Visiting Lecturer Program (15)

Speaker: Shuan SadreGhazi  
PhD Student on Innovation Studies and Development at United Nations University – MERIT

Co-organized by Knowledge Diffusion Network

Local Organizer: Keyvan Vakili

Title: Developing Business Strategies for Serving Low-income Markets

Time: Wednesday, Aug 15, 2007, 13:00-14:15
Location: School of Management and Economics, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran

Abstract:

Two-thirds of the world population live on less than 4$ a day, known as Base of the [economic] Pyramid).For a long time, corporate world has considered low-income markets as unattractive and un-profitable. Addressing those markets were either handled by offering the obsolete technologies/products or in case of poorer communities, it was left to international aid and government funded programs. Despite the huge size of the low-income markets, there are very few products and services that are developed based on the needs of the low-income communities in developing countries.

Nevertheless, increasing pressure on private sector for finding new growth opportunities and also changing situation in poor countries has made some multinational companies to look for possible ways to address this untapped market through a beneficial-to-poor yet profitable business approach. In this seminar, the challenges of low-income markets will be explained and by looking at some cases the business strategies to address such markets will be discussed.

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