Imran Siddiqui's Blog

The name of Grameen Bank emerged with Dr. Mohammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Prize for micro-credit banking, giving rise to a hope to alleviate poverty from the world. Today, Grameen has more than eighteen companies under its name; each of them is working towards community development (from garments to food products). Furthermore, Grameen is now towards a transformation process from a non-profit making organization to a profit-making company. During my internship in Grameen last summer, a question popped in my head: Why invest in poor people when I can’t even get anything in return?

The answer is social responsibility. Roseko mentioned in his blog about how marketing tools are misused to portray a false picture to the public, whereas, a social entrepreneur like Dr. Mohammad Yunus is one of those influential people in the world who have led this world towards prosperity by creating jobs and employment for poor people. However, how did this simple idea of micro-credit banking become so popular all over the world?

Marketing: a mouth-to-mouth marketing strategy…

Grameen follows three rules: a chair is assigned to the group of borrowers, the chair reports to the loan officer and if anyone from the group defaults the loan then the entire group is denied from future load and no fabrication of information is used in the advertisement about the products/services Grameen provides…peoples’ feedback are based on what they feel about the product.

I believe this method of marketing is very effective. . Grameen heavily relies on its customers to get other customers because a member of the community is very likely to convince other members of the community, as the community members feel a sense of belonging and trust, if recommended by other members of the community. On top of that, Grameen, as mentioned before, is now turning into a social company to a profit making company, which substantiates the success of the Grameen as an organization that makes profit with community development.