Individual interviews with business, NGO, research and donor actors point to the need to synthesise global work on inclusive business models so far. There is also the common desire to understand essential success factors of inclusive business models and the contexts within which they are likely to scale both their impact and their outreach.

The Seas of Change initiative is therefore starting up an inclusive business model learning path. This body of work will collect, compare, analyse and synthesize information. This learning path will particularly focus on business models that interface directly or indirectly with smallholder supply base.

Goals

1. Further fine-tune what inclusive business is and formulate in a business-savvy manner.

2. Identify the key factors that enable business models to perform well.

3. Identify possible strategies for companies to support smallholder empowerment based on their business model.

4. Identify how inclusive business models are currently fostered and if this can be done more effectively, if at all, through targetted non-market support.

Outputs

1. Guidelines including methods and tools to assess existing business models in terms of inclusiveness, and to support development of new business models.

2. Reports to shape the international agenda on inclusive business.

3. Communication and support processes to help business hubs, mentor initiatives, donors etc. apply findings in their context.