Business Strategy Archives - RAMA BIJAPURKAR

How young India views the world and polls

Rmbijapurkar — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 11:39:42 +0000

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Why this fuss about income inequality?

Rmbijapurkar — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 17:29:46 +0000

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Reframing the middle class

Rmbijapurkar — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 12:16:15 +0000

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Connecting India, connecting with India

Rmbijapurkar — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 10:37:23 +0000

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Fair & Lovely’s rebranding brings new opportunities for HUL and competitors

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 10:57:00 +0000

As we wait with bated breath for the new name for Fair & Lovely to be announced, a few things seem obvious: One, it was a move suddenly dictated from London because it just isn’t Hindustan Unilever’s (HUL’s) style in all the years we have known it to miss a beat when it comes to flawless, confident and much-researched execution of any change — especially when it involves consumers and a Rs 4,000 crore brand.

Representative Image

In this case, HUL announced changing the name first, then announced that the new name was being legally registered (their risk assessment clearly did not show this as a possibility otherwise, knowing their formidable execution skills, they would have had a well-tested alternative name ready), and are keeping everyone, including consumers, guessing.

Two — and here’s the disappointing thing — having been unmoved by a decade-plus of Indian activists protesting about how Fair & Lovely was perpetuating stereotypes and condoning Indian society’s preference for fair-skinned girls over dark-skinned girls, making the latter feel less worthy, HUL now seems to have been moved in a jiffy to respond to the Black Lives Matters (BLM) protests in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

Even more curious is that the trigger was probably Unilever’s need to not be at a competitive disadvantage against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) elsewhere in the world, However, the action was to change the name of a brand that mostly exists in another part of the world where J&J is hardly competition, and where the context of the BLM protests does not directly exist. This change of mind and heart on Fair & Lovely is not a victory for India activists; it’s a reason for them to say ‘Indian protests matter too’.

Will the brand Fair & Lovely get dented badly, or will the marketing genius of HUL pull this off with ease?

HUL has been manoeuvring the transition from the fairness benefit for a while now, as the skincare market has educated consumers and made them more sophisticated and multidimensional in their needs. The brand has been made to evolve slowly and surely from a single focus ‘why buy me’ consumer promise of fairness to an ’empowerment of women’ benefit (with the subtle messaging that even your skin colour is in your hands to change, as is the progress you make in life) — but never letting go of the core promise of fairness/lightening/brightening. Over time, the franchise has also been expanded to include a whole slew of new products around the ‘glow’ and ‘nikhar’ promises, but always with some tagline using the word fairness.

Now they probably will let go of the fairness benefit and occupy the glow space more wholly, and subliminally signal, as only great marketers can, the fairness heritage or ‘khandani DNA’ of the renamed brand. Product formulations probably are most likely not getting dropped either.

So what’s in a name? Indian consumers don’t worry too much about brand names per se, they worry a lot more about brand personality, the relationship they have with the brand, and about product performance. We are after all a country where women in many parts change their given names after marriage, and mostly their surnames too.

This forced churning, like all forced churning, might even do the brand franchise good, and enable it to compete in a more mainstream manner and appeal to a wider audience. The loser in this is a whole lot of consumers who really wanted fairness. Will another company not having Anglo-Dutch lineage and large businesses at stake in the UK and the US rush in and occupy the available slot? We have to wait and watch.

Rama Bijapurkar is an independent market strategy consultant, and author of ‘A Never-Before World: Tracking the Evolution of Consumer India’. Views are personal.

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The DNA of Consumer India will remain unscathed after covid-19

admin — Mon, 11 May 2020 00:01:00 +0000

Winners will be those who proactively market better. Losers will be those who wait for the consumer to emerge suo moto. (Photo: Reuters)

Investors are well-advised to track the supply side as carefully as they are tracking the consumer side

CoronavirusCovid-19

Marketers and investors are increasingly wondering how consumption will change post covid-19 and the lockdown. The obvious answer is that everyone is going to be less well off, and consumption will shrink. In an earlier column we modelled the amount at risk.

People will spend on necessities first (could include replacing a broken phone or refrigerator, not just food and school fees). For getting a piece of the “nice to have but can do without” expenditure, there will be a fierce cross category battle (buy an iPhone now, paint your house next year or downsize the wedding and give the newlyweds a car instead).

The Indian consumer toggles seamlessly between ‘stretch’ and ‘settle’ behaviour—in good times, “whatever I can afford plus one price-performance level up” (stretch) and in bad times “let’s stay with the most manageable price-performance point” (settle). We have seen all this before in earlier downturns, no surprises here.

But there also seems to be a hypothesis developing that this never-before experience may change Consumer India’s DNA permanently. If I had to pick a number on a 10-point scale where 10 is significant transformation and 1 is kuttey ka doom (the proverbial dog’s tail that always goes back to the original curl), I would pick 3.

Some behaviour changes will happen, but with a twist. Will we offer household help liberal salary hikes because we have experienced their workload and our dependence? Probably not. Move to a do-it-yourself fully gadgeted home? No. But we will buy insurance with options like cleaning robots, or even buy gadgets for helpers to use to better clean the dirty places we discovered during our house arrest.

What about digital becoming the primary way of life and living for all? Global investor and author Ruchir Sharma recently wrote that things we expect to happen post-covid were already happening pre-covid—covid is just “telescoping the future”? Moving to digital ubiquity had already begun —thanks to Chinese phones, the cheapest telecom rates in the world and even temples going online! The momentum multiplies.

Increased health and cleanliness focus? We have created a caste system in that too; ever noticed how, before masks were made compulsory, in many swanky buildings the hired help and building staff wore masks but not the residents? The driver but not the owner in the back seat?

Many will go back to things we gave up in deference to modernity, more shoes will be left at the door, more concern on jhoota (sharing eating utensils). But even now we see that the outside drain or garbage pile continues to be ‘not my problem’, but my home must be disinfected for covid care.

Will the fear of going out make us live inside? We are already seeing social distancing being given the go-by whenever the lockdown is lifted even slightly; it’s not just the poor that were standing outside liquor stores; enough cars are visible on the road.

So no, don’t hold your breath expecting covid-19 to deliver a brand-new, evolved Consumer India. But Consumer India is in a rare state of pause and has time to listen, to reflect, to re-evaluate what fulfils their needs best—that is the opportunity, and the ‘watch-out’, for marketers.

Winners will be those who proactively market better. Losers will be those who wait for the consumer to emerge suo moto. So, investors are well-advised to track the supply side as carefully as the consumer side to determine likely outcomes.

Rama Bijapurkar is an independent market strategy consultant.

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

admin — Mon, 04 May 2020 07:41:00 +0000

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 quality household help, are deciding on WFH from their own contexts, oblivious of employee contexts of smaller homes shared by more family members now also having to double as work spaces, small children demanding attention when they see a parent, and lower quality household help. As for it being a working woman’s dream, ask them and you will find not all women can manage expected productivity and WFH — disturbing her is the default option if she is at home (surprising how problems resolve themselves when you are at the office!)

People-centricity requires data from the other side and acceptance that there are segments and, so, a one-size policy doesn’t fit all. Implicitly assuming that something is workable because it works for the five people who said it to me, or for the mancom, or even worse, that if it has worked in crisis times, it must work all the time, is irresponsible.

So, before jumping to the “WFH saves rental cost and delights employees” conclusion and rushing to implement, we suggest a pause to get data on people’s home environments, family demographics, the pain points of WFH and, even more simply, an anonymous employee vote on the matter. Also needed is for HR to develop sound conceptual models on what improves or hampers WFH productivity based on the nature of work of employees in different grades and in different roles and to devise a whole new way of managing productivity.

Neuroscience shows that the chemical balance of the brain shifts when in isolation leading to lower feelings of psychological safety, affecting creativity and openness to change. Social interactions have more to them than video meeting the way they are currently done. Neuroscience theory of “mirror neurons” suggests positive benefits of social interaction for teamwork, another holy grail of business leaders (The Star Factor, William Seidman et al and The Tell Tale Brain, V.S. Ramachandran).

Finally, it is also a business leader’s responsibility to think about the implicit contract that employers have with employees – to provide a “work place” that is geared to “work needs” (where you do not do meetings with your spouse, mother-in-law or toddler in attendance ). Also, “work identity” is a very strong builder of self esteem and social standing, especially in India. That’s why money was spent in the first place on well-designed offices in specific locations that people feel proud to go to. WFH takes these away. Signalling caring for employees cannot be done while ignoring what WFH of the chief wage-earner does to the very structure of the family dynamics.

Rama Bijapurkar is an independent market strategy consultant, and Smita Affinwalla is founder of Illuminos HR Consulting.

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

admin — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 08:22:00 +0000

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 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 the universe of migrant—daily-wage workers—individual service providers who hunt for their daily bread, 32% of Indian households who contribute about 24% to India’s household expenditure. By contrast, the so-called middle class, which is actually India’s richest 20% of households, accounts for 36% of consumption expenditure.

The accompanying tables provide a map of consumption expenditure based on the share of household consumption expenditure contributed by different occupation groups further divided into the income level they belong to. Some occupation categories with similar earning vulnerabilities due to the present problems have been clubbed. The income levels have been so defined because our data shows that the bottom 40% of households have virtually no surplus income, the top 20% of households are discontinuously better earners and spenders (actually they are the so-called middle class that dominates our discourse on consumption) and the 40% in the middle are what we call the aspirational Indians in terms of consumption behaviour—spending more in good times and hunkering down in bad. The data comes from pan-Indian ICE 360° India household surveys (2014, 2016) and thinsamples of 2018, on how Indian households earn, spend, save, live, think and access public goods, done by our think tank and fact tank People Research on India’s Consumer Economy. Our aim here is to provide a people-based frame by which to construct reasonable risk maps for consumer demand, adjusted as policy initiatives unfold and depending on a business’s consumer profile. First, a look at rural India’s consumer demand risk map. Rural households account for 57% of all India household consumption expenditure (and 54% of India’s household income).

Table 1 shows the share of rural household expenditure (number in each square) contributed by households in each occupation x income category, and our reading of risk levels of each one’s expenditure holding in this environment.

Since our hopes are riding on a good harvest, a bit more detail on agriculture dependence of rural households: 22% of rural households are dependent entirely on agricultural business income, another 5% on agricultural labour income; 28% are dependent mainly on agricultural business income (all those in Row 1, Table 1) and 9% on agricultural labour. We have combined the last one with all casual labour (Row 5, Table 1). Another 30 %of rural households (some parts of those in Row 2,3,5,Table 1) have some dependence on farm income but since it is a minor component of their income and of total farm income, we have not segregated them.

A good harvest safeguards 30% of rural expenditure (Row 1, Table 1). Given lockdowns and their after-effects on the large spending segment of casual labour and on the micro businesses, and the drying up of remittance from urban Indian migrants, about 34% of rural expenditure will be severely stressed ( Row 4,5, Table 1). The salaried in rural India (Row 3, Table 1) are safer than the salaried in urban India because they are relatively more formally employed, so another 18% of rural expenditure is ‘safe’. Overall, we believe about 62% of rural spends will come through if agricultural activity can get done on time (‘safe’ expenditure plus half of the partially at risk expenditure). The hope also is that some part of the 29% of expenditure contributed by casual labour may be salvaged as it also gets used for agriculture.

Turning now to urban consumption, which accounts for 43% of total consumption, and is more lucrative because of higher income salaried households, but very geographically scattered. We expect that for the largest chunk of urban consumption—the salaried class—job security will be an issue, especially since urban salaried occupations unlike rural tend to be of all kinds, and less formal. Twenty percent of urban expenditure accounted for by the high-income salaried group is totally safe (Row 1, Table 2). This segment has surplus income, is also the darling of banks, and is not only earning during the lockdown, but has also been abstaining from consumption this last month—no beauty parlour visits, no eating out, no conveyance expenditure, no shopping sprees, a condition that is likely to last for quite some time. They can and will spend if suppliers who can address them make an effort at persuasion. For the rest of the salaried class (we expect job losses and restructuring and we expect only 8-9% of the 23% of consumption they account for to remain,

Of the small businessmen, micro entrepreneurs and solo service providers (Row 2, Table 2), we expect half of their consumption worth to materialize —15% of urban consumption lost or at high risk. Even if they do have surplus income from the past, the present jerk on their revenues will make them very cautious spenders; besides, all of them carry debt.

Another 9% of safe consumption is from agriculture income dependent families and those who live off investments, pensions, rent and remittances (Row 4,5 Table 2). So totally, we expect about 52% of urban consumption to hold (safe expenditure plus half of partially stressed expenditure).

Taken together, we assess that 58% household consumption will come through, contributed 61% by rural and 39% by urban India. Low food inflation and protection of urban salaried jobs may make it better, a spoilt agricultural season may make it worse. We would also like to point out that the salvaged potential expenditure, even after removing half of it, is still by far larger than the top lines of most large consumer companies—so this is not the time to give up and say the tide has gone out, but to continue to grow with targeted strategies to grab a share of the wallet.

Rama Bijapurkar and Dr Rajesh Shukla are co-founders of think tank People Research on India’s Consumer Economy

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

admin — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 15:02:00 +0000

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 a more specific map of occupation and income level by town class for urban, and district development level for rural areas.

The data comes from our pan-Indian study, the ICE 360 database, 2016 and 2018, on how Indian households earn, spend, save, live, and access public goods.

Occupations & vulnerability

In the accompanying table, occupation categories are described and arranged in decreasing order of vulnerability based on the nature of work and income level; the table shows how large, how dominant, and how vulnerable or “at risk” each occupation category is, separately for urban and rural India.

We measure vulnerability by what percentage of households in each category fall into the bottom 40% of income earners, separately for urban/rural.

We chose 40% to define the vulnerable instead of the conventional definition of bottom 20% because our work shows that this entire group has very little cushion between income and expenditure even in good times; it’s always touch-and-go for them.

The poorest 20% don’t manage to meet even their routine expenditure required for day-to-day living, while the 20% above them have a slim margin in good times often destroyed by health or social emergencies or inflation.

Row 1 of the table shows the most vulnerable group by far of 91 million households, dependent on casual labour, a quarter of all urban Indian and a third of all rural Indian households, largely low-income.

Two months of income support at the lower end of the group’s earning level of Rs 10,000 in tier 3 and tier 4 towns, and Rs 8,500 in the less developed districts of rural, adds up to Rs 1.62 lakh crore – 0.85% of GDP.

Next most vulnerable are petty trader (hawkers, street vendors) households (row 2 of table), for whom one month’s income support can also fund inventory, which they can start rotating.

This group earns about as much or as little as casual labour with no U-R difference, and will require Rs 10,500 crore.

Next are the individual service provider households (row 3 of table) who are reasonably well off. Many have the skills for which pent-up demand already exists (beauticians and electricians for instance).

There is, however, a 30% segment within this occupation category that classifies as low-income, earns only slightly more than labour or petty traders, and needs support. One month of income support to them needs Rs 5,000 crore.

The support bill

The total support bill of Rs 1.78 lakh crore for this core vulnerable group of 10.6 crore households is about 0.92% of GDP. This group is only about one fourth of the Jan Dhan household base of 38.3 crore. There is another large group of 45 million salaried work-dependent households, mostly in the informal sector (row 4 of the table), but attached to an employer of sorts.

If the Prime Minister could repeat his plea to the employers of this group to please share and pay full salaries through the lockdown period, it would secure this group – the “India 2” that shapes our cities, and is a big enabler of “India 1”.

Most of them are fairly well off in large towns and rural areas, but with a small lower income segment equally distributed between small town urban and less developed rural. One month’s income support to this segment at the casual labour rate amounts to Rs 8,250 crore.

In our assessment, all told, the total one-time income support bill, assuming lifting of the lockdown as planned, amounts to about Rs 1.86 lakh crore, or about 1% of GDP.

What of small shop and micro business owners (row 5 of the table), who are hurting with no revenue, and who have fixed expenses?

They are better aided through business concessions or directed small ticket ‘working capital’ lending at rates far lower than what NBFCs would charge for unsecured lending. As rows 6 and 7 of the table show, the secure formally employed salaried group are very small relative to the others and financially well off, more secure, and have a savings cushion. Yet, they get a larger than warranted share of concern as all the talk of job losses and layoffs shows! Perhaps a change in our vocabulary to replace the word ‘jobs’ with ‘livelihoods’ would help us be more in tune with the reality of India.

(Rama Bijapurkar and Dr Rajesh Shukla areco-founders of think tank and fact tank People Research on India’s Consumer Economy)

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

admin — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 22:11:00 +0000

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 “in the shadows of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” with “huge polarization of the environment”, the 2008 watershed election when youth played a major role, entering the workforce at the height of the economic recession, and with being the most racially diverse group in America’s history. Clearly, none of these markers apply to us here.

So what are India’s age cohorts that fit Pew’s criteria of being a good tool for analyses and yet not arbitrary, but based on thresholds which are defined by political, economic social events? Liberalization is a central event for Indians, and certainly is most impactful one for any analysis of consumption.

The age cohort born between 1981 and 1996, the Indian contemporaries of American millennials, is a distinctive one. They’re India’s first non-socialist generation, the first to have consumption encouraged, not curbed. Let’s call them Liberalization Children (LC), a term I have used earlier. Why pick 1981 to 1996?

This is the period when India’s transition happened from a closed economy to an open one—colour TV, 1982, Rajiv Gandhi and 1984 heralded both a generational shift and so-called light reforms, while big-bang liberalization followed in 1991, and executing the basic reforms (decontrolling) for the transition between 1991 and 1994.

Studying this period also allows meaningful analysis of this cohort which is today between 25 and 40 years old, all in the workforce and “full nest” householders. More than 85% are married, most have children presumably, and this is the first cohort of both parents and children with post-liberalization consumption sensibilities. That is why their large numbers—30% of the population—have fuelled India’s consumption growth, aided by gross domestic product-enabled income growth, more than any generation before.

Consumption commentators often forget to factor in the critical role that supply plays in shaping consumption. For example, it is no surprise that LC consume more debt than their parents—they have more access to loans because of the birth of modern private retail banking in 1993 and establishment of CIBIL in 2000. The better-off LC are sought after by banks for loans for cars, two-wheelers, housing, durables, and this fuels their consumption. This cohort is also the beneficiary of decreased prices and improved quality thanks to, post-liberalization, duties coming down, competition increasing, the Chinese goods boom and the e-commerce money-burn wooing of customers, followed by the sharing economy.

But we also need to be less starry-eyed and notice this cohort’s dismal demographics—a majority rural, one-third have not crossed primary school, only 10-12% are graduates, most who work are in casual labour or petty self-employment, salary earners are in the minority.

Being mostly of modest income, and raised by socialist generation parents, they are not trigger-happy spenders. They spend pragmatically on utilitarian consumption and affordable indulgences. Their consumption is thus rooted in the past sensibility as well as the future. Conveyance, communication, productivity tools (durables, motorcycles, smartphones), family entertainment and education are their high-spending categories.

Cellphones tariff was affordable only from 2001. Cellphone access truly began when our oldest millennial was 20, and parents didn’t give it to the young ones. Affordable smartphones came much later. They are enthusiastic about technology, very comfortable with it and encourage their children’s usage of technology, though unlike them they are not digital from birth.

Given that the majority have endured modest incomes and tough living conditions for a lot of their lives and have in the last five to 10 years gained access to cooking gas connections, bank accounts, improved infrastructure and amenities, direct benefit transfers and easier payments, they are grateful to the Modi government.

How are they coping with the slowdown? As the mainstream ruling age cohort and not some niche protected segment, they struggle with vulnerable occupations and muted or negligible income growths. Their utilitarian consumption gets even more utilitarian and their careful trade-offs make for interesting and patchy corporate results. While they consume debt, they do so prudently. But their desire to consume is intact.

Though LC mark the beginning of the age of Indian consumerism, the next generation is far more interesting and discontinuous in consumption and worldview. Born after 1996, called Gen Z in America, the appropriate label for them in India is Digizens. The oldest is still under 23 years old, and none of them know the India that was before its Y2K-spurred identity of a software giant, before ubiquitous and cheap internet and gadgets, before digital payments, JAM, e-governance and tech-driven subsidies, social media, all accessible no matter which social class you are. Digitally driven businesses enable even lower-income Digizens to consume “above their pay grade” in status-blind ways (think dynamic pricing on airline tickets, ride-sharing, rickshaw hailing apps). The rise in data tariffs and how they will adjust the rest of their consumption to afford it is yet to be seen.

The big picture is that from now on, supply will drive demand. The desire and the business models are available and consumption will depend on who offers a more meaningful supply. If the economy picks up as we hope it will and this supply-side vibrancy happens, then liberalization children and their Digizen offspring will skyrocket consumption, the new way.

Rama Bijapurkar is a market strategy consultant and co-founder of People Research on India’s Consumer Economy, www.ice360.in

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