In The Business Solution to Poverty: Designing Products and Services for Three Billion New Customers, authors Paul Polak and Mal Warwick believe that, unlike government and philanthropy, business is uniquely capable of solving poverty. Still, they allow room for others to pitch in.
Tag: business solution to poverty
The Business Solution to Poverty: is business special?
Readers of this blog don’t need to guess why this book title attracted my attention: The Business Solution to Poverty: Designing Products and Services for Three Billion New Customers, by Paul Polak and Mal Warwick. At this writing, I’ve read through part one of three. The world economy has expanded 17-fold since 1950, yet more...Continue reading
The power of distribution: small-scale irrigation in Zimbabwe
MercyCorps works to build secure, productive, and just communities in some of the world’s toughest places like Somalia, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and Haiti. They recently shared a success story about small-scale irrigation in Zimbabwe that’s really a story about distribution.
Franchising for health
In rural communities in India, the ratio of doctors to patients is 1:2000. That leaves a large gap in health services to be filled. A large but informal jumble of health care practitioners tries to fill the gap. Often, these practitioners are under-capitalized, under-trained, and disconnected from each other and from professional consultation with a...Continue reading
Wholesaling to the base of the pyramid: Tenda Atacado
Here’s a marketing challenge for you: Build a billion-dollar business serving clients who Earn less than $1,500 a month Completed less than eight years of education Lack access to banking, credit, or financing
The power of price: extending electronic payment to the poor
According to a paper on the Social Science Research Network, in 2012, 16 percent of the world’s population sent, delivered, or received an informal cash payment, or remittance. These people reside in Southeast Asia, and the individual money amounts transferred are small. So small, in fact, that financial institutions don’t bother providing services to support...Continue reading