History of the BoP Protocol

The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Protocol can trace it roots to the dialogues between corporate executives, academics, and NGO leaders that took places during the BoP Learning Laboratory (BoP-LL) meetings organized by Stuart L. Hart and his colleagues in 2000. At the time, Stuart Hart was the Hans Zulliger Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina.

The BoP-LL meetings included presentations by corporate executives who were deeply involved in enhancing their company’s understanding of the needs and opportunities in BoP communities. During a session in 2002, Daniel Vermeer, a member of Coca-Cola’s strategic “think tank,” made an impressive presentation of his company’s use of anthropological approaches to understanding the needs of people living at the BoP. He also described the challenge of translating this understanding into strategic opportunities. Dan articulated the need for a systematic approach that companies such as Coca-Cola could use to understand these needs and opportunities. In subsequent conversations, Hart and Vermeer fleshed out the broad contours of what would become the Base of the Pyramid Protocol project.

In early 2003, Stuart Hart, Erik Simanis, and Gordon Enk developed a proposal to pursue the development of the BoP Protocol. Over the course of the year, they were successful in developing the funding and support base to conduct the project. The funding came from “Investing Partners,” which included four companies and five institutions:

DuPont Hewlett Packard S. C. Johnson, Inc. Tetra Pak Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University Stephen Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan World Resources Institute William Davidson Institute S. C. Johnson Foundation and the Wingspread Conference Facility

The project included four major components:

• Research on people, organizations, and approaches important to include in the project (2003-2004)
• The BoP Protocol Development Workshop in October 2004 (Version 1.0)
• Field Test of Protocol Version 1.0 with S. C. Johnson, Inc. (Summer 2005)
• BoP Protocol Revision Workshop in October 2005 (Version 2.0)

The refinement of the Protocol continues through the work with S. C. Johnson in Kenya and a new project with Solae Corporation in India. The BoP Learning Laboratory research and meetings continue and are now located at the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell.