India - U.S $ 2 Trillion Economy!! So??

Off late I've been trying to read a little about the macro-economical perspective and happenings of the various countries. Being a B-School grad but having failed to interpret the economical shift that's taking place across globe is the primary reason for me to dive deep into such subjects and make an effort to understand a little more about what's happening around the world.

Just as I was busy reading about the reasons behind the depreciating value of Rouble - the Russian currency and the economic trouble that Russia is facing, I realized that two of the world's respectable economies i.e Russia and Japan are expected to register a negative GDP growth rate in 2014 as compared to 2013. Interestingly what caught my eye was the same report by IMF published in December 2014 which predicted the negative growth rate expected India's Real GDP to grow at about 5.6% to help India to enter the U.S $ 2 Trillion club soon, this brought a little cheer to me. 

Having secretly celebrated the fact about India's expected growth rate, I continued reading a little more about India being a U.S $ 2 Trillion economy by FY 2014. Just as I progressed with my reading I encountered a lot of questionable facts and stats that brought my celebration to halt. The first and foremost reason being the sorry state of Human Development Index in India. India continues to stand at 135th position out of 187 countries that were surveyed by United Nations and shows little or no sign of growth in that perspective. The world average of HDI is about 0.700, however India as a nation manages to score 0.583(even our neighboring island country Sri Lanka ranked better than us), I don't wish to comment further on this parameter as a yardstick to measure India's glory.

With a marginal growth in the IIP (Index of Industrial Production) of about 1.2% in the period of April-December 2014 and the widening of Current Account Deficit by 2.1% in the last financial quarter due to increase in imports over exports the ambiguity in the India's growth story continues to loom. This draws my attention towards one of the widely talked about initiative by the government of India, 'Make in India'. As a lot of hopes and euphoria is build around the 'Make in India' campaign what remains the biggest challenge is the ever pending Land Acquisition Bill and complex tax structure (GST Bill) that has prevented a lot of multinational organizations from investing in India and the infrastructural vulnerability that India has been facing since ever, has been adding to the country's woes. 

Government of India strongly needs to revise the APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) Act which remains inefficient in resolving various issues in the Agri-Sector. Since past few months GoI has tried really hard to bring down the minimum support price to the farmers as a measure to keep the inflation low, however this has had an adverse effect on the demand in rural India which comprises of around 60% of India's population. A concentrated effort to revive the inadequate storage and transport facilities and corrective measures to bypass the presence of middlemen may help to improve upon the present situation.

Having talked on various issues and challenges that stand tall ahead of a U.S $ 2 trillion economy one of the bigger concerns for India is, the faster growing young population. For any nation a young population is just like a double edged sword, if you fail to turn them into an asset by giving them adequate employment opportunities you are just adding on to your liabilities. India accounts for over 15% of global work force, however over 276 million of India's work force continue to earn less than U.S $ 2 per day (as per the India Labour and Employment Report 2014). 

All these and many more reasons, theories, factors and results interest me to learn and unlearn about  India as an emerging economy. My blogpost doesn't aim to demean India's growth story but to highlight a few observations and information that I happened to read in past few days or so.

References:

Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2014/05/a-crossroads-for-india-and-its-business-landscape/

International Monetary Fund: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2014/02/

United Nations Human Development Report 2014: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-1-human-development-index-and-its-components

Knoema Data Atlas: http://knoema.com/nwnfkne/world-gdp-ranking-2014-data-and-charts

Institute of Human Development : http://www.ihdindia.org/ILER.html

and a few more

Open for any feedback / recommendations / suggestions.

Ache Din – A distant dream for people of Banaras

The holy city of Banaras is probably older than the history and this evidently reflects from the ethnicity and culture of the people living there. The tehzeeb and nazakat of Banaras makes it apple of every tourist’s eye, who wishes to visit India. However all this is put to shame when you look deeper into the current public administration system of the city. The reason I am making this statement is because of what I experienced while discussing the schedule of ‘Banega Swach India’, a Campaign of NDTV in association with Dettol and PVCHR, to be held at Assi Ghat in Banaras on 14^th of December, with Shirin Shabana Khan and Anup Shrivastava in the PVCHR’s office. Amidst the conversation, I heard a shaky voice requesting to enter the office. She was an old lady from a marginalized community from a remote village in the Varanasi district. Ms. Shruti Nagvanshi, co-founder PVCHR requested her to take a seat and called for a cup of hot tea for the old lady. After a couple of minutes of silence the lady broke into tears and narrated her story. She was being harassed by her neighbour for no fault of hers or her family. She said that she tried reaching the local police administration but her requests fell on to the deaf ears because the person who troubled her and her family, had strong influence in the local police station. Ms. Shruti Nagvanshi patiently listened to her grief and immediately tried reaching the Senior Superintendent Police office. The SSP office was quick to respond to Ms. Nagvanshi’s request and assured of fair justice and protection to the old lady and her family. The point that I am trying to highlight here is that, the basic needs of a citizens like security is jeopardized in our biased administrative system. People like Ms. Nagvanshi are making strong difference in the society but for how long will this tyranny of ill managed administration continue.

The weaver community is still struggling to meet their basic necessities, cleanliness and hygiene is gone for a toss from the banks of river Ganga, traffic and road transport system is adding to the woes of the residents and many big and small notorious activities take place in the district of Varanasi in broad daylight. This shows that not much has changed in past 6 months in the city since Prime Minister Narendra Modiji has been elected as Member of Parliament from the same constituency. At the end of the day it is left for the citizens of Banaras and organizations like PVCHR to stand tall for their rights and advocate for fair and transparent administrative and legal system. The entire country is living in hope of Ache Din, which to me appears to be a distant dream atleast for another 3-4 years for the citizens of Banaras.

Ache Din Kab Ayenge??

It has been around 50 days since the newly formed government has been in action. With promises of better governance, rein in prices, employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, reduced corruption, bringing back of black money, so on and so forth, the BJP led government stormed to power. Many believed that it was the charisma of Shri. Narendra Modi which helped the BJP realize its long awaited dream. However the outcome at the end of one month is not as pleasing as the citizens of the largest democracy in the world, who empowered a single party with a clear mandate to govern the nation, anticipated to be.

With increase in passenger fares and freight rates in Indian railways and recent hike in the petrol and diesel prices, things are gradually appearing to be going from bad to worse.

                        

Rome was not built overnight and similarly India can’t change within the blink of an eye, as some say “The mess of ten years cannot be cleaned in a month”. However NaMo’s extremely advanced strategic management and marketing team failed to mention the bitter pill that would complement the dessert of Ache Din that BJP offered during their election campaign. This has surely left the masses aghast.

Although the government has had a little to cheer about INS Vikramaditya and commercial success of PSLV C 23, it is obvious that such milestone projects did not take place in a span of 30 days and were the brain child of ISRO during the times of former NDA and UPA governments and not that of the current government.

I might appear cynical about the approach of our present government, but all I’m worried about is people’s changing perception of the slogan ‘Ache din aane wale hain’.

                              

The existing council of ministers are so engrossed in discussions of Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code, they seem to have forgotten that as per their own manifesto released during elections, curtailment of corruption, employment generation and containment of inflation remains their top most priority.

With meteorological department predictions of below average rainfall which eventually may lead to inflation, it will be interesting to see the policies and reforms of the existing government to revive the Indian economy at the earliest.

Even though a span of 30 days is too little to judge any government, too much delay in showing signs of development could metaphorically reflect an old saying "Curiosity Killed the Cat" with assembly elections in the states of Maharashtra and Haryana delivering unfavourable results for the BJP. 

All eyes are now set on our visionary prime minister to make things right and keep the ball rolling in the arena of progress and development. My best wishes are with him and all my fellow Indians. May India scale up the pinnacles of success in years to come.

In my next blog we shall discuss the 'Hits and Misses' of the recent Finance Budget of Modi Sarkar.

Here is the link for the next blog that discusses Hits & Misses of Union Budget 2014:

http://aniketnsingh.blogspot.in/2014/07/budget2014.html

Marketing - A sly tool in Inidian Politics

Marketing has been an effective tool for many organizations to promote their goods, services, ideas etc. for centuries now. In my previous post I tried to shed some light on how the world is utilising the digital platform for marketing and reaching the target audience effectively.
Marketing these days has become a mandate for a unique section of the society, viz. our politicians. With an eye on Indian General Election 2014, many political parties and renowned politicians have upped the ante to promote themselves as the next Superman or Spiderman, projecting themselves as the only saviours of this doomed nation.

The recent triumph of Shri. Arvind Kejrival and Aam Admi Party in Delhi assembly polls is a perfect example of 'striking the rod when hot', here the rod was the bruised and ill governed state of Delhi and the hammer was their marketing technique which helped them promote their ideas and thoughts amongst the masses using various marketing tools. Largely the credit of their victory goes to the marketing stint that they pulled for about a year to lure the voters of Delhi, as they hardly had any political experience to showcase. Although it’s been over a month now that Shri Kejriwal has come to power but the fulfilment of the promises that he made in his manifesto seem to be a far fetched dream for Delhi-ites for obvious reasons moreover his anarchist approach and disrespect towards the democracy has been out rightly condemned by citizens of Delhi itself.  

On the other hand we have a strong contender (most of my readers probably consider him as our next Prime Minister), Shri. Narendra Modi. One of the credible News Daily quoted that Shri. Modi has roped a global PR firm APCO in order to promote him and his work not only in India but all across the globe. Not to forget that the state of Gujrat administered by Shri Modi for over 11 years, ranks 11th  in Human Development Index in India, which is below 5-6 states governed by their arch rivals INC.

Not too far is the Indian National Congress,one of the oldest political parties of India which boasts to have governed our nation for the maximum period of time. The INC has recently hired a PR agency for a price of whooping INR 500 Crores to create a buzz for Shri Rahul Gandhi (Head of Election Campaign) on social media. Considering the amount being invested, it appears that we are all set to face yet another scam on the lines of Coalgate and 2G spectrum, how else do you think a political party can afford to pay such a huge sum as advertising expenses.

In my personal opinion there is nothing wrong in promoting oneself or one's political party or its ideology amongst the masses. In fact as a marketer it cheers me up to see a new set of customer base being built in the form of our politicians who have resorted to non conventional ways of marketing and are exploring different platforms and tools, willing to spend huge amounts of money. Although this provides a marketer with an opportunity to earn more, what concerns me as a citizen of India is whether we are going to judge or choose our next generation leaders based on their promotion.I still believe that as citizens of this nation we need to make our choices based on the developmental and constructive work done by our leaders and not merely based on the lip service they offer. Choosing a correct leader to govern the nation is equally important as choosing a job for ourselves, because it has a direct impact on our lives.

References:

• (ref: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/rahul-gandhi-pr-firm-lok-sabha-elections/1/334891.html

• (ref. http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rahulgandhitakingthelead/new-pr-ninjas-hired-to-bolster-rahul-gandhi-s-image/article1-1170098.aspx )

Paradigm Shift in the World of Marketing to Digital

The saying that change is the only constant holds true in all aspects of life. It is evident from the past that he who fails to respond to change, also fails to make it big. Consider doctors for example, the diseases that they have to treat are not always the ones they learnt about, in med school. If they fail to upgrade their knowledge and skills with time, they would find themselves catching flies in their own dispensaries (provided they can afford any!)

The corporate sector is no exception to this inevitable phenomenon.The organisations that have lasted for long are the ones who changed their approach with time. Post World War II and the Industrial Revolution, our society has changed remarkably. The companies which were product or production oriented shifted their focus on marketing orientation and are now trying to understand and respond to the needs of their customers better than ever.

With organizations showing keen interest in the

marketing approach to increase their profit margins, the role of a robust marketing strategy and planning has become paramount. The marketer’s approach to lure his/her target audience has changed. The world is going digital and so is the potential customer. Gone are those days when the prime time slot 'allocated' or in other words 'earned by you' for advertising your product defined your reach to the audience. With the advent of smart phones and tablet computers, complimented by Wi-Fi and easy access to a data connection, the potential customer can be reached anywhere, any time.

The reach of digital media has crossed the confines of geographical, cultural and social boundaries. The Apparel and FMCG industries are thriving on their digital marketing campaigns to garner more customers than by any other stereotype method of print advertising. A research shows that over 93% of the marketers now prefer digital media for their business growth (ref. www.jessicadraws.com). A recent survey done by StrongView indicates that  9 out of 10 'Business Leaders' from a mix of B2B and B2C in the North American continent have planned to increase their digital marketing budgets by alarming numbers. A statistical report below depicts the percentage increase in budget by these companies in various marketing medium.

Now even politicians have harnessed the digital marketing platform to gain their political grounds, increase their popularity and build an image by roping in the advertisement and image building agencies. Barak Obama (President, The US) being the trend setter and Narendra Modi (CM, State of Guj,India) being the torch bearer of such marketing strategies are fine examples (I also consider them to be the best marketed products during their respective election campaigns).

All said and done the question that still haunts me is, for how long will this new gimmick of Digital Marketing sustain? Is it here to stay or is it just like any other passing fad? Well undoubtedly these changing trends in the marketing and promotional strategies of various organizations across the globe are a result of changing consumer behaviour. Being a marketing student I’m curious to know how far this Paradigm Shift can go. Not to forget that these newly discovered strategies firmly challenge the ‘Kotlers’ and ‘Poters‘ of the marketing world (who have ruled it for ages) on certain grounds and have still sustained for fairly good time now and continue to do so. Time has come for the world to look beyond the 4 Ps of conventional marketing and learn the 4 Cs of digital marketing so as to stay upbeat with the pace of this changing world.

'What Next?' is now an interesting question. As I quoted in the beginning, change is inevitable and we as marketers will have to keep this in our minds at all times.