Make Poverty Business

by Craig Wilson, Peter Wilson

Poor people in developing countries could make excellent suppliers, employees and customers but are often ignored by major businesses. This omission leads to increased risk, higher costs and lower sales. Meanwhile, businesses are asked by governments and poverty activists to do more for economic development, but their exhortations are rarely based on a proper business case. Make Poverty Business bridges the gap by constructing a rigorous profit-making argument for multinational corporations to do more business with the poor. It takes economic development out of the corporate social responsibility ghetto and places it firmly in the core business interests of the corporation, and argues that to see the poor only as potential consumers at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) misses half of the story.

Make Poverty Business examines the successes, failures and missed opportunities of a wide range of global companies including Wal-Mart, BP, Unilever, Shell and HSBC when dealing with the poor and with development advocates in the media, NGOs, governments and international organisations. It includes a discussion on how to use a poverty perspective to provoke profitable innovation - not only to create new products and services but also to find new sources of competitive advantage in the supply chain and to develop more sustainable, lower-cost business models in developing countries.

Make Poverty Business will be essential reading for international business managers seeking to increase profits and decrease risks in developing countries, development advocates who seek to harness the profit motive to achieve reductions in poverty, and academics looking for practical strategies on how business can implement BOP initiatives in developing countries.

Hardcover

First published November 1, 2006

Reviews

[Leah Sciabarrasi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recently started participating on openideo.com and have interest in social entrepreneurship. I picked up this book at my school library because of the great title- make poverty business. I wasn't put off that I wasn't part of the target audience- "business managers who want to increase their profits and reduce their risk (10)."

The core knowledge is useful -companies contributing to the welfare of a community and its people. But I wanted to hear more about how this was achieved and less about the benefits of contributing. I felt that the authors only skimmed the surface.

This book reads like a textbook and it very well might be one in some classes. There are plenty of case studies presented in this book- I felt that they almost overwhelmed the content at times. It just wasn't my cup of tea.