The poor remain poor for a very simple reason. They have always been taught to stretch out their hands to beg.

See Map 1 on the left. Poverty creates a need for Handouts and once the poor receive some of it and are no longer fatally ill, hungry or dejectedly homeless, we consider the state of affairs bearable. After all, there are always poorer ones that are worse off that need help. Therefore between Poverty and Handouts is a counter balancing loop that keeps the poor where they are and without a shot at education, self-sufficiency and creating value to make an economic or social contribution. Note that one solid arrow from "Poverty to Handouts" is matched with one dashed arrow back from "Handouts to Poverty" in Map 1. That is, the more Poverty there is the greater the need for Handouts and once given, the cry of Poverty lessens. A solid arrow is read as "promotion" and a dashed arrow is "demotion". In this way the poor are always stuck in poverty that is not bad enough to kill them and good enough to have too many kids and mouths to feed. The balance between Poverty and Handouts may shift but it always locked like a trap that its members cannot escape. The poverty trap is not a vicious cycle like some say. It is more like pushing against the wall and the wall pushes back. Sounds pretty much like Newton's Third Law: Action equals Reaction, and you get nowhere.

Dr. Prahalad suggests the unthinkable but takes pain to show that it is not impossible to help and upgrade the poor out of their trap. To do this, businesses and governments must step in as busineses and not charities. He asks: Why offer charity to the poor when we can make them good and profitable customers. A fair estimate of the global market selling to the poor comes close to

You are so Blessed

the the GDP of the USA. There are about five billion poor people on this planet. Most people are poor.

Making customers out of the poor is not as crazy an idea as it seems. There are many successful business cases the we can borrow and adapt from e.g., Unilever selling shampoos in satchets instead of bottles to poor rural Indians. Dr. Prahalad calls such business as selling to the Bottom of the Pyramid or BOP business as opposed to the TOP (Top of Pyramid) business selling to the rich.

You do not need detailed calculations to show that selling to the poor as commercially suicidal. But Prahalad's BOP business is different. There are condition to be met. Firms must be willing to shift paradigms and sell goods as "what the poor needs" and involve the poor in business directly or indirectly - Note the selling of a satchet instead of a bottle of shampoo example. Allow Prahalad's in his book, "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits" explains the details how it can be feasible. In fact, the more successful a BOP business is, the less poor the customer becomes and over time the less relevant the BOP business model is (See Map 2 above, note the dashed arrows). This is a very good thing. The BOP business makes money, they help the poor become more self-reliant and resilient. They gain their self respect and they eventually move up the economic ladder to become affluent consumers (Box 3) and the BOP business evolve to supply them (Box 4). Note that the relationship between Box 3 and Box 4 is a virtuous cycle. Today's poor can become tomorrow's affluent consumers if corporations and governments are prepared to think and act differently.

Idealism

There are many spiritual intangibles for the firms that are involved in BOP businesses. Staff and shareholders feel an immense sense of satisfaction to be able to help people and yet make money at the same time. They are also investing in the future as they grow with their customers. Some of the best people in any corporations are idealists and "want to change the world". This is their opportunity.

Life's Judgement

Let us not leave the poor behind because in God's eyes, they are worth as much as us.

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