The Business Solution to Poverty: Designing Products and Services for Three Billion New Customers

  • 7h 18m 31s
  • Mal Warwick, Paul Polak
  • Blackstone Audio, Inc. dba Blackstone Publishing
  • 2013

The nearly three billion people living on two dollars a day are not just the world's greatest challenge - they represent an extraordinary market opportunity. The key is what Paul Polak and Mal Warwick call Zero-Based Design: starting from scratch to create innovative products and services tailored for the very poor, armed with a thorough understanding of what they really want and need, and driven by what Polak and Warwick call "the ruthless pursuit of affordability".

Polak has been doing this work for years, and Warwick has extensive experience in both business and philanthropy. Together, they show how their design principles and vision can enable unapologetic capitalists to supply the very poor with clean drinking water, electricity, irrigation, housing, education, health care, and other necessities at a fraction of the usual cost and at profit margins comparable to those of businesses in the developed world.

Promising governmental and philanthropic efforts to end poverty have not reached scale because they lack the incentives of the market to attract massive resources. This book opens an extraordinary opportunity for nimble entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate executives that will result not only in vibrant, growing businesses but also a better life for the world's poorest people.

In this Audiobook

  • Chapter 1 “The Poor are Very Different form You and Me”
  • Chapter 2 What is Poverty
  • Chapter 3 What Can Government and Philanthropy Do?
  • Chapter 4 Why Bussiness is Best Equipped to Fight Global Poverty
  • Chapter 5 What to Do Before You Launch Your Business
  • Chapter 6 The Ruthless Pursuit of Affordability
  • Chapter 7 Zero-Based Design in Practice: Low-Cost Drip Irrigation
  • Chapter 8 Design for the Market
  • Chapter 9 Zero-Based Design in Practice: A Cautionary Tale
  • Chapter 10 Design for Scale
  • Chapter 11 Zero-Based Design in Practice: Safe Drinking Water for Small Villages
  • Chapter 12 Design for Delivery the Last 500 Feet
  • Chapter 13 Buliding a Mission-Driven Global Business
  • Chapter 14 It's Your Turn Now
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