Changing the Role of Corporations in the World

Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have historically grown their businesses by creating products and services for upper- and middle-class consumers in industrialized countries. When companies do address foreign markets outside of the industrialized core, they target consumers whose purchasing power, norms, and needs are comparable to those of “Western” counterparts. The MNC has become synonymous with global inequity and environmental exploitation.

As the saturation of established markets fans anti-globalization flames, visionary companies can re-imagine, re-position, and reinvigorate their businesses by adopting a new approach.

Through the work of Stuart Hart, C.K. Prahalad and others, it has become increasingly apparent that MNCs are uniquely equipped to rouse a commercial revolution. These companies have the reach and the resources required to engage the billions of underserved people in the developing world, many of whom represent the Base of the [economic] Pyramid (BoP)—those earning less than $5 per day. Indeed, conventional MNCs provide for a diverse set of unmet needs, and prosper in the process. However, this does not mean selling extractive, modified versions of existing products and services to the poor; rather, it means acquiring new capabilities to co-develop commercially viable, economically and environmentally sustainable, business ventures with the poor themselves.

ESW catalyzes the creation of these ventures by introducing companies to an indispensable tool: The Base of the Pyramid Protocol™. Through the Protocol, ESW facilitates the development of capabilities that companies require to thrive in emerging markets.

Becoming Native to Place

DuPont executives working with the Samatha Champions in Parvathagiri, AP India

The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Protocol™ is a pioneering, business incubation process that enables multinational corporations to generate new business opportunities and markets at the Base of the Pyramid. Based on a participatory philosophy, the BoP Protocol™ is a model for enterprise and market co-creation by which companies build grassroots business partnerships with BoP entrepreneurs and communities. By bringing together companies and BoP communities in equitable, mutually beneficial partnerships, the BoP Protocol enables new businesses, capabilities, and markets that neither set of partners could create on their own.

We believe that sustainable, successful businesses at the Base of the Pyramid will only emerge through this mutual partnership and co-creation approach, and that to do so, companies must develop their “native capability”. This capability reflects the corporation’s ability to:

• Engage in deep partnerships with income-poor communities
• Co-create new business opportunities and models embedded in the local, cultural context
• Co-design and launch BoP businesses and markets that generate mutual value for all partners
• Build a foundation for innovating disruptive, clean technologies

To download and learn more about the 2nd Edition of the BoP Protocol^* please visit:

http://BoP-Protocol.org