Ramendra Singh

Jugaad—From ‘Making Do’ and ‘Quick Fix’ to an Innovative, Sustainable and Low-Cost Survival Strategy at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Until recent times, Indian jugaad was commonly constructed to be a frugal form of innovation engendered from the lack of resources and unhealthy financial conditions, and has been recently imported in the management literature. In this exploratory article, we extend the concept of jugaad to highlight the various facets of jugaad, and illustrate how poor people are applying jugaad, despite their low-levels of literacy, and frugal resources, as a survival strategy. This study discusses Indian jugaad as not only a way of ‘making do’ but also a methodology that has emerged as a way of survival for consumers at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP). The article mainly focuses on jugaads at a BOP household-level to the level of BOP entrepreneurship. In this article, we cover major innovations that have uplifted the rural livelihood using a series of interviews with BOP consumers, producers, as well as distant observations. We conclude the article with a few key managerial implications and some directions for future research.

Does CSR orientation reflect stakeholder relationship marketing orientation? An empirical examination of Indian banks

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address two research questions: First, are business metrics of Indian banks associated with its CSR orientation? Second, is the CSR orientation of banks focused on areas which are driven by nature of its target markets, such that there is an alignment between CSR orientation and benefits accrued to its stakeholder segments, directly or indirectly?Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyze 49 Indian banks (25 public sector, 15 private sector and nine foreign banks) operating in India based on data available from the banks’ web sites, annual reports and sustainability/CSR reports (if available). From content analysis, the data were into seven categories – Education, Health, Community Welfare, Entrepreneurship Development, Environment, Market Place, and Rural Development.Findings – The results indicate that CSR orientation of Indian Banks differ only based on ownership, number of employees, and date of its incorporation in the areas of Environment & Rural deve...

What are bottom of the pyramid markets and why do they matter

There are thousands of journal articles that concern themselves with markets at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP).1 What is there to say that hasn’t been said already? In 2002, an article published in the Harvard Business Review (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002) brought to the forefront of business and academic attention a ‘missing market’ that was claimed to be lying dormant, ignored by international and multination corporations yet worthy of attention for its potential to contribute to both economic and social prosperity. The notion of markets at the BoP is concerned with providing the ‘poor’ in developing and emergent economies with access to markets. Prahalad and Hammond (2002) champion the needs of the ‘invisible poor’ to the marketing efforts of multinational corporations. Prahalad and Hammond’s (2002) assert that the poor as ‘consumers’ constituted a sizeable market opportunity but this view has been criticised. In this essay, we explore how BoP markets might be reconceptualising to better shape interventions that relieve poverty.

Impact of ICT-Enabled Product and Process Innovations at the Bottom of the Pyramid: A Market Separations Perspective

Innovations in products and processes enabled by ICT such as mobile phones and the Internet constitute a rapidly emerging means of market development at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP), which consists of people who earn less than US

A new conceptualization of salesperson's customer orientation

2 a day. However, these ICT-enabled market development efforts have not always yielded positive developmental outcomes, in part because market development is hindered by remote location and geographic dispersion of BOP communities, their low and uncertain incomes, and informal local markets having exploitative intermediaries. These conditions imply that BOP consumers and producers are ‘separated’ from marketers and customers, respectively, through physical distance, lack of financial ability, and information asymmetry. The paper examines the question: How do ICT innovations in products and processes impact development at the BOP? Drawing perspectives from the information systems (IS) and marketing literatures, we analyze how and why ICT-enabled innovations in products and processes deployed for market development at the BOP, enable developmental outcomes through reduction of market separations. Analyzing qualitative data gathered from interviews with 33 respondents in India, including BOP individuals, social entrepreneurs, and managers from private organizations, we find that ICT-enabled product and process innovations do have the potential to reduce four types of separations that ‘disconnect’ BOP consumers (producers) from marketers (customers). However, situated social conditions influence the impact of ICT innovations on reduction of separations. The reduction of separations leads to developmental outcomes at the BOP. Implications of our findings for theory, practice, and policy are discussed.

Relational embeddedness, tertius iungens orientation and relationship quality in emerging markets

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to provide a new conceptualization of a salespersons customer orientation, as a multi‐dimensional construct. The authors aim to base their new conceptualization on extensive evidence from literature review, and synthesis of the review of literature.Design/methodology/approach – An extensive literature review of the extant conceptualizations and operationalizations of salespersons customer orientation is first carried out. Based on the review and synthesis of literature, a salespersons customer orientation with six domain areas is conceptualized, through several propositions in the paper.Findings – The findings of this study suggest that salespersons customer orientation has six domain areas, namely, providing information to customers, understanding customer needs, fulfilling customer needs, creating and delivering customer value, sustaining customer satisfaction, and maintaining long‐term relationships with customers.Practical implications – The sales managers ...

Market development at the bottom of the pyramid: examining the role of information and communication technologies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate in an emerging market (India), the impact of relational embeddedness of dyadic business relationships on relationship quality (RQ) and the moderating impact of tertius iungens orientation (TIO) on this relationship.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 75 business managers from various industries in India was surveyed, and analysis was done using moderated multiple regression analysis.Findings – The key finding of the study is that among the five different types of connection that a firm has (with competitors (C), value chain partners (V), internal (I), external (E) entities and auxiliary (A) connections), the A‐connections like those with banks, MR agencies, advertising agencies and other service providers, have the most favorable impact on relationship quality with firms’ customers, when its boundary personnel exhibit high TIO (bonding) towards their customer. However, the direct impact of A‐connection on RQ is negative, possibly due to the negat...

Markets and marketing at the bottom of the pyramid

This paper addresses the research question, “How can the use of information and communication technology (ICT) enable development of markets at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP)?” Integrating ideas centered on the threefold role of ICT (automate–informate–transform), market mechanisms, and agency freedom aspects of ICT-enabled development, we examine how (1) ICT facilitate development of market mechanisms at the BOP, (2) market mechanisms enable economic and social benefit outcomes for BOP markets and members, and (3) complementary conditions facilitate or hinder ICT-enabled market development. The findings are based on qualitative primary data from interviews with 27 BOP individuals from India, and from published and secondary examples. Theoretical contributions and implications for practice and further research are discussed.

What drives Indian consumer credit card loyalty? The perspective of involvement in reward programmes

Concern with the role of markets in the lives of the poor has been growing consistently in management and marketing academic communities over the past two decades. Since the publication of CK Prahalad’s HBR article, and bestselling book (Prahalad, 2006; Prahalad and Hammond, 2002), an increasing number of scholars have turned their attention to understanding markets as a means to alleviate poverty and engaging the poor in economic life. The importance of markets and how they are performed is thought to be central to making better and more inclusive societies and to improving the lives of those at the bottom of pyramid (BoP). Indeed, those adopting a market studies approach would argue that ‘building markets is one of the most ordinary ways to produce society’ (Geiger et al., 2014: 1) – putting markets at the centre of the everyday practices of the poor. In concerning ourselves with BoP markets, we assert a very specific aim – to understand how market configurations that take into account the various concerns associated with unfolding economic transactions come about (Chakrabarti and Mason, 2014). Specifically, we start from the premise that (1) consumers cannot consume unless they are able to produce – an activity that generates the means for market engagement and consumption (Karnani, 2007; Viswanathan et al., 2010), (2) market practices are always situated in the particularities of time and place (Kjellberg and Helgesson, 2007) and as such cannot be divorced from histories and associations and (3) the globalisation of trade and markets entangles multiple and complex social–political–economic worlds in chains of practices that stretch across the globe (cf. London and Hart, 2011; Maurer, 2012). This approach calls into question extant conceptualisations of BoP markets as purely economic constructs. As Geiger et al. (2014: 3) explain, ‘Rather than simply replacing or overlaying social bonds with economic transactions, markets initiate a plurality of social relations of a new kind, bearing matters of concern that should be carefully monitored. They invite us neither to reject the economic dynamics of markets nor to try to purify them from any remaining social relations, but rather to search for modalities of organization that are all the more relevant for the implementation of market exchange’, one might add that this is pertinent – in any given BoP context. Indeed, it is notable that market actors often ignore deviant behaviours that result from balancing normative compliance with valuing the role of community in the practice of markets (Christensen et al., 2001; Layton, 2009). Such conceptualisations enable us to ‘…deconstruct the current axiomatic treatment of transaction-centric markets and to reconstruct the market as a socially embedded institution in which community ties are formed and sustained’ (Varman and Costa, 2008: 141). In this brief editorial, we draw on this unfolding understanding of what markets are and how they work to consider how we might re-conceptualise BoP markets, where we might find them and how our concerns about BoP markets are beginning to shape understanding, theorising and action.

Karma orientation in boundary spanning sales employees

This study, from the customer involvement perspective, looks at the impact of reward point programmes on the purchasing behaviour of Indian credit card users. A total of 125 valid responses were collected using an online survey of Indian credit card users. The study found that customers’ involvement is not only low, but also does not affect their loyalty (frequency of card use and usage expenditure). As for redemption behaviour, usage frequency and numbers of credit cards showed significantly positive effects. This study has important implications for both scholars and credit card issuers. Consumers’ responses towards loyalty programmes need more evidence from developing markets and companies should dedicate more resources to understand the involvement process of their targets, as well as the design of programmes.