Establishing in a BoP market - the Bangladeshi way. A MFS-study in Bangladesh.

Abstract: The Base of Pyramid (BoP) concept has been developed during the last decade as a response to the insufficient work made by the aid and development sector. The BoP advocates promote the idea of poor people as potential customers, and developing countries as potential profitable markets. By engaging in BoP markets, the business sector can contribute to higher living standards for the poor while still making a profit. This study aims to investigate what challenges and strategies companies face and use, when operating in a BoP market. More specifically the study explore how a Bangladeshi for-profit company can succeed in serving the poor with treatment for arsenic poisoning in a BoP market. Challenges where found to be mostly related to the financial status of the patients, dysfunctional BoP market systems and Bangladeshi culture and institutional context. For overcoming these difficulties, co-operation with external partners showed to be an important BoP business strategy. However, a deep-rooted dubiousness between the various actors is likely to decrease the success of these collaborations. In addition, the study results imply that, to achieve legitimacy and demand among local BoP customers and institutional intermediary customers, a semi-local, semi-international business structure could be superior over an entirely local.