"Building Social Business" by Muhammad Yunus. An Essay

Building Social Business by Muhammad Yunus.

Yunus in his book, Building Social Business, dedicates the nine short chapters of the book to explaining the meaning of a social business in the current world. Many scholars have characterized it way before Yunus did. However, Yunus still thinks of a social business as just another form of monetary association that connects an ecological, social, and even moral, ecological target with a business. He also provides a guide in relation to how the new businesses can expand and even develop in different dimensions and also thrive in the business world. In the real sense, I discovered much to appreciate in the book as far as Yunus arguments are put into consideration. The essay aims at analyzing the book Building Social Business by majorly focusing on his ideas on social business, strategies, and the experiences provided in the book (Schwartz, 2010).

The book is an extremely excellent presentation which argues on the way people should conduct investments in poor countries and be able to receive a huge return and at the same time do good to the society. The model on profit maximization does not at all produce ideal outcomes due to the fact that many of the poor people working do not have the capability to pay the higher prices. Yunus argues that it is important that there is another kind of business that puts into consideration the desire in humans to provide aid to other people. According to him, social business is simply a current form of capitalism that is specifically aimed at dealing with problems like homelessness, hunger, pollution, disease, and ignorance as well. He argues that many of such problems are not the fault of the victim, but rather, they are caused by different systems. According to Yunus, it’s now time to restructure the economy of the world and implement new business techniques as well as innovations for the purpose of solving social problems. Yunus provides a guarantee of loans most especially to the poor and therefore he generally acts as an intermediary between the bank and the poor people. Actually, this can be compared to the government of United States which guarantees loans to many borrowers. This has resulted to bankers to lend money with high levels of willingness considering the fact that there is guaranteed payment. The people who borrow the money pay in small amounts weekly which makes the people and most especially women to overcome poverty. For instance, the Grameen Bank provides loans of up to $100 million in every month and does not at all require any collateral for even loans averaging to $200 in every piece. The bank also lends funds to the poor for them to start businesses like selling toys, foodstuffs, households, and even door-to-door businesses. Currently, they have around 100, 000 poor people in their program and they have managed to help over 18,000 people ever since they started the program. Grameen bank also provides money for the children of the poor for them to be able to attend school, and therefore, you can find an illiterate mother who has children who are doctors or engineers.

The program of Grameen Viola Water which provides pure water to the poor at a very low price that they can afford is also another program by the bank which is aimed at helping the poor. The major goal of the Grameen program is to eliminate poverty, provide high returns to the people through their businesses, and also maintain a sustainable economy. When the people pay back the loans, the profits gathered are invested back into the company. The organizations of Grameen are specifically aimed at promoting social business through charitable organizations as well as non-profit groups. The Grameen Telecom is currently providing energy as well as the Grameen well-being services to the poor people which are also another form of providing aid to these people. Grameen in coordination with Pfizer have provided a program to provide health care that is affordable to the poor people through village clinics. These are some of the concepts discussed by Yunus which can greatly help in the development of any business. The ideas could be applied to the poor and even the rich countries considering the fact that there is a population of poor people in each country (Maresca, 2011).

The book is extremely simple to read and the concepts and strategies discussed are simple to understand as well. Despite the fact that Yunus begun his life as an educator, he does not at all provide his compositions like a simple scholar. Instead, his book is filled with handy illustrations, experiences, strategies, and thoughts, most especially in the chapter of how to launch a social business, where he over and over again discusses the importance of social businesses to be managed in the same way as any other profit-maximizing business. Yunus additionally gives so many looks of the genius who is very convincing and who established the Grameen Bank, who alongside Yunus also acquired the prize of Nobel Peace in the year 2006. Yunus is adroitly aware of the ideas he has discussed as well as their quality, most especially to partners in substantial corporates. Yunus sees extremely limitless outcomes and always empowers every individual he comes across. He was among the first people to see the capability of the people living in the poor societies that were not discovered. However, the book additionally accesses the genius who argues that each long excursion begins with a little stride (Leonard, 2010).

Yunus calls for making of an option economy of organizations which are aimed at providing aid to the underprivileged people. The way he imagines it, these organizations would be operated as proficiently as the revenue driven assortment. Not at all like foundations, the organizations would profit to act naturally maintaining. Be that as it may, they would put extra cash in growing their philanthropic endeavors as opposed to paying profits to shareholders. As predicted by Yunus, individuals will be highly pleased to make organizations for benevolent purposes. He argues that “ The only thing we ’ ll have to do is to free them from the mind-set that puts profit-making at the heart of every business, an idea that we imposed on them through our flawed economic theory. ”

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