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The purpose of this paper is to analyze and understand the business logic of the for-profit social enterprises targeting the basic needs of the base of the pyramid (BoP) segment. A case study of an organization offering clean energy solutions to the BoP segment has been used to illustrate the socio-economic business model of the for-profit social enterprises, which can serve the underserved needs of the BoP segment using an inclusive approach.

This paper analyses Selco, a social enterprise offering energy solutions to the low-income population in rural India. The qualitative case-based research involves the secondary data inputs from the online sources and primary data inputs from the field interviews with the different stakeholders at Selco.

The research findings recommend the following strategic choices for the social enterprises – focus on segmentation; field-based experimentation, innovation and prototyping; local skill-building and engagement; hybrid organizational setup; systemic behavior change orientation; customized value offerings; last-mile delivery and support; and collaboration with non-traditional stakeholders.

The lessons learnt through the analysis of Selco provide tools and strategies to enable the social enterprises to better understand their business model and make informed decisions resulting in the effective social interventions while remaining sustainable. The paper offers an actionable framework for creating an inclusive formal market ecosystem that is sustainable, scalable and socially relevant.

This study is an original contribution to the field of social entrepreneurship. It undertakes a field study of the social enterprise delivering inclusive energy solutions to the BoP segment in India. The study of Selco brings out the learnings regarding the key strategic actions, which can lead to sustainable business models for targeting the BoP segment in developing countries like India

Strategy, strategic management, market and product analysis.

The case is intended for a business strategy course in management. The target participants are MBA students specializing in strategy area as well as middle level and senior level managers from the industry, who come for an executive programme in management science.

Year 2009, Mr Pawan Kumar (General Manager, Halonix Limited) was facing a decision-making situation in the organization. Being one of the most experienced and oldest employees of Halonix (incorporated as Phoenix Lamps Ltd in 1991), he had witnessed the tremendous growth of the company since its inception in 1991. The company was having a global brand image in automotive halogen lamps and became a dominant player in compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) market in India by 2007. With the increasing competition and change in market dynamics, the company needed to decide upon the future product portfolio mix and strategy to be adopted to gain the maximum benefit and win over the competition in both the product segments. The automotive halogen product segment was generating higher margins but having relatively slow growth. The CFL product segment was a growing market but was generating low margins due to increasing competition from entry of large number of players.

The theoretical concepts, which will be explored in this case, involve the following: the importance of industry structure analysis in understanding the basis of competition. The importance of value-chain analysis in strategic planning. The importance of Boston Consulting Group growth-share matrix in evaluating the product portfolio mix having different growth drivers and target segments?

Teaching notes.

The growing literature on business models has so far had limited impact on research in strategy. The main reason for this is the fact that the intellectual territory of the business model construct overlaps significantly with that of strategy. Without acknowledging this overlap, academics doing research on business models run the risk of asking questions that have already been explored in the strategy literature. This implies that research on business models can only become more impactful if we first identify explicitly what is different between the business model and strategy concepts and then focus our research questions on that difference.

The access to high quality, a reliable and affordable basic healthcare service is one of the key challenges facing the rural and semi‐urban population lying at base of the pyramid (BoP) in India. Realizing this as a social challenge and an economic opportunity (shared value), there has been an emergence of healthcare service providers who have bundled entrepreneurial attitude and passion with available scarce resources to design and implement cost‐effective, reliable and scalable market solutions for the BoP. The purpose of this research paper is to understand the underlying operating principles of these self‐sustainable business models aimed at providing healthcare services to the BoP segment in India.

The empirical context involves the use of case study research methodology, where the source of data is published case studies and the company websites of four healthcare organizations who have made a socio‐economic difference in the lives of the rural and semi‐urban population lying at the BoP in India.

The analysis and findings reflect the key operating principles for sustainable healthcare business ventures at the BoP. These include focus on 4A's (accessible, affordable, acceptable and awareness), local engagement, local skills building, learning by experiment, flexible organizational structure, dynamic leadership, technology integration and scalability.

This research study has focused mainly on the published case studies as source of data.

The intent is to understand and bring forth the learning and guiding principles, which act as a catalyst for the future researchers and business ventures engaged in BoP context.

This study aims to explore the impact of organizational search (local and boundary-spanning search) on business model innovation (efficiency-centered/novelty-centered business model innovation) and the moderating role of knowledge inertia between them.

The relationships are examined through data provided by a sample of Chinese firms and by multiple hierarchical regressions.

Local search has a stronger effect on efficiency-centered business model innovation, whereas boundary-spanning search plays a stronger role in novelty-centered business model innovation. Knowledge inertia strengthens the effect of local search on efficiency-centered business model innovation but weakens the effect of boundary-spanning search on efficiency-centered business model innovation and the effect of local search on novelty-centered business model innovation.

The findings enable firms’ managers to understand the subtle ways in which organizational search interacts with knowledge inertia to affect business model innovation and may help them to make knowledge management efforts to harvest the full value of organizational search.

Previous studies have not examined the effect of different organizational search on different business model innovation from knowledge management perspective. With knowledge inertia as the moderator, the results reveal the contingent impact mechanism of organizational search on business model innovation, the findings provide fresh evidence that can bridge the gap between knowledge management and business model innovation.

Marketing management, services marketing, customer relationship management and strategic marketing management.

This case can be taught effectively to MBA/MS students.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) commenced operations in India in 1996 and launched its first car in India – the Hyundai Santro – in 1998. Since then, there has been no looking back for the company. Its domestic and export sales figures have risen manifold each year and the car maker has gone on to become the second largest manufacturer in the Indian car market with a market share of 18.10 percent as of 2010-2011. By 2009-2010, most of the major international car makers were setting up production facilities in India. The market was set to become highly competitive and it became imperative for manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) and HMIL to retain their customers in order to maintain their market share. Nalin Kapoor, General Manager (Sales & Marketing) was contemplating the marketing strategies he could use to counter the stiff competition. Customer retention was one of the major problems in the automobile industry as the purchase time span varied between three and five years and the cost of brand switching was nil. HMIL had been pursuing customer relationship management activities but its customer retention ratio was declining. Kapoor and his team decided to study the loyalty programs of some companies in the automobile industry to ascertain whether launching a loyalty card could solve their problem of retention. The marketing strategy department with the help of a management intern extensively studied the existing loyalty program of Hero Honda, MSIL, and Ford to identify how those programs were designed and promoted to the customer. The reports also indicated the shortcomings of each program and the features which were highly accepted by the customer. The loyalty program also had cost implications as there was a need for a strong technical support team to run it successfully. With the reports in hand, Kapoor was in a dilemma on whether launching a loyalty card would be feasible or not. If yes, then how should it be structured to motivate the customers to stay loyal to the company? Also, how could the cost in terms of promotion, training, and technical support be justified? If not a loyalty program, then what marketing strategies should the company pursue to retain customers effectively? The problem demanded immediate attention and action and Kapoor was well aware of the implications that a delay in decision making would have for the market share of the company in the growing and dynamic automobile industry in India.

These include: the concept of customer relationship management; relationship marketing; customer retention; customer loyalty; customer profitability segments; relationship bonds; and designing loyalty programs.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email: support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

This chapter critically explores the colonial model of education in a Buddhist society in postcolonial Bangladesh, as the Buddhist value-based contemplative learning and ethical practices have been constantly challenged due to the fact that the western value-based cultural knowledge is considered for economic development. In such a context, Buddhist learners are unable to learn the social history, cultural heritage, Buddhist/social economy, and spiritual values and practices in the educational institutions. Even teachers are not trained in preparing learners for cultivation of wisdom (Paññā in Pāli) and ecocentric development of the community in the country. On the other hand, Buddhist notion of contemplative learning pedagogy believes in decolonization of the mind and reflective practice for social transformation and development of wisdom through deep meditative mind by nurturing critical dialogue as opposed to capital accumulation and greed-based society. The Buddhist pedagogical approach focuses on mindful concentration (bhavana) and ethical (sila) practice within the learning context and environment, as emancipatory ideology to promote cultural diversity instead of political and social imposition. Such mindfulness would allow both the learners and teachers to create collaborative learning opportunities for life-sustaining practice and wholesome (kusala karma) activity in the community setting. The Buddhist learning pedagogy tends to nurture nonviolence (ahimsa) in order to develop mutual respect among the diverse communities to renewing ground for mind-expanding pursuits in the learning institutions for the wellbeing of all community members in the country.

Despite increasing interest in business model innovation (BMI), there is only limited scholarship that examines how business model (BM) innovators present and explain their innovations to various stakeholders. As BMI often involves the creation of a new ecosystem, understanding how innovators can gain support of future ecosystem members is important. Based on a longitudinal case study of Salesforce, a pioneer in cloud computing, the authors show how the innovator’s skillful framing to different audiences fosters the emergence of an ecosystem around the new BM. The authors suggest that effective framing constitutes an important strategic process that enables BM innovators to shape new ecosystems due to the performative power of words.

We study three private hospital organizations in India that were set up to deliver affordable high quality, services to the poor. Their distinctive feature is that they have successfully balanced two apparently contradictory logics: financial (doing well) and social (doing good) through business model innovations. By analyzing abundant primary and secondary data, we document in detail the key features of their business models – customer identification, customer engagement, value chain and linkages, and monetization – and document how they contribute to the organizations’ ability to deliver high quality healthcare at very low prices. We analyze the impact of these organizations, both direct and indirect, on the healthcare delivery landscape in India. We show that while their direct impact is significant, their indirect impact could potentially transform healthcare delivery in India and in other developing countries.