Copyright@kamleshsujata1
By Kamleshsujata1
By Kamleshsujata1
#MaggiRecalled
High lead
content in Maggi has sent Nestle into a tizzy of a lifetime. Vigorous tests are
on, in the food labs of India, and soon anyone’s bluff will be caught if not
already. And, it is not only for Nestle, but a reminder for all MNCs that gone
are the days when you could serve a sub-standard and obsolete product in India and
get away, as the equations have altered and tables have turned.
Today the
literacy levels of India are at 74%, and most Indians when they walk into a
store have already made up their minds, about what they are going to buy and
why. Consumer laws too have firmed up even when they may not be as pungent as
the US.
India over
the years has become a very attractive and money spinning sub-continent market
for any MNC with its newly rich population, and so also the population
explosion, and in some ways it fares even better than the markets of the US. In
fact serving the Indian market is like clocking a revenue equivalent to serving
half of Europe when we milk the geographical advantages of India’s neighbours.
The Indian population as per 2011 stands at around
1.21 billion out of which around 830 million is rural and 380 million is urban,
as compared to the total US population of 319 million. So, even our urban
population is higher than the total population of the US. Our urban
distribution is at 69% and rural 31% quite favouring a smooth flow of goods and
services across the sub-continent.
And with a population of 1.25 billion, on an average every
seventh person in the world is an Indian. And this has extrapolating advantages
when you sell in India, in terms of scaling up a brand, brand recall or even name
recalls of niche segments in prominent SKUs. And a big chunk of Indian
population, are expats and NRIs. And to them what is sold at home is acceptable
in foreign lands too, from day one; and so a MNC even gets a ready export
market should it want to manufacture in India where labour and cost of
infrastructure is way below the western countries.
Although India’s population is three times that of the
US its land area is 1/3rd of the US (India 3287590 square km—US
9857306 sq km) which makes India a much more compact market than the US, where
distribution costs will be much lesser. And an even more gleaming
factor would be the population density that directly triggers footfalls, and
consequentially sales. The population density of India 364/km
as compared to the US which is 90/square miles—again a favourable tilt towards India.
Summing up, in times to come such large markets in
confined and clustered land areas that will give high footfalls will be a rarity,
and therefore Indian consumers and markets need to be treated with a lot more
seriousness by MNCs as days are not far when operating headquarters of many
MNCs will move closer to the bulk of their consumers where only China and India
will be their likely destinations.
And so, MNCs should move with bags with a single
pocket and not bags with too many pockets or hidden pockets for various
countries as transparency is the wholesome virtue in present times. And last
but not the least the golden goose is there and I am sure the MNCs wouldn’t like
to kill it for short term gains.
And brand ambassadors of MNC products need to verify
complete details before they align with any product.
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