How to turn the poor into consumers
There comes a point when many a leading management guru tires of mere trade and turns their attention to the world's agonies. C.K. Prahalad has rarely been out of the top 10 rankings of business thinkers for a decade, because of the success of his book on corporate strategy, Competing for the Future (co-authored with Gary Hamel) and a commanding stage presence. Now, like Peter Drucker and Charles Handy before him, he has set his sights beyond the traditional horizons of the business guru.
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid looks to nothing less than a solution for world poverty. A market-based solution, naturally and one that would benefit business as much as the poor. His unshakeably optimistic suggestion is that to generate independence, self-respect and sustainable growth among the world's 4bn poor (people who live on less than $2 a day), multinational companies must see them as a viable market for products and services.
The trick lies in turning the poor into consumers. If business can create the capacity to consume, he argues, technology, innate entrepreneurship and institutional reform will bring gradual integration into the global economy. “I have no doubt that the elimination of poverty and deprivation is possible by 2020,” he writes. To make profits at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) Mr Prahalad says companies cannot simply tweak what they offer the rich. They have to develop a “forgetting curve” and innovate. Cash-flow tends to be low and unpredictable, so it is no good offering shampoo by the bottle. A “single-serve [sachet] revolution” is now under way. The BOP is acutely conscious of aspirational brands. The challenge for companies is transforming the “price-performance relationship” of what they produce to take account of different requirements and incomes. They must make things that are affordable, accessible, and available: the poor do not defer their spending saving is rarely an option.
Mr Prahalad calls for the force of technology to be driven into creating “hybrid” products those that work with still-evolving infrastructure, such as PCs with back-up power sources built in. At this point, the reader might ponder: did not Henry Ford ingeniously stimulate a market for his Model T by paying his workers the unprecedented rate of $5 a day? And E.F. Schumacher of Small is Beautiful fame speak of the need for “intermediate technologies” for the developing world?
Mr Prahalad does not say if he has drawn on such inspirations. But then the intoxicating hugeness of his ambition makes most visionaries look like dabblers.
Forget the concern for the world's desperate the commercial imperative will make the difference, he claims. Growth opportunities in the region of 50 to 100 per cent are available if companies find that elusive “sweet spot” of function, price, distribution and volume. Take the Monsoon Hungama mobile phone. GSM mobile phones were first available in India for $1,000. As the price fell to $300, use gradually spread. When Reliance, a mobile phone provider,introduced the Monsoon Hungama promotion of 100 free minutes with a multimedia handset for $10 and a monthly payment of $9.25, the company received 1m applications in 10 days. Today India is the fastest growing wireless market in the world.
So why are more global businesses not lavishing attention on poor consumers? In an answer that looks feeble amid the book's thoroughness, Mr Prahalad blames “the power of dominant logic”. The BOP and their governments view corporations as crafty exploiters. Corporations see the poor as victims without resources living under frequently corrupt regimes. The barriers are principally psychological, not structural, economic or historical. It is just as well that the argument's weight depends on compelling examples of “making it happen” from banks offering good credit terms to how an internet connection enabled farmers to compare prices so they were no longer ripped off at auctions. Mr Prahalad has compiled an array of insightful, detailed material about selling profitably to the developing world. This is where the achievement of his book lies. It takes verve and chutzpah to make a “win-win” on this scale not sound far-fetched.
如何使穷人成为消费者
当前，很多当红的管理学大师对于纯粹的贸易课题已经厌倦，而将关注投向全世界的种种苦难。普哈拉（C.K. Prahalad）凭借与加里?哈梅尔（Gary Hamel）合著关于企业战略的《未来大竞争》（Competing for the Future）一书的成功以及权威性的讲演风格，10年来他始终保持着商界十大思想家之一的地位。与前人彼得?德鲁克（Peter Drucker）和查尔斯?汉迪（Charles Handy）一样，普哈拉现在已经将目光已经转移到到商界大师的传统研究领域之外。
《金字塔底部的财富》（The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid）一书几乎就是一条全球贫困的解决之道。这自然是一条建立在市场基础上的解决之道，同时这个方案也让商业和穷人同样受益。普哈拉的建议带有坚定不移的乐观精神，这就是：跨国公司必须将全世界的穷人（每天生活费低于2美元者）视为需要商品和服务的潜在市场，并为他们带来独立、自尊和可持续发展。
关键在于让穷人成为消费者。他主张，如果商业活动能够创造消费能力，那么技术、内含的企业家精神以及制度改革就可以推动全球经济逐步统一。他写道：“我坚信，在2020年消除贫困和匮乏是完全可能的。”普哈拉表示，为了在金字塔底部（BOP）创造效益，公司不能照搬他们服务富人的模式。他们必须研究出一条“遗忘曲线”(forgetting-curve)并加以创新。现金流总要保持低水平状态，并且具有不可预知性，因此销售瓶装香波绝对不是好办法。“一次性（小包装）革命”目前正大行其道。金字塔底部的人对于所追求的品牌具有强烈的意识。企业面临的课题是，将所制产品的“性价比关系”转化为考虑不同需求和收入水平的模式。它们生产的必须是人们买得起、用得着、买得到的产品――这样穷人就不会推迟购买行为，并基本不再选择储蓄。
普哈拉提倡，用驱动技术的力量来创造与不断发展的基础设施相得益彰的“复合型”产品，例如内置备用电源的个人电脑。这一点或许会引起读者的思考：亨利?福特（Henry Ford）破天荒地每天付工人5美元，难道不就是想通过这种绝妙的方式为他的T型车打开市场吗？因著有《小即是美》（Small is Beautiful）而闻名的舒马赫（E.F.Schumacher），难道不就是为发展中国家计，而谈论“中间技术”（intermediate technologies）的必要性的吗？
普哈拉并未说他是否汲取了上述灵感。但是他的抱负宏伟博大令人痴迷，让多数空想家都相形见绌。
他声称：把对全世界穷人的关切抛在脑后吧，因为商业的力量将创造崭新的世界。如果公司能够找到效能、价格、销售和产量之间难以琢磨的“最佳结合点”（sweet spot），贫困地区发展的机会50％至100％都是可以把握的。让我们来看看Monsoon Hungama手机的例子。GSM手机最初在印度上市时的售价为1000美元。随着手机价格跌至300美元，用户也逐渐增多。印度手机服务商Reliance公司推出Monsoon Hungama促销计划，即用户可用10美元购得一部多媒体手机，月付9.25美元，并可获得100分钟免费通话时间，这家公司在10天之内就获得100万份订单。今天，印度已经成为世界上增长速度最快的无线通讯市场。
有鉴于此，为何众多国际企业未能充分重视低收入消费者呢？普哈拉在这部分析透彻的著作中提出一个看上去不甚有力的答案――他归罪于“主流逻辑的力量”。金字塔底部的人以及当地政府，视企业为狡诈的剥削者。企业则视穷人为腐败盛行的体制中资源缺乏的受害者。最主要的障碍是心理障碍，而不是体制障碍，也不是经济或者历史障碍。不过作者通过提出具有很强说服力的“积极促成”（make it happen）的实例来支持自己的观点，其中包括银行提供优惠的信贷条件，以及互联网帮助农民进行价格比较而不再在拍卖中受到欺诈。关于如何在发展中国家销售产品而获利，普哈拉收集了一批精辟入理的详尽材料。这就是他这本书的成就所在。作者凭借其热情和大胆构思所阐述的宏大的双赢模式，并非牵强附会。
