INCLUSIVE BUSINESS

Preface
Jeremy Millard,
Senior Policy Adviser, Danish Technological Institute
The timing of this publication could not be more appropriate. The European
Union, in its Europe 2020 Strategy, is grappling with the three major ‘wicked problems’
of our age: the lack of competitiveness and growth; rising inequality, poverty
and stagnating incomes; and increasing environmental stress and resource depletion.
Even non-economists can see the irony in this conjunction, as each in turn
makes the other worse in a downward spiral leading to more unemployment and
greater hopelessness amongst an increasing number of European and world citizens.
One important strategy for breaking this veritable vicious spiral, by tackling
the problems together at the same time, is the deployment of Inclusive Business
models, which are variously defined as commercially viable and replicable business
models that include low-income consumers, retailers, suppliers or distributors
in core operations.
The Italian perspective to Inclusive Business, which is the focus of this is also
highly relevant given the country’s almost schizophrenic dichotomy between having
some of the world’s most innovative, successful and well-known companies,
on the one hand, but which are increasingly seen as rare pearls in an otherwise
lackluster oyster of sluggish economic performance and increasing unemployment.
As this concludes, it is high time for Italy to embrace Inclusive Business
strategies and to test their economic potential in new niches, building on corporate
social responsibility and looking at greener innovations as the tools to customise
mainstream goods to new demands. Integrating the development agenda into
business thinking can have a significant payoff.
The Inclusive Business approach is more than a concept as it is being successfully
deployed in practice in an increasing number of contexts and places, as this
clearly demonstrates. Inclusive Business models show there is no inherent contradiction
between sustainable growth, prosperity, welfare, meeting social and well
as economic needs, reducing inequality and ethical behaviour. In fact, many now
see this as the future of business, and even capitalism itself, if both are to survive
as the 21st Century unfolds. Michael Porter, well known as the father of competition
and company strategy, undertook something of a volte-face in 2011 when he
revised his ideas about where business value can and should be found from his
hitherto focus on shareholder value and core competencies.