Vickram Crishna and others have written on this. From the perspective of our research on successful BOP business models, we think that the companies who have really done well have had both business and social metrics, the latter articulated at the very top of the company. They take the form of "We ought to serve poor rural customers to help build our country--we have an obligation--but we will do it as a profitable business". We think that the social metric is what empowers the company staff to think outside the box, to work with and listen to community groups and NGOs, to figure out more inventive approaches--so that they can become sustainable (eg, profitable) while generating needed services and the capacity to buy or make use of them. So we see these metrics as not either-or, but as complimentary.
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