The Business Innovation Facility (BIF) offers two types of support:

1. “Long Projects” - Long term technical support (in general between three and six months).
2. “Short Projects” - Short term technical support (in general up to 20 days) provided to an individual business or a cluster of organisations, e.g. via workshops

The impact…

The top four challenges facing decentralised solar rural mini-grids

Background

India’s energy starved villages are in dire need of affordable, safe, convenient, and clean energy to meet their growing demand.  Solar energy could help meet this demand through the myriad decentralised off-grid products it offers.  However, most of these products have limited applications (lighting and cooking), and have their own set of challenges to scale.  Solar mini-grids – independent…

Please find the article at http://bhutanobserver.bt/303-bo-news-about-its_time_to_redefine_focus_on_microenterprises.aspx

Looking forward to your views.

Happy reading!

Sanjay Gupta 

“Just what kind of company has the perfect DNA to implement and scale up Inclusive Business models?” This is the million dollar (or in this case, Pound Sterling) question. This should be, or already is one of the questions we in the Business Innovation Facility (BIF) intend to answer from this pilot phase of the project which seems to be racing to the end, especially in Nigeria where we just kicked off about 60% of our long term projects within last 2 months. #hectic!

BIF is a…

In Bangladesh, BIF has worked with Agora, one of the large Retail Chain stores owned and managed by Rahimafrooz Group, a large renowned conglomerate. Details of that project can be seen in the link but briefly our intervention was targeted towards the capacity building of their SME suppliers to deliver better quality and more quantity of fresh produce to match the…

On 8th August we posted that the portable toilets at Dattawadi are in the process of being installed. Now we are pleased to announce that the new toilets are in place and ready for use.

The initial users of the toilets would be the Dattawadi School children but later on it would be available for use by the commuity , so everyone will benefit.

Some of the pictures of the toilets at Dattawadi.....…

What exactly is inclusive business? This is a question that has a much more varied answer than was previously thought.  The definition of the term itself is new and one that has yet to be settled, which opens it up to interpretation.  There is, however, a general consensus on what it should be: a profitable core business activity that also tangibly expands opportunities for the poor and disadvantaged in developing countries through the engagement of the poor along some part of the value…

Waste Capital Partners, a solid waste management company that builds waste picker livelihoods by having them collect and environmentally process waste, was honored to be chosen by its peers in the Dasra Social Impact program to receive investment from Village Capital.  The Dasra Social Impact program is a rigorous three week program over a 6-month period in which high performing social enterprises are selected to develop their businesses in a peer-environment.  At the end of the six months,…

Los Cabos, Mexico, June 18, 2012—The Group of 20 today announced the winners of the G20 Challenge on Inclusive Business Innovation, a global competition managed by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group. Ambassador Mr. Rogelio Granguillhome, Executive Secretary of the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation and Chair of the G20 Development Working Group, presented the awards at a ceremony here. 

The world’s leading economies launched the G20 Challenge to rapidly…

As a part of a Business Innovation Facility project to establish feasibility of solar mini-grids, the Intellecap team conducted focus group discussions (FGD) and surveys among rural households in Bihar. While the research was aimed at understanding the need and demand for electricity in rural households, we came home with valuable insights on rural consumer values and payment behavior.  This blog post focuses on some key observations:

Need for payment flexibility

It can be…

The Global SME Finance Initiative has just been announced on the DFID website, and of the 15 countries targetted, two are current BIF countries - Malawi and India. This is great news as access to finance has been a recurring theme among our clients in…

Many Indian social enterprises are small, but that reflects their youth rather than their potential.  They have many other features that indicate they are aggressively going for growth.

In this they are quite different from typical Micro, Small and Medium enterprises (MSME).  Typically, 90% of Indian MSMEs are structured as proprietorships and only 3% are private limited companies (PLCs).   But amongst the 100 social enterprises surveyed, 80% are PLCs – a structure that…

         Graffiti outside a school in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India

A young girl is working with her Aunt in a Cotton Gin, sorting out mountains of cotton to feed into giant machines, which separate the seed from the cotton. She can’t be more than 13 years old. We are in one of…

In an article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Manju Mary George stresses on the need for a new model of development in India, which involves roping in big businesses to address the constraints to scale often faced by social enterprises. While she quotes the example of Fab India and …

As part of the BIF team in India, Intellecap is currently providing consultancy support to a new BIF project working with Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) to review the operating model of its Gramin Suvidha Kendra (GSK) inclusive business model and develop a…

Dalberg Global Development Advisors will be hosting two events in India for potential G20 Challenge applicants and other members of the inclusive business community. Events will take place in Mumbai and Delhi in January.

The G20 Challenge on Inclusive Business…

BBC South Asia News today has an item 'Does India's budget tablet computer work?'    The Aakash is a 7 inch android tablet, just launched at $60 off-the-shelf, originally appearing at a $35 subsidised price for students.

While welcoming an attempt at low-cost hardware, it argues that this is probably not the solution to get Indian students online on mass.    It caught my eye because a BIF-supported…

If you are operating, selling, innovating or investing in the Base of Pyramid energy market, this month’s Editor’s Choice has analysis that you probably need.   Power to the People; Investing in Clean Energy for the BoP in India, illustrates the investment potential of the clean energy sector by delving into sub-sectors,  products, prices and consumer trends.

US$2.1 billion per year is one answer:  the…

Are you trying to assess your Base of Pyramid (BoP) market, and finding just how many different markets there are?   Did you once mistake market size for market demand, or mistake 'low cost' as the defining characteristic of successful BOP products?   Are you facing challenges in inclusive business and wondering whether others also struggle with internal support, external finance, or balancing demand and supply? Is your approach to inclusive business reactive, incremental, radical or…