Mobile has proven to a most successful tool for bottom of pyramid markets as it is the most affordable means to generate utilities for mobile users of lower income strata of pyramid and to provide them with quick and low-cost access to information, government systems, business opportunities, access to education, and health. This chapter presents the landscape of contemporary experience through mobile phones in the field of economic value creation, social value, and health among the bottom of the pyramid in India.
TopIntroduction
Bottom of Pyramid markets is lowest strata of economies. Constraints for survival here are not only money rather the need for basic necessities of life. The lowest strata always attract many politicians (U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 7, 1932 in a Radio address), several academicians (Prahalad & Hurt, 2002) and marketers to not only address the issues rather implement the innovations.
United nation development programme reported that there are 700 million people around the world living under extreme poverty and their income is as low as $ 1.90 per day. Priority has always been given to “poverty reduction in World “as the most important one out of seventeen different goals set by them. India, China, Nigeria, Indonesia and South Africa have been identified as top five Bottom of Pyramid markets.
Bottom of Pyramid includes small farmers, slum dwellers, informal sector workers, unskilled /semi-skilled workers, migrants (IFC). The population of worlds’ poorest is distributed amongst the middle and low income developing countries which includes 95 percent of South Asia’s population, 68 percent of the Middle East and North Africa’s population, and 27 percent of Latin America’s population.
UNDP also defined poverty (bottom of pyramid) as multidimensional in demographical aspect where in the segment has not only income constrained rather there is lack of other resources like education, sanitation, water, food, health and living standards.
Table 1.
Key Facts: Bottom of pyramid
• About million people still live below the US $ 1.90
• An additional 800 million people are close to the poverty threshold, social, economic and environmental shocks could push them back in poverty
• In 108 countries, covering a total population of 5.4 million
• 1.6 billion are MPI*-Poor
• 85% of the MPI poor live in rural areas
• Access to different opportunities particularly by the poor and most vulnerable, is the key to reduce poverty. |
MPI*= Multidimensional Poverty Index (developed by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and UNDP)
Source: United National Development Goals
Prahalad and Hurt (2002) had taken reference of Millennium Development Goals by United Nations and Defined Bottom of Pyramid as,
The real source of market promise is not the wealthy few in the developing world, or even the emerging middle-income consumers: It is the billions of aspiring poor who are joining the market economy for the first time.
This is a time for MNCs to look at globalization strategies through a new lens of inclusive capitalism. For companies with the resources and persistence to compete at the bottom of the world economic pyramid, the prospective rewards include growth, profits, and incalculable contributions to humankind.
Socio Economic Caste and Census 2011 defined BoP as people living in slums are 60.90 million and categorized as urban poor. SECC had taken several question in record and on the basis of source of generation of income, defined urban poor as household whose main source of income is as following: