quality of life for the local population through health, cultural, and educational programs, and through the creation of micro-enterprises.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Academic Research
Dynamic Transformations for Base-of-the-Pyramid Market Clusters.
By Eric J Arnould & Jakki J. Mohr, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, June 1, 2005
>> More Details | created on: 01/03/2006
At the Bottom of the Pyramid: Responsible Design for Responsible Business
By Nirmal Sethia, Design Managment Review, June 1, 2005
In this article, Nirmal Sethia, a professor of management and director of the Center for Business and Design in the College of Business Administration at California State Polytechnic University, in Pomona, calls our attention to what he calls "a pressing business responsibility that is a significant new business opportunity." The opportunity he refers to is what he calls "the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP)-almost four billion people, or nearly two-thirds of humanity, who live at the bottom of the economic pyramid, with a vast majority of them struggling to survive on less than two dollars a day."
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Corporate Sector Involvement in Education for all
By Tiphaine Bertsch & Rebecca Bouchet, et al, UNESCO Study, June 1, 2005
This paper is a micro-level analysis of partnerships in education between corporate and public stakeholders.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Credit Constraints as a Barrier to Technology Adoption by the Poor: Lessons from South-Indian Small Scale Fishery
By Gine, Xavier, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, June, 2005 (No. 3665)
The paper studies the diffusion of plastic reinforced fiber boats in a fishing village in Tamil Nadu and the dynamics of income inequality during this process
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Premium Marketing to the Masses: An Interview with LG Electronics India's Managing Director
By Pramath Raj Sinha, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
In this interview, Kwang-Ro Kim shows how LG Electronics India has built a dominant position in India's consumer electronics and white-goods markets.
The company has overcome India's notorious distribution challenge, in the process pushing deeper into rural territories than have most competitors. Indian consumers, LG has found, will pay a premium for quality and service.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
The Right Passage to India
By Kuldeep P. Jain & Nigel A. S. Manson, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
Multinational companies are often successful precisely because they can replicate products and processes and even market-entry strategies across multiple markets. In India, however, that approach can bring disappointing results.
The multinationals with the most success in India are those that tailor their products and practices to the idiosyncrasies of this market—even when that means starting from scratch.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Winning the Indian Consumer
By V.T. Bharadwaj & Gautam M. Swaroop, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
India will be a critical growth market for many multinational consumer goods companies. But several distinct Indias now coexist. Global players must define which of them to target—the biggest opportunity is the rapidly growing middle class—and then design the right business model. While the journey will not be easy, the reward will be a share of the world's last big untapped consumer market.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
India's Economic Agenda: An Interview with Manmohan Singh
By Rajat K. Gupta, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
In an interview, India's prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, discusses his country’s prospects and challenges, saying that the ultimate goal is to wipe out poverty, ignorance, and disease.
To him this can be accomplished by increasing foreign direct investment, particularly in infrastructure and by opening up the retail sector.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Fulfilling India's Promise
By Rajat K. Gupta, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
The article discusses how India must take steps to boost its economic prospects, lift its living standards, and improve opportunities for the multinational companies that do business there.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
New Strategies for Consumer Goods
By Peter D. Haden & Olivier Sibony, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, December, 2004 (Subscription Required)
Most consumer goods companies can still improve some of their operations, but a few of them will look for innovative new strategies, such as outsourcing production, building new service businesses, or developing neglected product categories.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
China's Market for Mobile Phones
By Bram J. Bout & Vincent Chang, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2004 (Subscription Required)
China's manufacturers of moble phones better understand the needs and preferences of their own market and thus are capable of grabbing market share at a much quicker pace then their foreign counterparts. The article discusses how foreign competitors can slow the gains of the local competition and improve their profit margins.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Understanding the Chinese Consumer
By Jacques Penhirin, McKinsey Quarterly, 2004 (Subscription Required)
China's consumer goods market, stimulated by rapidly rising incomes, is growing quickly. Multinational companies are competing against one another and an array of increasingly sophisticated Chinese players to serve the mass market, but doing so cost-effectively is becoming more difficult.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Marketing to China's Consumers
By Yougang Chen & Jacques Penhirin, McKinsey Quarterly, 2004 (Subscription Required)
To broaden the appeal of a premium brand, consumer goods companies can adjust a product's inputs and packaging as well as cut prices.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
A Wholesale Shift in European Groceries
By Javier Castrillo & Jose Manuel Martinez, McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 (Subscription Required)
Large retailers that can transfer their scale-based capabilities to the right opportunities in Europe’s wholesale markets will be poised to earn large revenues from them in the future.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
How Corporations and Environmental Groups Cooperate: Assessing Cross Sector Alliances and Collaborations
By Dennis A. Rondinelli & Ted London, Academy of Management Executive, 2003 (Vol. 17 No. 1, 2003)
Gives a set of strategic criteria for executives who are interested in participating in more intensive cross-sector collaborations on environmental issues with their nonprofit counterparts
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Hypergrowth for China's Hypermarkets
By Alvin Miu & Jacques Penhirin, McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 (Subscription Required)
The rapid rise of hypermarkets in China represents a huge opportunity for both domestic and multinational retailers trying to capture a piece of this enormous market. But tapping it will require tweaking the model to suit the unique requirements of China's retail landscape.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Brand Building in Emerging Markets
By Gilberto Duarte de Abreu Filho & Nicola Calicchio, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 (Subscription Required)
Brand-name products will always capture their share of affluent consumers. But in the low end of emerging markets, companies should take their cues from local competitors: keep local managers in place, adhere to local standards of quality, and maintain the autonomy—and the cost efficiency—of local operations.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
The Great Leap: Driving Innovation from the Base of the Pyramid
By Hart, Stu & Christensen, Clayton, MIT Sloan Management Review, September, 2002 (Fall 2002)
The authors illustrate their point of how and when BOP can be successful with examples of companies that are already profitably disrupting such industries as telecommunications, consumer electronics and energy production.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
By C.K. Prahalad & Stuart L. Hart, Strategy+Business, January, 2002 (Issue 26, First Quarter 2002)
Dispells some of the assumptions regarding selling to the poor and discusses how companies can both maximize their profits and help the poor
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Do Retail Brands Travel?
By Peter N. Child & Suzanne Heywood, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2002 (Subscription Required)
Retail chains have found that while they can hang out their signs anywhere, consumers respond differently in every country. Understanding those differences is the key to building a successful retail brand across borders. A survey of 40 retail grocery and clothing brands in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom shows the importance of tailoring a brand's image to each national market.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Are Prices Higher for the Poor in New York City
By Lashawn Richburg Hayes, Industrial Relations Section Working Paper No. 423, February, 2000
The paper finds that market prices in poor neighborhoods are not higher than those in more affluent areas
>> More Details | created on: 01/19/2006
India as a Source of Innovations
By C.K. Prahalad, 2000
Analyzes and the old mindset of the poor as an intractable problem and shows how currently there has been a shift in this mindset to one of the poor as an active market and the Bottom of the Pyramid as a source of innovation for this market.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Bagging Europe's Groceries
By Pierre Gurdjian & George Kerschbaumer, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2000 (Subscription Required )
To make it into the champions’ league, Europe’s leading food retailers will need to acquire a different skill set that enables them to extract value on a multinational playing field
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
India's Retailing Comes of Age
By Michael Fernandes & Chandrika Gadi, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2000 (Subscription Required )
As citizens of the world’s largest democracy, Indians are trusted to choose their own government. But, until recently, they were not free to choose what they wanted to buy. A paternalistic regime of control manifested itself in licensing laws that restricted the production of consumer goods
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Financial Services for the Urban Poor: South Africa's E Plan
By Paulson, Jo Ann & McAndrews, James, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, November 30, 1999 (No. 2016)
Standard Bank of South Africa's innovative E Bank program demonstrates how a commercial bank can use market information to bundle services needed by the urban poor - and valued by the poorer clients to justify a fee high enough to cover costs.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Gold from Noodles
By James Hexter & Javier Perez, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 1998 (Subscription Required )
In 1998, packaged food will account for 20 percent of China's $200 billion food and beverage sales, or $40 billion. Sales of some items, such as milk powder, instant noodles, biscuits, and soft drinks, have already topped $2 billion.
Yet despite this potential, most foreign food and beverage companies are find-ing it difficult to attain even modest profitability in China.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Food for West Africa
By Claudio Aspesi & Bernard Loyd, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 1998 (Subscription Required )
West Africa uses scarce resources to import food. Western companies can now play a big role either through direct investment or via alliances. A market of 225 million people.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Books
Multinational Corporations: A Key to Global Poverty Reduction
Global Envision, 2006
MNCs have the unmatched power and competence to reduce global poverty. Increasingly, world opinion, as well as the inclinations of their own managers and staff, urges MNCs to use that power more effectively. But MNCs lack a vehicle to make that transition in a sustainable and legitimate way.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Capitalism at the Crossroads
By Stuart L. Hart, Wharton School Publishing, March 30, 2005
Global capitalism stands at a crossroads—facing international terrorism, worldwide environmental change, and an accelerating backlash against globalization. Today's global companies are at a crossroads, too: finding new strategies for profitable growth has never been more challenging. Both sets of problems are intimately linked, says Stuart L. Hart—and so are the solutions.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists: Unleashing the Power of Financial Markets to Create Wealth and Spread Opportunity
By Raghuram Rajan & Luigi Zingales, Crown Business, October 1, 2004
Capitalism’s biggest problem is the executive in pinstripes who extols the virtues of competitive markets with every breath while attempting to extinguish them with every action.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Profits with Principles: Seven Strategies for Delivering Value with Values
By Ira Jackson & Jane Nelson, Currency, June 29, 2004
At a time when unethical business practices continue to dominate the business press, PROFITS WITH PRINCIPLES offers persuasive proof that when businesses combine profit making with a concern for values and the greater good, they do better in the marketplace than those that concentrate only on the bottom line.
>> More Details | created on: 02/14/2008
Raising the Bar: Creating Value with the United Nations Global Compact
By Claude Fussler (editor) & Aron Cramer, et al, Greenleaf Publishing, 2004
Raising the Bar, produced by a unique team of business experts and UN agencies, is designed to fill a critical vide - poches the support of more than 1,000 organisations for the globally recognised Principles of the United Nations Global Compact and the need for this support to be translated into the day-to-day running of business to create value and improve performance.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
How to Change the World: Social Enrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
By David Bornstein, Oxford University Press, December 1, 2003
What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are, writes David Bornstein, the driven, creative individuals who question the status quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up--and remake the world for the better.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Development as Freedom
By Amartya Sen, Anchor Books, August 15, 2000
Development as Freedom is a general exposition of the economic ideas and analyses of Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Science. This brilliant and indispensable treatise compellingly analyzes the nature of contemporary economic development from the perspective of human freedom. Freedom, Sen persuasively argues, is at once the ultimate goal of economic life and the most efficient means of realizing general welfare. It is a good to be enjoyed by the world's entire population. Drawing on moral and political philosophy and technical economic analysis, this work gives the nonspecialist reader powerful access to Sen's paradigm-altering vision and vividly shows how he, in the words of the Nobel Prize committee, has both "restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of economic problems" and "opened up new fields of study for subsequent generations of researchers."
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Give Us Credit: How Muhammad Yunus's Mirolending Revolution is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago
By Alex Counts, Crown, 1996
When Muhammad Yunus returned to his native Bangladesh 25 years ago with an American doctorate in economics, he set out to try and combat the entrenched poverty there. By 1995, his Grameen Bank had made loans totaling $500 million to two million borrowers, mostly women. In spite of the fact that these borrowers were the poorest of the poor, Grameen has had a near-perfect repayment rate.
>> View Article | created on: 11/30/2005
Business as Partners in Development: Creating Wealth for Countries, Companies, and Communities
The International Business Leaders Forum, 1996
Published in collaboration with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme, this publication is aimed at every level of an organisation, and seeks to stimulate consideration of the new way of doing business. In the context of three billion people rapidly taking their place in market economies, the private sector has become the principal motor of development and a growth-test of economic strength.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005