Search results matching tag 'India'

The Great Indian Rope Trick!

628994 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:40:00 GMT

The headlines about the growth of the Indian economy are eye catching, even extraordinary by modern standards. It’s all too easy to be seduced by the romance and promise of India on your first visit.

For 2009/10 gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to top 6.9 percent, India is the third largest economy in the world according to the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) Index of industrial and emerging nations and cumulative direct foreign investment (FDI) is at record levels, soon to break the $100 billion barrier.

It’s predicted that by 2025 the ‘rural deprived’ will drop from 65% of the total rural population in India to 29%. Overall, it’s estimated that nearly 300m people will move out of poverty over this period when the population will increase by 322m. In effect this means that India will have 465m fewer poor by 2025 than if the poverty rate remained at 2005 levels and over a billion less poor people than if the rate had remained stuck at 1985 levels.

The story of India as one of the world’s largest private consumption markets is seductive for many western companies looking to boost sales against a background of weak domestic demand.

CEOs of successful companies are often seduced by the headline numbers but often fail to appreciate that India is land of contradictions.

For example, it’s often assumed that the growing ‘upper middle class’ provides the most profitable customer segment for Western companies looking to do business in India in many categories.

Wrong.

India’s demand structure manifests itself in many counter-intuitive ways – which some commentators call the great India rope trick of numbers! The fact is that lower income groups spend more money cumulatively than other groups for many products, so simply targeting the wealthy will seriously limit your potential.

About 650m people live on less than US $2 a day but account for 33 percent of all consumption and 20 percent of all savings. Income is US $840 billion (PPP) or equivalent to that of South Africa and 90% of Hong Kong’s. They may be poor, but not backward. They are innovative, savvy and embrace technology just like other better-off consumers.

The question is can you add value to their lives and make money out of it as well?

It’s often said that success leaves a trail. But so too does failure.

A good example of not getting it right first time - and perhaps this is even more surprising given its marketing savvy – is Nike’s experience in India.

In 2004, the sports footwear and apparel giant attempted to translate its dominance of the US sportswear market where it enjoyed 40% market share to the Indian market.

It failed.

Nike wasn’t sufficiently aggressive in penetrating the Indian market.

Its marketing budget wasn’t that high, it used standardised promotions using Michael Jordan who wasn’t that well known in India and Nike was relatively slow in introducing the Indian market to the latest designs.

Its competitor Reebok, on the other hand, had a dual market entry strategy: low cost shoes and a brand for women. As a result, sales have doubled since 2004 from US $59m to over US $100m today. Last year the largest Reebok store in the world opened in Hyderabad in Southern India.

Closer to home, UK-based Home Retail Group (HRG), owners of catalogue and mail order business Argos have recently decided not to develop the pilot scheme they had been running.

HRG had entered into a joint venture with Indian retail partners HyperCity and Shoppers’ Stop back in 2005 for six stores outside of Mumbai plus a telephone and internet ordering service.

However, the venture had problems from the start: out of town locations, delays in shipments and stock-outs were just a few of the difficulties.

Most analysts agree that its market entry strategy was flawed: limited stock, very thin catalogue, no differentiation in-store from local competitors, semi-skilled customer service people in stores on low wages with a sales incentive failed to achieve sales targets.

Argos had made the classic mistake. It had over relied on the strength of its brand, just as Nike had done five years earlier - as a reason for pulling in Indian consumers to buy electric kettles at premium prices – it didn’t happen!

Perhaps we need to ask if the pilot scheme actually reflected the true nature of the Argos business model and that perhaps with a re-think they might turn this around. They wouldn’t be the first.

Argos was defeated by stronger local Indian rivals such as Big Bazaar and hadn’t set out to re-establish itself in the Indian market – its market entry strategy was from the totally wrong perspective - ‘inside-out’ rather than from the perspective of its customers - ‘outside-in’. And this resulted in a financial loss of up to £10m.

These examples illustrate an important truth about India.

And that is you have to set out to discover “Your India”. Brands need to reinvent themselves for the Indian mass market if they are to have any chance of generating profitable incremental growth.

And they need to take the long-term view rather than expect to unlock a treasure trove of riches overnight.

We believe that the journey starts with doing your homework and effective executive education that will prepare you for the unexpected.

Guru in a Bottle and IndiaSavvy has developed a pragmatic one day workshop focussed on understanding the Indian consumer and market dynamics by combining IndiaSavvy’s India expertise and Guru in a Bottle’s sales and marketing training expertise in the UK.

Richard Perry, CEO of IndiaSavvy explains: “Our executive education programme often involves building a team ethic for the clients ‘India team’ that will allow them to win support across the company for the India venture”.

In many cases, the Indian venture needs to be integrated into existing company activities.

And unlike many other training initiatives, we make a big effort to get senior management to understand the realities of doing business in India in an open environment that allows all ideas and concerns to be raised and dealt with.

“We have success in getting senior managers working with the same information, sharing learning and knowledge, developing a clear strategy to be promoted to all employees and ensuring that resources are made available within strict project management guidelines,” adds Perry.

IndiaSavvy has people on the ground in India in order to carry out independent due diligence that often forms the basis for a ‘go, no‐go’ decision on the implementation of a proposed project in India. “We work with one of the leading business intelligence and risk management experts in India, as the basis of being savvy about the market” says Perry.

Ultimately, we help companies build a strategy, manage risk exposure and help build the capability of their team based on senior management backing and realism about operations in India.

And it’s no Indian rope trick.

Love as violence

1762305 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT

R.D. Laing was an unconventional psychologist. One of the thing’s he talked about was ‘love as violence’.

That is what we do to our children. Because we want what’s best for them, we go beyond simply loving them. We equip them to survive in the world. To us it looks like love.

Looked at from another side, it’s actually damage. One instance he gave concerned Indian beggars. India was a very poor country. Millions were starving to death.

So, when a beggar had a child, she had to consider how it would survive. Because nearly everyone in India lived in poverty, no one gave money to beggars. Not unless they had a seriously good reason to beg.

An obvious, and major, disability that prevented them working. Otherwise, they’d definitely starve. That was the world of the beggar.

So, if a child was born without a deformity, it was a serious problem. If you really loved your child, you gave them what they needed to survive. A withered arm or leg, a crushed foot, or blindness. That way they should be able to make a living as a beggar.

This is love as violence. How the world appears depends on where we see it from. Because that’s the only world we know. R.D.Laing said that, in the West, we do the same thing to our children. But we do it mentally.

We couldn’t see a healthy, fully-formed mind as a possibility. No more than the Indian beggars could recognise a healthy, full-formed body.

In their world, they see a deformed body as suited to survival. In our world, we see a deformed mind as suited to survival. So we train and shape our children from the moment they’re born.

We send them to schools to learn to do everything exactly as we did. Exactly as everyone else does. We break and shape that fully-formed, healthy mind until it fits our preconception.

Until it’s suited to survive. We commit love as violence just as the beggar does.

This is R.D.laing’s view of what we do to our children. And yet what choice do we have? We can’t know any world outside what we know.

So what do we do? I don’t have the answer.

But I do have the question. And that’s a good start point. To do what we think is right, while being able to hold the possibility that it may be wrong.

Not to go on auto-pilot. Not to knee-jerk into the fastest possible answer. But to constantly be in the enquiry.

Aristotle said: “It is the mark of the educated mind that it can entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Now for most people that’s a big jump. To be confident enough to say, “I haven’t made my mind up yet.” We are taught that uncertainty is weakness. We have to have an instant answer at all times. One side is right, the other is wrong. But doesn’t this just show an inability to think?

Alfred North Whitehead said, "The problem with the world is that the ignorant are arrogant and cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Instant certainty is often just football-supporter mentality. “Our team’s great. Your team’s ***.” Ignoring any evidence to the contrary is a matter of pride.

Unthinking allegiance proves you’re a true supporter. Why is that something to aspire to?

Where an ability to entertain more than one thought is seen as weakness?

Jeremy Sinclair’s favourite quote is from Socrates. "The more I know, the more I know I know nothing."

Personally, my favourite quote is from Lao Tzu.

“The wise man knows he doesn’t know. The fool doesn’t know he doesn’t know.”

Having immediate certainty on any problem doesn’t prove someone has an open mind. In fact it proves the opposite. It proves they approach every problem with an open mouth.

Jade Goody and the reality TV PR bandwagon of death

255762 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:12:00 GMT

Last year I said something pretty mean about Jade Goody and I'm sorry. I wrote she had PR cancer and then it turned out to be real. My bad, but even as she lies wasting away it appears the PR bit was right. I just read Shilpa Shetty is making a final dash to her bed side.

This is all kind of very sad and I know a lot of people have been moved by Jade Goody's plight.

Each day a new story appears about Goody's last days, but as we speed towards the end of this born and bred reality TV celebrity story it feels as if it is spinning out of control.

The lines between what is decent, dignified and acceptable and what is a PR money grabbing exercise are as blurred as 2am in an Essex nightclub.

I was listening to the Today programme this morning on R4. They had the story that Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, who you will remember was branded 'Shilpa Poppadom' by Jade Goody in 'Celebrity Big Brother', has flown to Britain to "bid farewell to the cancer-stricken reality television star".

Are there not real people that Jade Goody can see? People who give a frak rather than a minor Bollywood star?

We're told that the two have become "good friends" since the whole racist incident and Jade Goody went to India last year and appeared on the Indian version of 'Big Brother' where she was fatefully told she was ill.

Shetty said: "All I can do is pray. I’m not giving up hope of seeing her one last time. I always want to remember Jade smiling, the feisty strong gregarious Jade, a true trouper."

The arrival of Shetty on the scene came as OK! yesterday published its "tribute issue" to Jade Goody. I thought you had to be dead to get one of those so people could remember you in a dignified fashion.

Apparently not as OK! has a deal with Jade Goody's people (Max Clifford) to get first dibs ahead of rivals. Apparently they did really well out of the wedding issue with bumper sales. Imagine what they will get if they beat everyone to the death/tribute issue.

There will be acres of more coverage. It will be well read I am sure. Jade Goody is doing much of this to ensure that her two children are provided for. Surely they are now. It feels like the cameras should be turned off, but there appears no chance of that.

[Twitter}

Twitter at the centre of UGC in Mumbai attacks

255762 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:10:00 GMT

Twitter has been highly prevalent in the citizen journalism reports about what has been going on in the terror chaos in Mumbai with reports saying at one time the Indian government wanted people to stop Twittering.

Indian blogger Gauravonomics is saying that Twitter has been one of the best sources for real-time citizen journalism news on the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Various sources were also reporting that at the height of the terror attacks the Indian government asked for all live Twitter updates from the scene to cease immediately. It was concerned that terrorists were using the updates to keep abreast of the news. Scary thought that terrorists are also early adopters.

A tweet was sent and reposted across Twitter saying: "ALL LIVE UPDATES - PLEASE STOP TWEETING about #Mumbai police and military operations".

Seems fair enough although you might have wanted to stop broadcast media pointing their cameras and updating their websites. If terrorists were monitoring Twitter, they were no doubt looking at news sites to get intelligence on Indian military movements.

The Indian blogosphre has also been highly active and Flickr has too has seen a lot of activity as citizen journalists snapped shots and posted them online.

The Guardian was also reporting on the use of Google Maps page and Wikipedia page and how quickly they were set up.

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Jade Goody has PR cancer

255762 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:10:00 GMT

I have to admit when I first saw the front page of the Sun today with the "Jade Has Cancer" headline, I immediately thought "that's bound to be PR cancer, not real cancer". This thought suggests one of two really quite disturbing things.

Firstly, this means I am so deeply cynical that I am probably far beyond normal help. Abandon hope all ye who enter, is definitely scrawled on my bathroom door.

Secondly, the symbiotic tabloid reality phenomenon has hit a new low in a desperate attention seeking bid by Jade Goody and her publicist Max Clifford. Jade Goody apparently has had previous scares, and had undergone hospital tests earlier this month after her third cancer scare. It followed "four mystery collapses".

Clearly these "collapses" common to many minor celebrities, girl band members, footballers and hangers on are what most of us would call being very drunk/benders/or "off your head".

But in tabloid speak these are always called "collapses". You know, as in "Sarah Harding collapsed last night outside the Met Bar". Sarah is apparently now all okay. Phew.

Anyway, I digress, despite having these tests, Jade Goody still flew to India (who does that?) and went on the Indian version of Big Brother, partly to show she's not a racist for her disgusting performance on last year’s Celebrity Big Brother.

She probably isn't a racist in the way that many working class people are not racist, they are simply deeply, small "c" conservative. It's called working class conservatism.

The flying, the stress, the cameras and the cancer and off she goes tottering along into her latest reality vortex. She has hardly been in the Indian version of Big Brother, called Big Boss, and she is called into the Diary Room and told she has cancer ushering her onto the front pages of the tabloids.

She is now flying home. "Jade had some tests recently, then she went off to India to appear in the Indian Big Brother," Clifford said. "Yesterday we got a call from her consultant to say she had cancer of the cervix and so she has to come back straight away."

Okay go on tell me I am beyond help. It's okay really.

Didn't that other fellow traveller, Kerry Katona, surely Jade Goody's soul sister, have a similar thing? Doesn't Max Clifford handle her PR as well?

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What's wrong with India?

2228399 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:40:00 GMT

This hasn't got anything to viral marketing, but why are India coming 40th in the Olympics (with 1 gold), when they have a population of over 1 billion? Mumbai 2016 anyone?

State of Maharashtra, India: Toilet Project:

1794890 — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:42:35 GMT

This was a project my art director Sanjay Sure and I worked on which was a huge success in rural Maharashtra, India. Please take some time off your busy schedule to go through this video presentation of the Toilet Project and let me have your honest feedback. http://newnimproved.blogspot.com/2008/05/state-of-maharashtra-india-toilet.html http://tinyurl.com/5sbhdu In India, according to conservative estimates, about 772 million people do not have a private place to answer the call of nature. Consequently, vacant lands, fields, bushes, roadside and railway tracks are being used for defecation with serious consequences for the environmental well being.

It has been computed that in China, India and Indonesia, twice as many people are dying from diarrhea than from HIV/AIDS.

In the State of Maharashtra, India, every year 3 million people are affected by diseases caused by defecation in the open. Of these 3,000 people die.

This video shows how this problem was solved using mass communication techniques. Your views, good, bad or ugly will help!Thanks,

Sunil

Mumbai, India.

Dear Jade

255762 — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:06:03 GMT

The Indian Tourism Office is writing to Jade they want her to come visit. In an open letter to Jade that has run in a number of the nationals including the Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Metro, and Evening Standard.

The India Tourism Office is welcoming Jade and her "friends" to experience India for themselves. Actually not a bad move by them to jump on the bandwagon. The idea was the brainchild of Smarter Creative Director Rob Scott and was put together in record time yesterday afternoon.

Apparently she has already been. The bottles for her perfume (pulled from the shelves of The Perfume Shop yesterday) were made in India and she went and met the factory manager.

She is 50-1 odds on favourite to go tonight, but sadly her public will not be there to greet here.

In a statement re tonight's eviction, C4 said:

"Over the past few days, Celebrity Big Brother has generated an intense and, at times, heated public debate which the evicted housemate will be unaware of.

"As a result, Channel 4 and Endemol have taken the decision to conduct tonight's eviction in front of a studio audience and without a crowd."