Over the years, it has become fashionable to talk about the business opportunity offered by those at the bottom of the (economic) pyramid. Many national and international seminars have been conducted to highlight this hitherto undiscovered gold-mine. Any challenge to the business rationale for pursuing such a market is considered heretical and almost blasphemous.

For those at the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ (BoP), the four billion people or so living on less than two dollars a day, life is hard. Although collectively they have considerable combined purchasing power, they have up to now been traditionally overlooked by businesses. However, major multinational corporations (MNCs) are now seeing opportunities in developing products for the BoP markets, while making a difference to the lives of the poor people.

India obviously has barely touched its potential, still faced with vast poverty, corruption, and infrastructure needs. University of Michigan global management expert C. K. Prahalad this spring told Indian business leaders that if India, which is already producing 3 million college graduates a year, can educate the poor, it will have the world's largest pool of trained people power by 2022.

New Delhi, Aug 19 (IANS) Four of India’s largest companies Tuesday showcased here how they have benefited by tapping India’s huge rural market.

The four - ICICI Bank, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Hero Honda Motors and Infosys Technologies - are among the largest in their own areas of business.

New Delhi: Indian companies seeking their pot of gold from the lower-end or bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers are in for a bit of shock: The market may be much smaller in reality. While earlier, this market was supposed to be formed of 400 million people, now market research firms Technopak Advisors and Evalueserve are saying that it is not more than 160 million.

How much does the global slowdown impact India? What should be the corporate structures and strategies to weather the current storm? Can India overcome the growth blip? Which sector is in need of urgent reform? We put these questions to management guru Prof CK Prahalad, who was in the city for a CII session on ‘India@75: The emerging agenda’.

As the celebrations of India @60 wind down and as the national attention is consumed with problems of the moment—price of energy, inflation, debt relief to farmers, political realignment in the states—it is hard to focus attention on the future of India. The urgent is likely to drive out the important. Moreover, it is easy to get carried away by growth statistics of the past five years and feel “we have arrived”.

In his best-selling book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman had shown how globalisation had flattened the differences between developed and developing countries in terms of access to opportunity and growth.

In Globality*, authors Harold L Sirkin, James W Hemerling and Arindam K Bhattacharya from Boston Consulting Group, show how, over the past two decades, a range of corporations from the developing world have begun to disrupt traditional paradigm of development and tilted the balance of competition in their favour with their predilection for "rapid-fire innovation".

What does this mean for the future of competition? Delhi-based co-author Arindam Bhattacharya discusses these issues with Kanika Datta.

The New York based Acumen Fund is a non-profit venture fund that invests in businesses that have a social and economic impact. It will invest in companies providing affordable, critical goods and services in sectors such as health, water, housing and energy. The geographies it focuses on are South Asia and East Africa, besides the US. Since it set up shop in India a couple of years ago, the fund has made equity investments in Kochi based ayurvedic chain, Ayur Vaid Hopsitals, Hyderabad-based LifeSpring Hospitals, Mumbai-based ambulance start-up service ‘Dial 1298 For Ambulance’, and Drishtee, a rural communications company. Acumen does not believe in a profit maximisation model and would invest only in businesses that benefit people socially.
They generally don’t invest at the idea stage, and also try and stay away from pure technology plays. They want to diversify into agriculture and nutrition in India and are scouting for investments in these sectors. They typically invest between $500K-$2 million in companies. Being a non-profit venture fund, it is often dificult to find companies catering to low income markets and matching the requirements of the fund, Varun Sahni, India portflio Director, Acumen Fund India, said in an interview to VC Circle. Prior to Acumen, Sahni has worked with both for-profit and not-for-profit organisations focusing on enterprise creation across India. He has also been an angel investor in a number of companies in the hospitality aervices, food and beverage sectors. Excerpts: