The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition

4. The Ecosystem for Wealth Creation

The need for building an ecosystem for wealth creation and social development at the BOP is obvious from the previous chapters. ICICI Bank with its 10,000 SHGs is an ecosystem. So is the HLL system with Shakti Ammas or ITC with sanchalaks in the e-Choupal. However, traditionally, the focus of both business and social developmental initiatives at the BOP has been on one aspect of the ecosystems for wealth creation at a time—social capital or individual entrepreneurs (the focus of so much of the microfinance efforts), small and medium enterprises (SMEs), or large firms (market liberalization or foreign direct investment). There have been few attempts to focus on the symbiotic nature of the relationships between ...