To succeed, you'll need to link your commercial interests with your constituencies' well-being.

"Cross the invisible line into the base of the economic pyramid in emerging markets and you enter a world of pitfalls. If a company embarks on an initiative that focuses solely on commercial gain, civil society and governments are likely to oppose it intensely, as the international water utility company Aguas del Tunari discovered in Bolivia. If a company tries to stay under the radar by keeping its base-of-the-pyramid operations small, profits are likely to be meager, as Procter & Gamble found out with its water-purification product in Latin America and Asia. Even if you focus mainly on social impact and consider profits secondary, the base of the pyramid is a risky place: Projects that fail to make money will eventually be relegated to companies’ corporate social responsibility departments, as Microsoft discovered.

Our research has shown a way to traverse this difficult landscape. Indeed, decent profits can be made at the base of the pyramid if companies link their own financial success with that of their constituencies. In other words, as companies make money, the communities in which they operate must benefit by, for example, acquiring basic services or growing more affluent. This leads to more income and consumption—and triggers more demand within the communities, which in turn allows the companies’ businesses to keep growing. A corollary of that principle is that from the very beginning, scale is critical: Tentative forays into the base of the pyramid do not yield success."