NextBillion and the agenda for this week

I have a guest post this week on NextBillion. It’s a website that focuses on enterprises targeting the base of the economic pyramid (BoP), a concept that first became discussed in academic and business circles through C.K. Prahalad’s book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.


In conjunction with my submission (which I have reprinted here), I will make supporting posts throughout the week that detail some of the points I cover in it.

Companies and organizations that target the BoP usually have the best of intentions, but a focus on defining the customer experience for the BoP market segment (and the segments that exist inside of it) can only help those organizations better fulfill the needs of their customers. When you operate on margins as fine as these companies do, getting your customer experience done right is essential to financial success. Getting it wrong could mean disaster for BoP families that direct their limited funds into the wrong places.

This week I will be posting supporting concepts to back up the NextBillion post, detailing some introductory actions an organization can take if they want to focus on customer experience, or other related forms of stakeholder experience. Posts will include:

• Basic steps to customer lifecycle and touch point identification
• Customer Journey mapping
• Voice of Customer Listening posts in Frontier Markets
• Focus areas for a customer centric culture

These topics are already being discussed in BoP markets, but if you are new to them I hope my summary will be helpful for you. If you have already had some experiences with any of these areas, please add your experience in the comment sections of the blog.