Business intelligence for corporate to cater to the bottom of the pyramid

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“Our target is to double our business between 2010 and 2020. What we have achieved in 125 years, we want to create in 10 years”. This is one of the recent quotes by Muhtar Kent, the CEO of Coca Cola Company who, like many other business leaders has a vision to take his company onto the path of rapid growth. But how exactly can this growth be achieved?

Today any company having ambitious growth plans knows that probably the only way to increase revenues is to build sizable businesses in developing countries. But unfortunately this is easier said than done. More often than not, profits have dodged the companies who have dedicated their efforts in this direction. The problem seems to have the tenacious hold of a barnacle. Apart from a modicum of success in industries like telecommunications, fast-moving consumer goods, and pharmaceuticals, global corporations have largely been unable to reduce costs and prices enough to serve poor consumers. As a result most companies prefer to target the burgeoning middle class in these countries. But it is not time yet to give up on the bottom of the pyramid.



As the late Mr C K Prahalad pointed out that a huge percentage of the population lives in poverty and they represent about $5 trillion of purchasing power. Much of the engagement with bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers requires selling low-margin products in high volumes. Multinationals often find it difficult to tweak their business models for environments that are very different from their core markets. The prices are too high for this population and their usual supply chains and production methods present impediments to delivering to this stratum of the population.



What is required today is that the posse of men and women graduating from top business schools as well as eminent business leaders across the globe come up with strategies that strike the problem right at its root and provide with the right kind of solutions that benefit both businesses as well as this sizeable population that needs our attention.