Business of Water Poses Challenges for MBAs at Oxford Saïd

However, one of the three winners laid its focus far closer to the home of Oxford Saïd, in the UK capital of London, which is described as a ‘water-stressed’ city. This project serves as a useful illustration in what appears to be a faltering sense of corporate social responsibility. London’s only water supplier, Thames Water is derided as being monopolistic and guilty of paying out more in stakeholder dividends than the annual profits it accumulates, leaving much-needed reinvestment in infrastructure unfunded. A partial buy-out to form a public–private partnership that can serve London’s expanding population more efficiently forms the crux of the winning project’s solution here.

Bangladesh and India are the focus of Oxford Saïd’s two other winners. One looked at access to clean water for the millions who live on the fringes of society in Mumbai’s slums. The other, meanwhile, considered how to combat the effects of naturally occurring arsenic in water taken from aid-funded wells in Bangladesh, the long-term effects of which are largely unknown to the local population.

The GOTO program, offered since 2012/13, has been described in an interview with Oxford Saïd’s dean, Peter Tufano on TopMBA.com as part of the school’s “commitment” towards working with problems felt the world over, the implications they hold for business and the question of social responsibility. It’s also a good excuse to use the breadth of expertise found across the university as a whole, which participants are able to interact with as part of the program. 

“The GOTO project enabled our students to understand the underlying problems and future scenarios in which new business models can manage water for the collective good,” Tufano said of the program’s latest edition.