C.K. Prahalad, Management Guru, Dies

The Times of India (Rajghatta) - Internationally renowned management guru Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad, popularly known as CK, died on Friday in San Diego after a brief illness, his family said on Saturday. He was 69. The man who called attention to the "fortune at the bottom of the pyramid" died at the top of his game. A professor at the University of Michigan, Prahalad was considered one of the world's top 10 management thinkers. His theory about the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, is followed by many corporations in emerging markets.


Prahalad authored a number of well-known works in corporate strategy...including "The Core Competence of the Corporation" (Harvard Business Review, May-June, 1990), "Competing for the Future" (with Gary Hamel), 1994, "The Future of Competition," (with Venkat Ramaswamy), 2004. But "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid", riding on an expression first used by Franklin Roosevelt, made a bigger splash than any before in the age of the internet and microfinance.

Using case studies of Aravind Eye Hospital and Bank of Madura, both from his home turf, among others, Prahalad explored new business models targeted at providing goods and services to the poorest people in the world arguing that the fastest growing new markets and entrepreneurial opportunities were to be found among the billions of poor people "at the bottom of the [financial] pyramid."