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8/14/2019 Book Reviews.docx
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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.