Global Cases

ARAVIND - AUROLAB

India

Founded in 1976 by Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy, an eye surgeon, Aravind Eye Care Center is the largest and most effective eye care facility in the world. The Center includes hospitals, manufacturing facilities to produce intraocular lenses and pharmaceuticals for eye care, a research institute, an international eye bank, post-graduation clinical courses, and community centers.

Its innovative service, work system and staff training allow Aravind to perform over 200,000 cataracts surgeries every year. The Center employs a revolutionary approach to screen patients and identify those in need of eye surgery and treatment, enabling its doctor-nurse team to have a productivity rate 6 times higher than India’s average, as well as substantially above US standards. Quality levels are also well beyond known best practices, while the cost per surgery falls into the US$ 50-100 range, as compared to US$ 2.600-3.000 in the US.

In 1992, to further reduce its service costs and avoid importing materials, Aravind established a partnership with David Green, an entrepreneur, to create Aurolab – a company to manufacture ophthalmic consumables at affordable prices to developing countries. Aurolab prices for intraocular lenses, suture needles, bandages and surgical instruments are well below those from competitors: suture needles, for instance, cost 1/3 o market price, while intraocular lenses sell for US$ 5, or 40 times less than the market price posted by its key competitor. Since its inception, Aurolab has already supplied five million lenses to consumers in India and in over 120 countries.

Source:www.aurolab.com / www.aravind.org

ASEMBIS – Associação de Serviços Médicos para o Bem Estar Social

Costa Rica

ASEMBIS is a social company that brings quality medical services to the population through high-tech facilities at fair prices. Founded 18 years ago by  Rebeca Villalobos, an entrepreneur from Costa Rica, the association currently counts on 08 clinics that provide doctor appointments, imaging diagnostic services and state-of-the-art eye, ear and dental surgeries, among others.  Additionally, ASEMBIS sells glasses, contact lenses and hearing aid devices at prices up to 60% lower than the market.    
The Association also runs subsidized service campaigns to vulnerable people in marginal rural areas, penitentiaries, elderly homes and public clinics. And, through an agreement with the Ministry of Education, it provides services and conducts prevention initiatives at schools throughout Costa Rica.
With a total staff of 180 and an annual budget of over US$ 6 million, ASEMBIS depended on donations only during its first three years of operation; since then, it has become fully self sustainable, and capable of serving an average of 360,000 people/year. 

Source: www.asembiscr.com 

IDE - International Development Enterprises

Africa, Asia, Latin America

Operating in more than 11 countries, IDE creates income opportunities for the rural poor population by providing them with simple, low-tech products that increase their productivity and their life quality. Paul Polak founded IDE in 1981 after a visit to a refugee camp in Somalia, where he realized the lack of transport infrastructure greatly limited job opportunities.

Following the principle that ‘in technology, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’, Paul re-engineered the local donkey cart by using abandoned car parts and other local scrap materials. With the sales of 500 such carts, agricultural workers increased their income in US$ 1 million.

Since then, a wide range of products has been developed and manufactured – i.e., complete irrigation systems, drip irrigation, harvesting equipment – thus proving simple, low-cost technology can help rural poor families to increase their income and lift themselves out of poverty.

Today, besides developing products, IDE also follows up on small businesses to assess their real impact on household income and life quality. To date, IDE has managed to substantially improve the lives of 19 million people, increasing their aggregated income in over US$ 1 billion.

Source: www.ideorg.org

GRAMEEN – DANONE FOODS

Bangladesh
Founded in 1976 by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Prof. Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank is the first bank in the world to be established to provide microcredit to the rural poor in an attempt to eradicate poverty. To date, Grameen has already lent some US$ 6 billion to over 7 million people in Bangladesh. But the bank is only one of the Grameen Group businesses, which currently encompasses 12 social companies that provide education, nutrition, telecom and electricity services to poor people in the country.

Grameen Danone Foods is a social business established in 2006 as a joint venture between the Grameen Group and the French multinational Danone to fight malnutrition. Its key product is a yoghurt fortified with vitamins and minerals designed to make up for the nutritional deficiencies of undernourished people, reversing malnutrition if taken twice a week for one year.

Grameen Danone was structured around four key objectives: offer a high added nutritional product; create jobs; protect the environment; and be economically viable.

Plant operation relies on the intensive use of local labor rather than on sophisticated machinery. Grameen Bank grants loans to small farmers so they can start and expand the production of key ingredients to be acquired and used by the plant. The yoghurt is sold via dispensers in small stores or, in rural areas, via door-to-door sales performed by the so-called ‘Grameen Ladies”, who are part of the Grameen Bank network.  Finally, to reduce the environmental impact, the plant collects rainwater, transforms part of its waste into electricity, and limits its distribution system to a 30-kilometer radius.

The company sells some 22,000 yoghurt pots a day, employs 267 ‘Grameen Ladies’, and counts on 2,000 points of sale. Future plans include building 50 mini plants to reach 150 million consumers by 2020. Today, economic viability remains its key challenge, as projections indicate positive cash flow will only be possible in 2011.  

Source: www.danone.com/?lang=en

M-PESA

Kenya

M-PESA is a money transfer service via mobile phones provided in Kenya by Safaricom, a telecom company that owns a network of mobile operators. 

Realizing so many Africans were part of the so-called non-banked population, but nevertheless needed to perform basic banking operations, M-PESA was able to capture a substantial share of the money transfer market. In Kenya alone, the company currently has over 6.5 million customers and performs 2 million transactions/day.

Working in all makes of handsets, the service does not require customers to have a bank account. To have access to it, customers need only to take their mobile to an M-PESA agent to have a SIM card installed. Besides deposits and withdrawals, paying bills and shopping, customers may transfer money to third parties, including to non-users. Source: www.safaricom.co.ke back to top