The power of the "Bottom of the Pyramid" !

Last about 3 months have been a roller coaster for each and every member of the society not only in India but also globally. With “conspiracy theories” ranging from onset of World War III initiated by China to “religious jihad”, the world was caught sleeping while #Covid19 spread like a wildfire enveloping almost all geographies and affecting each and every human being on the face of this earth.

In addition to the fear and anxiety it created amongst the people, it also brought out the chinks in the armor of the way the world operated, efficacy; or should we say inefficiencies of the systems and processes whether it was health, food security, livelihoods and the way the global economies worked- to summarize the entire global ecosystem on how people lived and earned. As the world grapples with the situation in an unprecedented manner a lot of things are being and will be re-written, processes, SOPs, the way we operate, successful or unsuccessful business models, more or less everything we were taught and we did.

It also brings out one very pertinent point of how interdependent we are, both at the national and global level. As the the battle with #Covid19 gets prolonged and inspite of a spurt in segregating, “identifying” and branding people on how “active” they are in spreading #Covid19 based on the religious, class/economic and other demographic factors,  there is a gradual shift in the way things are perceived and accepted. Gradually, the world has started realizing that the only way to survive in these unprecedented and troubled times is to accept and understand that there exists an important “symbiotic” relationship, not only between various strata of the society but also between each and every individual who exists on the face of this earth.  

How much ever we follow all the laid down procedures of self isolation and quarantine, we are not “isolated” or “quarantined” in the real sense. The virus which has been assumed to hit the “upper class” first, exposing their vulnerabilities also made them realize how important it is to have good health, education and other facilities for the other strata, on which they are so dependent to survive, let it be food, logistics, health/sanitation support and others. One of the so called “classes” taking a hit will also result in a devastating effect on the other. While the world struggles to find a solution and a cure for this pandemic let us focus on some of the most relevant issues which have emerged at the national level namely Food security, Livelihoods and #economic security in addition ofcourse health and sanitation.

India is witnessing a massive migration or “reverse migration” of people from urban areas to the rural areas. Once considered the hubs for providing livelihoods and a sustainable income, these urban areas are now being looked at as “Covid19 hot-spots” with no jobs/work, no shelter and no food. As most of the businesses go into a “survival mode” with an acute liquidity crunch in absence of low consumer demand, lot of “Strategic Decisions” were made in the boardrooms to lay off the workforce. This not only resulted in thousands of informal sector workers going jobless but also exposed rot in the “employment” eco-system of big businesses employing informal sector workers to save on money by not following the laid down norms in terms of providing social security and other benefits. As the informal sector workers head home dis-enchanted and humiliated, the “Boardroom Strategists” Realize the dangers, they know that once the Covid19 crisis and the economic crisis blows away in a couple of years, bringing back these workers will be a humongous task. Suddenly they understand the power of the “Bottom of the Pyramid”. Though taunted at this point as “harbingers” of Covid19, everybody knows that once gone the entire business paraphernalia is going to shut down. Maybe for the first time all the HR heads are realizing that it is not because of them that workers are there but it is because of the workers that they are there. As the strategists redesign the long term strategy they will have to understand the importance of the human resources and make a clear choice whether to stay close to the markets or move closer to the rural areas from where the workforce comes from? The second option hopefully will open up more opportunities in the rural areas including desperately needed infrastructure. All this will also result in various businesses redefining their HR policies to keep the valuable human resource happier, if they want to survive in the long term leading to them adhering to various labor laws/norms in the long term.

Now lets look at the immediate problem in hand. Thousand of migrant workers have returned to their villages and suddenly there is a huge crisis of livelihoods, there are no jobs, no income and very poor infrastructure. The positive side is that all these workers have some or the other basic skills which can be leveraged and a temperament to work in a structured system. These problems need to be resolved in two phases- an immediate resolution by providing a meaningful income opportunity and a long term sustainable system to avoid such massive migration issues. With the lack of infrastructure in these remote areas the only way to provide immediate relief is to leverage the existing opportunity that is Agriculture and Agro-processing. These can be gradually scaled up to provide long term sustainability and with the existing food security requirements this approach makes all the more sense. I guess its time to reverse the trend, recoin the term “BoP” and accept the power of the “BoP” to reboot the system.