Reflection to Prahalad’s “The Bottom of The Pyramid”

The first 3 chapters of Prahalad’s “The Fortune at The Bottom Of The Pyramid” is actually a cheerful reading compare with Collier’s “The Bottom Billion”. Mr. Prahalad offers “workable” solutions for the poor side of this world, or should I say, just India? I can’t get rid of the impression of what Paul Collier already gave me from his description of the desperate and yet helpless conditions in African countries, and here, from Prahalad, everything sounds full of hope again. I think it would be too optimist and if we take India as the standard case for all of the people/ markets from  BOP.

I do agree with Mr. Prahalad that t is the poor who stand most to profit from free, global markets. While that is true, the goal cannot be reached without a government being willing to assume a leadership role in making transactions easier for customers and accepting the responsibility of helping to create wealth rather than merely taxing wealth. There lies the greatest potential for economic growth from the billions of people living at the bottom of the economic pyramid. The crucial point is to figure out how to change the current main business runner’s mind to make they truly believe in this and start to create business opportunities that fit local consumers’ spending behavior.

As what Prahalad mentioned, education is still the key in this game. Internet sure can help to break the “media dark zone” problem there. And since most of the people from BOP countries can not afford personal computers, Pal, Patra, Nedevschi, Plauche, and Pawar’s idea of shared computers in the labs might offer a “better than nothing” solution for them. Of course it is not going to change everybody’s life there nor is it going to affect the BOP’s economic in the near future, but it will at least open a window to a different business opportunity for both sides (BOP and developed countries) in the long-term.