“The business opportunity in India is in servicing the poor, and servicing the poor is good business.”
-Dr. C. K. Prahalad
Dr. C.K. Prahalad was Professor of Strategy at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. He came with concept of selling products to poor people ( who form bottom of pyramid, hence base is very large) and yet making profit. He believed that markets at the bottom of the economic pyramid are fundamentally new sources of growth for multinationals.
While multinationals may or may not be interesting in serving poor in developing nations, two ophthalmologists used concept to help millions to avoid blindness due to cataract.
Cataract in India and Nepal is not just medical issue but also a social issue. Poverty forces each person to remain earning member of family. A blind person is seen as liability because he/she is nothing more than an additional mouth to feed. So loss of vision can be worse than death.
“If Coca-Cola can sell billions of sodas and McDonald’s can sell billions of burgers…why can’t Aravind sell millions of sight-restoring operations, and, eventually, the belief in human perfection? With sight, people could be freed from hunger, fear, and poverty. You could perfect the body, then perfect the mind and the soul, and raise people’s level of thinking and acting.”
-Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy
Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy was ophthalmologist who believed in serving poor. He suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, yet it did not deter him from going ahead with his vision of serving poor at low or no cost.
He started Aravind chain of hospitals which do cataract surgery on mass scale for very low fees or free of cost. To keep cost low they have also designed lens which are very cheap. So a innovative model of serving poor with McDonald style of mass production has created revolution in field of cataract surgery. The doctors have high record of success comparable to those in developed society.
Another ophthalmologist doing similar miracle in Nepal is Dr. Sanduk Ruit. Dr. Ruit faced lot of hardships in getting himself educated. He got his medial education in India. Dr. Ruit came up with his own method of cataract surgery which takes just 5 minutes to do cataract surgery. He makes two small incisions, removes cataract and replaces it with lens without any stitches, all in 5 minutes and free of charge. Doctors in US and Europe initially condemned this as unsafe method. But research showed infection levels are comparable to those in west.
Like Aravind Hospitals in India, he started Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology which manufactures lens are very low rate.
Viv•i•fy : ( verb) : to endow with renewed life 