Rethinking Business Models for Flexible Configuration : Lessons from Disruptive Innovations at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Abstract

Since the path-breaking contributions of Prahlad (The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid: eradicating poverty through profits, 2005) and his associates in lifting the lives of people, at the “Bottom of the economic Pyramid” (BOP), scholarly debate around the innovative delivery of social value by large corporations wanting to maintain and build their business success, have been gaining ground (Kolk et al., Bus Soc 53(3):338–377, 2014; Radjou et al., Jugaad innovation: think frugal, be flexible, 2012). It has been argued that an estimated population of four to five billion people earning less than US $2 a day needs urgent and innovative solutions emerging from alliances and collaborations of government, business corporations, NGOs and communities. These collaborations centre on the development of a new mindset where flexibility of a co-creation can be achieved through the mastering of new capabilities by all stakeholders (Ansari et al., J Manage Stud 49(4):813–842, 2012). Many of these capabilities have now become entrenched in the strategic platforms of companies like General Electric, Nestle, Unilever, Danone and a number of others. Nomenclatures such as frugal, jugaad and disruptive have become commonly used phrases in these scholarly explorations of flexible configurations of the newer models and mindsets of business. This chapter draws on recent corporate experiences in innovation in unmet need of the BOP market and argue for a metanarrative of flexible capacity building in delivering sustainable outcomes. The search for a grand narrative essentially lies in the ability to overcome mindset traps not only in the corporate arena, but also in the stakeholders like policy makers, NGOs and local communities.