Base of the Pyramid

Our Base of the Pyramid Initiative is a global leader in exploring the implications of the BoP Perspective for organizational strategy and poverty alleviation. Our expertise lies in a deep understanding of the unique dimensions of the BoP Perspective, an ability to evaluate the full range of poverty alleviation impacts of BoP ventures, and a collaborative approach to creating business models that incorporates the voices of those at the base of the pyramid.

Our activities include:

• Creating cutting-edge research on key BoP issues
• Generating frameworks to enhance the ability of business strategies to create mutual value with the poor
• Developing a deep understanding of the poverty alleviation implications of different business models
• Collaborating with those at the BoP to faciliate new ventures
• Tackling real-world challenges faced by companies, non-profits, and development agencies in this field
• Organizing and participating in events and conferences where the latest BoP thinking is disseminated
• Offering educational opportunities to share the most current ideas and field-based BoP reserach findings.

To view the BoP brochure, please click here.

BoP Protocol: Toward Next Generation BoP Strategy
2nd Edition, 2008

Simanis, Hart, et. al. have produced the 2nd edition to the BoP Protocol.  This publication asserts that if the enterprise-based approach to poverty alleviation is to flourish in the future, it is imperative that we now move rapidly to a “second-generation” of corporate BoP strategies.

Second generation BoP strategy requires an embedded process of co-invention and business co-creation that brings corporations into close, personal business partnership with BoP communities. It moves corporations beyond mere deep listening and into deep dialogue with the poor, resulting in a shared commitment born out of mutual sharing and mutual learning. It breaks down the wall that “public-private partnerships” inadvertently erect when NGOs become mediators and interlocutors between companies and poor communities rather than bridges uniting them. By creatively marrying corporations’ and communities’ resources, capabilities, and energies, “BoP 2.0” strategies bring to life new business ideas and models that exceed what either partner could imagine or create on their own. In sum, building a BoP business that creates enduring community value, while establishing a foundation for long-term corporate growth and innovation, requires an entirely new strategic process and corporate capability.

>> View the BoP Protocol, 2nd Edition



Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy

The Journal of Enterprising Communities considers enterprise, people and places - a topic critical to the global economy as it is evolving. Increasingly the events critical to the sustainable prosperity of people (culturally, socially, economically and environmentally), are being played out at the nexus of the local or the community (people in places) and the transnational (corporations, groups and movements of the civil sector, and supranational organizations and agreements). And more and more, business enterprises are the vehicles being used by communities of people in pursuit of sustainable prosperity as they define it, and this definition often goes far beyond simple academic criteria.

This journal examines successes and failures of such ventures in a critical way, looking for useful theoretical perspectives, distilling key practices and determining common pitfalls, identifying important policy issues and options, and communicating these findings amongst scholars, practitioners and policy makers.


>> View the Journal