Weekly Reading Reflection #15

Time has truly spread it's wings and flown, flown by in a blur as we come to the end of our weekly reading reflections. I breathe a sigh, of relief or sadness, I myself cant tell which. Nevertheless, it on this beautiful day that I will examine the HBR article Business Basics at the Base of The Pyramid by the accomplished Vikram Akula.


  What stood out the most to me was the setting. Normally we hear of these business tales being told from behind a glass desk in a lofty corporate office. No, this time it's from the impoverished slum villages of India, where a humanitarian for-profit firm (wow you don't hear that too often)  called SKS Microfinance offers fractionally-priced insurance and loans to farmers and villagers. These loans usually don't even exceed 200$ but due to thought-out price structure and the sheer scope of the business, Akula manages a 250 Mil operation. Crazy.


  What confused me is how this business actually looks like on paper and in practice. I get the idea, it's just hard to believe it actually works so well. How was Akula able to wrangle such substantial investment so quickly?

My two questions:

"what did your transactions look like during Year 1 of the business?"

"Is microfinance really a viable method for changing systematic poverty?"


  Do I think this guy is wrong about anything in this article? How the hell would I know, I didn't even know what microfinance was until this week.