Socially Responsible Distribution: Distribution Strategies For Reaching The Bottom Of The Pyramid

This paper examines three socially responsible distribution case studies of multinational company, government and NGO initiatives. It identifies how socially responsible distribution can be achieved by strategies that take cost out, reinvent the distribution channel or take a long-term perspective that invests for the future. It summarizes procedures and precautions for setting up distribution into the rural bottom of the pyramid, and the payoffs from socially responsible distribution strategies. The authors use the term socially responsible distribution to describe initiatives that provide poor producers and consumers with market access for goods and services that they can benefit from buying or selling.