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Wider cost-benefit analysis will determine if WFH is a success
Business Strategy

Wider cost-benefit analysis will determine if WFH is a success

The current narrative around WFH does not accommodate diverse income groups and women workers. The bandwagon of opinion that work-from-home is the amrit (nectar of immortality) that the covid manthan (churning) has yielded is growing and speeding down an implementation path that is long on profit-and-loss benefit and short on people-centricity. Corporates love the cost savings, but a fuller analysis will show that it is a double-edged sword to be handled with care, quickly accruing quantifiable savings for companies, but risking slowly accumulating costs for employees and organizations, perhaps not quantifiable early on but not un-measurable. Implement work from home (WFH) by all means, but after data-driven weighing of costs and benefits all around. We would like to see an equivalent level of discussion on the people dimension as we are seeing on cost savings. Decision-makers, likely older, with older children, better paid, hence living in larger houses with better […]

May 4, 2020
Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid
Business Strategy

Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid

The so-called middle class, which is actually India’s richest 20% of households, accounts for 36% of consumption expenditure. India’s household consumer demand is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most Low food inflation and protection of urban salaried jobs may make it better, a spoilt agricultural season may make it worse The ongoing discussion on the prognosis for consumer demand is currently based on extrapolations from supply-side data and macro-economic variables. This column aims to supplement it by providing household-level data on consumption, a “people-view” of those who cause this demand to happen. India’s household consumer demand, the jewel in its gross domestic product (GDP) crown, is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most; and because most Indian households have very little “surplus income”, money remaining after covering their routine expenditure, leave alone their […]

April 20, 2020
Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid
Demand Drivers

Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid

  The so-called middle class, which is actually India’s richest 20% of households, accounts for 36% of consumption expenditure. The ongoing discussion on the prognosis for consumer demand is currently based on extrapolations from supply-side data and macro-economic variables. This column aims to supplement it by providing household-level data on consumption, a “people-view” of those who cause this demand to happen. India’s household consumer demand, the jewel in its gross domestic product (GDP) crown, is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most; and because most Indian households have very little “surplus income”, money remaining after covering their routine expenditure, leave alone their non-routine requirements and emergencies. Consumer demand commentators have been generally reluctant to link the dismal occupation demographics to consumer demand, beyond monsoon-dependent agriculture and, after demonetization, small business owners and their employees. The covid-19 pandemic has forced us to acknowledge […]

April 20, 2020
Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid
Policy Perspective

Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid

The so-called middle class, which is actually India’s richest 20% of households, accounts for 36% of consumption expenditure. India’s household consumer demand is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most Low food inflation and protection of urban salaried jobs may make it better, a spoilt agricultural season may make it worse The ongoing discussion on the prognosis for consumer demand is currently based on extrapolations from supply-side data and macro-economic variables. This column aims to supplement it by providing household-level data on consumption, a “people-view” of those who cause this demand to happen. India’s household consumer demand, the jewel in its gross domestic product (GDP) crown, is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most; and because most Indian households have very little “surplus income”, money remaining after covering their routine expenditure, leave alone their […]

April 20, 2020
Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid
India My Land

Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid

The so-called middle class, which is actually India’s richest 20% of households, accounts for 36% of consumption expenditure. India’s household consumer demand is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most Low food inflation and protection of urban salaried jobs may make it better, a spoilt agricultural season may make it worse The ongoing discussion on the prognosis for consumer demand is currently based on extrapolations from supply-side data and macro-economic variables. This column aims to supplement it by providing household-level data on consumption, a “people-view” of those who cause this demand to happen. India’s household consumer demand, the jewel in its gross domestic product (GDP) crown, is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most; and because most Indian households have very little “surplus income”, money remaining after covering their routine expenditure, leave alone their […]

April 20, 2020
Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households
Business Strategy

Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households

Based on household-level data on occupation and income, a calculation for helping citizens get to their feet A labourer carries vegetables in sacks at a vegetables market during the nationwide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the COVID-19, in Chennai, Monday, April 6, 2020. (PTI Photo) This column offers a ‘people view’ — household-level data — of Indian households to feed into the ongoing macro-level discussion about the right level of financial support needed to help citizens get to their feet following the loss of income caused by the lockdown, and where it should be deployed.. Presented here is a ground-up calculation based on what categories of jobs and job arrangements mainly contribute to the income of households, and what that actual income level is. Macro-level discussions are based on a broadbrush understanding of occupation — large swathes of informality, agriculture dependence and migrants. We base our assessment on […]

April 12, 2020
Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households
Policy Perspective

Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households

Based on household-level data on occupation and income, a calculation for helping citizens get to their feet A labourer carries vegetables in sacks at a vegetables market during the nationwide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the COVID-19, in Chennai, Monday, April 6, 2020. (PTI Photo) This column offers a ‘people view’ — household-level data — of Indian households to feed into the ongoing macro-level discussion about the right level of financial support needed to help citizens get to their feet following the loss of income caused by the lockdown, and where it should be deployed.. Presented here is a ground-up calculation based on what categories of jobs and job arrangements mainly contribute to the income of households, and what that actual income level is. Macro-level discussions are based on a broadbrush understanding of occupation — large swathes of informality, agriculture dependence and migrants. We base our assessment on […]

April 12, 2020
Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households
India My Land

Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households

Based on household-level data on occupation and income, a calculation for helping citizens get to their feet A labourer carries vegetables in sacks at a vegetables market during the nationwide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the COVID-19, in Chennai, Monday, April 6, 2020. (PTI Photo) This column offers a ‘people view’ — household-level data — of Indian households to feed into the ongoing macro-level discussion about the right level of financial support needed to help citizens get to their feet following the loss of income caused by the lockdown, and where it should be deployed.. Presented here is a ground-up calculation based on what categories of jobs and job arrangements mainly contribute to the income of households, and what that actual income level is. Macro-level discussions are based on a broadbrush understanding of occupation — large swathes of informality, agriculture dependence and migrants. We base our assessment on […]

April 12, 2020
The Jugaad of Inclusion
Corporate Governance

The Jugaad of Inclusion

The purpose of reservation is to correct the exclusion of capable and qualified women from corporate boards, and not to provide yin to the existing board’s yang The response that we have seen so far to the new law mandating reservation of board seats for women has been disappointing and shows how far we are from real inclusion. Ironically, this applies to both those supporting and opposing the move. There has been jugaad in the best Indian tradition to comply with the new but to continue with the old way — a telling comment on the governance standards of boards which managed to do that well. The plethora of well-meaning men and organisations that have sprung up to “mentor” and “train” potential women directors are more patriarchal than progressive in their prescriptions, reflecting a poor understanding of what inclusion is really about (more on that later). They have tried to justify what […]

February 9, 2020
Why India needs its own definition of what it means to be a ‘millennial’
Consumer Trends

Why India needs its own definition of what it means to be a ‘millennial’

Millennials are 30% of the population and have fuelled India’s consumption growth more than any other generation (Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint) In India, Gen Z should be called Digizens. None of them know the India that was before Y2K Topics Indian Millennial Millennials are an age cohort conceived in America as those born between 1981 and 1996. In an article Defining Generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z Begins, Pew Research says that “cut-offs of ages aren’t an exact science, but tools for allowing analysis, yet not arbitrary, and based on political, economic, social factors”. This means that before we adopt the American construct of “millennials” as a relevant tool for analysis, we need to test whether, by this definition, it makes sense to do so. And if not, what do we use then? The markers for American millennials include being “old enough to grasp the historical significance of 9/11”, growing up […]

December 31, 2019
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