Presentation about paper "The balancing act of optimised value creation", Proceedings of the International Conference on Impact of Base of the Pyramid Ventures, Delft, The Netherlands, 16 - 18 November, 2009.

1. THE BALANCING ACT OF
OPTIMISED VALUE CREATION
Impact of Base of the Pyramid
ventures Conference 2009
Anand Sheombar (anand.sheombar@gmail.com)
Kobus Smit
Gilbert Silvius
Utrecht University of Applied Sciences
Utrecht – The Netherlands

2. What is BOP?
Base of the economic Pyramid (BOP) or Bottom of the Pyramid
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3. Estimated BOP market and focus on annual ICT spending per region
(WRI, 2007)
ICT & BOP? 51-100$...x Billion/yr
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4. The BOP & ICT Research Project
 How can multinational ICT companies
(ICT MNC) benefit from entering the
Base of the Pyramid (BOP) market in
a commercial successful and
sustainable way?
 And what could be the opportunities in
the BOP market for multinational ICT
companies?
 Research project led to publications
on partnership issues & here value
creation. 4

5. Research area
Multinational ICT
company
Local partner
(NGO, local
entrepreneur, local
governmental
institution etc.)
Base of the Pyramid
(BOP)
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6. Research Questions
 Which variables influence the value creation of
BOP projects by ICT MNCs;
 What is the nature of these variables, and
 How are these variables related.
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7. Three elements...
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8. Business model - strategy
“a business model describes the value an
organization offers to various customers and
portrays the capabilities and partners
required for creating, marketing, and
delivering this value and relationship capital
with the goal of generating profitable and
sustainable revenue streams”. Osterwalder (2006)
However, there are a variety of definitions for
business model and strategy in use (Klein, 2008,
Morris et al., 2005). 8

9. Quality dimensions of business models
for the Base of the Pyramid
(Klein, 2008) 9

10. “an association between two or
more persons, groups, or
organizations who join together
to achieve a common goal that
neither one alone can
accomplish”
(Mullinix, 2002)
Partnerships are…
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11. Product & service development
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Product & service development refers to the
successful delivery of those to the BOP and
abinding the 4As, namely
Affordability, Acceptability,
Availability and Awareness
that have proven to be essential for business
success and for creating value while serving
the world’s poor (Prahalad 2005; Anderson and
Markides 2007).

12. Literature survey on these elements
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13. Hypothesis based upon
literature survey
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14. Data collection – 8 cases
Project IT MNC Description
M-Pesa Vodafone (Safaricom in Kenya) Mobile payments & banking.
Village Phone Grameen & Nokia in Uganda Rural shared telephone facility.
Village Connection Nokia-Siemens Networks
(NSN)
Rural local phone network in the village.
Unlimited Potential
(Telecenter)
Microsoft Various ICT activities aimed at emerging
markets.
i-Community HP in South Africa Telecenter.
World ahead (Classmate
PC)
Intel Sustainable technology for users in
developing countries.
Digital Bridge Alcatel-Lucent Bringing connectivity to the unconnected.
Communication for all Ericsson Bringing communication to all.
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15. The Research – Sources of Evidence
 Interviews
 Archival records
 Documents
 Multiple case study research
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16. Findings of the cases
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17. Example M-PESA
BOP business
model &
strategy
Partnership
Product &
service
development
•Distribution via M-
PESA agents
•“Private social private”
partnership.
•Pay As You Go charging model
•Banking for the unbanked.
Usage
different from
initial design.
(Low-
income)
Consumer
Educational
marketing
Faulu MFI
M-PESA
agents
Safaricom telecom
operations
CBA banking
activities
M-PESA
development
joint project
Public private
funding
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18. “Average result” of the cases vs hypothesis
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19. Mix of findings & hypothesis
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20. Conclusion
 Variables emerge in the researched cases
 They are BOP business model & strategy,
product & service development and partnerships.
 Influence the value creation of BOP Ventures
 Each of these variables has certain
characteristics:
 Business Model & Strategy → quality
 Product and Service → process of P & S dev.
 Partnerships → type, process & performance
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21. The road ahead
 Limitations
 Future research
 Recommendations
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