The 86% Solution: How to Succeed in the Biggest Market Opportunity of the Next 50 Years
Vijay Mahajan and Kamini Banga, 2006
"The 86 percent here is an estimate of people living in countries with per capita gross national product of less than $10,000. Of the world's six billion-plus inhabitants, only 14 percent live in countries where this measure is over $10,000. According to Vijay Mahajan and Kamini Banga, companies can no longer afford to not pay attention to emerging economies. Their book is a persuasive argument that is full of nitty-gritty advice and practical examples.

Capitalism at the Crossroads
Stuart L. Hart, 2005
In Capitalism at the Crossroads, Hart shows companies how to identify sustainable products that can drive new growth as they also help solve today's most crucial social problems. Drawing on his experience consulting with top companies and NGOs worldwide, Hart shows how to integrate new technology to deliver profitable solutions that reduce poverty and protect the environment at the same time. Along the way, you'll learn how to become truly indigenous to all your markets and avoid the pitfalls of traditional 'greening' and 'sustainability' strategies.

The Collaboration Challenge: How Nonprofits and Business Succeed through Strategic Alliances
James Austin, 2000
In this book, James Austin identifies major alliances and examines how they function, looking at the various stages through which they must pass. He explains the role of top leadership and emphasizes the importance of a strategic "fit" between the two partners. Austin suggests different areas within organizations for alignment as well as ways for partners to analyze the value of their collaboration. He then considers ongoing practical management issues and concludes with guidelines for collaborations and questions that must be addressed.

Corporate Social Opportunity: Seven Steps to Make Corporate Social Opportunity Work for Your Business
David Grayson and Adrian Hodges, 2004
In Corporate Social Opportunity! Grayson and Hodges challenge perceived wisdom that adherence by business to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a zero-sum game where the impact on companies is added costs and extra regulatory burden. From their unique vantage point working with leaders of global businesses and of local communities, the authors explain how powerful drivers forcing companies to adopt stringent social, ethical and environmental standards simultaneously create largely untapped opportunities for product innovation, market development and non-traditional business models.

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
C.K. Prahalad, 2004
The world's most exciting, fastest-growing new market? It's where you least expect it: at the bottom of the pyramid. Collectively, the world's billions of poor people have immense entrepreneurial capabilities and buying power. You can learn how to serve them and help millions of the world's poorest people escape poverty. It is being done-profitably. Whether you're a business leader or an anti-poverty activist, business guru Prahalad shows why you can't afford to ignore "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BOP) markets.

How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
David Bornstein, 2004
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. How to Change the World tells the fascinating stories of these remarkable individuals--many in the United States, others in countries from Brazil to Hungary--providing an In Search of Excellence for the social sector.

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, 2000
In this groundbreaking blueprint for a new economy, three leading business visionaries explain how the world is on the verge of a new industrial revolution-one that promises to transform our fundamental notions about commerce and its role in shaping our future. Natural Capitalism describes a future in which business and environmental interests increasingly overlap, and in which businesses can better satisfy their customers' needs, increase profits, and help solve environmental problems all at the same time.

The Next Sustainability Wave: Building Boardroom Buy-in
Bob Willard, 2005
The idea of sustainability has been embraced enthusiastically by some businesses and rejected by others. The first wave of corporate converts to sustainability was perhaps driven by a public relations crisis, regulatory pressures or the founder's personal passion. The next wave, however, requires different drivers if it is to build a critical mass for corporate responsibility in the business community. The Next Sustainability Wave assesses why companies have resisted sustainability strategies and focuses on two emerging drivers that promise to spur corporate commitment to sustainability strategies.

Profits with Principles: Seven Strategies for Delivering Value with Values
Ira Jackson and Jane Nelson, 2003
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. In Profits with Principles, Ira A. Jackson and Jane Nelson show the quantifiable and enduring business advantage to "doing the right thing." The companies profiled in Profits with Principles-including Starbucks, Citigroup, Alcoa, General Motors, General Electric, Dupont, and Dell-come from different industries and have implemented different strategies to build trust and gain a competitive advantage. What they share, however, are basic operating principles of making values integral to the way they do business. By focusing on creating societal as well as shareholder value, they have built market share, improved risk management, enhanced innovation, strengthened consumer loyalty, and attracted the best talent.

The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line
Bob Willard, 2002
In an era when corporations are under increasing pressure to be stewards of the environment and society as they pursue profits, business expert Bob Willard provides a practical benefit-by-benefit guide for assessing all three areas as a win/win/win proposition. Written in the pragmatic language of business leaders, this book is the first to present compelling and quantitative bottom-line evidence of the profitability of social and environmental initiatives.

The Venture Capital Guide for Development - 2nd Edition
2008
In 2008, Business in Development and Gexsi published the second edition of the Venture Capital Guide, providing a new list of more than 100 funds and a chapter on several methods to measure the impact of investments.

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Reports

Aid Reform and the Role of Enterprise
Kurt Hoffman, 2005
In its second major report of 2005, the Shell Foundation shows how the aid industry can finally put poor country entrepreneurs at the centre of the fight against poverty. The report makes the case for reforming the aid industry by applying fundamental business principles to enhance its performance and accountability. It calls on the aid community to give poor people real choice when delivering development, which in turn can be measured against tangible targets such as the number of pro-poor enterprises supported and jobs created.

The Base of the Pyramid Protocol: Toward Next Generation BoP (second edition)
Erik Simanis and Stuart Hart, 2008
This 2nd edition of the BoP Protocol reflects learnings gained through two ongoing applications of the process. In 2005, SCJohnson launched a BoP Protocol initiative in Kenya. Less than a year later, in 2006, a DuPont subsidiary, The Solae Company, launched a BoP Protocol initiative in Andhra Pradesh, India.

A Business Guide to Development Actors
WBCSD, updated in 2006
The guide aims to introduce the business community to potential partners in the development community. It is a first port of call for managers who are interested in working with a development organization, but unsure of how to begin.

The Base of the Pyramid (BOP): Reperceiving Business from the Bottom Up
Nicole Boyer, Global Business Network, 2003
This paper provides a brief introduction to the BOP, a snapshot of a growing, shifting, dynamic space. The goal here is to inform and stimulate new ideas, better questions, and strategic conversations about the BOP. To that end, this paper employs an approach of applying pluralistic perspectives, multiple knowledge domains, and longer contextual views to the exploration of an emerging marketspace and its implications for companies today.

Business & Development: What's the right approach?
Cecile Churet, WBCSD, 2005
Some call it "pro-poor business"; others speak of "Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) business"; the WBCSD refers to it as "Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) business". Whatever its name, this fairly new and potentially revolutionary idea is generating a lot of reactions from development practitioners, business and academia. To encourage this debate, the WBCSD hosted an online discussion on the issues surrounding this innovative business approach to development. This document summarizes the discussion.

Business Action for the MDGs: Private Sector Involvement as a Vital Factor in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
World Bank Institute, 2005
This World Bank Report explores the important role that businesses play in achieving the Millenium Development Goals. It discusses: how the private sector can become involved; reasons businesses are increasingly involved in the MDGs; how countries are engaged with the private sector; how the MDG task forces are engaged with the private sector; and recommendations from the private sector.

Business for Development - Business solutions in support of the Millennium Development Goals
WBCSD, 2005
This new WBCSD report makes the business case for sustainable development by illustrating how the private sector is taking an active role in the achievement of the MDGs. Singling out framework conditions as the most important factor affecting business investment, the publication strongly advocates focusing investment on a strong regulatory and legal framework, building the capabilities of local enterprises, and improving core infrastructure.

Civic Entrepreneurship: A Civil Society Perspective on Sustainable Development
Tariq Banuri, Adil Najam, Stockhold Environment Institute, 2002
This report gives a fascinating account of opportunities and description of models for understanding and engaging BOP societies. It includes over one hundred successful examples of sustainable development in practice.

Connecting the Poor- How Selling Technology in Emerging Markets Can Help Bridge America's Trade Gap
Shamarukh Mohiuddin and Julie Hutto, 2006
American exporters have been struggling for half a decade. Recovery will require macroeconomic policy shifts and measures to more fully open traditional export markets in rich, highly developed countries. But there are other, more imaginative options beyond either of these. In particular, the United States can begin cultivating new markets among the world's poor.

Developing Biofuels in Rural Haiti
Kathleen Robbins, GreenMicrofinance Group, March 2008
The paper, by Kathleen Robbins of the GreenMicrofinance Group tells the story of a small Haitian NGO, that is piloting an environmentally sound and economically sustainable approach to biofuels. The key element is a jatropha nursery that is incubating young plants and teaching a group of Haitian farmers how to grow them.

Doing Business with the Poor: A Field Guide
WBCSD, 2004
The Guide explores how several companies are starting to break into an untapped market of over four billion potential customers in ways that benefit both the poor and the company (available in various languages).

Doing Well By Doing Good - Case Study: 'Fair & Lovely' Whitening Cream
Aneel Karnani, March 2007
According to the 'doing well by doing good' proposition, firms have a corporate social responsibility to achieve some larger social goals, and can do so without a financial sacrifice. This paper empirically examines this proposition by studying in depth the case of 'Fair & Lovely,' a skin whitening cream, marketed by Unilever in many countries in Asia and Africa, and, in particular, India. Fair & Lovely is indeed doing well; it is a profitable and fast growing brand. It is, however, not doing good, and I demonstrate its negative implications for public welfare. I conclude with thoughts on how to reconcile this divergence between private profits and public welfare.

Employment, Not Microcredit, is the Solution
Annel Karnani, January 2007
Most studies suggest that microcredit is beneficial but only to a limited extent. The problem lies not with microcredit but rather with microenterprises. With low skills, little capital and no scale economies, these businesses have low productivity and lead to meager earnings that cannot lift their owners out of poverty. Creating opportunities for steady employment at reasonable wages is the best way to take people out of poverty. The government is responsible for providing public services that are critical for increasing the productivity and the employability of the poor.

Enterprise Solutions to Poverty
The Shell Foundation, 2005
Enterprise Solutions to Poverty, a March 2005 report by the Shell Foundation, argues that enterprise and business thinking must be placed at the heart of the war on poverty if we are really going to "Make Poverty History" in 2005. The report contains the latest information about Shell Foundation pilots across the developing world and shows how the value-creating financial assets of companies such as Shell can be harnessed to provide greater social returns on investment.

Expanding the Role of Microfinance in Promoting Renewable Energy Access in Developing Countries
Shamarukh Mohiuddin, 2006
This paper argues that microfinance offers a promising way to expand energy access from renewable energy technologies, spur economic development, while at the same time reducing the impact of energy use. In some countries innovative partnerships have already emerged between microfinance institutions and renewable energy producers. Developing country governments can take specific steps to ensure that such partnerships continue to expand and energy access continues to spread to rural populations.

Financing Innovations for the Bottom of the Pyramid Market
A.S. Roa, July 2007
With economists discovering direct relation between technology change and economy growth, management gurus basing their theories of competitive advantage on innovations and world bank spreading the gospel of social development driven by knowledge adoption, the perceived importance of innovations in a national economy is snow balling at an accelerated pace. This article looks at a segment of innovations; those that are aimed at meeting the needs of the bottom of the pyramid and challenges in financing those innovations. The cases cited are drawn from innovations funded by Government of India under the Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP).

Finding Capital for Sustainable Livelihoods Businesses
WBCSD, 2004
This guide focuses on how to source funding for a SL business and aims to provide a blueprint for action. It will help managers decide when to raise capital in-house and when to seek external funds. It explores PPPs, how to raise capital for local operational partners, and why securing this funding may be core to the company's success.

The Great Leap: Driving Innovation from the Base of the Pyramid
Stuart Hart and Clayton Christenson, 2002
Companies can generate growth and satisfy social and environmental stakeholders through a "great leap" to the base of the economic pyramid, where 4 billion people aspire to join the market economy for the first time. This is not a question simply of doing the right thing in order to lift people out of poverty - although that will surely be a result of the leap the authors have in mind.

Housing Solutions Serving Low-Income Populations: A Framework for Action
Stephanie Schmidt and Valeria Budinich, March 2007
More than one billion of the world's urban residents live in inadequate housing, mostly in slums and squatter settlements of the developing world. Many governments cannot afford to heavily subsidize the capital-intensive housing sector with the hope of solving the housing shortage. As a result, the most important players in low-income housing delivery are often the poor themselves. Concurrently, there are an increasing number of visionary business leaders that have started to serve these markets profitiably and with social impact. We argue that these trends provide the right environment for an unprecedented level of business-social congruence to address this central challenge. The first part of this paper will briefly discuss the inadequacy of current housing value chains while the second will highlight innovative housing solutions from both social entrepreneurs and corporations. Last, we will conclude by elaborating on the concept and need for Hybrid Value Chains, defined as highly leveraged and commercially sustainable business-social partnerships, in transforming the way housing services are delivered to the poor.

Market-Based Strategies Serving Low-Income Populations
Valeria Budinich, August 2005
The market dynamics of low-income market segments defy the traditional business logic that is applied to mid- and high-income segments: pricing strategies aim at the lowest possible price, the delivery infrastructure must be capable of handling a significant number of small transactions, promotion strategies require a considerable amount of consumer education, and even the needs and values of consumers are, in many senses structurally different. Business, particularly those whose products and services address basic human needs, can enter low-income market segments more effectively and with deeper social impact through partnerships with highly innovative citizen sector organizations. Also, CSOs can scale their impact significantly by learning to leverage the infrastructure and experience of businesses while advancing their social missions. Communities would be better served if an increasing number of new actors compete and collaborate to deploy soluctions that maximize the value added to the poor.

MicroFranchises as a Solution to Global Poverty
Kirk Magleby, 2005
Most successful sustainable development projects in recent years utilize some variation of the MicroFranchise business model. The paper analyzes the strengths of the MicroFranchise business model as an innovative solution to global poverty. Through a thorough discussion on the causes and effects of poverty, the paper positions the worldwide MicroFranchise movement in its global context. Also recommended, Magleby's Catalog of Microfranchise Business Opportunities.

Mirage at the Bottom of the Pyramid: How the private sector can help alleviate poverty
Aneel Karnani, August 2006
The ‘BOP proposition’ argues that selling to the poor can simultaneously be profitable and help eradicate poverty. This is at best a harmless illusion and potentially a dangerous delusion. This paper shows that the BOP argument is riddled with fallacies, and proposes an alternative perspective on how the private sector can help alleviate poverty. Rather than focusing on the poor as consumers, we need to view the poor as producers. The only way to alleviate poverty is to raise the real income of the poor.

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
Hernando De Soto, 2000
It's become clear by now the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in most places around the globe hasn't ushered in an unequivocal flowering of capitalism in the developing and postcommunist world. Western thinkers have blamed this on everything from these countries' lack of sellable assets to their inherently non-entrepreneurial "mindset." In this book, Hernando de Soto proposes and argues another reason.

Part of the Solution: Leveraging Business and Markets for Low-Income People: Lessons Learned from the Ford Foundation Corporate Involvement Initiative
Ford Foundation, 2005
This report presents lessons learned from the Corporate Involvement (CI) Initiative of the Ford Foundation, an effort that sought to demonstrate that businesses could use core operating resources and competencies in ways that contribute to large-scale improvement in income and assets for low-income people, while benefiting business.

Promoting Small and Medium Enterprises for Sustainable Development
WBCSD, July 2007
Published by the WBCSD in collaboration with SNV Netherlands Development Organization, the Issue Brief of Promoting Small and Medium Enterprises for Sustainable Development explains how governments can help alleviate poverty by focusing on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and how larger corporations can help themselves by including SMEs in their value chains.

Reinventing Strategies for Emerging Markets: Beyond the Transnational Model
Ted London and Stuart Hart, 2004
With established markets becoming saturated, multinational corporations (MNCs) have turned increasingly to emerging markets in the developing world. Reaching the four billion people in these markets poses both tremendous opportunities and unique challenges to MNCs. An exploratory analysis, involving interviews with MNC managers, original case studies, and archival material, indicates that the transnational model of national responsiveness, global efficiency and worldwide learning may not be sufficient to succeed in these new markets. Business strategies that rely on leveraging the strengths of the existing market environment outperform those that focus on overcoming weaknesses. These strategies include developing relationships with non-traditional partners, co-inventing custom solutions, and building local capacity. Together, these successful strategies suggest the importance of MNCs developing a global capability in social embeddedness.

Socially Responsible Distribution: Distribution Strategies for Reaching the Bottom of the Pyramid
Sushil Vachani and N. Craig Smith, INSEAD
This paper examines three socially responsible distribution case studies of multinational company, government and NGO initiatives. It identifies how socially responsible distribution can be achieved by strategies that take cost out, reinvent the distribution channel or take a long-term perspective that invests for the future. It summarizes procedures and precautions for setting up distribution into the rural bottom of the pyramid, and the payoffs from socially responsible distribution strategies.

Strategic Initiatives at the Base of the Pyramid:A Protocol for Mutual Value Creation
Erik Simanis and Stuart Hart, 2005
The Protocol that follows is a process-based framework by which a corporation can acquire a deep understanding of local needs and perspectives and then develop sustainable business models in partnership with BoP communities.

Sustainability Challenges and Solutions at the Base of the Pyramid
Prabhu Kandachar and Minna Halme (editors), September 2008
This book focuses on the needs of the end-users — the poor — as a starting point for BoP products and innovations. With contributions from both supporters and critics, it provides a treasure trove of global knowledge on how the concept has developed, what its successes and failures have been and what promise it holds as a long-term strategy for alleviating poverty and tackling global sustainability.

Tomorrow's Markets: Global Trends and Their Implications for Business
WBCSD, World Resources Institute, United Nations Environment Programme, 2002
While the future is always uncertain, probable market scenarios are bounded by global trends. This publication joins the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, the World Resources Institute and the United Nations Environment Programme to identify the trends that are shaping the global business environment. These trends are shaping a new marketscape, the landscape through which business must navigate to succeed.

Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor
United Nations Development Programme, 2004
In this report to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Commission on the Private Sector and Development focuses on how business can create domestic employment and wealth, free local entrepreneurial energies, and help achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Untapped: Creating Value in Underserved Markets
John Weiser, Michele Kahane, Steve Rochlin, Jessica Landis, 2006
Untapped shows how serving consumers and suppliers at the bottom of the pyramid can be the key to addressing corporations' pressing needs ... But as corporations benefit, so too do communities, through better products, prices, and services, more meaningful job opportunities, and an increased market for their own goods and services.

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