THE METAMORPHOSIS

By Ernie Delfin

New Generations  Director

Newport Irvine Rotary Club

ROTARIANS CAN DO MORE TO HELP

THOSE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID

            I  just finished reading “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”,   an international best-seller authored by C. K.  Prahalad.     I   love the book so much that I ordered a dozen copies to give as gifts to  some of my business friends who are  also engaged in some kind of  community action work, like the Rotarians,  in their own communities.   

          The book has kept me both engrossed and  intrigued by the many  revolutionary ideas that the author, with his dozens of researchers-collaborators, has scholarly presented  with success case stories along the way.  No less than   Bill Gates, a great benefactor  to  Rotary International, wrote:   “C.K. Prahalad argues that companies must revolutionize how they do business in developing countries if both sides of the economic equation are to prosper. Drawing on wealth of case studies,  The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid offers an intriguing blueprint for how to fight poverty with profitability.” 

              Visiting  a  developing country,  (why do they call such countries “third world” puzzles me?)  like  Zambia, Mexico, India or the Philippines is quite different than touring progressive countries like the United States. If you only shop  in malls like   Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive or Newport Beach’s Fashion Island, you will definitely  experience some degree kind of culture shock when you go to undeveloped countries’ market places.  The face of (material) poverty is present almost every where,  yet people like ants go on their daily life  as the residents  probably do not even realize that they are “poor” by  Western standards.  Ironically, however, people seem happy and  content with the little material possessions they have  often  to the amazement  of many  first time North American tourists.

             Doing business with the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP)  requires patience, innovation and complete understanding of the  BOP practices and culture. The typical way of doing business in advanced countries normally does not work in the BOP environment. A new paradigm in conducting business in this massive BOP society is a must  just to  survive and  succeed   The  priorities and cultural tendencies of these BOP customers  are uniquely different as they often  buy only the things that they need for a day or two.   As the poor spend most of their time  in quest for their family’s  basic needs like as food, shelter and clothing,    there is almost no time nor money left for education, a great equalizer or  tool  to extricate themselves from the web of poverty that they were born into.    Hence,  the lives  of those in the BOP  become a vicious circle: no education means almost no chance to unshackle the bondage of poverty that they have inherited from previous generations..  

              The book describes this unique environment where many businesses fail  and thereby also fail to help the community to rise up to another level of progress. However, the few innovative businesses, like Casas Bahia in Brazil,   Hindustan Level Limited in India or CEMEX in Mexico that accept and understand the peculiarities  of this BOP market are now thriving and giving rays of hope to millions of  people to have  a better future.  

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              We Rotarians and educated leaders, if we are called “the salt of the earth”,  must also  learn how to innovate and make our noble efforts magnified  to achieve wider and greater impact. In future district conferences or assemblies, probably we  can hold  workshops with any of these businessmen  applying these revolutionary  practices  to be able to empower more poor people become more self-sufficient  in many undeveloped or developing nations where Rotary is already present.

             Empowering the poor by training them to have livelihood projects is quite noble,  but hardly  enough to change the economic landscape of the BOP. Teaching a person how to fish,  that will probably  make him not go hungry for a day is OK,  but that is barely enough.  Teaching people  how to fish and then helping a   few good  fishermen  to acquire a boat and educating them with the rudiments of being a  business owner so they  can   hire others to fish  for them  is a far  better goal.

             The Western world  must continue to  innovate and understand the underlying culture why millions of people remain poor to this day. Often, due to their being exploited and subjugated for centuries,  these people of undeveloped countries  (BOP)  just do not have the means, opportunity  nor  capital to venture into any business  undertaking that gives them sustainable profits in order to progress.  Often the poor live day by day, exposed daily to natural calamities  as well as man-made disasters, like war,  that make the plight of the poor much worse.  

               Rotarians  can help more people more deeply if we   find pragmatic  solutions  to dismantle the  infrastructure of many countries’  (feudal) system of social injustice, the root  cause of  untold poverty of  their  people.  A philosopher once said:  “No  charity work can  substitute the lack of social justice in any  society”.  Yes,   fellow Rotarians that  is the greatest challenge that our world faces today as we do  our best to “MAKE DREAMS REAL”  every   year.

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  Email writer:  ernie.delfin@gmail.com  or drbannatiran@yahoo.com