Serving the world's poor, profitably.

By stimulating commerce and development at the bottom of the economic pyramid, multi-nationals could radically improve the lives of billions of people and help create a more stable, less dangerous world. Achieving this goal does not require MNCs to spearhead global social-development initiatives for charitable purposes. They need only act in their own self-interest. How? The authors lay out the business case for entering the world's poorest markets. Fully 65% of the world's population earns less than $2,000 per year--that's 4 billion people. But despite the vastness of this market, it remains largely untapped. The reluctance to invest is easy to understand, but it is, by and large, based on outdated…