Further to Al's message below: whereas business models of Datamation or Drishtee or N-Logue can at best enjoy limited success in employment generation due to obvious limitations of resources and marketability, I endorse Al's point of view of big companies targeting poor communities and would like to illustrate two case-studies of big businesses from India:
**ITC Agri-business's "e-Chaupal" project leveraging on their inherent need to procure agri-inputs and raw materials for their business, has deployed technology amongst thousands of villages in India. The farmers operate an internet kiosk which remains the singular, cost-effective procurement point for the farmers. ITC uses the kiosk to deliver other services to the farmers as a responsible Corporation. **The Dutch-British Conglomerate Hindustan Lever, one of India's largest companies (part of the Unilever Group) deploys marketeers from the community for generating demand for its soaps, detergents, food products. The project entitled "SHAKTI" meaning (STRENGTH) is meant to target communities to take control of their markets by creating a demand for Unilever's products. In the process, rural communities become distributors as well as retailers of Unilever's top class products. Regardless of the scale and size of these projects and the impact they have on poverty, their positive contribution in livelihood generation and poverty alleviation cannot be negated. Chetan Sharma Datamation Foundation New Delhi (India) www.datamationindia.com On Monday, November 8, 2004, "Al Hammond" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I agree fully that benefits must reach the very poor, whose greatest > need is often livelihoods. And you are right that globalization--on the > export platfrom model--has so far contributed little to such people. But > I do believe that when companies target poor communities as customers, > something different happens. Because to succeed, they need to build the > capacity to consume in their customers; and to reach those customers, > they may need to employ lots of local entrepreneurs, creating jobs; and > given how price-sensitive low income customers are, the companies will > have to have a compelling value proposition, and price performance > ratio, or their customer simply won't buy. In Indian terms, it is the > business model of Datamation, of n-Logue, of Drishtee, of > Reliance--rather than the out-sourcing or export manufacturing > models--than can have impact on poverty. ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
