NextBillion brings together the community of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, policy makers, and academics who want to explore the connection between development and enterprise.
Our Staff Writers and Editors offer insights on the latest news, events, interviews and other happenings from the development through enterprise and base of the pyramid universes
October 22, 2008 — 12:45 pm
Last July CGAP issued a new report about the main building blocks for any bank that is thinking about offering mobile phone financial services to its customers. (Shame on me for doing this post so late). Banking on Mobiles: Why, How, for Whom? is, not surprisingly, very good report. After...
October 6, 2008 — 09:59 am
The base of the pyramid conversation often involves talking about the size and composition of BoP markets (which, in fact, was the topic of my previous post) and how to create business models that sustainably create wealth for the people in those communities and the firms involved. I recently...
September 23, 2008 — 01:42 pm
Most estimates of the size of the BoP population sit between 3 and 4 billion people. The original population figure of 4 billion by CK Prahalad in his "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" has been criticized as an over estimation. It is true that, for scientific analysis, exactness...
September 8, 2008 — 10:54 am
In my previous post about Anand Jaiswal’s article, Erik Simanis left a comment adding one more critique to the approach to BoP markets from a producer/consumer framework. In this critique he refers to “Beyond Basic Needs Business Strategies”, an article he recently co-authored with Stuart...
August 26, 2008 — 04:10 pm
Some time ago, we at NextBillion had the pleasure of facilitating a debate about how - and how much - bottom of the pyramid strategy can improve the plight of the poor. The University of Michigan's Aneel Karnani wrote a very insightful paper critiquing various points about the BoP...
August 5, 2008 — 08:57 am
What defines a Base of the Pyramid (BoP) business? Here at NextBillion.net, our goal is to identify and discuss sustainable business models that address the needs of the BoP. We have had many debates about the size, total income and expenditure of this group. NextBillion is currently hosting...
July 18, 2008 — 04:08 pm
Our regular NextBillion readers will already know that the MIT is one of the most important universities in the base of the pyramid arena. Some of their most important initiatives are the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, stimulating bottom-up entrepreneurship fueled by...
July 9, 2008 — 09:20 am
This is part 3 of our series reviewing Michael Edwards' Just Another Emperor and the concept of 'philanthrocapitalism'. Follow the links to read part 1 and part 2. Recently, there has been some debate surrounding business involvement in philanthropy and its usefulness after the...
June 30, 2008 — 12:47 pm
This is exactly the same question that was asked by the World Bank last year and I have recently had the chance to read their subsequent report “Unleashing India’s Innovation”. All in all it was an interesting reading with a complete analysis of the main innovation levers in the...
June 23, 2008 — 12:00 pm
Remittances - transfers of money from foreign workers to their home countries - have been a critical means of financial support for generations. These flows have generally been conducted away from formal markets. However, as more and more workers move abroad, the volume of remittances sent back...
