• What is the difference between a company that is trying to be green and a company that would use the BOP approach?

At best, companies try to reduce the cost so that they can sell to the rural population. But they go there with the same management tools and marketing practices. Their products are a one-way flow, mostly shoved down the pipeline. I call these BOP 1.O which means they are at the first level of evolution. They have successfully taken the cost out of products or have introduced new, affordable packaging. Hindustan Lever in India is a classic example.

In our model, a corporate will not go there with preconceived notions. It will evolve strategies with the locals. The Grameen family of services is a classic example. It views the poor as partners, not as consumers or clients.

• Isn’t this opposed to the idea of globalisation as we know it?

Not really. This is a transition stage. There will be national corporations with global strategies that can be locally responsive.

A corporation is an ongoing idea. Now corporates are in transition and learning how to do business by hearing the voices of those who have been bypassed by globalisation, and learning to co-develop technologies, products, and services with local people.

• Does your idea work for home-grown companies?

It is a big challenge for Indian companies to not fall prey to the lure of the same game that was played by the US, German and Japanese companies. Take the case of Mexico, it got lured into low-cost manufacturing. When China offered lowered rates, business shifted there leaving Mexico high and dry. Mexico did not develop the skills to make itself more competitive to China — no more capable of breaking the top of the pyramid market.

... contd.