Driving innovations at the bottom of pyramid

The concept of Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) marketing has now gained prominenceamong academicians and businesses owing toits regenerative impact on billions of the poor across the world. There are significant opportunities for MNCs to generate profits while simultaneously making a social contribution by targeting the BOP. In fact the BOP segment holds great potential for expansion and profits tothe tune of US$ 5 trillion.The BOP market in India accounts for 95 percent of the country‘s population and 84.8% of the total $1.42-trillion national household market. So, entering BOP market in India will open up a huge customer base of nearly 925 million people with $1.2 trillion in purchasing power parity. Prahalad (2004) has rightly stated that ‘the bottom of the economic pyramid is a sandbox for innovation’. In the backdrop of this, the paper elaborates the BOP, business issues, strategic innovations and pitfalls of the BOP approach with case studies. This will provide marketers rich insight to explore the huge, untapped market and more importantly drive innovations leading to sustainable development of people occupying the bottom of pyramid.