Linking Vertical and Horizontal Markets for Innovations at Grassroots: Sustainability Imperative

Abstract

The supply chain management is at the core of globalising world. Today the large corporations are able to source materials from all around the world and sell it in the most interior parts of the developing and developed world. With the increase in oil prices, this model of globalisation is coming under strain. But there are some other challenges also facing the dominant globalisation model. The call to large corporations to look for the fortune at the bottom of the economic pyramid implied dipping into the limited purchasing power of the economically poor people. Assumption was that given the cultural bias in favour of poor emulating the lifestyle of the richer people (.Sanskritisation.), the possibility of selling products and services at affordable prices to the poor were immense. It did not matter if the market for locally produced goods and services got suppressed, creating a constraint for the growth of above model. Apart from the logistical issues in meeting scattered, small and uncertain demand in rural areas, the ethical and efficiency issues also did not get addressed. In this paper, I am challenging the viability of current model of globalisation. To me, unless sufficient space is created in global markets for grassroots products and services, the present model is just not sustainable. I would like to first discuss the emerging innovations at grassroots level which can help us think about new models for moulding markets at local, regional and global level. Later, one can better appreciate the logistical implications of integrating horizontal and vertical markets. Finally, I would like to speculate about the future shape of distributed, modular manufacturing for meeting local as well as global needs.