Author: Aneel Karnani, Moses Lee
Product Type: Case
Product #: 1-428-820
Publication Date:08/2009
Length: 14
Keywords: Base of the Pyramid; Development; Social Enterprise; Healthcare; Essilor; VisionSpring, Strategic Management, Healthcare, BOP
| Discipline: | Strategic Management |
| Industry: | Healthcare |
| Region: | Not Specified |
| Topic: | Base of the Pyramid
Social Enterprise
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This case is about a major unmet social need: vision correction. Even though technologically this is a simple problem to solve – eyeglasses – it is not being solved. Over 500 million people with refractive error continue to do without vision correction and lead less productive lives than they could if they had eyeglasses.
It would seem that private companies could profitably supply eyeglasses to the poor. Essilor, a French multinational company that is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of plastic eyeglass lenses, has developed an innovative approach to selling eyeglasses to the poor in rural India. The case describes Essilor’s strategy and provides enough data to do a simple economic analysis of the project. The case next describes VisionSpring, a NGO that supplies reading glasses to the poor in developing countries. The case question centers on whether the two approaches are working and challenges students to consider creative solutions that might work better.
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