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Press Release: 2nd October, 2004 Bhubaneswar, 2nd Oct 2004: Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar flagged off its annual B-Schools event Xpressions 2004 with the convergence of business ideas in its maiden effort titled "The Conclave". The guest dignitaries from academia, government, industry and field of politics and development discussed on the burning issue: "Is there any Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid?" The conclave was divided into two sessions. In the first session, Mr. Dileep Cherian, Co-founder & Consulting Partner, Perfect Relations and Mr. Rajeev Talwar, Commissioner & Secretary, Transport, Chairman & MD, DTC deliberated on the topic with Mrs. Supriya Pattanayak, Representative (Orissa), DFID as the Moderator. In the second session, Mrs. Jaggi Panda, Co-founder and Director, Ortel Communications moderated the talk between Mr. Sachin Pilot, MP, Lok Sabha, Mr. Deepak Bagla, Director, Citigroup and Professor Alok Chakraborty, Dean, NJIT, USA. Before this Mrs. Jaggi Mangat Panda said, "The topic reveals that the organizers are keen that the underdeveloped states of the country break all the old ideas, dogmas and second thoughts and leapfrog into businesses that are not traditionally run". The essence of the topic is that as the economic disparity within the country is increasing, MNCs should evaluate the price performance relationships to move to an ideal of highly distributive small-scale operations married to world-class capabilities. The focus should move from gross to economic profit. Entire business process must focus on functionality rather than product. The strategy should be to visualize active markets where abject poverty exists, make provisions for access to credit and increase the earning potential of poor. Also the stress should be on eradication of information poverty, which is the single biggest roadblock to sustainable development. In the first session, Mr. Cherian, Consulting Partner, Perfect Relations said that India's bulk of purchasing power lies in urban market whereas a rapid evolution is foreseeable in the number of villages and small towns which entails that the economy of small towns will lead to huge growth in Indian market. Though MNCs have been quick to identify these rural markets, unless they sell products to meet needs of rural markets at an affordable price, they cannot really create profitable markets. The rural market is characterized by agricultural prospects and increased income. Since, the rural customers meet their expenses from their own income and less than 10% depend upon loan from banks, the rural banking based on the Grameen Bank model will have a great opportunity at their hands. MNCs can create a new purchasing style of the rural customers by understanding the consumer behavior and building a huge distribution muscle to serve standardized products. He suggested that the big companies could think small by taking specific rural market oriented initiatives, ensuring product-market compatibility and planned media mix. This will take care of the 4 As of rural markets - affordability, acceptability, availability, and awareness. Contributed by - |
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