It starts off with a brief on the transformation that India has undergone from limited access to open access economy in the past twenty years. The report also gives financial exclusion levels in rural India and the lost economic opportunity that comes attached to it.

Some innovative policy initiatives undertaken to mitigate the problem of financial services in India are – no-frills account, branchless banking in the form of Business Correspondents (I have previously covered BCs here), liberalization of banking and ATM policies and the incorporation of National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) which provides a national infrastructure for payments and settlements in the country. Technological advancements have been providing a solid base to leverage all the initiatives.

All these policies, however, are not able to match up to the impact that is expected by the administration. One of the main reason for that is the lack of identity documentation among the rural populace which makes it difficult for them to prove their identity to the banks. This bottleneck has limited the leverage that the banking innovations can provide in terms of access to the financial services. Another limitation is the small amount levels that are usually transacted by the population at low income levels, referred commonly as micropayments. This leads to high per transaction costs which inhibits the banking infrastructure development in the rural parts.

The Unique Identification Number (UID), which identifies individuals uniquely on the basis of demographic information and biometrics will clearly give the means to the individuals to establish their identity to public and private agencies across the country. It provides a renewed approach towards financial inclusion by integrating various reforms addressing the core issue. This technology provides a very effective avenue in creating a payment system that works efficiently even with low amount transactions by stimulating higher volume of transactions. The implementation of UID will accelerate the process of financial inclusion by providing a micropayments platform, streamlining the allocation and delivery of the government benefits and providing an effective way of banking to whom who have been ignored till now.

It directly addresses the following issues which are the main culprits for the low levels of financial access in India today:

• KYC (Know Your Customer) Challenges – Banks follow customer identification procedures while opening new accounts to minify the risk of fraud and money laundering. UID with its authentication and KYR (Know Your Resident) standards will not only bring down the KYC costs for the banks but also reduce the documentation the poor are required to produce to open an account.
• Limited Accessibility & High Costs to Poor – Indian banks cater to only 5% of the villages. In this scenario, should an individual from a bankless village need to make a transation, he will need to pay the cost of this financial distance in terms of his travel expense and the loss of daily wages. UID’s clear authentication will allow the banks to network with local BCs (Business Correspondents) through which customers will be able to make transactions. Technology for electronic transactions can be employed by the banks to remotely authenticate the customers thus reducing average cost per transaction. It will also decrease the customers’ dependence on cash by allowing individual transactions with each other as well as with firms outside the village. Multiple local BCs will provide a choice to the customers.
• High costs to Banks – UID will mitigate the high customer acquisition costs, high transactions costs and other fixed costs that are faced in bringing financial services to the poor. This can be achieved through high volume low cost approach.

India, one of the fastest growing economies still lacks an effective strategic framework to directly tackle the high poverty levels. According to the World Bank figures, India reduced its poverty from 60% to 42% of population between 1981and 2005. The same time frame shows poverty reduction in China from 84% to 16%. This eminent contrast is brought by improper channelization of government benefits to the households that most deserve these policy benefits. Even though there is a drastic increase in government spending from 10.5% to 20% this fiscal year, the food, fuel and other subsidies need the infrastructure to make sure that they penetrate and target the aimed beneficiaries and to clear identify the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. The complexity of beneficiary identification for a government policy reaches another extreme in a nation of 1.2 billion. This leads to improper identification of the vulnerable groups who need support. The limited quota of government ration cards, a form of poverty-assistance, entitles households to take advantages of government funded subsidies. But the allocation of these cards is skewed and more often than not leads to their subscription to well-off families. This Wall Street Journal article cites many cases advocating this skewness.
UID can provide a platform to address this problem by leveraging the crucial parameter in the whole poverty assistance process – Identity. The IDs of the households can have an authentic label making those households worthy of using the food and fuel subsidies. This model circumvents the limited ratio cards problem and provides all the BPL families their due benefits. Although the problem of poverty definition still persists with different frameworks employed by different institutions and countries to define it, but whatever be the final definition, UID project carries a huge scope in providing the appropriate identification measure.

UID project, if implemented in accordance will be the center to a ecosystem comprising of many addressed issues and enforced developmental applications. This project forms a concrete base supporting the infrastructure that directly addresses the needs of the worst 40% or so population of India.

Note: This article was written by Pankaj Agarwal, student participant of the 13th World Business Dialogue. It was cross posted on his blog and NextBillion.

In order to understand people’s behaviour or maybe better to get an insight into their motives for action taking it is necessary to put oneself into somebody elses shoes.
Until 2008, investment bankers received huge bonuses in return for their high risk affinity.
And although it was already in 2006 that first reports about investment packages containing bad credits surfaced, they were bought. The majority of investors wanted to make high profits – so that’s what they got.
Consequently, there is no single person that can be blamed.

Why should one stop doing something that already filled his pockets successfully in the past?
Most investment banks survived throughout the support of the respective government, others were bought by their former opponents for unbelievably small sums.
Business continues as usual. That means profits are made and therefore bonuses are paid.
Public opinion and pressure from different parts of society have forced banks and insurance companies such as Goldman Sachs and AIG to reduce their remunerations. But proportionality is something else.
And meanwhile, credit institutions that are less popular with the media continue to increase their bonuses. The proclaimed rethinking initiative is imperceivable.

So for me there is consequently only one way to stop this rat race: regulation.
Nevertheless, in my opinion it is not adequate to point the finger at those receiving the payments. How would we react? Would we not also take the money and try to continue making even more of it? Are our morals so high that we would deny bonus payments in order to save the tax paying citizen?
Sustainability and long-term-thinking are the values that have been promoted by the crisis. Are we sustainable enough not to want to receive the high sums right away? I would not be able to give a 100% answer to that question without eventually betraying myself.

A change in the current situation will only be achieved when everyone becomes aware of his own responsibility. That’s the same for investment bankers.
There’s a small group of Harvard students that wants to introduce an ethical oath for business managers so that they oblige themselves to do business for the good of the community as a whole.
If we are able to integrate this kind of responsibility into the mindset of students and graduates today, we are in my opinion making the first sustainable step into the right direction.

The global economic crisis will continue to affect the long term development prospects well beyond 2015 in terms of slowing down the momentum of achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), says the Global Monitoring Report 2010 released by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The crisis has slowed the pace of the poverty reduction in developing countries but the number of poor in India is still falling, says the report. As a result, 53 million more people will stay in extreme poverty in 2015 who otherwise would have been brought out of it. Similar trend is expected with other MDGs related to hunger, child and maternal health, water and health issues and sanitation.

This positive transition of reduction in poverty levels in India (unlike the west, where the poverty reduction rate is way too less) shows that the country is still on the positive growth path, although slowed at pace for the time being. Not only countries like India and China have shown positive growth rates during the recession reducing the respective poverty levels, but their markets have provided bases for the development of other low incoming countries.

The lead author of the report Delfin Go stressed on the importance of the developing countries in achieving the MGDs. Focusing on the importance of recovery of developing economies he said, ” the recovery of growth in developing countries will provide stimulus and a market for high income countries.”

This signifies that the role of developing economies like India and China is crucial for the revival of the world economy. These two countries not only provide a huge pool of capable population which can act as a massive force to achieve the necessary growth target, but also have been playing a major role in growths of the other low income nations. Here is the overview of the book by Andres Oppenheimer which talks about how growth in India and China is positive for Latin America.

Indian enterprises, who have achieved high level of success and growth in the country are taking interests in the other developing markets. Not only they see huge potential in those markets in the form of promising business opportunities, but such expansion provides better options to the residents of those low income nations in terms of better and cheaper products, employment etc. A recent example of that is Bharti Airtel’s foray in African market. Every business might not be truly replicated to other developing markets but the lessons learnt in a country as diverse and big as India certainly come in handy for these organizations to formulate their strategies for the expansion. There are millions of success stories.

China, I think needs to re-conceive some of their policy structures and administrative hoods if it wants to come out as the world’s biggest economy. The country’s general mentality, I believe, is similar to the Indian diaspora and will provide immense growth opportunities for both the nations should they decide to get united in terms of providing assistance, better access to each other’s markets and resources.

I sincerely agree with Delfin Go in stressing the crucial part that the developing world will be playing in affecting the world economy in the coming future.

Note: This article was written by Pankaj Agarwal, student participant of the 13th World Business Dialogue.  The original post can be seen at his blog.

I hope that organizations or institutions or mere individuals working actively in various nations take a hint and initiate a BoP activity/ Development through enterprise initiative within their borders. It need not be a direct set up of an institution/organization but trying to promote the very idea by exploring different ways. Something that doesn’t restrict the selection criteria by giving privilege to an MBA over a fresh college graduate just because the former one has experience in business equity and venture capital. Something that hires, trains and retains a youth community into its operations and attaches youth to such opportunities at a much bigger scale.

In the list of such organizations, one that I think is brilliant is StartingBloc. StartingBloc educates, inspires and connects emerging leaders to drive social innovation across sectors. The Institute for Social Innovation, their leadership development program, exposes emerging leaders (“Fellows”) to new models for achieving social impact.

The Institute is a five-day transformational experience, where students and young professionals between the ages of 20 to 29 are provided with the knowledge, the inspiration and the network necessary to adapt socially innovative strategies into their careers. During the Institute, StartingBloc Fellows learn about corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, cross-sector partnerships and sustainability from thought leaders in the field of social innovation. The 2010 Boston and New York Institutes speaker lists included luminaries such as Dan Pallotta,Mindy Lubber, Andrew Zolli and Jonathan Greenblatt.

The curriculum for the Institute provides a fresh look at global issues and enables Fellows to innovatively affect change at all levels. Also, it affords them the opportunity to practice what they learn in a real world scenario. One of the highlights of the Institute is The Social Innovation Competition (SIC), which provides Fellows with real world consulting experience. During the Institute, Fellows work in diverse teams to address a real challenge facing a company. Winning teams of Fellows then have the opportunity to present their solutions to representatives from the partner organizations. Past partners of the StartingBloc Institute SIC have included companies such ZipCar, Starbucks & TerraCycle. Each year, the StartingBloc Institute for Social Innovation brings together around four hundred Fellows at three locations: Boston, New York and London. They plan to roll out their Los Angeles Institute in 2011.

The best part about the fellowship that I like is that it incubates people and leaders rather that incubating ventures or businesses which is the conventional trend. It is obvious that no one person can alone address the global issues, so it connects such individuals in a tightly-knit community that provides a platform for them to connect and share the resources even after the institute. Their peer-to-peer model and an incredible recruitment process selecting a diverse group brings under one roof a vast resources repository. Their goal is to make sure that you connect with other people in the SB community to find resources that you need while offering your skill set to others as well.

Who is a StartingBloc Fellow? StartingBloc Fellows are global trailblazers who have Proven leaders with strong academic credentials who have multi-sector experience in top firms. They are also risk-takers and pioneers – over 60% have started their own venture. They are diverse: 65% minorities, 55% women, and between them, they speak 53 languages and hail from over 50 countries. Lastly, StartingBloc Fellows are focused on action, change and market-driven approaches to solving social challenges.

How to become a StartingBloc Fellow? Application for the Institute Class of 2011 will open on September 15th, 2010. Following the application, you will be notified of your acceptance by the end of November. At that point, you become a candidate for the Fellowship – and when you complete the Institute successfully, you officially become a Fellow.

Following the institute, StartingBloc ensures that their Fellows have various opportunities to stay involved with the community and continue their education. BuildingBloc programs provide StartingBloc Fellows with the critical continuing education needed to effectively drive social innovation across sectors. StartingBloc partners with corporations, private individuals and organizations to implement these programs for the community.

The StartingBloc Fellowship is for life and comes with responsibilities and also privileges. StartingBloc Fellows receive perks such as personalized admissions counseling, waiver of application fees and scholarship opportunities at major graduate schools including Yale, Tufts, MIT, NYU and Carnegie-Mellon.

Do apply for the Fellowship if you want to be united by a common interest – a desire to do “good”, and to become leaders in a more responsible, sustainable, global economy.

This Fellowship doesn’t ask for specific criteria to get engaged in following change-the-world passion. It gives youth an option, a choice to make a dent in the world. A choice that is away from any constraints and merely depends on the individual’s passion to drive the change.

Full Disclosure: I am an accepted candidate for the StartingBloc Fellowship and will be attending the Boston Institute in 2011. So hope to see some of you there!

Note: This post was written by Pankaj Agarwal, student participant of the 13th World Business Dialogue.

Even single persons struggle with integrating sustainability into their daily life. Public transport to get to the office? Recycling? Car-Sharing?
When it is not even possible for private persons to make the step towards sustainable behaviour, how should this work out for a global company? Even more: Do we then have the right to demand this kind of attitude?

When looking at corporate homepages, the first thing that comes into view most of the times is a big and shiny button screaming “Corporate Social Responsibility”. The flash video next door talks about sustainability. In my opinion, these two terms seem to have evolved to the new and hip gadget in the world of corporate communication. The true motive rarely is an altruistic one, but the fear that some day society will deprive the company from taking action and drift over to competitors.

But how stable can this kind of market-led sustainability be? Is this not rather sustainability for a time, based on the fear for one´s existence? How should a CEO establish a sustainable business culture being at the same time concerned with satisfying the interest of stake- and shareholders? That implies generating good quarterly results throughout short term success. High employee turnover interferes with long term strategies. Additionally, the world grows more complex with every minute.
So is it possible for an entrepreneur to act sustainably at all? Probably yes, as long as the business is profitable. But what will stake- and shareholders say when the profit stays out?

So where are we supposed to start rethinking? Should it be done by everyone for himself or in corporations and politics, as they are more powerful and able to shape the public opinion? Sustainability can not be achieved by a small group of people. In order to successfully change something, we have to act in concert.
But how will seven billion people work together when this is not functioning even in small corporations? Politics and NGOs can influence the process, but important decisions are often postponed. And political cycles are as existent as economic ones, which means that they also stand in the way of sustainability.
Every single person is additionally limited by his own mortality. Measured against the period of time sustainability needs to be established, human life passes in a second. It seems as if we were trapped in a system of short term results that places obstacles to sustainability that until now have not been overcome.

And all that although human beings are able to plan their life. It is tragic that we are not able to handle that trait systematically, as we seem not to think beyond ourselves.
One person´s foresight most of the times is determined by the lives of his children and grandchildren. Is it possible that we as the “summit of creation” are as limited as that in our way of thinking and acting? Does nature stand between us and sustainable actions and are corporations therefore bound to fail when trying to act sustainbly?
Maybe the whole sustainability talk will become reality when someone invents collective thinking. Until then, paper will be printed from one side only.
Someday there will be someone somewhere who will announce the start of sustainable behaviour, I´m sure. That will be when people have reached immortality at the latest.

Our parents in contrast feel fear and hope at the same time when thinking about their children´s (which means our) future. They guide us hoping that we´ll some day find our own way and they are scared that we won´t be able to cope with all the requirements of today´s society.

Our generation on the other hand is confronted with many feelings and influences at the same time. We are torn between the pursuit of professional success and self-realization.
So is there anyone among us thinking about children? We all know that some day we want to have a family, but this day seems so far on our journey throughout life´s suprises. We conduct this journey blindfolded without knowing whereto and why. And while we are travelling, the pressure to perform and the run of information increase and our future is becoming more uncertain with every second that passes. And that scares us!?

Even today, we are no longer able to predict our future – how should we be able to predict the one of our children? Will they be happy?
Everyone pursues happiness. Future and happiness are often combined. The perception of what happiness is varies between nations, social classes and generations.
Are we happy and content with what we have? An interesting thesis is: The future of our planet and of our economic system is deeply related to the happiness of every one of us. At first glance this assumption seems surprising.
Do we influence the global economy with our beliefs in happiness? And what does that mean by implication for the future of our children? Bearing in mind that parents build the base for the development of their children, it is clear that they are immediately involved in the child´s aspirations. If we can make clear that the pursuit of economic growth, profit and wellbeing should not be the primary goal for the people, our children´s future might not look that cloudy anymore.

The only problem is that we ourselves are not able to imagine such a world. And that´s why a way to show us the advantages of a world based on sustainability must be found. How can we reach that aim? When will be ready to change ourselves in order to change the future of our children? This question can only be answered by everyone for himself. Maybe it is also a question about the guts to do its own thing and walk against the line. Does every one of us have this kind of courage?

Thinking about all of these questions, we can also ask if social business might be a compromise for us. We would be able to live our lives and at the same time would contribute to a decrease in poverty.
What we should never forget is one thing: Problems can only be solved step by step. And only by combining all these small steps into one big effort, we will be able to make change.

Who can answer what our Earth is worth in money? What is the value of the air we breathe? It’s the same as to ask how much your life is worth. Seems like a very extreme comparison, but nowadays, when the modern world faces the financial crisis, it is becoming a more and more essential question.

Why? This question refers to sustainability or new fresh trends of economic development. Somebody can say that we already priced water. Yes, we did, but is the price right? Is it fair in every region? Won’t global warming correct these prices?

In my opinion, this crisis was like a pointer which shows that talking about sustainable growth is not enough anymore. If real measures won’t be applied, consequences are going to be severe. The consequences I talk about can already be seen. Global warming, degradation of rain forests, first climatic refugees, high rate of water contamination are just a small part of the consequences we face today and which affect human being and thus economy. So can we have sustainable growth without misbalancing our environment?

As we already can see, the core poles of sustainability are environment, economy and society. Disharmonize one of them, and the other two will be disharmonized as well. Interactions are so close and tight. So naturally, the following question evolves: Can the roots of the crisis be found within overconsumption and overgrowth of both social and economical sectors? Or maybe a question mark should be posed after the term “environment”, as it might be one of the main crisis catalysts today.

We all heard about real estate bubbles, warnings about their explosion, overheated economies. We all know about goods and services we use for making our lives better, about flows of labor, flows of money etc. But has anybody of us really been thinking about ecosystem services?  It is a pretty new approach and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) team has done a great job supplementing and developing it. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is a research program which focuses on ecosystem services and its changes. It is supported by United Nations and was launched in 2001. Since then the MA had released synthesis reports about the current state of ecosystem services. The ecosystems services approach is a contribution for sustainable development by initiating awareness of the ecosystems’ importance for human well-being. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment points that attention to ecosystem services is needed in order to achieve global development goals.

Ecosystem services are very fundamental and play an essential role to life especially for the creation of human well-being. These kinds of services are so large in scale that it is hard to imagine that human activities could destroy them. But reality is different. Ecosystem services derived from nature are severely threatened through increasing growth in population, consumption, urban sprawls, demands of energy, productions of goods, as well as a mismatch between short-term needs and long-term societal welfare. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment revealed that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth are being degraded or used unsustainably. Moreover, scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years.

So if we again look at the sustainability core poles, I come up with a pressing question: Will degradation in ecosystem services lead us to a new crisis?

Note: This post was written by Lina Kliucininkaite, one of the participants of 13th World Business Dialogue. She has a degree in Energy Structural Engineering from the Vilnius Gediminas Technical University and now is a Master student in international Environmental Management program at the Ecology centre in Kiel.

That the green is being taken seriously! This is obviously something to be happy about. Ingenious innovative concepts that are eco friendly – what is not there to support?

Out of the long list of products that interested me, I am posting here a couple of concepts that I think stand a high chance of massive scalability in the coming future. An impressive idea of Turbine light which is going to be a part of the Greener Gadgets conference at New York City attracted my attention the most. The concept harnesses the power from the wind of the rushing cars to light up the roads. You will be getting more details about the concept during the conference which is scheduled on 25th February 2010. The conference has an interesting panel of presenters and has an interesting Design Competition which chose 10 entries on the basis of innovation and the eco-friendliness. The winners will be selected on the basis of public voting. So do check out the link and vote for the best innovative design!

Another design that excites me and seems nicely structured for a high scale expansion is the solar powered case for mobile electronics which apart from having the sine qua non of a green device, also has the sleek look, flexibility (can be charged using a regular supply also) and protective design providing support to the device. The product is reasonably priced at $32.99. It is actually a bargain looking at the comfort (see the product details!) that the product provides.

Another interesting set of products which were released during CES 2010 are here.

There are some really interesting threads that post about the contemporary green innovation across the globe. Some of the links are here, here and here. Do check them out!

Note: This post was written by Pankaj Agarwal, student participant of the 13th World Business Dialogue.

One great and widely recognized example during election time in Germany was the flashmob called “And everyone goes Yeah” that was organized by the online community during a speech of Angela Merkel, where the people present shouted “Yeah” after every sentence she finished. Merkel was pretty disturbed at the beginning and the initiative even made the evening news.

But while flashmobs are often criticized by certain people and characterized as being senseless, the alternate concept of smartmobs is making positive headlines. One sub-category of the smartmob movement is the one of carrotmobs. The initiative’s name derives from the image of a donkey longing to eat the carrot someone is wagging in front of his nose. In our case, the donkey stands for the business sector and the person holding the carrot is the conglomeration of customers. For organizing a carrotmob, it therefore takes a group of customers that are linked throughout some device (most of the times an online community) and a group of companies competing for the carrot which symbolizes the consumer’s spending power.

How Organized Consumer Purchasing Can Change Business from carrotmob on Vimeo.

The first group decides which kind of products they want to buy and what will be their requirements for doing business. Most of the times, the requirements are socially motivated ones, as carrotmobs are designed to make socially responsible businesses also the most profitable ones. Examples for requirements are recycling, change of energy sources (towards sustainable ones like solar energy), a ban on all products made through child labour etc.
The consumers then publish their requirement towards the businesses in town. The store that is willing to spend the highest percentage of sales (made during the time the carrotmob takes place) on the idea the consumers pursue (see examples above) will then be the place where the group meets to do their shopping.

Consequently, a carrotmob is a profitable deal for both groups. The consumers can be sure that the money they spent in return is (at least partly) used for doing something they believe to be necessary. Most of the times, the things they buy would have been needed anyway, so they even do good without any additional work (except for the ones organizing the mob).
The business on the other hand will probably sell a lot more products than on a normal business day and additionally will be able to improve its way of doing business towards a more sustainable one.

So when the consumer begins to play the game business-style and lets the companies compete for his spending power after the rules of the free market, then that’s what I call power of the consumer!

Since the early 90’s there has been increasing interest in place marketing, place image and place branding. The number of countries taking part in the global economy and global tourism is increasing, accompanied by a parallel process whereby worldwide transportation and communication have grown. They are speedier, easier and the barriers between East and West are fading and getting cheaper (low cost carriers e.g.). However, if some place grows, another decreases in the attraction cycle. For example, today Paris does not compete just with other cities in Europe, but with other global cities, trying to win international tourism and important conferences. Global competition for tourism and investment has always existed, but today visiting foreign parts or investing abroad is much simpler, cheaper and safer, thanks to the communication progress. Avraham & Ketter (2008) and White (2006), indicate the best strategies, in particular communication and promotion strategies, to improve the place´s image in the crisis´ context. To help the place’s image and the place’s attraction in the decrease of the attention context, the decision makers have to choose a suitable “package” for marketing the place competitively.

Avraham & Ketter (2008: 4), according to Felsenstein (1994) identifies four economic strategies that can be used by governments to improve their image:

i)       “Developing local economy by attracting large-scale industries;
ii)     Attracting small-scale businesses in the fields of private or public services;
iii)   Political participation in the line for national budgets, and
iv)   Encouraging local businesses to expand their activities, essentially try increase your external products flows.”

The literature extensively refers to crises in general and, in particular, the role of the media in such context. White (2006) states that the, “media effect on crisis situations is so marked that it has been claimed that the crisis was actually created by the media”, the media amplifies the perception of the crisis emerge. In related literature (Avraham & Ketter, 2008) we will find two concepts:

i)       “Crisis management;
ii)     Crisis communication.”

The contribution of Avraham & Ketter (2008), help us to gain a better understanding of what is the best media strategies for territories, such as, countries, regions, cities and other destinations in a crisis context to prepare in advance for a crisis situation.

Coombs (1999: 92) identifies seven communication strategies for the place in crisis:

i)       “Attacking the accuser;
ii)     Denial;
iii)    Excuse;
iv)    Justification;
v)     Ingratiation;
vi)    Corrective action;
vii)   Full apology.”

Coombs (1999: 92) suggests that effective use of crisis communication should include two key elements: i) information and ii) compassion.

According to Glaesser (2006), crisis management is the constant practice of avoiding and containing crisis. In terms of consumer behaviour and perceptions – crisis management – is a means to control, run and operate a sudden extraordinary event.

The challenge to the place marketer, place marketing researchers, decision makers and other important stakeholders, are pro-active management approaches, in an ethically and environmentally sustainable perspective with creative media strategies. All place stakeholders need to find the best strategies to minimize the consequence caused by an unstable financial system, the economic instability and the natural events in the place´s image and in the decrease in the flow of people and capital.

In the end, I want to share my inspiration for this post and other interesting reads on the place marketing and place branding topic with all readers:

- Avraham, Eli & Ketter, Eran (2008), Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis. Improving the Image of Cities, Countries and Tourist Destinations. Great Britain, Elsevier Inc.
- Coombs, W. T. (1999), Ongoing crisis communication: planning, managing and responding. California, Sage.
- Moilanen, Teemu & Rainisto, Seppo (2009), How to Brand Nations, Cities and Destinations. Great Britain, Palgrave Macmillan.
van Gelder, Sicco & Allan, Malcolm (2006), City Branding – How cities compete in the 21st century. URL: http://www.placebrands.net/reading/citybranding.html
- White, C. M. (2006), “When the media are used to create a crisis: lessons in what not to do”. Paper presented in ICA, Dresden, Germany.

Note: This post was written by Eduardo Oliveira, one of the participants of the 13^th World Business Dialogue. He has a degree in Geography, a post-graduation in Tourism from the Portuguese Catholic University and is a Marketing Master Student at the University of Minho, Portugal. He has been working as a research assistant in the School of Economics and Management of University of Minho.  He develops a blog about marketing research and networks which you can find under New World Research.