Still no access to product and services at BOP: Tata

AHMEDABAD: Seeking to address the issue of challenges to inclusive growth in emerging economies, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata today said that at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) people are still not having access to product and services, as they are still slightly beyond their reach.

"India is a country normally referred to the consuming markets of 253 million people. And when we analyse that market we see with the prosperity that India is enjoying today there is an upward movement of people into the consuming market," Ratan N Tata said in a video recorded message shown at the international conference on challenges to inclusive growth in the emerging economies organised at IIM-A, in memory of late Prof C K Prahlad here.

"At the BOP, people are still not having access to product and services, which is still slightly beyond their reach," Tata said in the message.

"There is a need to serve broader base of pyramid. Innovation or technology can be used for redefining the products so that we can address the base of pyramid," he said.

In economics, the BOP is the largest, but poorest socio-economic group. The phrase bottom of the pyramid is used in particular by people developing new models of doing business that deliberately target that demographic, often using new technology.

Late C K Prahlad, a alumnus of IIM-A, had identified dozen principles, as the building blocks of a philosophy of product or service development and innovation that reflects the realities of (BOP) markets.