– Sulatnur Reza, GrameenPhone, Bangladesh
The BOP are the people that make up the base of the pyramid. Therefore i like to refer to them as the base of the pyramid and not the bottom. At 5.3. bn people, its a huge potential market. In Bangladesh we have 150 mn people. Quite substantial.
A lot of MNCs and corporates are looking at this base. They want to develop community relations, brand their product and develop partnerships with local and national bodies and engage in CSR.
Grameen started in 1994 and with Village Phone. Community Information Center was developed with the GSMA development fund in 1996. We have a helpline that any GP susbcriber can call and get help from. With Cell Bazaar we began to use a lot of technologies like IVR, wap and internet.
A problem exists in enabling transactions because m-transactions are not lawful in Bangladesh. But credit card transactions which have been allowed by law is an enabler for e commerce transactions. A lot of people benefit from the activities we have initiated at the BOP like CIC.
Four things are of importance at the base; Affordability, Accessibility of product, Availability and Awareness. We are very serious about all these four things, especially awareness. We are approaching school students because they are early adapters. They talk about new things are are capable of getting other people involved in using them.
But effective Base of Pyramid services need savvy partnerships. For example, we tied up with the BBC to take their English program nationwide.
In summary, the market size is huge and there are challenges; literacy is low, infrastructure is not great. These are issues on which we need research in order to help us in the future.
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