[William Baue/SocialFunds.com]: Stuart Hart’s Capitalism at the Crossroads perfectly complements University of Michigan Business Professor C. K. Prahalad’s The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, perhaps even surpassing it in significance.
‘Unlike greening, which works through
the existing supply chain to effect continuous improvement in the
current business system, ‘beyond greening’ strategies focus on emerging
technologies, new markets, and unconventional partners and
stakeholders,’ writes Prof. Hart. ‘Such strategies are thus disruptive
to current industry structure and raise the possibility of significant
repositioning, enabling new players to establish leading positions as
the process of creative destruction unfolds.’
The primary business strategy that
promises to arise from the ashes of creative destruction is the BOP
approach of serving the needs of the poor in ways that are culturally
appropriate, environmentally sustainable, and profitable, to paraphrase
Prof. Hart’s definition. One key to leveraging the BOP market strategy
is for multinational corporations to ‘become indigenous.’
I haven’t read the book yet, but believe two things about the BOP opportunity:
– it is potential huge, and hugely significant;
– it will require profound changes — in self-identity, more than in
ways of doing business — perhaps far more profound than most
businesses will dare embrace.
But for those that do…