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A Nobel Prize-winning academic turned micro-finance banker for the poor has important advice for Washington. Muhammad Yunus believes that the government bailout of the banking system is but the first step in redesigning the global credit system. In the end, Yunus believes that a new self-correcting market system will have to be created.

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Turns out that the best return on investment lies with the poor, not the rich.

A Moody's analysis earlier this year shows the government gets the biggest bang for its buck by spending increases. A whopping $1.73 increase in gross domestic product is returned for every dollar the Treasury spends by increasing food stamps, for example. This compares with a $1.02 return by a nonrefundable lump-sum tax rebate and a $1.26 return on a refundable lump-sum tax rebate, according to Moody's.

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In recent years, business schools have embraced the idea of “corporate social responsibility” and “sustainability”. Centres, institutes, programmes and initiatives have sprung up, websites and brochures trumpet business schools’ dedication to serving society, ethics, managing the environment and social entrepreneurship.

A new breed of MBA student is focused on “doing well by doing good”, demanding that more attention be given to the world’s social and environmental challenges.

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If India Inc has to enhance its presence in the world market, it must start to learn some lessons of marketing quickly. The basics: Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning. The basics (4Ps): Product, price, place and promotion.

Gain in market share does not make a great marketing company. India over the past 5-7 years has seen tremendous growth. This growth has brought purchasing power to millions across the pyramid. Companies have targeted these new consumers.

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By Madhubalan Viswanathan, Jose A. Rosa and Julie A. Ruth

Businesses, take note: An underserved and poorly understood consumer group is poised to become a driving force in economic and business development, by virtue of sheer numbers and rising globalization.They are subsistence consumers -- people in developing nations like India who earn just a few dollars a day and lack access to basics such as education, health care and sanitation.

As these consumers gain access to income and information over the next decade, their combined purchasing power, already in the trillions of dollars, likely will grow at higher rates than that of consumers in industrialized nations. The lesson for multinational companies: Understanding and addressing the needs of the world's poorest consumers is likely to become a profitable, as well as a socially responsible, strategy.

A characteristic associated with low-income consumers, and one that has major implications for doing business with them, is that many struggle with reading and math. Like the 14% of Americans estimated to be functionally illiterate in a U.S. government survey, subsistence consumers have difficulty reading package labels, store signs or product-use instructions, or subtracting the purchase price of an item from cash on hand -- all of which hampers their ability to put their limited incomes to best use.

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By Elizabeth Malkin

For months, the fellowship of institutions providing microfinancing has been angrily divided over the actions of one of its own.

Compartamos, a fast-growing Mexican bank, went public in April 2007 and sold $468 million in shares on the Mexican stock market and gave the cash to its investors. Critics said the bank, based here, was putting profit ahead of clients, contrary to the altruistic ideals of microlending, which specializes in giving tiny loans to the poorest of the poor.

In its defense, Compartamos said that the stock sale showed private investors that microfinance could be profitable and would attract more private capital to the industry.

Now, it seems, the two sides have reached a truce. This week, Compartamos joined a group of microfinancing organizations to announce a code of conduct to protect the microlenders' clients from being exploited.

Organizations signing the code say it is meant to reaffirm the principles of microlending and set microlenders, which showed the poor were good credit risks, apart from consumer lenders entering the market.

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