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Book Reviews: We are like that Only.

We are like that only', put simply, is an indispensable proposition for those

who seek to decipher Indian consumption riddle. Positioning Guru Jack Trout in

his bestseller 'Differentiate or Die' calls India a land of non-standard marketing.

India truly is unique in ways more than one. There is a veritable cornucopia of

evidence available where multinational firms have entered India with

predisposed marketing agendas and far-fetched projections, only to be baffled

by the existing heterogeneous structures within structures in the country.

Consequently, many firms were forced to spin their marketing strategies on

head. Rama Bijapurkar, I must say, has pulled out all stops in her enlightening

book. Her insights about Indian market's demand structures and her informed

assumptions about how to predict change in consumer India are as informative

as they are intellectually satisfying.

'We are like that only' starts with a foreword from late C.K. Prahlad (author of

'Fortune at the Bottom of Pyramid'), where he argues that there is no single

India and that GDP per capita is not a good measure of the capacity to

consume. Rama extensively builds upon these arguments throughout thebook. She highlights that consumption patterns in India should not be equated

with those in other emerging markets or for that matter, with developed

markets in their infancy days. Reason being that demand structures in India are

quite different from any other country. India is a country where millions of

people consume a little bit of each and that little bit adds up to a lot. She

further avers that multinational companies and strategic consultancies need

not wait for that magical per capita number at which 'consumption' is

supposed to take off. Taking a cue from CK Prahalad's BOP concept, Rama

emphasizes that consumption in India has already taken off at the lower

income levels (citing the example of success of sachets in shampoo market and

how sales of millions of sachets trumps the sales of bottles) and it's the

marketers who need to realign their thought-processes if they are to sustain

their success in Indian consumer market.

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Rama Bijapurkar's arguments about three consumer segments - Premium,

popular and discount - being equal in value and being different only in the

number of consumers in each, are mighty thought-provoking. Towards the end

of the book, author draws upon her knowledge in Demographics,

Psychographics, Cultural science, History and Philosophy to further elucidate

upon the topic of heterogeniety in Indian consumer market. Rama

acknowledges the shift of society's stance towards consumerism when she

mentions in Chapter 9 that the most important cultural shift has been the

emergence of discontentment with the incorrectness of having to continue

with whatever little you have.

Author's mantra to succeed in Indian market is pretty simple - a) Don't be

bogged down by the financial expectations based on macro GDP numbers; b)

Have a plan which 'India' do you want to target, remember the heterogeniety

and c) Innovate for those at the BOP (bottom of pyramid) - companies like

Nokia have run way ahead of their counterparts because Nokia designed

phones with optimal performance and low price that fitted into the scheme of

BOP segment. The size of BOP segment itself is approximately 650 million...you

can work out the rest of Maths. What shines through the book is author's

finesse in using numbers, tables, grids and at the same time, not making the

book a laborious read.

Finally, it's one of those books that you would love to read till finish. An

important book for both B-School freshers who wish to pursue careers in

marketing or market research - such a piece of literature can help lay the initialframework - and marketing executives.

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WE ARE LIKE THAT ONLYUnderstanding the Logic of Consumer India: Rama

Bijapurkar;

The focus of the book is the central question of all marketing and strategy

thinkers as well as managers: how large really is the Indian market, and howcan we reach it profitably? For, surely there is no altruism or developmental

orientation at all in the eyes and minds of Big Business be it Indian or

international. The fact is that the bottom of the pyramid, presented most

recently and forcefully by C.K. Prahalad, is a chance for them to make a

fortune.

Rama Bijapurkars book provides, among other things, some directions as to

how one might define this as well as the rest of the pyramid, starting from the

creamy layer on the top. Much has indeed been said in the past decade, andsince 1991, about the mammoth consumer market of 300 million people.

Some chief executives of foreign companies and money men have been foolish

enough to think of this as a market the size of the U.S., all speaking English and

reachable by television. No wonder so many companies came salivating over

the prospect. Yet, reality soon caught up with them, through the slowdown in

the late 1990s. What they did not have is an appropriate mental model, a

picture that was true to the reality of the Indian market in terms of both its

structure and behaviour. They used analogies, at best, of experience in

countries such as Brazil and Thailand, to size the Indian consumer market.

Fallacies

What they should do, as Rama argues is to see the fallacy of facile

simplifications and clichs about market segmentation. Many are irrelevant to

India. It is fashionable to say that there are two Indias, and the sound-bite

makers have coined the terms, India and Bharat to describe them. The truth is

that there are far more than two types of India, perhaps a dozen. Much

depends on what parameters you are looking at in segmenting and aggregating

the target population.

To the CEO of a newly entering multinational, the issue is of great importance

because it is a major step and a significant commitment of management time.

Assessing the true potential means making adjustments to ones lenses and

seeing the reality as it is, not drawing inappropriate European or American

parallels. She makes the point strongly that the sheer variety and diversity of

the population is more than that of continental Europe.

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Yet another fallacy is the great rural foray that everyone is so convinced about

today. It is easy to think that the rural areas comprise mainly farmers and

therefore incomes come mainly from agriculture. This is yet another fallacy

that needs to be exploded, as the author does, showing the power and the

growth potential of the self-employed and trader segments of the population.In fact, the purchasing power of the rural middle income group in the

aggregate is as large as that of its urban counterpart. What is more the

purchase and consumption of durables amongst the non-farm rural population

follows a pattern not dissimilar to that of the urban counterparts.

Insight, the key

I like this book personally for the reasons that we like most things; because it

says what one wishes one had done oneself. For instance, her persistent use ofthe new and more research based mental models is very encouraging. The fact

of the matter is a good marketing strategy in India of today demands a

combination of the skills of a sociologist, anthropologist and economist, which

is quite rare in any individual and difficult to come by among the permanent

staff of a company.

Insight rather than information or statistics should guide thinking on any

relevant, innovative marketing strategy. It is a lesson that many CEOs tend to

learn slowly and somewhat reluctantly. Here is a book that should help alongthe way, if they are so persuaded.

A common friend once described Rama Bijapurkars chief strength as the

ability to popularise difficult concepts and turn research findings into laymans

language. I thought that it was a perceptive remark, considering how she has

used a career in marketing research, and understanding the complex entity

called the Indian consumer market as a springboard to becoming a well-

recognised publicist for marketing and a strategy consultant.

After reading the very interesting volume full of insightful arguments and

convincing data, one tends to agree. The book demonstrates that Rama is like

that only.