Target market strategy for upwardly mobile BoP segments
* BoP – referring Prahalad’s Bottom of the social and economic pyramid, MoP – middle This visualization of the emerging consumer market opportunity in India is by the insightful analysts at Nomura Research Institute, Japan. When taking this in conjunction with the information collated in my previous post on the imminent boom in upward mobility […]
Emerging evolution of global BoP markets by mindset and income
Japan’s Nomura Research Institute have an interesting take on the evolution of the existing global population currently demarcated as the BoP (Base or Bottom of the Pyramid). While it is not surprising that income levels are expected to increase, given the signals already observed in frontier markets and rapidly growing economies, what was intriguing was […]
Case study of design strategy failure: Whirlpool World Washer for emerging markets
This is a comprehensive study of the introduction of an automatic washing machine, the World Washer, into the Indian market, by Whirlpool Corporation in 1990. Conceived as an important part of Whirlpool’s global strategy in the late nineteen eighties, it was designed for the emerging markets of Mexico, Brazil and India. It failed dramatically and […]
CK Prahalad on the BoP market creation: user driven innovation process
Here is a PDF of what is probably C.K. Prahalad’s last published article “Bottom of the Pyramid as a Source of Breakthrough Innovations” from the January 2012 issue of the Journal of Product Innovation Management. What catches my attention in this article are the process diagrams he shares: Note that immersion in the BoP environment […]
Metadesign and designing culture
Two extremely thought provoking pieces of writing found their way to me recently. The first was Designing Culture by Colin McSwiggen, where he writes about the role that material artefacts play in society and culture’s embedded messaging: This is a big deal because one of the main ways that people are socialized is through using, […]
Time to plan the obsolescence of consumerism
Consumers did not exist prior to WW2. People did. It was after the postwar boom in the United States that a variety of existing professions evolved and morphed to meet the needs of Big Business as industrial production and wealth increased. Consumers were created to meet the unmet needs of the producers. The Waste Makers, […]
Rural India: On the tipping point of a boom or tremors of historic change?
It seems 2012 will be the year of Rural India’s ascendancy over the ubiquitous metros and urban elite in the minds of market makers and strategists alike. I was in New Delhi this last week of August and on my return I thought I’d write an update on my impressions of urban India today, starting […]
Deconstructing the solar lighting market hype
Nairobi solar lantern shop, July 12th 2012 The Economist’s Q3 2012 Technology Quarterly has a paean on the promise of solar lanterns replacing nasty, stinky kerosene once and for all. Of note is the careful mention of MKopa, a Nairobi based startup founded by Nick Hughes of MPesa fame, until now conducting pilot tests in […]
Published! Pathways Out of Poverty by iBoPAsia Project
Innovating with the BoP in Southeast Asia. The iBoP Asia Project has published the complete set of small grants funding innovation projects for those at the Bottom of the Pyramid in the ASEAN region. One of the first projects to win the Small Grants competition in 2008 was The Prepaid Economy Project: Understanding BoP household […]
From the archives: Analyzing value of this personal computer
Continuing the thread of thought from the previous post, what was once a productivity tool for word processing, data analysis, document management – aah, the days when we were told that the paperless office was right around the corner – has become in fact a communications tool. Now, if we take a step back from […]
