When a Pantaloons store opened at the Rave mall in native city of Kanpur, I was intrigued. It was the first Western-style retail store, selling clothing in this instance. Upon some research I found that it was run by Kishore Bayani’s Futures Group. Bayani’s company has gone on to launch a series of grocery and discount stores (Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar) all over India. Our clients at Amritt have have great success in building relationships with them.
Bayani is an articulate writer as well and I am stimulated by his insights. His latest ones appear in the Wall Street Journal last week.
It starts with
Capitalism runs on sentiment as much as money. Almost daily doses of bad news on television screens and newspapers have possibly done as much damage to the economy as the events on either side of the Atlantic. The biggest consumers and believers in this news are the salaried class – people who work in large companies that are integrated with the global markets.
Being the biggest consumers of media, they are also the largest consumer segment for Indian marketers. And companies that are catering to this segment have seen weakening consumer sentiment and sluggish sales.
However, hidden behind the consumer statistics of most marketers is a segment that is largely ignored. Yet they form an overwhelming majority of Indian consumers. They are the self-employed Indians.
Read the rest at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123838356050568625.html?mod=article-outset-box
or here