Sunday, April 18, 2010

Base of the pyramid guru - CK Prahalad - passes away...

by Karen Coppock
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Was very sad to read that CK Prahalad passed away on Friday.

Prahalad was instrumental in changing how multi-national firms, and the development community, think about the world. Segmenting the world's population by income, rather than geography, was groundbreaking yet simple - the perfect recipe for a compelling theory.

Certainly there were critiques of Prahalad's work, with some validity. What is important, however, is that Prahalad provided a new lens through which to analyze the world and a new vocabulary - base of the pyramid (BOP), middle of the pyramid (MOP) and top of the pyramid (TOP) - which will frame how governments, firms and NGOs discuss the world for years, if not decades to come.

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