Publications
Publications
- January 2018
- HBS Case Collection
The Scope of Business at the Base of the Pyramid: Middle and Lower Income Countries
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Tricia Gregg
Abstract
Using World Bank data, the note defines the Base of the Pyramid population as the 4.76 billion people living on less than $10/day. It briefly reviews the perspectives of key business articles that address this market, notably C.K. Prahalad’s work on Bottom of the Pyramid, and Porter and Kramer’s article “Creating Shared Value.” The note then provides a somewhat more extensive (yet brief) review of the literature from Development Economics literature, before turning to the perspective offered by the HBS MBA course Business at the Base of the Pyramid (BBOP). The note concludes with a brief statistical tour of the key needs that characterize this market segment, namely: nutrition, healthcare, education, sanitation, clean water and energy, financial inclusion, and affordable housing.
Keywords
Citation
Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Tricia Gregg. "The Scope of Business at the Base of the Pyramid: Middle and Lower Income Countries." Harvard Business School Technical Note 518-032, January 2018.
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