This post is the last in a five part series on a radical new approach to scaling BoP business models, what we call a transformative sector strategy. In this segment, I address the six preceding guest posts that commented on this strategy and offer some concluding thoughts.

I welcome these thoughtful comments on the transformative sector model I am proposing to scale service delivery to the BoP. Sagar Gubbi thoughtfully extends the sector-based scaling model. His examples illustrate the richness of potential solutions that are springing up and that can be learned from and replicated across a sector. I think he is correct that any transformative model will need adaptation to local conditions and policies. But mostly his examples encourage me in pushing ahead to implement the approaches I have outlined. The comment by Paul Rigterink on the potential of using a pharmacy platform to also distribute veterinary medicine and thus improve livestock supplies underscores the synergies that a sector approach can generate.

John Paul suggests that the sector approach can adapt to local conditions by integrating existing entrepreneurs or service providers, which is certainly worth considering. In one country, we and our local partners are looking into partnering with and upgrading local outlets that sell medicine informally.

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Base of the Pyramid (BoP) strategy has a few key tenets, one of which is the power of aggregated demand. Those living at the base of the economic pyramid may have little buying power on their own, but when they are pooled together, their consolidated demand amounts to a viable market.

Companies are increasingly aware of and planning around this aggregated demand approach, as we have seen through such examples as the William J. Clinton Foundation's ability to bring down the prices of AIDS drugs through a guaranteed high volume of sales.

That said, there is a need for not only existing products and services, but even more so for innovation at the BoP – so what about aggregating demand in those cases? How do you assess the ability and willingness of the poor to pay for products and services that do not already exist, and how do you convince companies to take a risk on such a vast and fragmented market?

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