There is growing interest in the role of market-based solutions in addressing the problems of poverty, through inclusive businesses that tap into the potential of the global poor as customers and suppliers—the so-called ‘fortune at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP).’ Encouraged by the growth of microfinance, many promising new models are emerging. This has elicited a rush to the new field of ‘impact investing’—producing social or environmental good as well as financial return—with hundreds of funds set up in just a few years and billions of dollars waiting to be invested.
Between 500 million and 800 million of the world’s poor now have access to finance—but only one in four have been taught how to use their access wisely and to their advantage. In this study commissioned by the Citi Foundation, Monitor’s Anamitra Deb and Mike Kubzansky survey the landscape of old and new financial education models, analyze whether they have a business case and make recommendations on a shared agenda for the field to benefit all financial inclusion stakeholders—including consumers, financial institutions, policy makers and donors, and educators.
In this Harvard Business Review lead feature article, Bansi Nagji and Geoff Tuff of Monitor make the compelling argument that organizations should manage for "Total Innovation." A carefully balanced innovation portfolio is important for long-term, sustained growth; it helps companies outperform their competitors and potentially achieve a premium recognized by the capital markets.
If the arrival of a more robust global economic recovery and a return to familiar growth patterns is not in our medium term future, what can Western enterprises do now to enhance their competitiveness and find growth opportunities in a low growth environment? Monitor’s Eamonn Kelly and UC Berkeley’s Steven Weber argue that the process of ‘recovery’ from the Great Recession, still in the early stages of what will be a drawn-out low growth period, will serve to reinforce and accelerate major shifts in patterns of consumption, and foundational elements of the global business environment. Western firms sitting on record reserves of cash appear to be waiting for uncertainty to ‘resolve’—but what may seem like a prudent risk management strategy is actually itself risky. Kelly and Weber analyze the new dynamics of consumption, the new role of governments, and other major features of the emerging global economy, and point to opportunities to secure a disproportionate share of growth in the near term and competitive advantage for the long term.