If your company is considering entering a new global market, why not target a wide range of consumers-from the wealthy, to the middle class all the way down to the poorest of the poor? The authors show how a wide range of for-profit healthcare organizations are experimenting with different types of smartphone-enabled services for low-income consumers. They provide several examples of how these business models work, and describe three approaches that for-profit organizations can use to serve the poor-in the realm of healthcare and beyond.

The 2.6 billion global citizens living on less than $2 a day face considerable barriers to effective healthcare, including limited health insurance, low health literacy, and residence in slums or remote areas that are frequently underserved. The authors describe how some highly innovative private healthcare companies have considered these barriers in the design of their products or services. They show that organizations such as India's Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital achieve their innovations by addressing three functional areas concurrently: marketing, finance and operations. They describe the four shared characteristics of these business models and show how these 'innovative exemplars' can inspire innovation across industries.