{"id":504,"date":"2011-11-23T00:37:42","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T06:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/?p=504"},"modified":"2011-11-23T00:37:42","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T06:37:42","slug":"bottom-of-the-pyramid-selling-water-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/bottom-of-the-pyramid-selling-water-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Bottom of the Pyramid: Selling Water in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was listening to the radio today while doing my daily commute to Hoffman Estates and tuned into NPR, Morning Edition.  They had a rather interesting news bit on a company called <b>Healthpoint Services<\/b> and discussed how the company aims at delivering Health services to rural countries, in this case, India.  The bit talked about Social Entrepreneurs focusing on the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bottom_of_the_pyramid\">Bottom of the Pyramid<\/a> market segment and how the company <strong>was making money selling water at $1.50\/month<\/strong> as well as providing Healthcare at minimal costs.  I find it amazing how a company can make a profit off a $1.50\/month water subscription per household.  I suppose if enough households subscribe, economies of scale can be obtained in the logistics of getting the water to the village.  It&#8217;s still crazy to think about.  It&#8217;s also really interesting how these households survive off $1\/day and the $1.50\/month water subscription  is within a households&#8217; means.<\/p>\n<p>People often wonder what you can do with $1.  In the United States, it will get you a McChicken if you add in a few cents for tax, some candy, and even a half liter water bottle.  Per this article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Water is sold for just $1.50 a month for 600 liters <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>WOW! Imagine that, 600 liters of water just for a $1.50\/month, that is crazy!  It seems the value of $1 in other more rural countries, can get you a whole lot.  I remember when I was visiting my buddy Jeff in Beijing this Spring, I went to his university at Beihuang University and I was able to get 10 dumplings <u>AND<\/u> a glass of soy milk for <strong$0.76<\/strong> at a local restaurant.  Needless to say, for the two weeks I was in China, I went to that restaurant frequently for lunch.<\/p>\n<p>Going back, I think it&#8217;s really cool how a lot of for-profit companies are focusing on Social Enterprise.  This news bit was really interesting and you can find the written article on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2011\/11\/22\/142184691\/selling-water-health-care-in-the-developing-world\">NPR&#8217;s website<\/a>.  You can also check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ehealthpoint.com\/\">E-Health Point<\/a> for more information on their goal in transforming Rural Health Care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was listening to the radio today while doing my daily commute to Hoffman Estates and tuned into NPR, Morning Edition. They had a rather interesting news bit on a company called Healthpoint Services and discussed how the company aims at delivering Health services to rural countries, in this case, India. The bit talked about &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/bottom-of-the-pyramid-selling-water-in-india\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Bottom of the Pyramid: Selling Water in India&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,29,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthcare","category-npr","category-random"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franklinkuok.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}