Competing for the Future: A Summary
The book ‘Competing for the Future’ is aspiring and one that offers a deep insight into the problems plaguing the four billion poor and the possible remedies. What is amazing is the fact that despite living in between this mammoth of a population, few indeed have ever given serious thought to this probable catalyst for change and socio-economic development.
The poor are THE RESOURCE; they carry in themselves all the necessary agents and the firepower to reshape the entire economic system making it more energy efficient and thus more sustainable. But the question that pops up this point in time is, the poor existed since the beginning of the industrial revolution right, they existed when the world underwent massive trade booms so why is it that when the world has an eloquent and established economic system that we need to direct the flow of our energy towards establishing markets at the bottom of the pyramid?
The answer that I plug in is that the world is somewhat near the optimum level of production and it needs channels to sustain the pace it has reached in terms of aggregate economic turnover. With natural resources running dry and a supposed war for fresh water reserves by the year 2025(John Hopkins Population Program, United States), modern management and production techniques need to alter. This book offers an approach aimed at realizing the most obvious of all channels and a market which could act as the next engine of development.
The poor or the people surviving at less than $2 a day argues C.K. Prahalad, is the new entrepreneurial market that needs to be reached out and developed. Multi-national corporations or for that matter any big business entity should change their perception towards this market i.e. they would have to come out of the thinking that investing time, money and skills at the BOP is a waste of intellect and resources. Everyone comprising of NGO’s, private enterprises, aid agencies, the local government and the poor themselves would
The poor are THE RESOURCE; they carry in themselves all the necessary agents and the firepower to reshape the entire economic system making it more energy efficient and thus more sustainable. But the question that pops up this point in time is, the poor existed since the beginning of the industrial revolution right, they existed when the world underwent massive trade booms so why is it that when the world has an eloquent and established economic system that we need to direct the flow of our energy towards establishing markets at the bottom of the pyramid?
The answer that I plug in is that the world is somewhat near the optimum level of production and it needs channels to sustain the pace it has reached in terms of aggregate economic turnover. With natural resources running dry and a supposed war for fresh water reserves by the year 2025(John Hopkins Population Program, United States), modern management and production techniques need to alter. This book offers an approach aimed at realizing the most obvious of all channels and a market which could act as the next engine of development.
The poor or the people surviving at less than $2 a day argues C.K. Prahalad, is the new entrepreneurial market that needs to be reached out and developed. Multi-national corporations or for that matter any big business entity should change their perception towards this market i.e. they would have to come out of the thinking that investing time, money and skills at the BOP is a waste of intellect and resources. Everyone comprising of NGO’s, private enterprises, aid agencies, the local government and the poor themselves would