Designing for the Base of the Pyramid

Whitney, Patrick; Kelkar, Anjali

doi:10.1111/j.1948-7169.2004.tb00181.x

Cited by 41 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…They only required limited storage which would save milk, vegetables and leftovers from spoilage for a day or two (Eyring et al, 2011). At present, less than 18% of all households in India possess a refrigerator (Whitney, 2010). The penetration level, especially in rural and semi-urban areas, is even lower.…”

Section: Battery-driven Fridge: Chotukoolmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The product uses high-end insulation to stay cool for 2-3 hours without power, while its small size (1.5 X 2 feet) caters to constraints of small living spaces. It is lowweighted to ensure portability since many of ChotuKool's potential owners live in small oneroom dwellings and household items have to be shifted every evening to make sleeping space (Whitney, 2010). At launch, ChotuKool was about 50% cheaper than the next entrylevel fridge available in the market that are endowed with much greater storage capacity than required by the targeted customer group (Bellman et al, 2009, Kumar, 2009, Chakravarthy and Coughlan, 2011.…”

Section: Battery-driven Fridge: Chotukoolmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Open Global Innovation Networks as Enablers of Frugal Innovation: Propositions Based on Evidence from India

Tiwari

Herstatt

2012

SSRN Journal

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SummaryRecent years have seen the emergence of low-cost innovations targeted at economically weaker sections of the society, seeking to align business with social welfare. In many instances, results on the ground have been, however, rather sobering as firms have generally (probably justifiably) worried that "good quality, low price" products may cannibalize into their regular business. At the same time those very customers that were intended to benefit from the new approach have tended to shy away fearing low quality and social stigma of using cheap products. Using multiple case studies of successful affordability-driven innovations ("frugal innovations") from India we investigate how firms can effectively reduce market and technology uncertainty of product innovations targeted at price-sensitive customers. The key criteria to success seem to lie in reducing the overall cost of ownership and enhancing customer perception of quality and image. The case studies reveal that affordability-driven innovations are especially successful when firms seek recourse to "open global innovation networks" (OGINs) for collaborative development in all phases of the innovation value chain.

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Section: Battery-driven Fridge: Chotukoolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Battery-driven Fridge: Chotukoolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open Global Innovation Networks as Enablers of Frugal Innovation: Propositions Based on Evidence from India

Tiwari

Herstatt

2012

SSRN Journal

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“…The research in the BoP domain has been carried out by several authors from different disciplines (London et al, 2010;Nielsen and Samia, 2008;Prahalad, 2004;Rivera-Santos and Rufín, 2010;Subrahmanyan and Gomez-Arias, 2008;UNDP, 2008;Viswanathan et al, 2010;Whitney and Kelkar, 2004). Over the past several years, the design and development of products at the BoP has been investigated by several authors (Anderson and Billou, 2007;Hammond and Prahalad, 2004;Hammond et al, 2007;Kirchgeorg and Winn, 2006;Prahalad and Hart, 2002).…”

Section: Research Aimsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and development of products and services at the Base of the Pyramid: a review of issues and solutions

Jagtap

Larsson

Kandachar

2013

IJSSOC

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Abstract:The base of the world income pyramid, generally called the 'Base of the Pyramid' (BoP), consists of four billion people with average per day income of less than four dollars. Over the past several years, the design and development of products and services at the BoP (BoP people as producers and consumers as well) has been investigated by several authors from different disciplines. A literature review showed that the issues (i.e. constraints) in designing and developing products and services at the BoP and ingredients of solutions addressing these issues have not been synthesised. Furthermore, quantitative findings on these issues and solution-ingredients are lacking. This paper addresses these gaps by pulling together the issues and solutioningredients in the BoP from the reviewed literature and comparing these with a large study found in this literature. In addition, through the analysis of the data available in this large study, we extracted some quantitative findings on these issues and solution-ingredients, and identified relationships between them. We have discussed the practical implications of these findings. This study adds to the growing body of literature on the sustainable development at the BoP.Keywords: BoP; Base of the Pyramid; poverty; sustainable development; design and development; products and services; issues; solutions.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Jagtap, S., Larsson, A. and Andreas Larsson is an Associate Professor at the Department of Design Sciences at Lund University, where he is heading the Innovation Engineering Group. His research agenda aims to create a rich blend of needs-motivated activities dealing, among other things, with cross-functional knowledge sharing, local and distributed teamwork, and participatory innovation. These interests can be summarised in the overarching aim to support product developing individuals, teams and organisations in effectively and efficiently co-creating and sharing ideas and knowledge across a wide range of boundaries (i.e. teams, organisations, cultures, languages, time zones, etc.) in the pursuit of innovation.

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“…Systems approach is required in the design and development of interventions in the BoP. However, much less work has been carried out in this area excepting the studies of Subrahmanyan and Gomez-Arias (2008), Whitney and Kelkar (2004), Nielsen and Samia (2008), and Prahalad (2004). However, these studies have their specific aims, and focus on narrow areas of the BoP.…”

Section: Socio-technical Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over the past several years, the design and development of products and services (i.e. interventions) for the BoP has been investigated by several authors from different disciplines (Prahalad, 2004;Whitney & Kelkar, 2004;Kandachar & Halme, 2008; UNDP, 2008;Jagtap & Kandachar, 2009a;Eaton et al, 2009;London et al, 2009;Viswanathan et al, 2009;Rivera-Santos & Rufín, 2009). Designing and developing products and services for BoP markets requires addressing diverse issues in these markets.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Representing Interventions from the Base of the Pyramid

Jagtap¹,

Kandachar²

2010

JSD

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The base of the world economic pyramid, generally called the base of the pyramid (BoP), consists of four billion people with average per day income of four dollars. While some authors suggest a systems approach to design and develop products and services (i.e. interventions) for BoP markets, a little work has been carried out in this area. Furthermore, a framework to represent interventions in the BoP (i.e. socio-technical systems) and the resulting changes of state is not available. The reviewed studies on technical systems include models that represent inputs and the resulting changes of state in such systems; however, these studies have not been used to represent interventions in socio-technical systems. By modifying a causality model of technical systems, this study develops a framework called the IASTS model to represent interventions in a socio-technical system. It then explains the IASTS model by analyzing two case studies drawn from the BoP. Keywords: Base of the pyramid (BoP), Socio-technical systems, Interventions, Changes of state, Representation IntroductionThe base of the world economic pyramid, generally called the base of the pyramid (BoP), consists of four billion people with average per day income of four dollars. Most of these four billion people live in rural villages, urban slums, or shantytowns. Usually these people have little or no formal education. They are hard to reach via the conventional means of communication and distribution channels. The quality and quantity of products and services available to them is usually inferior (Prahalad & Hart, 2002). The authors state, "Low-income markets present a prodigious opportunity for the world's wealthiest companies -to seek their fortunes and bring prosperity to the aspiring poor". Businesses can make profits in BoP markets and help the poor in satisfying their unmet or under-served needs (Prahalad & Hart, 2002;Prahalad, 2004). Over the past several years, the design and development of products and services (i.e. interventions) for the BoP has been investigated by several authors from different disciplines (Prahalad, 2004;Whitney & Kelkar, 2004;Kandachar & Halme, 2008; UNDP, 2008;Jagtap & Kandachar, 2009a;Eaton et al., 2009;London et al., 2009;Viswanathan et al., 2009;Rivera-Santos & Rufín, 2009). Designing and developing products and services for BoP markets requires addressing diverse issues in these markets. Jagtap and Kandachar (2009b) synthesized the literature on these issues in the BoP. Their study found that the issues identified in the study conducted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, 2008) are comprehensive and include those identified in other relevant studies. These issues are about: how businesses can gain information on BoP markets; under-developed regulatory frameworks; poor physical infrastructure; lack of knowledge and skills of BoP customers; and BoP customers' poor access to financial services. In order to address diverse issues in BoP markets through the design and development of interventions, an int...

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Designing for the Base of the Pyramid

Cited by 41 publications

References 0 publications

Open Global Innovation Networks as Enablers of Frugal Innovation: Propositions Based on Evidence from India

Open Global Innovation Networks as Enablers of Frugal Innovation: Propositions Based on Evidence from India

Design and development of products and services at the Base of the Pyramid: a review of issues and solutions

Representing Interventions from the Base of the Pyramid

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