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A place where modern lifestyle and adventure rules the roost, where spending power is huge inspite of the poor economy, reason being one member of almost each family is working abroad, where most of the retail outlets are managed by female members of the society... "Welcome to the wonderland"... or Kathmandu, to be specific.

Well, if we look at this place in terms of corporate scenario, it's disappointing as not many corporations have managed to survive here, but this does not diminish the chance of being a success here.

Nepal, being sandwiched between two great emerging markets - India and China - and having easy inflow of goods from these countries, results in suppressing the potential of domestic companies. There are few reputed international companies who had established their manufacturing plants here like Dabur India, Pepsi International, Coca-Cola, and Colgate-Palmolive, etc., and are performing well and also there are some local ones like the Chaudhary Group, which is a great success here.

What makes Kathmandu a difficult place to market the products or may be they are not marketed well - we will look into this aspect as well.

There are some reasons attributed to this poor corporate scenario like the continuing political disturbances in the country, which in turn has badly affected the economy, and people under the poverty level has risen considerably, the place being situated between the mountains leads to accessibility problem, and the distribution becomes a major concern, easy availability of cheap Chinese products giving a tough time to local manufacturers.

Inspite of all these setbacks, there is some ray of hope in this amazing land, which will encourage the local as well as international players to enter this market. If we take the case of Food and Beverages market which is very big... thanks to the large number of tourist inflow and love of eating and drinking by the local people as well.

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* Contributed by: -
Vishal Sethi,
Secretary - Marketing Cell,
Institute of Management Technology, Nagpur.