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FMS Seminar on Local Entrepreneurship Demystifies Bottom of the Pyramid
FMS, Delhi organized a seminar on the concept pioneered by Prof. C. K. Prahlad - The Bottom of the Pyramid - on "Local Entrepreneurship and Global Markets: Corporate Outreach to the Small Entrepreneur", in association with the Centre for Civil Society. The panel comprised of Mr. Pradeep Kashyap, Managing Director, Marketing and Research Team (MART) Architect of 'Project Shakti' of HLL; Mr. Arjun Uppal, Consultant ICICI (Ex-MD, Mother Dairy); Mr. William Bissell, CEO, FabIndia and Mr. Sharad Agarwal, Project Manager, Hindustan Latex Foundation addressed the audience comprising of academia, business school students and others.
Mr. Pradeep Kashyap from MART, widely considered to be the foremost authority on rural marketing in India, spoke on rural distribution of HLL through project Shakti. He analyzed the various aspects of distribution in rural areas that HLL employed and pioneered through Shakti Ammas and the social implications. He also gave an introduction on the new model that the company would be introducing by giving training to young men in rural areas to sell various products in a branded bicycle. Mr. Sharad Agarwal from Hindustan Latex Limited spoke on the national NGO formed by his organization with the aim of providing innovative solutions on HIV / AIDS. He described the challenges being faced by HLL while marketing contraceptives to rural India and how the company is contributing to the social empowerment and health and well being of the society. Mr. Arjun Uppal spoke on fresh produce value chain and challenges of integrating farmers with small land holdings, "We need to create a new class of market actors who will focus on small holders and provide services to them. This will happen such that both farmers and service providers find incentives in the new economic exchange that are profitable to both sides and are sustainable based on service charges they can levy on producers." He opined that it was worth attempting integration of small holders into the markets because of fair price, efficiency improvement, quality improvement and sustainability. He felt that the optimal organization format would involve the Public Sector, Private sector, NGOs, and Individuals.
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