The Pyramid Base Will Get Much Larger
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
C K Prahalad’s paradigm of targeting the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid makes for great anecdotes. But it’s easier said than done. India is the ideal environment for “field experiments”. Secular growth has seen millions move up from abject poverty to lower-income and then from lower-income to middle-income level.
The sociologists and demographers have fierce, politically-loaded arguments about the percentage of poverty reduction. But it’s clear that the base of the pyramid has grown much larger in absolute numerical terms.
FMCG and telecom service providers are among the biggest beneficiaries. Both are highly competitive industries. They have somewhat similar dynamics in terms of the importance of branding and positioning. Both industries also had to evolve new methods to reach the newly consuming classes and to find price points that worked.
