India, a country of more than 1 billion people, growing at a rate of more than 8% annually with a huge (300 million to 500 million people, as per various estimates) and prospering middle class (so called) offers an attractive opportunity to wide range of businesses. So, why many companies failed in their inception stage in India and why giants like Walmart are still not sure about their "India Strategy" (Walmart would be working only at back-end in their JV with Bharti as per news). Welcome to this paradox, Welcome to Incredible India.
Coming back to our question, What sells in India? Why companies like Nokia are so successful and why Coke and Pepsi are still fighting for this unserved market of tea-drinkers. Well, if you ask me that what sells here, I would say practically anything (thanks to corruption). It sounds so simple a question, but only a CEO of any MNC or an entrepreneur can tell you, how difficult to decipher that how are we (read Indian consumers), what we want, the way we want, and why are we like that only.
Well as Dr. Rama has rightly said "the Indian market is about a lot of people consuming a little bit each that adds up to a lot, ...the Indian DNA is about continuity with change; it is about THIS as well as THAT; about cobbling together clever and low cost solutions that are ingenious combinations and adaptations of the products available in the market."
Dr. Rama calls it great Indian number trick, that even by targeting top 10% of Indian population one can have one third of the Indian Market to its disposal in value terms, and which is almost equivalent to what is being consumed by so called great Indian middle class. So, does hope lies at the bottom of the pyramid!!! as rest one third of the market is at bottom of the pyramid only. Well, it depends on one's 'India Strategy'. That 'India Strategy' has to be India specific, designed for India from scratch. As has been proved, copy paste models won't work here. India is developing in its own way in today's globalized world and cannot be compared to what developed countries were during their developing stages. Today, everything is accessible to Indian consumer in real time and they are good at negotiating (here also practically anything). There are multiple price-performance points for practically all product categories appealing to different consumer classes. Indian consumer is not poor (which is again a myth), Indian consumer is value conscious.
So, it depends on one's 'India Strategy' that how well one is able to provide This as well as That to demanding Indian consumer, and how better can one do than its global and local competitors in providing that...
Yeah, if you are in entertainment industry, then and easy solution for you is with Indian news channels (so called), as they are very clear with what Sells in India!!! (details in next blog entry)...
