BoP y Negocios Inclusivos en Bolivia (Spanish)

Estrategias de Mercado que benefician a Poblaciones de Bajos Ingresos

Estrategias de Mercado  que benefician a Poblaciones de Bajos Ingresos. Un marco para la acción social y empresarial”, elaborado por Valeria Budinich. Este documento contiene algunas estrategias básicas para el mercado de población de bajos ingresos.

Rol del Estado con relación a los negocios inclusivos

La Ministra de Coordinación de Producción, Empleo y Competitividad de Ecuador coincide en la necesidad de que el Estado promueva la empresa social. En su opinión el principal rol del Estado en estos aspectos debiera ser:

REGULACIÓN Y SUPERVISIÓN

Adicionalmente al nacimiento de empresas ciudadanas como estrategia para una mejor distribución de la riqueza, se requiere de un Estado que cumpla con un rol de regulador y supervisor de la competencia, a través de una entidad autónoma altamente especializada.

“La modificación de la estructura de costos de servicios del Estado es también clave para reactivar un sector empresarial que, sobre todo, beneficie a los más pequeños”

Así también, se necesita mejorar los procesos operativos de constitución de empresas, de regulación de las mismas y de controles sanitarios, fitosanitarios, de bioseguridad y, en general, mejorar el clima de negocios, para contribuir con la competitividad sistémica de la economía.

Pero este riesgo se puede minimizar con la existencia y permanencia de un socio minoritario privado o del gobierno, a través de un ente especializado que vele porque el grupo administrador alinee sus intereses con los de la propiedad del capital.

La modificación de la estructura de costos de servicios del Estado, que este Gobierno ya ha emprendido con la gran inversión en generación de energía hidroeléctrica y el plan vial, son también clave para reactivar un sector empresarial que, sobre todo, beneficie a los más pequeños.

Así también, se requiere mejorar sus procesos operativos de constitución de empresas, de regulación de las mismas y de controles sanitarios, fitosanitarios, de bioseguridad, para no evitar que se conviertan en un agente que perjudique la competencia y saque del mercado a posibles competidores y que, sobre todo, no conspiren contra el emprendedorismo.

Design Thinking for Social Innovation

Following a previous post on the need for thinking about BOP-focused and designed products, the Standford Social Innovation review has published this article about the importance for business, NGOs and other types of initiatives (eg. Governmental), to engage in "design thinking", i.e. incorporating constituent or consumer insights in depth and rapid prototyping, all aimed at getting beyond the assumptions that block effective solutions.

Design thinking—inherently optimistic, constructive, and experiential—addresses the needs of the people who will consume a product or service and the infrastructure that enables it. By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top

BOP: a disruptive force to be reckoned with?

A posting from Nextbillion.net regarding the importance of emerging markets for driving disruptive innovation. "The rationale for why emerging markets are a source for disruptive innovations is simply because in order for a product or service to be successful, it has to be more affordable, easier to use, and offer more value then existing products on the market".

China and India opportunities for BOP business in Latin America

Manuel Bueno analyses a World Bank report "China’s and India’s challenge to Latin America”. Even though Chinese and Indian companies have competed (and in most cases outbeaten) their Latin American equivalents, there should be plenty of opportunities for collaboration on BOP business in Latin America.

Textos sobre la Base de la Pirámide - Hacia la Co-creación de Valor y Desarrollo

El libro Textos sobre la Base de la Pirámide - Hacia la Co-creación de Valor y Desarrollo (pdf, 114 páginas), compilado por el Prof. Miguel Ángel Gardetti, Director del Instituto de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad Corporativa y Coordinador del Laboratorio de Aprendizaje en la Base de la Pirámide de Argentina desde su creación en el 2005, es el resultado de varios años de dedicación e investigación y de análisis sobre la temática de la base de la pirámide

Base of the Pyramid Impact Assessment Framework

Ted London has published in Harvard Business Review - the Base of the Pyramid Impact Assessment Framework - that guides managers through a detailed look at the impact a BoP venture has on the economics, capabilities, and relationships of local buyers, local sellers, and local communities. The framework identifies and examines negative as well as positive effects. It is also useful to analyze any impact on local communities, even if it is not strictly related to a BOP venture.

Emerging Markets, Emerging Models

"Emerging Markets, Emerging Models,” from Monitor Group analizes the actual behaviors, economics, and business models of successful “market-based solutions”--financially-sustainable enterprises that address challenges of global poverty. Compiled in an effort to use fact-based research, Monitor’s findings highlight actual data from global working models.

The report provides strong evidence that engaging the poor as customers and suppliers presents an exciting--and significant--opportunity to establish new paradigms to bring genuine social change in economically sustainable ways. During the course of its research, Monitor conducted more than 35 field investigations, primarily in India and supplemented with research covering 19 countries across the world, but focused the research on India, which offers an advanced laboratory of social enterprise approaches and proved to be an especially fertile source on model effectiveness. Conclusions were based on more than 600 in-person interviews with low-income customers and small suppliers, and detailed interviews with--and research on--over 270 social enterprises in India.

Negocios inclusivos en Bolivia: 3 ejemplos de negocios inclusivos

Fruto del trabajo que oportunamente iniciaramos dentro de la Alianza WBCSD-SNV para los Negocios Inclusivos, el Consejo Empresarial para el Desarrollo Sostenible (CEDES) Bolivia y la oficina local del SNV, han realizado un video en el que se presentan 3 casos bolivianos de negocios inclusivos que contribuyen a la superación de la pobreza a través de la incorporación de ciudadanos de menores recursos en la cadena de valor de las empresas. Además, uno de los casos presenta un nuevo producto orientado a los consumidores de menores recursos econónicos.

Harnessing core business for development impact

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has issued a background note titled "Harnessing core business for development impact" (pdf, 8 pages) , which outlines the differences and similarities among a range of approaches used by businesses to benefit people in developing countries. The Background Note examines the evolution of the core business approach to enhancing development impact, moving from the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), based on philanthropy, to approaches that incorporate development impact into the very core of day to day business.

KPMG report: "Profiting from the poor? Considerations for Investing at the Base of the Pyramid"

Building on a series of in-depth interviews with leading multinational companies, KPMG's report intends to help companies decide whether and how to approach low-income consumers in emerging economies. With a company's profit considerations serving as the starting point, KPMG proposes a number of steps for the scoping, implementation and impact measurement of so-called 'base-of-the- pyramid' strategies.

BOP: Must read list

A review of the literature concerning the BOP.

BOP Index fund?

The Opportunities for the Majority Office of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Innovest Strategic Value Advisors (Innovest) announced the completion of a ground breaking project – to create the Opportunities for the Majority (OM) Index of publicly traded national and multinational firms operating in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region that are engaged in BoP activity.

Los Siguientes 4 Mil Millones: Tamaño del Mercado y Estrategia de Negocios en la Base de la Pirámide

El reporte del WRI e IFC "Los Siguientes 4 Mil Millones: Tamaño de Mercado y Estrategia de Negocios en la Base de la Pirámide" esta disponible en castellano.

Micro-Innovation vs Collective Innovation

An article in Nextbillion.net about innovation for BOP products and internet-based networks that consolidate demand

Scaling up BOP Business in Latin America

A series of postings by Al Hammond on strategies to scale up BOP business by different industries, including utilities, and how the scaling up of BOP business is done in Latin America.

Linking MNC to BOP

NextBillion.net discusses the WBCSD initiative to promote SME for sustainable development and the role of MNC. As it was announced in a previous post in this blog, the WBCSD has addressed this topic in a recently published informal survey of some of its member companies, particularly focused on SMEs in their supply chains.

Social Enterprises: fostering innovation

Two articles: the first one regarding the link between big business and social enterprises: reputational effects, product development, talent retention, brand awareness, etc. and the problems: partnership governance, lack of strategic focus and other ones.

The second analyses the impact and influence of big companies on emerging markets.

Partnering to provide water in developing countries

Veolia and Grameen bank have recently launched a company to provide clean water to poor rural communities in Bangladesh.

Even though it looks like a small effort, this may be a scalable project.