Social Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Everyday around 800 million people go to bed hungry. Corporate eyes on maximizing its profits but unfortunately it is ignoring upon this very important and exorbitant chunk of people who are lying below poverty line. The fact that there is a market amongst them is just beginning to happen. Prahalad and Hamel (2002) in their study point out that there can be some innovative initiatives undertaken by the private sector which will aim at products and services targeted at the poor. In their study, they have pointed out certain interesting things: 1. The poor live in very high cost economies. Costs to the poor can dramatically be reduced if they could benefit from the scope, scale and supply chain organization of larger enterprises, as do their middle class counterparts. 2. Many interventions end up exploiting the poor rather than do them good in the long run. 3. The poor have a purchasing power. 4. The poor also welcome new technologies So, get innovative to capture this bottom of the pyramid, but the problem here is, global business models cannot be replicated to make use of this huge potential, on the contrary, it requires the use of local strengths as a way of making this opportunity more competitive. This paper attempts to study that how private sector can profitably gauge upon this huge potential rather than concealing it under the liability of the corporate social responsibility. It discusses how this theory of "bottom of the pyramid" can be the harbinger of the new chapter in the context of social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is not limited to the NGOs alone but innovative strategies and business models developed by the corporate to derive economic benefits from the socially and economically weaker classes by increasing their consumption thus arriving upon such business models which are sustainable in their economics and in turn work upon corporate social responsibility. This paper also elucidates upon the uniqueness of the business model used by HUL in its PROJECT SHAKTI that makes it economically viable thus helping them to accomplish the goal of corporate social responsibility as well. On the one hand, it has created entrepreneurs out of totally ignorant and poor Indian woman and on the other hand, it forms an informal distribution network modeled after a micro-finance enterprise structure for the company in otherwise inaccessible area thus making this project self sustained. The micro-finance revolution has resulted in eight million Indians receiving micro-credit, 95 percent of whom are women and three in four recipients crossing the poverty line but micro-credit will only work over the longer term if there are scaleable and sustainable opportunities for micro-enterprise. This paper unravels that how under the light of emergence of micro credit movement together with the liberation of the Indian women backed by innovative business model, can lead to a paradigm shift in the society as a whole giving a great impetus to social entrepreneurship.