The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid – C.K. Prahalad

Book Review Chapter 1:

The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: N/A

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Fortune-Bottom-Pyramid-Eradicating-Publishing/dp/0131877291/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234441981&sr=1-1

Quote:  “The dominant assumption is that the poor have no purchasing power and therefore do not represent a viable market.”

    This is the quote that moved me the most because of its striking but very true saying. I have to agree with the author on this though. This is very true because not everyone has purchasing power. If you take a look at the pyramid, you would find and notice that there are more poor and middle class people as compared to the upper class people. So obviously, the viable market is only small.    

Learning Expectation:

    First of all, I want to learn all about the bottom of the pyramid. I want to know what it is all about and what does it have to do in our everyday life, if ever it has something to do with it. Most likely, I think there is. Without reading the book yet, the way I understand the pyramid is that at the top of the pyramid or at the peak, you have the richest people in the world. And as you go lower, there’s the middle class people and the lower class. So in my understanding, the pyramid is like a classification or rank of people based on wealth.

Review:

    This is the first chapter of the Bottom of the Pyramid by C.K. Prahalad. Basically, this chapter serves as the introduction of what the book is all about asides from its preface section, and the facts about the author. Before anything else, it would be best to first discuss about the author. Prahalad is an internationally recognized as a specialist on corporate strategy and value-added of top management in multinational corporations. Interestingly, he has consulted with the world’s foremost companies. He is also a professor at the University of Michigan and at the same time serves a board of director of the NCR Corp., Hindustan Lever Ltd., and the World Resource Institute. He has written several books and has been named among the top ten management thinkers of the world in every major survey for over ten years.

As we have mentioned n the quote above: The dominant assumption is that the poor have no purchasing power and therefore do not represent a viable market”. This is the world exactly today. A lot of people are experiencing problems, especially financial problems. As you have noticed even in the news or the papers, a lot of people are suffering from these problems. Almost everybody is having problems. It’s just those rich people at the top of the pyramid that is relaxed and not worrying about anything else. That’s reality and we can’t really do something overnight that would change this. It is possible though but it takes time. A long time maybe. So basically, this chapter is all about what the Bottom of the Pyramid is and how the author takes the world today.

What I’ve learned:

    I have learned that because of the majority of the lower and middle class people, it is time to make a strategy for these markets. I think that we must stop making markets just for the upper class people but rather we should focus on creating a market for all the people. Otherwise, it will always be the upper class only. So I think that it would be best to focus on the bottom of the pyramid going up.

Questions:

1.    How long will it take the world until almost all people are stable?

2.    What are the things that need to be done?

3.    How effective is Bottom of the Pyramid?

4.    Other than doing markets for BOP, are there any alternatives for this?

5.    Is BOP the best way to make the world better?

Citation: (C.K. Prahalad, 2006)