Sangwai@InternationalBiz: Cosmoprof: Biggest Cosmetic Expo in the World

Sangwai@InternationalBiz: Cosmoprof: Biggest Cosmetic Expo in the World: ITALY COSMOPROF 2011: Changes in Cosmetic Industry Landscape and Exposure to largest International Cosmetic Exhibition. Bologna ...

Democracy: Political or National

DEMOCRACY: POLITICAL OR NATIONAL

Date:16^st January 2011

Like India we have lot of countries with democratic form of governments. Since the democracy is guided by basic principle of Government by the people, of the people and for the people. This basic tenet has always faltered when the government faces issues which could be a pain for their very existence.

A case in point is the latest Bicentenary celebrations in Mexico. I happened to be in Mexico during the same time. Mexico got its independence in 1810 and in 2010 they had a euphoric moment to celebrate the Bicentenary celebrations of independence. The government took the opportunity to gain excess footage in the minds of the people. Government announced big spending plans and painted an optimistic picture of the economy. The people and particularly corporate were happy to recognize that finally there will be some strong increase in the domestic demand.  Countries with lesser festivals to enjoy like India crave more for the occasions to celebrate.

As the year passed the enthusiasm amongst people reduced, there was increase in the tax levied on the common man as well as the increase in the sales tax on all the commodities by 100 basis points.

With such measures taken by the government, corporate found themselves in the lull with reduced demands and the businesses were not doing well even compared to the recession year. I discussed this issue with most of my customers during the visit and found that almost all the customers were of the view that the government is trying to play on with the reductions to be done towards the end of the year, so that the government will have a good will during the election year 2012. Hence the necessary benefits to be accrued to people will be initiated towards end of 2011.

The question is “IS IT DEMOCRACY IN REAL SENSE OR POLITICS TAKING THE ADVANTAGE OF BEING DEMOCRATIC”

Sangwai@InternationalBiz 

Indian Industry Landscape: A Government Perspective

In every nook and corner of the globe, you will find citizens who curse there government for the local issues and come to the premise that government is no good. Developing countries that have opened up their markets partially and house more than 25% of the total world population, the government is criticized more than required. I also at times found that the government is not good enough in India to address the generic issue of poverty, education and health for the poor.

In this section, I would like to discuss the issue of the Indian Government interaction with the development of Indian industry with respect to the partial open markets. Let’s take it case by case.

Mobile Industry: The telecommunication industry has taken India by a storm in less than a decade and a half; the penetration of the mobile telephony has surpassed the landline connection. The features provided by the mobile operators accelerated the pace of the development of new mobile handsets in the country. With mass manufacturing facility in China, Nokia was poised to become the leader of the India market with almost 40% of the market share. The dominance of Nokia reduced with the arrival of the competitors like LG, Samsung etc. But still from the launch of mobile services in early 1996 Nokia has dominated the handset markets with the unique competency of easy operatability of the product. This feature catched up with the Indian psyche of easy usage of calling and messaging.

 

Since other features of most of the mobile users are redundant for the user itself. A survey will reveal that more than 80% of people use calling and messaging only.

As the government realized that the technological depth of the service providers is going to increase to new levels with introductions of 3G and also of new OS for the phones by MS, Google etc. The handset industry is poised to grow. While the majority of the sales were from the low cost segment in the market. Government started initiating the local manufacturers to start the mobile manufacturing with the tax exemptions like no excise and sales tax on the mobiles and hence with the aid of government the handset companies have got a competitive edge in pricing. Though the companies never had a strong technological backing from the in house R & D, the Chinese model of copying and launching the mobile phones with a slight modification worked in the market. The penetration strategy worked to the best of the ability in the semi urban and rural market. Slowly the ultra low cost handsets with their slightly above average quality has