Our neighbor, Carl Jacobson, came back from Australia the other day, and talked about a conference he was attending where many big world issues were discussed. In particular, he was talking about Indonesia, and how its moderate Muslim population / leadership is important for the future peace of the world, and needs to be an
The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Learning Lab of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson School of Management, Cornell University is accepting submissions for its 2007 BoP e-Journal Competition. The competition seeks to highlight the challenges of doing business in underserved markets and identify innovative business experiments or solutions to those challenges.
By Abhijit Nadgouda, Guest Author What do you think of when you hear the word outsourcing? I think of something that it is not. Traditional outsourcing is defined as contracting with another company or person to do a particular function. Many of us do this for two primary reasons: * We give it to the
By Guest Author, Robert Lowry, Unitus As I discussed yesterday, Unitus focuses on two kinds of microfinance institutions (MFIs) for partnership: emerging microfinance institutions, which serve more than 2,500 clients and are in the early stages of growth; and commercial startups, which may not have a track record of growth but are well-capitalized and have
On the face of it, there is a strong similarity between Rediff (REDF) and Sify (SIFY). Both have portal sites that offer a wide gamut of online services. But in Sify’s case the portal is just a small piece in a big jigsaw puzzle that together makes up the company’s operations. In order to understand
By Robert Lowry, Unitus, Guest Author Microfinance reaches fewer than 20% of the people who could benefit from it. Only 2% of microfinance institutions serve more than 100,000 clients. Why is the impact of microfinance, after more than 30 years of effort, still so limited? A big reason is efficiency—or lack thereof. Inefficient microfinance institutions
Here’s an article from New York Times that tells the story of a government official who was recently executed for taking bribes: :: BEIJING, July 12 — Zheng Xiaoyu once ranked as one of the most powerful regulators in China. He rose from modest beginnings to help create and lead Beijing’s version of the Food
I conclude the interview by asking a bit more of a long-term, theoretical question. What I am attempting to reflect on here is the potential of Kurdistan becoming a regional influence for economic development. The Middle East, with Dubai in particular, has been growing rather significantly in global importance. Tourism is increasing, there are obvious