Strategizing for a Base-of-the-Pyramid Market: The Case of Grundfos LIFELINK

Abstract

Multi-national corporations (MNCs) are important for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but they often struggle to align SDGs with their current strategies and business operations. This article explores how Grundfos, a Danish MNC and leading supplier of circulation pumps, entered a Base-of-the-Pyramid (BoP) market with a solution for providing fresh potable water to rural villages in Kenya. Linking to the issue raised in the call for papers, we use the case of Grundfos LIFELINK to explore how MNCs can successfully develop and implement strategies for BoP markets that help meet the SDG. We show how the original LIFELINK strategy was modified because of the practical experience gained from operating in the BoP task environment. Drawing on contrasting ideas of strategy as navigation or wayfaring, we highlight the dangers of drawing on existing strategic beliefs to replicate strategies and business practices in BoP market contexts. We believe that the concept of wayfaring offers important insights to the existing discussion of how strategizing and business practices in BoP markets interact, as it is useful for reflecting on how prior organisational knowledge in the form of existing standard operation procedures create trajectories that also influence the ability to generate insights that challenge existing strategic thought.