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The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (The Wharton Press Paperback Series) (平装)
by C. K. Prahalad
| Category:
Current affairs, Economics, Global politics, Nonfiction |
| Market price: ¥ 198.00
MSL price:
¥ 178.00
[ Shop incentives ]
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A rare book that presents important research findings and explains in a concise and compelling style how to explore opportunities in the world's largest and fastest growing markets. |
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AllReviews |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 15 items |
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Mark Malloch Brown (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
An important and insightful work showing persuasively how the privatesector can be put at the center of development, not just as a rhetoricalflourish but as a real engine of jobs and services for the poor. |
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Madeleine (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid belongs at the top of the reading list for business people, academics, and experts pursuing the elusive goal of sustainable growth in the developing world. C. K. Prahalad writes with uncommon insight about consumer needs in poor societies and opportunities for the private sector to serve important public purposes while enhancing its own bottom line. If you are looking for fresh thinking about emerging markets, your search is ended. This is the book for you. |
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Ken Blanchard (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
Most people recognize that poverty is a major problem in the world, yet they throw up their hands and say, ‘What to do?’ Not so C. K. Prahalad. The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid gives us hope and strategies for eradicating poverty through profits that benefit all. Pass this book on to those who need to read it. |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
Fortune is an interesting, inspiring book. The study of poverty eradication gets short shrift in most business schools but this book suggests that a lot of resources and a phalanx of graduate students (since most graduate students claim to be poor, perhaps they empathize better; at least they're cheaper to hire than business faculty) at Wharton and Michigan did a lot of digging for answers. This is a noble cause, well-financed, and maybe these two business schools will support these efforts with a revision to their MBA curricula. While teaching a man to fish is better than giving a man a fish, it is better still to teach a village how to raise fish (or capital, or critical mass, or some other key resource), and that is the fundamental if implicit message and philosophy here. Poor people don't need charity; they need access to and information about the tools of capitalism, and governments and other not-for-profits are not likely to do this as such actions would put them out of business. Read the "Twelve principles of innovation for BOP markets" (pp. 25 - 27) and you'll get the basic Reader's Digest, Harvard Business Review executive summary.
The mendacity of the claim, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you," gets a lot of reinforcement here. Rather than help poor people, an early table (p. 11) shows that the government charges poor people more than rich people for the same water service. And the evidence, much of it discovered by Peru's Hernando De Soto, that governments delight in making entrepreneurship, innovation and capitalism almost a criminal offense, shines right through.
The false conceit exposed here is that governments are not likely to fix poverty, nor are NGOs, the UN, or other alphabetical, "not-for-profit" agencies. Maybe HLL, CEMEX, SMEs or some other, similarly acronymed, profit-seeking organizations will do it. It is not clear that there is a fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, even if there are four billion people (depends, really, on how you define poverty) willing to spend a penny a day on shampoo. There certainly is a profit to be made, but this time it is the poor who stand most to profit from free, global markets.
Fortune also has little, nagging problems. Like most empiricists, this book wants to use data as a singular noun. The font is small and flourished, making the text physically difficult to read. There is a cryptic table (exactly what is a “nos” anyway"?), a graph with no labels for the x- and y-axes. The book is awash with acronyms and academic jargon. Some of the bold-faced assertions read like doctoral dissertation hypotheses. Maybe because the book is primarily graduate-student written case studies with a lengthy introduction by the author, there is a tendency to repeat information from previous chapters. Decrying excessive packaging and high transaction costs, the authors also commend single-use purchases on a daily basis, filling land fills with sachets and making shopping a daily chore. If we are going to `microfinance' progress, we might want to start with a store credit for a refillable shampoo bottle (I am pretty sure that Coca-Cola mastered this marketing concept in South America years ago). In case the bookstore browser is unsure as to what the book is about, the book has a title ("The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid"), a subtitle ("Eradicating poverty through profits" and a sub-subtitle ("Enabling dignity and choice through markets"). And the dust cover blurbs from Bill Gates, Madeleine Albright, and similar `names' are a bit hyperbolic.
David Landes (The Wealth and Poverty of Nations) did a better job of explaining the cultural and legal system changes needed to make transactions easier for the customers. TGO (I'll let you look it up) means we have to have a government that assists wealth creation rather than simply tax, block, or prohibit progress out of poverty by people.
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John Hilliard (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
I think it is fair to say that it is rare that a book falling into the business category can also be one that can also be inspiring. This book falls into that category. The books main premise is that the worlds 4 billion plus people that live in rather dismal poverty are never going to be able to claw their way out of that poverty based on insufficient charity. The author believes that what is going to get these people a better quality of life is business investment. Global organizations can profit by establishing locations in these under serviced markets, sell a base product at a marginal profit and increase the well being of the community. The more of this investment, the more wealth is generated within the community and the more business opportunities there are.
The author gives a basic volume business case study for how to make a profit in these rather depressed markets. He also claims that even though the populations are so poor, there are so many of them that any consumer staple product could provide sustainable revenue. The author wraps his whole premise up with dialog around how major global organizations are hitting the wall within the western world in total sales and to obtain real growth they are going to have to start looking to the less attractive parts of the globe. The author finishes by stating that business can not only increase share holder value, but also make meaningful and sustained improvements in the life's of literally billions of people.
Overall I found the book well written and enjoyable. I got carried away in the optimistic win / win scenarios the author was detailing. Hey why can't this work I thought, look at all the good it would do. Well time will tell, the pessimist in me sees a good amount of risk that would keep a good chunk of the business world at bay. Regardless, the book is a compelling, interesting and inspiring book that is well worth your time. |
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1 2 Total 2 pages 15 items |
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