Societal Problem Solving

In his social business model talk, strategy professor Michael Porter explains how business can be used to make the world a better place. In the past, society relied on government and philanthropy to address social issues, but recently there has been an enormous growth in the number of non-governmental and non-profit organizations. While the young people behind these charitable organizations are passionate and talented, there is a problem of scale where change is not happening fast enough, and the resources required to create large impact is not there.

Porter states business creates profits when it meets needs. The conventional wisdom that corporations benefit financially from creating social problems is wrong, and the opposite is in fact true. Proving shared value between both sides is the key to changing the world. According to his social business model talk, Porter believes capitalism will be doing what is it really designed to do when this happens.