International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume VI, Issue X, October 2022|ISSN 2454-6186
Bottom of the Pyramid – A working paper to understand whether globalization is bad for the poor
Mishra, Ganesh Prasad1 & Mishra, Kusum Lata2
1Professor Birla Institute of Technology Mesra Ranchi Off campus Jaipur, India
2Associate Lecturer Birla Institute of Technology Mesra Ranchi Off campus Jaipur, India
Abstract: There is great interest to understand whether “Bottom of the Pyramid” (BOP) approach is good or bad for poverty alleviation. The area lying at the bottom of the “Bottom of the pyramid” epitomizes those populations that make transaction in the market that are informal and unstructured. This area has become the pivot of attraction as maximum of the corporate want to target this area for marketing their products. Maximum authors have also started doing a lot of research in this area. There is a growing debate in this area whether BOP has been able to eradicate poverty from the region or not. The purpose of this paper to show case those feature that makes it different from other methods of uprooting poor and the poverty.
Keywords- Bottom of the pyramid, poor, poverty.
I. INTRODUCTION
Prahald (2014) suggest a radical ideal to aid in the current efforts to eradicate the world’s issue of poverty. By marshalling in a new army of entrepreneurs whose marketing focus has shifted from promoting their services and goods to those traditionally on top half of the pyramid, to level of bottom tier, certain advantages have been afforded them from onset. First, Prahald (2014) surmises that volume of the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) is so significant that it begs for innovative solutions to manifest the new challenges presented by this often forgotten market. Subsequently, the practitioners like former Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates are starting to embrace the double bottom-line of profit along with social responsibility. The proper term that is being promoted by those who embrace this type of philosophy is social entrepreneurship (Simanis, 2012).
Another benefit, which is being touted by the disciples of Prahald (2014), is that this experiment is a less expensive and less outcome, with a more-quantity approach which will allow the private sector to garner the necessary profits to enable them to continually return to this emerging market for more opportunities to promote goods and services. Nevertheless, there are some problems with the approach. First, experience suggest that an impractical number of 30% penetration rate will need to occur for an business to maintain the low-price and low margin strategy, while simultaneously, if a corporation desires to expand beyond the village to capitalize on their prior success, infrastructure limitations may impede reaching those who are on the outskirts of the village. Thus, it seems that a long-term strategy of investing in the local infrastructure may have to be deployed to realize the margins to sustain such a market strategy.