This potential customer is 5th standard passed, poor, lives in Mumbai in her employer’s house, has some family in a distant village, and is acutely aware of her need for financial security and independence. Demographic data shows that there are many like her in our big cities. Indeed, they are the consumer segment that Kishore Biyani, Chairman Future Group calls “India 2” i.e. people who help “India 1” make the money that they do; a consumer segment whose thinking has been influenced by being in close proximity and observing “India 1”. This is a primary opinion leader segment even for the folks back in their village. We went to the nearest public sector bank branch. Somehow, we felt that compared to the others, public sector banks may be more willing to admit such customers, given that their owner, the government, is constantly espousing it. But obviously public sector banks have […]
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Economic Times - October 27, 2008
We are spooking ourselves into a slowdown that is even slower than is warranted by the reality of how much our consumers’ disposable income and their mood has actually been hit. Gloom and doom feeds on itself, and then it makes companies even more pessimistic in their marketing conduct as they shift from coaxing consumers to buy (as they usually do in the normal course of their business) to conserving their own cash and not taking chances on sales growth generating expenditure. The last several quarters saw unprecedented rise in input costs, but companies decided to absorb much of it and opt for margin pressure rather than pass it on to the consumer and risk decreasing consumer demand. Their bet was on a steady future increase in consumer income and desire to consume, hence top line growth would more than offset the margin drop, and profits growth would be safe. […]
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Economic Times - April 7, 2008
The HRD minister must be congratulated – and thanked – for wholeheartedly accepting the propositions that educational institutions should be governed by their governing boards; and that there is nothing wrong with a plan that delivers self-sufficiency with social justice. We look forward to this being the direction in which he will encourage all educational “navaratnas” to move. The purpose of this article is to provide facts and perspectives in order to frame the debate on governance of IIMs and IITs and the role of MHRD. It would be a waste of this space to further stir up the already muddied waters of the fee increase issue. Suffice it to say that social justice is not served by subsidising people who have an average starting salary of around Rs 17 lakh and access to pre-approved loans with banks who deem them creditworthy based on where they are going, and irrespective […]
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The Economic Times - February 2006
Even as large companies in India loudly proclaim their worship at the altar of consumer centricity, their reluctance to pay for fundamental consumer related, consumer based market structure data bases is low. The market research industry agrees with me– they say that serious analysis of fundamental, consumer data on demographics, living conditions, spend patterns, consumption and ownership, collected on an all India basis, across rich and poor, rural and urban households does not have as much demand as it ought to, given the level of business interest and business speak about consumers. And it isn’t because the price is prohibitive. India has the lowest cost survey data compared to anywhere in the world, and of very high quality.I am not referring to market research budgets, which are showing healthy growth. The fact is that a lot of market research spend is on product and marketer performance related issues like customer […]
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Business Standard - June 2004
Thank God for cosmic chaos. For delivering institutions of higher education from a regressive regime with anachronistic ideas. Thank God for the new HRD minister and his team who believe in logic, dialogue, and the sanctity of governing boards. The IIMs now have a window of huge opportunity to sell a plan to get them well on the path to world class, and get the resources and the changes needed to make it happen. There is now a really urgent need for the IIMs, especially the big three, to redeem the faith and the enormous support that they have received from the new ministry, from their governing boards, from their alumni and well wishers, and from the media. There can be no disagreement from everyone, inside and outside, who participated in this battle, that this is the time to open a discontinuous new chapter of big, hairy, audacious goals, and […]
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