NEW BOOK PROPOSES BUSINESS SOLUTIONS FOR THE GLOBAL POOR
Business Solutions for the Global Poor
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
BOSTON - The problem of global poverty is ubiquitous and enduring. According to the latest World Bank statistics, nearly half the world’s population (2.8 billion people) is forced to survive on less than $2 a day, with 1.2 billion (nearly 20 percent of the world’s population) living in abject poverty under $1 a day. In an effort to aid those who dwell at the base of the economic pyramid (BOP), more than 100 academics and business, non-profit and government leaders from around the world converged on the Harvard Business School campus in 2005 for a conference affiliated with the school's Social Enterprise Initiative that explored business approaches to alleviating poverty.
One result of that important event is the book Business Solutions for the Global Poor: Creating Social and Economic Value, just published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Edited by Harvard Business School Professors V. Kasturi Rangan and John A. Quelch; Gustavo Herrero, Executive Director of the HBS Latin America Research Center; and HBS Research Associate Brooke Barton, the volume brings together a variety of perspectives on how serving the poor can be both a profitable business proposition and help improve the lives of the world's impoverished.
The volume includes illustrative case studies that explore the role of business in meeting the poor’s basic needs for security, healthcare, housing, and utilities. The contributors show how companies have successfully adapted their value proposition to the needs of low-income consumers in the retail, technology, and consumer good sectors. The book also reveals how the private sector can help facilitate the integration of the poor into the global production system. In addition, it outlines the challenges companies face when trying to operate at the base of the pyramid and includes overarching business principles for serving the BOP.
Business Solutions for the Global Poor is a “manifesto on how to combine profits and poverty alleviation,” says Professor C.K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “By focusing on a range of industries – from housing to microfinance, from agriculture to health – and covering a geographical spread from India to Mexico and South Africa, the collection helps managers and public policy makers anchor their thinking on the role of the private sector and market-based solutions to poverty alleviation.”
Adds Rattan N. Tata, a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program and chairman of Tata Sons Limited, “This volume focuses on a challenge that business, worldwide, has hitherto not regarded as being within it ambition: The challenge of banishing poverty. The book makes a significant contribution towards setting business on that endeavor.”
ABOUT THE EDITORS:
V. Kasturi (Kash) Rangan is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School and cochairman of the School's Social Enterprise Initiative.
John A. Quelch is Senior Associate Dean and Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and former Dean of London Business School.
Gustavo Herrero is the Executive Director of the Harvard Business School Latin America Research Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Brooke Barton is a Research Associate with the Harvard Business School Global Poverty Project.
Source: http://www.hbs.edu/news/releases/012607_gp.html
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
BOSTON - The problem of global poverty is ubiquitous and enduring. According to the latest World Bank statistics, nearly half the world’s population (2.8 billion people) is forced to survive on less than $2 a day, with 1.2 billion (nearly 20 percent of the world’s population) living in abject poverty under $1 a day. In an effort to aid those who dwell at the base of the economic pyramid (BOP), more than 100 academics and business, non-profit and government leaders from around the world converged on the Harvard Business School campus in 2005 for a conference affiliated with the school's Social Enterprise Initiative that explored business approaches to alleviating poverty.
One result of that important event is the book Business Solutions for the Global Poor: Creating Social and Economic Value, just published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Edited by Harvard Business School Professors V. Kasturi Rangan and John A. Quelch; Gustavo Herrero, Executive Director of the HBS Latin America Research Center; and HBS Research Associate Brooke Barton, the volume brings together a variety of perspectives on how serving the poor can be both a profitable business proposition and help improve the lives of the world's impoverished.
The volume includes illustrative case studies that explore the role of business in meeting the poor’s basic needs for security, healthcare, housing, and utilities. The contributors show how companies have successfully adapted their value proposition to the needs of low-income consumers in the retail, technology, and consumer good sectors. The book also reveals how the private sector can help facilitate the integration of the poor into the global production system. In addition, it outlines the challenges companies face when trying to operate at the base of the pyramid and includes overarching business principles for serving the BOP.
Business Solutions for the Global Poor is a “manifesto on how to combine profits and poverty alleviation,” says Professor C.K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “By focusing on a range of industries – from housing to microfinance, from agriculture to health – and covering a geographical spread from India to Mexico and South Africa, the collection helps managers and public policy makers anchor their thinking on the role of the private sector and market-based solutions to poverty alleviation.”
Adds Rattan N. Tata, a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program and chairman of Tata Sons Limited, “This volume focuses on a challenge that business, worldwide, has hitherto not regarded as being within it ambition: The challenge of banishing poverty. The book makes a significant contribution towards setting business on that endeavor.”
ABOUT THE EDITORS:
V. Kasturi (Kash) Rangan is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School and cochairman of the School's Social Enterprise Initiative.
John A. Quelch is Senior Associate Dean and Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and former Dean of London Business School.
Gustavo Herrero is the Executive Director of the Harvard Business School Latin America Research Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Brooke Barton is a Research Associate with the Harvard Business School Global Poverty Project.
Source: http://www.hbs.edu/news/releases/012607_gp.html
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