First of all , to start on a personal note : Had been away from my life(or should I say My blog for close to a month) with lot of things happening on the other side of my life. This would be my very first article in the New Year and by no means is ThoughtsPrevail dead and the article , which would mark the start of my New Year [of blogging] would be the People’s Car : Nano

Just as Prof CK Prahalad says “There is fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid [BOP]” and with close to 300 to 400 million people lying in the Middle Class arena, there is always a market of a product/service , which is targeted to this class of population.First it was Reliance which brought us the so called People’s phone; ask any engaged person and the only way “They” would be communicating with each other is Reliance[cheap , convenient and great plans].Things changed and suddenly we have seen every person be it Paanwala, Saabziwala [vegetable seller] in India carrying a mobile phone !!!

Would the same revolution come with the so called People’s car Nano. This is definitely a proud moment for India and IMHO, there is also a Social Entrepreneurship attached to the Nano.Social in the sense that it would make CAR accessible to the common man but at the same time, we need to ask ourselves “Is our Infrastructure ready for the Nano?“. There are number of blogs and newspapers that have already mentioned about Nano, but one article in Economic Times was very interesting:

Small excerpt from the article :

Clearly, populism and massive state subsidy can’t match a well thought out business strategy that has profit as the motive. And as CK Prahalad, the management guru who’s inspired many of the Tata Group’s low cost, affordability-based products and services, would readily point out that looking for fortune at the bottom of the pyramid is not an altruistic mission but a way to sustainable profitability.

As the article suggests , there is a lot of fortune at the BOP since, you get the Social Entrepreneurship angle working in your favor. There are already other automobile makers who have decided to join this bandwagon but for the time being Nano can enjoy the first Mover advantage .

First it was Reliance , Air Deccan and now it is Tata’s Nano who have hit the BOP , so now only time and middle class would decide the fate of the Nano…till that time, let us keep our fingers crossed and hope that this Nano at least fares well than the rotten part of Apple [ the Nano ]