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THE FORTUNE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID
BOP: A GLOBAL OPPORTUNITY
QUOTE:
“Transaction Governance Capacity” or TGC which is basically the availability of the necessary legal framework for honouring market transactions and enforcing contracts.
LEARNING EXPECTATION:
Building a body of knowledge also was cited as critical in these early days of BOP ideation. “Experience with and understanding of BOP,” was how one respondent put it.
Another suggested what is needed is the development of “a business model that provides a holistic solution versus just a single element.”
Similarly, someone else thought increasing “understanding of BOP and providing basic tools, approaches, methods” was most important.
REVIEW:
This book as acknowledged duly by Prof Prahalad has been an eye opener in unlocking the vast untapped potential of dead capital and entrepreneurial abilities of over two thirds of the world’s poor who are trapped outside the bell jar of market based economies. Prof Prahlad shows us the way to social transformation and economic freedom while providing choice with dignity for the individuals through a market based ecosystem involving large multinationals, NGOs, Governments and the individuals themselves.
LESSONS LEARNED:
The book begins with an affirmative “yes” to the question of whether the BOP is a huge market that can be effectively tapped for a win-win outcome for the poor across the globe and the multinationals who serve them.
Before reading the book it is advisable the see the videos. These are true case studies across continents and industry verticals at the BOP. One cannot resist the temptation of reading the book from cover to cover soon after.
Addressing the huge BOP market needs innovative approaches. Large multinationals that try to transplant high end technologies from developed countries into developing worlds often meet with markets that are “not yet ready” or “too small”. Instead they need innovative approaches to develop products that address the needs at the “lower end” of the market. Perhaps Prof Clayton Christensen’s theory on disruptive innovations can be well utilized for this. Incumbents ignore these segments that are huge market opportunities for new entrants.
INTEGRATIVE QUESTIONS:
1.    What is global market?
2.    Is there a developing worlds?
3.    Who is Prof Clayton Christensen’s ?
4.    Is there a policy in developing countries?
5.    Define global Opportunity?

THE FORTUNE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES FOR THE BOP
QUOTE:
Executing a bottom of the pyramid strategy with a new product isn’t easy. Even if you can come up with a product which would help improve the lives of the world’s poor, distribution can be difficult due to access barriers in highly segmented lower income markets.
LEARNING EXPECTATION:
A growing number of global companies are being drawn to the seductive idea that money can be made by developing and marketing products for those at the bottom of the pyramid, some four billion people around the world who eke out a living on about two US dollars a day.
REVIEW:
When creating innovative, new products for markets at the base of the pyramid, Peter White, Director of Global Sustainability at Procter & Gamble, notes that cost alone is not the issue. “It’s not just about making consumer products cheaper,” he says. “You’ve got to come up with products that actually meet the specific needs at the bottom of the pyramid.  How do you design products that people need? You have to actually go and find out, and so we send researchers to find out how people live – how they do their washing, their cleaning (and) what are their problems.”
He outlined the case of a water purification system called PUR, which P&G developed in collaboration with the US Centre for Disease Control for commercial markets, targeting low income consumers
LESSONS LEARNED:
Develop a global marketplace that allows people and corporations to purchase from people that live in developing countries. For example, what if consumers in the UK, Japan, or the US were aware of all the exciting products and services that create jobs, new levels of income and opportunity for growth in the BOP. Let’s take ecomaximus for example. The company makes fine paper products from elephant dung. The challenge for companies like this is marketing. Now, large companies can help transfer knowledge to help create scale, cost effective channels for distribution, creating ecommerce infrastructures with partners like American Express. As a result, BOP regions would now have wealth to buy things that these companies are trying to sell.
INTEGRATIVE QUESTIONS:
1.    What are the challenge for companies like this is marketing?
2.    What are the products?
3.    What if this product was on Oprah’s favorite things list?
4.    Imagine the demand?
5.    Who is Ophrah’s?

THE FORTUNE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID
THE MARKET AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID
QUOTE:
In textiles, for example, the “hand loom sector” dominated by small firms was given preference. There was no credible voice in public policy for nurturing market-based ecosystems that included the large and the small in a symbiotic relationship.
LEARNING EXPECTATION:
For more than 50 years, the World Bank, donor nations, various aid agencies, national governments, and, lately, civil society organizations have all fought the good fight, but have not eradicated poverty. The adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by the United Nations only underscores that reality; as we enter the 21st century, poverty—and the disenfranchisement that accompanies it—remains one of the world’s most daunting problems.
REVIEW:
It is to illustrate that the typical pictures of poverty mask the fact that the very poor represent resilient entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers. This collaboration between the poor, civil society organizations, governments, and large firms can create the largest and fastest growing markets in the world. Large-scale and wide-spread entrepreneurship is at the heart of the solution to poverty. Such an approach exists and has, in several instances, gone well past the idea stage as private enterprises, both large and small, have begun to successfully build markets at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) as a way of eradicating poverty.
LESSONS LEARNED:
There are organizations helping the handicapped walk and helping subsistence farmers check commodity prices and connect with the rest of the world. There are banks adapting to the financial needs of the poor, power companies reaching out to meet energy needs, and construction companies doing what they can to house the poor in affordable ways that allow for pride. There are chains of stores tailored to understand the needs of the poor and to make products available to them.
INTEGRATIVE QUESTIONS:
1.    What is needed is a better approach to help the poor?
2.    Why what you know about BOP markets is wrong?
3.    What is the most enduring contributions in company
4.    Is there a  delivering dignity, empowerment?
5.    What are the interaction of the BOP market?