Poverty, Profits & Entrepreneurship
A seminar to connect the 'Bottom of the Pyramid' to global markets
Exploring partnerships between global
companies and local entrepreneurs
Description
The idea that commercial engagement with world’s poorest
(the Bottom of the Pyramid, BOP) presents corporations the opportunity
to ‘do well while doing good’, is rapidly becoming part of mainstream
corporate strategy. Professor C K Prahalad has made an eloquent case to
this effect in his recent book The Fortune at the Bottom of the
Pyramid.
Local entrepreneurship holds two vital keys in this
emerging conversation:
ü
Local entrepreneurs represent the
vital ‘last leg’ of distribution systems that get a range of products
to BOP markets. HLL’s Shakti network or Grameen Telephone Ladies are excellent
example of how local entrepreneurship has been used to get products to
distant customers.
ü
Organizing local entrepreneurs and
connecting their outputs to the world markets presents some of the most
compelling opportunities for social enrichment through corporate intervention.
ITC’s eChoupals and Pepsi’s Contract Farms are examples of a large corporation
adding value by organizing small-scale producers.
Entrepreneurs who are thus organized around a corporate
banner have greater economic return, security, dignity and the freedom
to operate than their unorganized brethren.
As part of the Jeevika: South Asian Documentary Festival, CCS
and ASSOCHAM are organizing a seminar on “Poverty, Profits & Entrepreneurship”
to hear from corporate representatives
who work extensively with local entrepreneurial networks to understand
their perspective of the circumstances in which such networks are effective,
the social change their bring about and the potential of applying these
lessons to other unorganized sectors.
The panels consist of corporate managers who are running
rural and urban networks, representatives from group representing
such entrepreneurs to talk about the impact of organization from their
perspective and other stakeholders who are studying or documenting the
phenomena.
How to Participate
Please confirm your participation in the seminar by
emailing us your brief profile latest by January 20 to ccsprograms@gmail.com
For further information, contact:
Sachin Rao
Senior Research Associate, Centre for Civil Society
K-36 Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi 110016
2652 1882/ 2653 7456/ 98997 17875; ccsprograms@gmail.com; www.ccsindia.org
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