The article “Capturing the World’s Emerging Middle Class” looks at the developing middle class outside of the United States, focusing on the BRIC counties plus a few other Asian ones. The authors explain how understanding this class, especially in the context of other classes, can help multinational corporations develop strategies to appeal to the middle class. Many of these strategies include localization, appealing to regions or clusters rather than trying to get down to the local market level, and being open to business model restructuring. The authors also provide product-specific examples to demonstrate these strategies.In this article the authors are addressing the best way multinational corporations can break into certain markets through capitalizing on the middle class. The middle class has unique features, socioculturally and financially speaking, that offer multinational corporations ways of both lowering costs and expanding into new markets. These strategies seem sound in terms of lowering costs, supporting local economies (through hiring ‘native’ or local workers), and appealing to consumer needs and exploiting middle class consumer behaviors. Given the sheer size of the middle class globally speaking, these strategies represent a tremendous source of profit.
In terms of this article’s implications for the American middle class, it is obvious that the middle class will not be limited to the United States. The middle class appears to be shrinking in the United States with growing polarization to either the lower end of the economic spectrum or the higher end. However, the middle class appears to be growing larger in other countries. In fact, it seems like the middle class would be a step up socioeconomically speaking for many individuals in several developing countries. This article also has implications for the ways that multinational corporations may reach out or target middle class consumers.
- Court, D., and Narasimhan, L. (2010). Capturing the world’s emerging middle class. McKinsey
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