 |
Consumer Products: India must be one of the fastest growing consumer sectors in the world and has great brand marketing talent. The innovation and pace of adoption of consumer goods, especially through non-traditional & localized business models, is quite amazing. Last time, I saw the large Audi showroom (first in India) in Cochin that was quite impressive. This time, I am curious to see if there will be more foreign brands including Audis and BMWs on the roads than the quintessentially Indian Ambassador cars.
The mobile revolution and subscriber growth in India has been phenomenal. I loved the
Samsung Galaxy smartphone commercial showing the country getting ‘smarter’ and making fun
of the last generation Indians as ‘uncle driving the Mercedes’ out of touch with the next generation techno-savvy ‘kids’, who still sip chai at the street corner!
Technology Industry: I recently read an interesting post
on the future of the IT industry in India. The expansion of the cost arbitrage
from IT outsourcing & call centers to non-IT areas like knowledge
processes (e.g., EvalueServe) has already happened. The radical technology
adoption of mobile & Wi-Fi enables many products to ‘leapfrog’ skipping
interim steps. Case studies of fishermen in Kerala using
mobile phones have been well documented (Economist article). It’ll be interesting to catch up with
some old friends turning into a new breed of entrepreneurs starting product
companies adapting western innovations such as mobile payments to the local market.
All of these are classic low-end disruption or ‘competing against non-consumption’ in the Clayton Christensen ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’
framework. A personal example was realizing the potential
of Chromebook in emerging markets. I had
given a Chromebook as a gift to my dad and it turned out to be a great virus-free and maintenance-free laptop for browsing and email much better than the old and
trouble-prone desktop PC.
Movies: vacation is always a good time to catch
up on Indian movies. I recently I watched ‘Delhi Belly’ and ‘Taxi 9211’ and am suddenly aware that it’s no longer the old Bollywood of the nineties! ‘Delhi
Belly’ felt like ‘Pulp Fiction’ far from a typical Bollywood hit ‘Dilwale
Dulhaniye Le Jayenge’. I was also quite impressed by Malayalam movies like
‘Chappa Kurishu’ that portray the uncomfortable
contradiction in the Indian society between the haves and have-nots. It reminded me of the deeply disturbing extreme caricatures in the novel ‘White Tiger’ by Aravind
Adiga. It’s refreshing to see new directors treat controversial
subjects with craft and flair.
I am going to watch a lot of broadcast cable TV, as it's the only option in India (no Netflix yet!). I will learn a lot about the political comedies in both Kerala and
Indian politics and also about Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement. And last (and probably the
least!), there'll surely be some debates on Aishwarya Rai’s post-pregnancy weight gain!
