Sustainability

The Fortune

SECURITY

AND

S T R AT E GY

Bottom

Pyramid

at the

of the

Low-income markets present a prodigious

opportunity for the world’s wealthiest

companies — to seek their fortunes and

bring prosperity to the aspiring poor.

content strategy & competition

1 nature of most MNCs’ emergingmarket strategies over the past decade does not change

the magnitude of the opportunity, which is in reality

much larger than previously thought. The real source of

market promise is not the wealthy few in the developing

world, or even the emerging middle-income consumers:

It is the billions of aspiring poor who are joining the

market economy for the first time.

This is a time for MNCs to look at globalization

strategies through a new lens of inclusive capitalism. For

companies with the resources and persistence to compete at the bottom of the world economic pyramid, the

prospective rewards include growth, profits, and incalculable contributions to humankind. Countries that still

don’t have the modern infrastructure or products to

content strategy & competition

2

Stuart L. Hart

(slhart@unc.edu) is professor

of strategic management,

Sarah Graham Kenan

Distinguished Scholar, and

codirector of the Center for

Sustainable Enterprise at the

University of North Carolina’s

Kenan–Flagler Business

School.

meet basic human needs are an ideal testing ground for

developing environmentally sustainable technologies

and products for the entire world.

Furthermore, MNC investment at “the bottom of

the pyramid” means lifting billions of people out of

poverty and desperation, averting the social decay, political chaos, terrorism, and environmental meltdown that

is certain to continue if the gap between rich and poor

countries continues to widen.

Doing business with the world’s 4 billion poorest

people — two-thirds of the world’s population — will

require radical innovations in technology and business

models. It will require MNCs to...