Week 15 Reading Reflections

After reading “Business Basics at the Base of the Pyramid”, I very intrigued by the borrowing processes that SKS has created for the women of India through microfinance loans. The way that SKS began and saw the need to expand the processes through standardization, scalability, and the inclusion of technology has truly re-energized its industry. The only part I found confusing was the how they collected customer information from the villagers. I understood how they used the information to determine where the highest need was; however, I did not understand how they went about developing their product assortment for these new potential customers. If I was able to ask two questions to the author they would be: 1) Given the soaring increases in growth, how long do you think this will sustain in the Indian marketplace? 2) Has SKS looked into creating similar programs in other parts of the world, if so where would they see the next venture being the most impactful? Throughout the reading I did notice the focus of SKS to focus on making microloans to women and I was curious to know if they had tested this process with men also. Overall, the article was very insightful and gave a fresh look at how an emerging business can have social responsibility while maintaining strong incremental margins of growth and profit.