For centuries and
most of the decades in the 20th century (i.e when
computer was invented) access and communication was the tool of rich
and ultra rich people, prohibitively expansive to ‘not so rich’
and ‘not at all rich’ people. All marketing research and
development was focused on the 20% of the market based on the
management principle 80:20, ignoring the vast 4 billion people who
are at the bottom of the pyramid(
read Fortune at the Bottom of Pyramid by C.K. Prahalad, Wharton
Publishing).
n
1990s, Internet came along and change the paradigm of whole
global market. Because here we have a great tool “Internet” a
very efficient, very potent to penetrate the earlier thought
impregnable market sec. For most if the time it is the exposure
to the outer world and information is necessary to make any
decision and growth of any section of society or part of world.
Internet is playing that role very efficiently.
Internet is a Mass
product. Here power lies in the hand of individuals, rich or not so
rich(This terminology is taken from Fortune at the Bottom of Pyramid
by C.K. Prahalad, Wharton Publishing).
General theory of
market states
(i)Top end market is value driven.
(ii)Bottom end market is volume driven.
Through these two
anomaly, we can clearly recognize that Internet companies are
focusing on the second approach and that is what CK Prahalad call
Bottom of Pyramid(BOP) approach in his path breaking book Fortune
at the Bottom of Pyramid.
I can give a big
list of such companies, but for instance take some shining stars of
today Internet economy.
(i)ebay.com
(ii)aol.com
(iii)clickbank.com
(iv)Google.com
Rates are Still Low and Home Values are Still High. CLICK HERE NOW!
We will study the
Mother of all search engine Google and its approach to BOP.
Lets
compare the Google strategy and its behemoth competitors( well not
today, but in formative days of Google when it matter most.) Google
is a search engine based on Pay per click(PPC) approach to the
internet economy. In formative days, Google done exactly what others
thought and well recognized by the Gurus that the model is not
viable and Google will be doomed to graveyard.
