Buy Indian? Really?
I was just reading a mail sent by a friend which proclaimed that India's economy is going down the drain, that the rupee's value is depreciating and that buying Indian is the way to go. These mails irritate the heck out of me, as they are so obviously not solving the problem, though they are well meant. It is true that the average spending on foreign (note: not an originally Indian) products by Indians have gone up in the last few years. But with the opening of the Indian economy, and the entry of big name multinationals, what exactly were we expecting? That nobody would buy them? It's true that a bottle of Coke or Pepsi costs only 89/90 paisa and that charging 9 bucks for it is a crime. But to say that due to this, 30000 crores of rupees are going out of India is bullshit. According to published figures, Coke and Pepsi India have never made a profit here, in fact they have not even broken even. But that's not really the point is it? It's easy to complain that global companies will use their huge war chests and economies of scale to push products for cheap in India. It's easy to go to the parliament and ask for taxes and cess to be put on the same. But shouldn’t somebody point out that china has exactly the same problem and yet managed to outwit these western companies at their own game? Their economies of scale are so good that nearly all western manufacturing companies have plants there, whose products they then sell in countries like India! The question here is, having identified the problem, what should be done about it. Since we are living in liberal times, and don't have a protectionist regime to hide under any more, more questions should be asked about the quality of products been made and marketed here. Take shaving products, why would I want to use Godrej and Emami products, with their terrible marketing and questionable quality, when I can buy Gillette products for the same price? And it's not like Godrej is a small company and cannot afford to spend more in marketing either. at the end of the day, these companies should get out of the slumber mode in which they seem to have been for the last twenty years, and prepare for the competition, like Bajaj and TVS are doing with their superb range of bikes and to a lesser extent, Videocon is doing in the consumer goods section. As Friedman says, the world is getting flatter, and we have to be prepared to live with it.
i think the mail was sent by me :)
nice blog
write one on how to stop hairfall buddy... i am facing the same prob as u :D
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Anonymous |
4:41 AM