The bottom of the pyramid, bottom of the wealth pyramid or the bottom of the income pyramid is the largest, but poorest

socio-economic group A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...

. In global terms, this is the 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2.50 a day. Management scholar CK Prahalad popularised the idea of this demographic as a profitable consumer base in his 2004 book ''

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid The concept of ''The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid'' originally appeared as an article by C. K. Prahalad and Stuart L. Hart in the business journal ''Strategy+Business''. The article was followed by a book with the same title that discusses ...

,'' written alongside Stuart Hart.

History

U.S. president

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

used the term in his April 7, 1932 radio address, ''The Forgotten Man'', in which he said, The more current usage refers to the billions of people living on less than $2.50 per day, the definition proposed in 1998 by C.K. Prahalad and Stuart L. Hart. It was subsequently expanded upon by both in their books: ''The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid'' by Prahalad in 2004 and ''Capitalism at the Crossroads'' by Hart in 2005. Prahalad proposes that businesses, governments, and donor agencies stop thinking of the poor as victims and instead start seeing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs as well as value-demanding consumers. He proposes that there are tremendous benefits to multi-national companies who choose to serve these markets in ways responsive to their needs. After all the poor of today are the

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...

of tomorrow. There are also poverty reducing benefits if multi-nationals work with

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.Aneel Karnani, also of the Ross School at the University of Michigan, argued in a 2007 paper that there is no fortune at the bottom of the pyramid and that for most multinational companies the market is really very small. Karnani also suggests that the only way to alleviate poverty is to focus on the poor as producers, rather than as a market of consumers. Prahalad later provided a multi-page response to Karnani's article. Additional critiques of Prahalad's proposition have been gathered in "Advancing the 'Base of the Pyramid' Debate". Meanwhile, Hart and his colleague Erik Simanis at Cornell University's

Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise (CSGE) is a center of applied research, learning and practice in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management (Johnson) at Cornell University. History In 2002, motivated by his desire to see t ...

advance another approach, one that focuses on the poor as business partners and innovators, rather than just as potential producers or consumers. Hart and Simanis have led the development of the Base of the Pyramid Protocol, an entrepreneurial process that guides companies in developing business partnerships with income-poor communities in order to "co-create businesses and markets that mutually benefit the companies and the communities". This process has been adopted by the SC Johnson Company and the Solae Company (a subsidiary of DuPont). Furthermore, Ted London at the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan focuses on the

poverty alleviation Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty. Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics clas ...

implications of Base of the Pyramid ventures. He has created a ''BoP teaching module'' designed for integration into a wide variety of courses common at business schools that explain the current BoP thinking. He has identified the BoP Perspective as a unique market-based approach to poverty alleviation. London has also developed the BoP Impact Assessment Framework, a tool that provides a holistic and robust guide for BoP ventures to assess and enhance their poverty alleviation impacts. This framework, along with other tools and approaches, is outlined in London's ''Base of the Pyramid Promise'' and has been implemented by companies, non-profits, and development agencies in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Another recent focus of interest lies on the impact of successful BoP-approaches on sustainable development. Some of the most significant obstacles encountered when integrating sustainable development at the BoP are the limits to growth that restrict the extended development of the poor, especially when applying a resource-intensive Western way of living. Nevertheless, from a normative ethical perspective poverty alleviation is an integral part of sustainable development according to the notion of intragenerational justice (i.e. within the living generation) in the

Brundtland Commission The Brundtland Commission, formerly the World Commission on Environment and Development, was a sub-organization of the United Nations (UN) that aimed to unite countries in pursuit of sustainable development. It was founded in 1983 when Javier Pé ...

's definition. Ongoing research addresses these aspects and widens the BoP approach also by integrating it into corporate social responsibility thinking.

What is the actual shape of the wealth pyramid?

The pyramid is a graphical depiction of inverse relationship between two variables as one increases the other decreases. We find that the percent of world wealth and the percent of world population controlling it are related with each other in an inverse relation. If we plot the world wealth in percent terms along the vertical axis of a graph and the corresponding percent population having control on it on the horizontal axis of a graph and add the mirror image of this graph on the left side of the vertical axis we get a wealth pyramid and can see that as we move to higher and higher wealth brackets we find that fewer and fewer people have access to it, thus the figure has a wide bottom and a lean top similar to the pyramids of Egypt. It has been reported that the gap between the ToP and BoP is widening over time in such a way that only 1% of the world population controls 50% of the wealth today, and the other 99% is having access to the remaining 50% only. On the basis of this report the wealth pyramid would look like the one shown in the illustration.

How low is the bottom?

The standards and benchmarks developed – for example less than $2.5 a day – always tell us about the upper limit of what we call the BoP, and not actually about its ''base or bottom''. The fact is that the bottom or the base is much much lower. Even going by the official definition, for example in India the Rangarajan Committee after re-examining the issue of poverty defined the poverty line in 2011-12 at INR 47.00 ($0.69) per capita per day for urban areas and INR 32.00 ($0.47) per capita per day in rural areas (June 2016 conversion rate), obviously much less than the $2.5 per day benchmark. This again is the ''upper layer'' of the poor as defined by the Rangarajan Committee. Where is the actual bottom? and how low? This can perhaps only be visualised by observing the slums right in the hearts of the cities in the developing countries.

Good business sense and the BoP markets

Kash Rangan, John Quelch, and other faculty members at the Global Poverty Project at Harvard Business School "believe that in pursuing its own self-interest in opening and expanding the BoP market, business can make a profit while serving the poorest of consumers and contributing to development." According to Rangan, "For business, the bulk of emerging markets worldwide is at the bottom of the pyramid so it makes good business sense – not a sense of do-gooding – to go after it." But in the view of Friedman "the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits only, thus, it needs to be examined whether business in BoP markets is capable of achieving the dual objective of making a profit while serving the poorest of consumers and contributing to development?" Erik Simanis has reported that the model has a fatal flaw. According to Simanis, "Despite achieving healthy penetration rates of 5% to 10% in four test markets, for instance, Procter & Gamble couldn’t generate a competitive return on its Pur water-purification powder after launching the product on a large scale in 2001...DuPont ran into similar problems with a venture piloted from 2006 to 2008 in Andhra Pradesh, India, by its subsidiary Solae, a global manufacturer of soy protein ... Because the high costs of doing business among the very poor demand a high contribution per transaction, companies must embrace the reality that high margins and price points aren't just a top-of-the-pyramid phenomenon; they’re also a necessity for ensuring sustainable businesses at the bottom of the pyramid." Marc Gunther states that, "The bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) market leader, arguably, is Unilever ... Its signature BOP product is Pureit, a countertop water-purification system sold in India, Africa and Latin America. It's saving lives, but it's not making money for shareholders." Several consulting companies have modeled the profitability of accessing the bottom of pyramid by utilizing

economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...

Examples of BoP business

Microcredit

One example of "bottom of the pyramid" is the growing microcredit market in South Asia, particularly in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. With technology being steadily cheaper and more ubiquitous, it is becoming economically efficient to "lend tiny amounts of money to people with even tinier assets". An Indian banking report argues that the microfinance network (called "Sa-Dhan" in India) "helps the poor" and "allows banks to 'increase their business'". However, formal lenders must avoid the phenomenon of informal intermediation: Some entrepreneurial borrowers become informal intermediaries between microfinance initiatives and poorer micro-entrepreneurs. Those who more easily qualify for microfinance split loans into smaller credit to even poorer borrowers. Informal intermediation ranges from casual intermediaries at the good or benign end of the spectrum to 'loan sharks' at the professional and sometimes criminal end of the spectrum.

Market-specific products

One of many examples of products that are designed with needs of the very poor in mind is that of a shampoo that works best with cold water and is sold in small packets to reduce barriers of upfront costs for the poor. Such a product is marketed by Hindustan Unilever.

Innovation

There is a traditional view that BOP consumers do not want to adopt innovation easily. However, C. K. Prahalad (2005) claimed against this traditional view, positing that the BOP market is very eager to adopt innovations. For instance, BOP consumers are using PC kiosks, Mobile phone, Mobile banking etc. Relative advantage and Complexity attributes of an innovation suggested by

Everett Rogers Everett M. "Ev" Rogers (March 6, 1931 – October 21, 2004) was an American communication theorist and sociologist, who originated the ''diffusion of innovations'' theory and introduced the term '' early adopter''. He was distinguished professor e ...

(2004) significantly influence the adoption of an innovation in the Bottom of pyramid market (Rahman, Hasan, and Floyd, 2013). Therefore, innovation developed for this market should focus on these two attributes (Relative advantage and Complexity).

Venture capital

Whereas Prahalad originally focused on corporations for developing BoP products and entering BoP markets, it is believed by many that Small to Medium Enterprises (SME) might even play a bigger role. For Limited Partners (LPs), this offers an opportunity to enter new venture capital markets. Although several social venture funds are already active, true Venture Capital (VC) funds are now emerging.

Brand

There is a traditional view that BOP consumers are not brand conscious (Prahalad, 2005). However, C. K. Prahalad (2005) claimed against this traditional view, positing that the BOP market is brand conscious. For instance, brand influences the new product adoption in the bottom of pyramid market (Rahman, Hasan, and Floyd, 2013). Rahman et al. (2013) mentioned that brand may positively influence the relative advantage of an innovation and it leads to adoption of innovation in the BOP. In point of traditional view BOP market, people were not aware about brand concept. Sopan Kumbhar (2013)

Business and community partnerships

As ''Fortune'' reported on November 15, 2006, since 2005 the SC Johnson Company has been partnering with youth groups in the Kibera slum of

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper h ...

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. Together SC Johnson and the groups have created a community-based waste management and cleaning company, providing home-cleaning, insect treatment, and waste disposal services for residents of the slum. SC Johnson's project was the first implementation of the "Base of the Pyramid Protocol".

Conferences

There have been a number of academic and professional conferences focused on the BoP. A sample of these conferences are listed below: * ''Sankalp Conference'' – May 2012 in Mumbai, India – hosted by the Intellecap. * ''Eradicating Poverty through Profit'' – December 2004 in San Francisco, CA – hosted by the World Resources Institute (WRI). * ''Business Opportunity and Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid'' – August 2005 in São Paulo, Brazil, September 2005 in Mexico City, Mexico – two sister conferences co-hosted by WRI, the

Multilateral Investment Fund The Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) is an independent fund administered by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), created in 1993 to support private sector development in Latin America and the Caribbean. In partnership with business orga ...

and

Ashoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...

. * ''Research at the Base of the Pyramid'' – May 2006 in Ann Arbor, MI – co-hosted by the William Davidson Institute (WDI) and the

Ross School of Business The Stephen M. Ross School of Business, also known as Michigan Ross, is the business school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1924, the school is ranked among the best business schools i ...

at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. * ''Business with Four Billion'' – September 2007 in Ann Arbor, MI – co-hosted by WDI and the

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

. * ''Sustainable Innovations at the Base of the Pyramid'' – September 2008 in Helsinki, Finland – hosted by the

Helsinki School of Economics The Aalto University School of Business ( fi, Aalto-yliopiston kauppakorkeakoulu; sv, Aalto-universitets handelshögskola), is the largest business school in Finland. Founded in 1911, it is the second oldest business school in Finland and one of ...

. * "The Bottom of the Pyramid in Practice" – June 2009, hosted by the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine, and sponsored by Intel Research, the UC Discovery program, and the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations at UC Irvine. * "Impact of Base-of-the-Pyramid Ventures" – November 2009 in Delft, the Netherlands – hosted by the

Delft University of Technology Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...

. * "BoP Summit 2013" - October 2013, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA - hosted by the William Davidson Institute (WDI). * "BoP Global Network Summit 201

July 2015, Burlington, Vermont, USA - hosted by the BoP Global Network.

Footnotes

Sources

#Dalglish C. and M. Tonelli 2016. Entrepreneurship at the Bottom of the Pyramid. New York, U.S.A.: Routledge. #''Microcredit in India: Helping Themselves'' in ''The Economist'', August 11, 2005. #
Hart, S. L. & London, T. 2005. Developing native capability: What multinational corporations can learn from the base of the pyramid. ''Stanford Social Innovation Review'', 3(2): 28-33.
#''Profits – a penny at a time'' by David Ignatius in ''The Washington Post'', July 5, 2005. #Karnani, Aneel G., ''Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: A Mirage'' . Ross School of Business Paper No. 1035 # #London, T. 2008. The base-of-the-pyramid perspective: A new approach to poverty alleviation. In G. T. Solomon (Ed.), ''Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings.'' #Prahalad, C K (2004) Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid: Eradicating poverty through profits. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. # #''e-Choupal'' #Rogers, E. M. ( 2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press.

External links

Making Bottom of the Pyramid Marketing Work

Wdi.umich.edu

Telecom use at the Bottom of the Pyramid in Emerging Asia

Lirneasia.net
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bottom Of The Pyramid Economic inequality Sustainable development