Hailed by many as the “banker to the poor”, the Bangladeshi financier, Mohammad Yunus, first made headlines in 2006, when his contributions to the underprivileged segments of his country were acknowledged by the Nobel committee for its peace prize. During his tenure as an economics professor at the Chittagong University in the southern region of Bangladesh, he came across the shambolic financial affairs of the local fishing community. It was then that he decided to transform the vicious practices, which did not allow these segments to step outside the self-perpetuating cycle of “low-income, low saving and low investment”. Because of the continual rejection by banking institutions to help credit these communities, who knocked on their doors without adequate guarantees, Yunus decided to launch an initiative, which was overwhelmingly owned by the rural poor it served. His ideas made the underprivileged communities embrace the values of saving and utilise credit and investment to earn more, save more.
The revolutionary has since then embarked on a marvelous crusade to transform the world, at least for the poor. His bold ideas on micro crediting the poor had already astounded the financing institutions as well as political leadership across the world, who started replicating his model in their regions. However, the maestro did not end his crusade, yet. He, then, moved on to utilise the success of his anti-poverty endeavour, Grameen Bank, to encode a new form of organisation, social business.
In “Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs”, Yunus has introduced yet another blueprint for developing an alternate economy altogether, one that is devoted wholly to the fulfilment of humanitarian objectives rather than profit-making. The writer makes a strong case for advancing the traditional capitalistic paradigms to set forth organisations—which are self-sustaining yet philanthropic in nature— to solve the present crises plaguing the world, in the first few chapters. He himself describes such a business as “a non-loss, non-dividend company dedicated entirely to achieve a social goal. In social business, the investor gets his investment money back over time, but never receives dividend beyond that amount.” In lieu of targeting a business case, which generates maximum profits, these businesses are steered towards finding solutions to a social problem. Nevertheless, the humanitarian model does not stop these initiatives from becoming viable enterprises, which continue to achieve economic growth, while simultaneously helping the poor.
Even though the debate on establishing an economic rejuvenation of the poor segments of the society, that, too, through business interventions, might not make rounds on all coffee tables, the refreshing yet crisp take of this Noble Laureate can make an exception. The book is divided into fairly short nine chapters, which make their case with anecdotes, studies and self-help advice. Instead of augmenting his discourse in an academic fashion, Yunus talks more like a sales executive, who makes use of experiments, both his own and those achieved by others, to sell his prototype to many others. He has weaved his work in a trove of wonders, which unleashes riveting ideas upon its readers, all designed to chip away the world’s social problems.
Yet again, the battle against global poverty is not as smooth of a ride as Yunus paints it. The businesses that will mark Yunus’s social enterprise movement will still need a significant finance among other resources. And even if entrepreneurs do manage to accumulate sufficient financing, what are the odds that their businesses will be able to sustain the economic growth that Yunus has predicted in his book. Business owners around the world might get inspired to tackle all societal evils, plaguing their surroundings, however, they still need to put in market expertise and a blueprint of an innovative idea that sells, to their mix of passion and innovation to kick off their initiative. Presenting a eureka solution may not ensure a perfect start-up, but it does count as one big step towards gaining success. Even if Yunus doesn’t appear to be of much help in achieving other steps, he does articulate well on how to come up with the first one.