Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think

by Peter H. Diamandis

The result was another article, this one just sixteen pages long, that was destined to change the world—although, as Hart points out, that didn’t happen overnight. “It took us four years before anyone would publish it. The paper went through literally dozens of revisions before coming out in 2002 as ‘The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ [in the journal Strategy + Business]. That paper became an underground hit before it was ever published and spawned a whole new field: BOP business. For me, this was a life-changing experience. For C.K., it was another day at the office.” Their article made a simple point: the four billion people occupying the lowest strata of the economic pyramid, the so-called bottom billion, had lately become a viable economic market. They didn’t claim that the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) was an ordinary market, rather that it was extraordinary. While the majority of BOP consumers lived on less than $2 a day, it was their aggregate purchasing power that made for extremely profitable possibilities. Of course, this radically different business environment demanded radically different strategies, but for those companies that could adapt to business unusual, both Hart and Prahalad felt that the opportunities were immense. Backing up this claim was a quick survey of a dozen big-name companies that had all enjoyed considerable success in BOP markets after adopting business practices that were a little outside their comfort zone. Arvind Mills, for example,...