Today, I was on my way to work and the moon launch by India randomly popped into my head. As I thought about it more and more, I realized what a truly stupendous achievement it was. I mean, which other developing country do you know that just out of nowhere decides to launch a rocket to the moon, and then with much, much less than half the time and resources that other countries have been throwing at the task, just ups and does it. No transfer of technology, no buying, no asking for a loan. Quick, simple and efficient.
What a huge opportunity for India as a country, in terms of image, particularly in business. Also, as the world becomes an increasingly tech-savvy place, it’s important to take a good position in terms of capability. Moreover, it would also be a great way to get positioned in global importance.
I admit, I didn’t see any of the information flow overseas so perhaps I am not in the best position to comment on this. But I was here, and I thought the information flow was weak and uncoordinated. There was no attempt to use this to drive Brand India, which would then have flowed as the message overseas too. In fact, I remember my uncle in the US who is a great patriot was actually highly disappointed in the kind and amount of coverage. If any other country, say China, had achieved something like this it would have dominated global headlines for some time. But since this was us, we remained a one-day wonder.
When will governments realize the tremendous need to position the country? It doesn’t happen by chance, it’s something you work on consciously, that you drive strategically. You use every opportunity to leverage yourself into a position of greater global importance, because these opportunities do not come along every day. It helps when you negotiate for a nuclear deal, it helps when you have aggressive neighbours, it helps when the global economy is sinking… it has numerous and hundreds of intangible benefits.
When I was growing up, India was typically perceived as a poor country awash in tigers, elephants and sadhus. It took the IT revolution and companies like Infosys and TCS for India to be perceived in a whole new league. When I was at INSEAD, we held an “India week”, where for one week we had various cultural programs devoted to a discovery of India. As part of that, the many graduates from BITS who were part of INSEAD’s IT team created a complete website on India and its culture. Even as classmates shook their heads in disbelief at how we had done it, they acknowledged our abilities in the field.
It’s more and more important today that India not just perceive itself as powerful but that it make other countries conscious of the tremendous potential and beneficial power in the form of capability and intellectual talent that we have. It is a pity to keep frittering away our opportunities as we do.
2008 was an eventful year for India in several ways. Inflation reared its ugly head early on and prices of commodities, food items and fuel went soaring up. Later on, the global economic crisis had its impact with FIIs pulling out money from the stock market. Newspapers reported various incidents of middle class families which had lost money in the stock market and now were facing the prospect of poverty. The global meltdown has had its impact on India’s richest: India’s 40 richest people’s net worth has shrunk from $351 billion a year ago to $139 billion. Property prices began to tumble. The daily news about globally iconic companies now begging for government handouts and numerous announcements of layoffs have created an atmosphere of ambiguity. Several Indian companies announced layoffs, salary cutbacks and freezes on hiring. India witnessed many more acts of terrorism across its cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad…with the siege of Bombay being the latest and in many ways the most frightening.
In this issue of Consumer Outlook, we are covering the category of food. Food habits are generally culturally driven, deeply ingrained in the psyche of people, and, therefore, quite difficult to change or influence in the short term. A visible change in food habits usually indicates much deeper changes at work in the society’s lifestyles, attitudes and aspirations. Over the past few years, a number of exciting trends have been noted in India’s food habits. Even though many of them are niche, they have the necessary force to expand to more consumers in the future. Capturing the explosive power of these food trends at the right time offers a tremendous opportunity for growth for a vast number of FMCG and lifestyle brands
Textile and apparel is one of the oldest industries in the world and has come a long way since the days when manufacturing used to primarily occurred in consumption centers of US, Europe and Japan. Trade eventually shifted to newly industrialize Asian countries with low labor cost and abundant raw material. The next important stage emerged when quota restrictions were removed on 01 January 2005 changing sourcing patterns as well as buyer-supplier relationships.
India in recent years has been the focal point of continuous growth and development making it one of the fastest growing economies of the world. It is the 4 largest economy in terms of Purchasing Power Parity, after USA, China & Japan, and is rated among the top 10 FDI destinations.
Emergence of organized retail in India is bringing a landscape change in the way retailing has been traditionally perceived and executed. However, it is not just the front end that is witnessing this frenzy, but the entire supply chain is going through a dramatic development. Effective supply chain management is the backbone of retail industry and therefore, is crucial to its performance. From a mere operational obligation, supply chain management is going to become the key competitive tool for winning the consumer.
