Category Archives: concept

The Converging Worlds: Social and Business

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The business (corporate sector) and the social worlds are converging. We could call this a megatrend and it continues to gain momentum. One has seen this through microfinance where an effective development tool initially created in the social/NGO/NPO world have given birth to numerous microfinance institutions that have become sustainable and profitable. Microfinance now attracts funding/investment from both capital markets (commercial banks, asset managers, private investors) and foundations. Social entrepreneurs are also another major force behind this and no doubt that Microfranchising also links these two worlds.
One can also see it through the new partnerships between players of these two worlds especially as the multinational corporations and their executives team up with social activists and NGOs to market products to the 4 billion people at the base of the pyramid (BOP). C.K. Prahald, one of the leading advocates of BOP opportunities, has recently co-authored with Jeb Brugmann, a very interesting article in the February Harvard Business Review titled Cocreating Business’s New Social Compact. It is an excellent read (even if you have to pay for the copy to download) for those who are interested in these new partnerships. Many examples are cited including British Petroleum, Healthstore Foundation, and ICICI.

Promoting Microfinance and MicroFranchising

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Microfinance or “financial services to the poor” is slowly but surely getting known to the public at large.
When I started promoting microfinance to the financial circles in Zurich back in 2002 it was quite difficult to get people excited about it. That lead to me to write the book Making Sense: Microfinance & Microfinance Investments which got published in 2004 followed by the German and Japanese language publications in 2005.
In February 2006 I attended to a Microfinance conference sponsored by ING in their headquarters in Amsterdam. The topic of this conference was the role of commercial banks in microfinance. Now many banks are getting active in this field. Microfinance is becoming mainstream. Since last year I started promoting MicroFranchising along microfinance and will continue to do so in the future entries.

Making the world a better place

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If there was a phrase to summarize why I started this blog and why I have been immersed in promoting microfinance for the past 4 years and MicroFranchising for the past year is the belief that “we can make the world a better place” by collaborating and by being a bit more efficient. I truly believe that we can make a difference.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful people that have supported me to continue on this path.
Ivo Felder, Yukari Mori, Yuko Wakamatsu, Roselly & Raphael Ramseyer, Ahmed Hakki, Bal Balaji, Isabelle Hupperts, Vincent Dominé and my parents. To all I am truly grateful.