9 days. That’s all it takes, to make you realize how much void you have in your life. People in India die to run away from dirty pot holes, screaming horns, cow dung on the roads and things like that. But believe me, 6 months after staying abroad, all of that is music to my ears.
Maybe we’re born messy, I don’t know, but I like the hustle and bustle. Sterilized environments sort of make you numb, and in many a ways incapable. Here all you have is control - temperature control, climate control, driving control, attire control, attitude control, control over what you say, and eventually control over what you think.
People call it being civilized, but honestly is there any civility in hiding your curse under your nose? Is there any civility in being so politically correct in whatever that you say and do? True, a developed nation teaches you discipline, and a lot of it. Be it discipline when driving cars, while standing in a queue… whatever; but at one point, that discipline aggravates into control and that’s not good.
Yes, in terms of process flow, developed nations are better and easier. It’s easier to buy property for instance in a developed nation. For a country like India, there are innumerable processes, and each take their own sweet time. But what’s necessary to understand is that our minds have been attuned to this ‘process-less’ system, since birth. We have been living in a world where even getting a cooking gas connection is a challenge. And that’s the very reason why we can strive in any given circumstances.
It was during my trip back that I realized how insanely complex it is to manage a democracy like India. In a place like Dubai, which is maybe twice the size of Ahmedabad city, it’s so easy to drive growth. Had Mr. Narendra Modi been asked to handle a state only twice the size of Ahmedabad city, he would have done wonders, and that too with relative ease. But sadly that’s not the case. He has to handle a state with about 20,000 cities and villages.
In a place like Dubai, a lot of micro-management is possible. The citizen is accessible. There is more money, and fewer responsibilities to put money into. The case is inverse in a country like India. And yet we strive. And yet we post 8-9% growth for a considerable period.
People say that 95% of retailing in India is unorganized. And for all I feel, there’s a fair chance that it will remain so, especially in a rural setting for a pretty long time. A lot of industries in India still remain unorganized. Industrialists, and economists feel that its not appropriate. What most people don’t realize, is that its these unorganized supply chains that have oiled the economy of India since independence.
It’s the roadside vendor, the small kirana shop outside your house, the ‘kaam-wali bai’ who comes to do the household chores everyday, the milkman… it is these people that oil the economy. Their contribution might be miniscule, but together, they give a lot to drive growth.
And this is what fascinates me about India. It is the minuteness of entities from where the enormity comes out. Challenges in large conglomerates are crap. There are really few challenges, but a lot of brains thinking who can solve the problem. But there’s no one to help in the Small Scale industries sector. There are the real challenges. SSI’s face problems day in and day out, simply because there are a lot of SSI’s and not enough trained manpower to run them.
And lastly, I’ve realized, that India is a Knowledge economy, while Dubai is very much still a trader economy. As a trader economy it might have huge financial resources, but not a lot of brains. As a knowledge economy, we have a lot of brains, but not enough resources to tap them.
In conclusion, all I would say is that it is after staying abroad that I’ve truly realized the potential of the Indian economy.
When MNCs started deciding to come to India for setting up business, I thought, “hey! They should have come a lot earlier”… but after staying away, I really don’t blame them. As a nation our PR skills are downright pathetic, and maybe that’s the reason why no one ever paid heed to us. It was the sound of money that made them overlook whatever image they had formed about India and came running to us.
If democracy were a norm of this world, we could have been a world power long back.
Showing posts with label india. Show all posts
Showing posts with label india. Show all posts
Zara enters/should enter/should not enter India - Part 3
There are alredy 2 blogs written on this topic earlier. Assuming you’ve read them already, I’ll not waste time on the technicalities of the Zara model, and get to the point.
Should Zara (really) enter India or not? If you look at it in that sense, perhaps every other international brand should enter India. And why not? A sizable part of the population of India is under 30 years of age; disposable incomes are rising, so are aspirations, living standards, customer awareness, and all the economic lingo stuff.
But that’s not the point. Just because things are getting better in an economy doesn’t mean that we have graduated to any other brand/product in the world. As a primer to this statement, lets take the example of a microwave. I think about 7-8 years ago, microwaves were first introduced in India. I really don’t know when, but what I do know is that consumer acceptance of that product wasn’t exactly high. For any American, a microwave is a necessity. Probably an American can live without a stove for a while, but not a microwave. That clearly didn’t happen in India. Heating cold food and feeding it to the children was like a disgrace on a mother’s part.
Today, after such a long time, things are changing aren’t they? And mind you, they’re still in the changing mode. Microwaves still haven’t received absolute acceptance even after giving the consumer so much amount of time to graduate to one.
Same goes for Zara. We as Indians used to wear only traditional dhotis and salwaar-kamiz 80 odd years ago. The transition to the western clothing apparently began during the British rule. So firstly in absolute numbers we’re about 300 years behind the Europeans as far as fashion for western clothing goes.
Think about it; even today, if you wear your dad’s shirt and go out, no one would be able to point out that this is an ‘old cut’. The cuts, the stitching techniques have remained the same since a really really long time.
Think about women’s formals for instance. There’s an extremely short range of women formal shirts available in India. And mind you, I’m talking about the design and cuts, not the color of the shirt.
To put it in simple mathematical sense, this is how the 2 ideologies differ:
For Indian Fashion Industry its –
few cuts x lots of color variations
For the Zara Model its –
many cuts x very few color variations
And even if we take colors as a basis, even that sadly isn’t our strongpoint. We were shades of red in summer and wear shades of yellow during winter.
We wear linen in winter sometimes and synthetic materials in summers as well.
There’s no synchrony in us as far as colors, shades, cuts, fabrics go. We wear whatever we feel looks good on us. Every season, has its own shade, color swatch, designs, cuts etc. etc. We’re never so detailed as far as these attributed go. And the Europeans are extremely fetish about these minor details; the same way we’re fetish about cricket maybe.
Also, India follows a 2 season process; Summer/spring collection & winter/monsoon collection. While in Europe there are 4 different collections released for all the 4 different seasons.
Also, I don’t know how many of the readers have seen a Zara store, but Zara doesn’t play with colors a lot. It plays with cuts. And to save on its supply chain costs, you wont find colors other than white, black, grey, cream, red and a few more. Their color swatch is extremely limited, and their design swatch is much higher than an average Indian apparel outlet. You really think Indians will gladly buy only base colors and wear them, when they have so many other vibrant colors being offered by other apparel retailers?
Mango, one of the leading fashion wear brand for urban women has a few stores in India. The collection that it keeps on the Indian stores is one season old already in the International markets.
After reading all this some might see this as a drawback in us Indians, that we’re not so sensitive towards colors and cuts etc; that we haven’t graduated to these details like others have. But honestly are we supposed to graduate? Were shirts and trousers a part of our cultural heritage? We have our own saaris and salwar kameez. That’s where our forte lies. And that’s precisely the reason why Zara originated in Spain and not some shady town in India.
Zara has not been quite a success in the US, and for the simple reason that an average USUS, not in Europe. citizen wants clothing that is completely relaxed, functional and rugged. That’s why jeans were invented in the
Europe has its own fashion, US has its denim jeans, India has its bandhani.
Its seriously wrong for any of us to expect to graduate to the fashion sense that Europeans have. Simply because their definition of fashion is different than ours.
In Gujarati, there’s a saying, ‘gaam khase ke gaadu?’ (should the village move or the bullock cart?)
P.S. Thanks a lot to Sharimbal Kanishk (ex-Globus merchandiser & a NIFT grad) for all the info on Indian Fashion Industry.
Should Zara (really) enter India or not? If you look at it in that sense, perhaps every other international brand should enter India. And why not? A sizable part of the population of India is under 30 years of age; disposable incomes are rising, so are aspirations, living standards, customer awareness, and all the economic lingo stuff.
But that’s not the point. Just because things are getting better in an economy doesn’t mean that we have graduated to any other brand/product in the world. As a primer to this statement, lets take the example of a microwave. I think about 7-8 years ago, microwaves were first introduced in India. I really don’t know when, but what I do know is that consumer acceptance of that product wasn’t exactly high. For any American, a microwave is a necessity. Probably an American can live without a stove for a while, but not a microwave. That clearly didn’t happen in India. Heating cold food and feeding it to the children was like a disgrace on a mother’s part.
Today, after such a long time, things are changing aren’t they? And mind you, they’re still in the changing mode. Microwaves still haven’t received absolute acceptance even after giving the consumer so much amount of time to graduate to one.
Same goes for Zara. We as Indians used to wear only traditional dhotis and salwaar-kamiz 80 odd years ago. The transition to the western clothing apparently began during the British rule. So firstly in absolute numbers we’re about 300 years behind the Europeans as far as fashion for western clothing goes.
Think about it; even today, if you wear your dad’s shirt and go out, no one would be able to point out that this is an ‘old cut’. The cuts, the stitching techniques have remained the same since a really really long time.
Think about women’s formals for instance. There’s an extremely short range of women formal shirts available in India. And mind you, I’m talking about the design and cuts, not the color of the shirt.
To put it in simple mathematical sense, this is how the 2 ideologies differ:
For Indian Fashion Industry its –
few cuts x lots of color variations
For the Zara Model its –
many cuts x very few color variations
And even if we take colors as a basis, even that sadly isn’t our strongpoint. We were shades of red in summer and wear shades of yellow during winter.
We wear linen in winter sometimes and synthetic materials in summers as well.
There’s no synchrony in us as far as colors, shades, cuts, fabrics go. We wear whatever we feel looks good on us. Every season, has its own shade, color swatch, designs, cuts etc. etc. We’re never so detailed as far as these attributed go. And the Europeans are extremely fetish about these minor details; the same way we’re fetish about cricket maybe.
Also, India follows a 2 season process; Summer/spring collection & winter/monsoon collection. While in Europe there are 4 different collections released for all the 4 different seasons.
Also, I don’t know how many of the readers have seen a Zara store, but Zara doesn’t play with colors a lot. It plays with cuts. And to save on its supply chain costs, you wont find colors other than white, black, grey, cream, red and a few more. Their color swatch is extremely limited, and their design swatch is much higher than an average Indian apparel outlet. You really think Indians will gladly buy only base colors and wear them, when they have so many other vibrant colors being offered by other apparel retailers?
Mango, one of the leading fashion wear brand for urban women has a few stores in India. The collection that it keeps on the Indian stores is one season old already in the International markets.
After reading all this some might see this as a drawback in us Indians, that we’re not so sensitive towards colors and cuts etc; that we haven’t graduated to these details like others have. But honestly are we supposed to graduate? Were shirts and trousers a part of our cultural heritage? We have our own saaris and salwar kameez. That’s where our forte lies. And that’s precisely the reason why Zara originated in Spain and not some shady town in India.
Zara has not been quite a success in the US, and for the simple reason that an average USUS, not in Europe. citizen wants clothing that is completely relaxed, functional and rugged. That’s why jeans were invented in the
Europe has its own fashion, US has its denim jeans, India has its bandhani.
Its seriously wrong for any of us to expect to graduate to the fashion sense that Europeans have. Simply because their definition of fashion is different than ours.
In Gujarati, there’s a saying, ‘gaam khase ke gaadu?’ (should the village move or the bullock cart?)
P.S. Thanks a lot to Sharimbal Kanishk (ex-Globus merchandiser & a NIFT grad) for all the info on Indian Fashion Industry.
The World is Flat
Currently I'm undergoing a training on the Oracle E-business suite; a complete business ERP solution for enterprises and all that stuff. While the instructor was taking us through the process of item ordering and merchandise planning something just struck me...
The scene was like this... An Indian Company (Wipro) created a software on a platform developed in the US (Oracle) for a company in the Middle East (KOJ) which has employees from all across the world (India, Philippines, UAE, Lebanon, UK) and sources materials from countries like China, Taiwan, Italy, Germany, North Korea... another awesome testimony to the fact that the world is flat!
The scene was like this... An Indian Company (Wipro) created a software on a platform developed in the US (Oracle) for a company in the Middle East (KOJ) which has employees from all across the world (India, Philippines, UAE, Lebanon, UK) and sources materials from countries like China, Taiwan, Italy, Germany, North Korea... another awesome testimony to the fact that the world is flat!
Make hay while the country messages
Throw your head a few months back… there was this ‘new 7 wonders of the world program’ that had hit the scene in
And thus began probably one of the biggest agglomerated marketing effort by the media houses of
Firstly, the voting system was majorly accepted through sms and an online voting system. There was unlimited number of votes that any person could cast. Thus scientifically the voting system is void completely. Also, the voting system has large dependencies on access to cell phone service or the internet. And lastly, the decision HAD to be skewed since every country doesn’t have the same population size. Surely you don’t expect Indians to vote for the Christ Redeemer in
However, the media houses took this opportunity and turned it completely into a business opportunity. Here’s how. Every news channel has a dedicated sms number for all its services. For instance Star TV has its own private number, 7827. So when Star News urges to cast a vote for the Taj, it would give the number 7827. CNN-IBN might have its own, Zee News its own etc. etc… Each of these 4 digit numbers are provided by cellular service providers like Bharti-Airtel and BSNL to the media houses. So whenever you send a message to these 4-digit numbers you’re charged Rs.3 per message. Out of the 3 rupees, 1 rupee goes to the service provider and the remainder 2 rupees to the owner of the number (the media houses in this case).
Imagine a country with a population of more than 1.1 billion with a high cell phone penetration rate casting votes on these 4 digit numbers. Just think of the revenues the media houses might have raked in just by urging bumbling nitwits like us to cast votes using their numbers.
Was it really a question of preserving the ‘heritage’ and maintaining integrity and all that sentimental crap or was it a pure business opportunity? Your take…
Crop Forecasting!
Alright! Now for starters, despite the IT boom (and bust) and the retail boom and stock market boom and other booms that you may think of, the fact still remains that India is an agrarian economy, that is a large part of its income (still) comes from agricultural produce.
So logically farmers should perhaps form the richest cluster in the Indian 'wealth' pyramid no? Well logically yes, but factually that's not the case. One farmer commits suicide in India every 8 hours. Gruesome as it may sound, but a large part of the fault can be attributed to the farmers, who out of sheer lack of information sow anything that are either safe bets like cash crops, or sow something that gave them the highest revenue the last year.
Now when every farmer starts thinking in the same direction, the law of demand & supply comes into the picture. The supply of a particular crop goes up and the prices comes down. The farmers as it is are exploited at the mandi's even during boom time, so when the market is running low, one can hardly expect anything good for the farmer in terms of his returns for his produce. So low prices, low income, and inability to pay off debt puts the farmer in a stressful situation.
Now, let's take the other side of the spectrum; that is the companies who buy the produce. Let's take the example of a 'ready to eat' vegetable mix. Now for a 'ready to eat' packet, the MRP is fixed, the margins to the wholesaler, the retailer, the distribution costs are more or less fixed. So there's little leeway that the manufacturer can work upon as far as the entire chain is concerned. What he can do is he can get the best input price to maximise his margins.
To get the best price for his inputs he needs to know well in advance as to what the output of that crop would be nationwide. Now estimates of any crop production can be either got from the official estimates that the government is supposed to give, or the trade estimates that the traders give over a period of time. Trade estimates work like stock markets do; based on the aggregation of trader's opinions who might be bullish or bearish as per their whims and fancies. Official estimates have a drawback as far as time is concerned. The Central Statistical Organisation, a government body releases the final estimate of the total crop production after 6 months of the harvest and when 70% of the crop produce has already passed the farmer's hands. Such type of data is hardly useful in purchase decisions for any organisation. So if we come back to our 'ready to eat' mix, the crop production estimates from CSO are of no use, and we'll have to do the purchasing without any proper data. In short, we'll never come to know what would be the best price we can get for any produce, and it all would depend on the mandi that a company would go to.
So essentially in crop forecasting, time is of the essence, rather than accuracy or depth of coverage. Sadly people just don't seem to be getting it! There's loss of value at every stage; the farmer loses because he was dumb enough to sow what every other farmer did, the government loses because it releases an estimate value which anyone would hardly use, the companies lose because they don't get to have the best possible price for the raw materials.
Sad isn't it?
I save my a$$ when in trouble, I don't care about you
Did you ever realize how paranoid banks are when sending out money? And also on the other hand, we as customers too are lousy enough not to care about how the banks treat us.
Take the example of a cheque vs. a pay-in slip. Banks use extensive methods to make sure that when money goes out of the bank, it goes to whom it’s meant for. But when the cash comes in, it really doesn’t matter to them who’s depositing the cash and into whose account.
The instruments banks use are pretty much evidence to that effect. A typical cheque from any bank is printed on thick paper, which is printed using special ink, and also contains watermarks to ensure that the cheque is genuine. Then we have the MICR letters, or the letters that you find towards the bottom of the cheque. These weird looking numbers with dots and dashes are called the MICR fonts, which are printed using magnetic ink, and are directly machine read, and not human read to prevent error. And the entire printing is done by a 4 color Heidelberg Printing Machine applying a 2-ton weight on each paper to ensure that the paper completely absorbs all the ink and there’s no washout.
And above and beyond that, all the cheques are properly arranged, are gum and thread bound, are perfectly perforated so that they don’t tear improperly, have enough space to write the ‘amount’ and have the account number and the account holder’s name printed.
Now take another instrument, which sits towards the other side of the spectrum; the pay-in slip. This lousy little piece of paper is printed on a paper that’s probably recycled for the nth time, which has pathetic printing, which has virtually no perforation to tear away the slip, which has no thread or gum binding, and have very little space to type in the amount that you want to deposit.
You run a complete financial check on the person who writes the cheque. Why doesn’t a bank ever verify whether the right person is depositing the money or not? Yeah I know it’s a cranky thought (who would ever deposit their hard earned money in your account just like that?!). But think of it like this: I’m a businessman who doesn’t want to give a contract to company X. Now a guy from that company, who’s hell bent on taking revenge, goes to my bank, deposits Rs.100000 and then sues me on grounds of bribery! I’m finished!
Over and above that, in a cheque, you need to write the amount in words and numbers only once, while in a pay-in slip you need to do that twice, plus also specify the combinations of the denominations used at the back of the pay-in slip!
Why do I need to go through all that torture? Why have MICR letters and nicely printed paper for yourselves and a lousy ‘tissue-paper’ish paper with no space to write anything for me?!
A cheque is a symbol of how a bank treats itself, and a pay-in slip is a symbol of how a bank treats its customer.
If you want a cheque cleared today, you need to give it to the bank before 11 a.m. But the bank will most certainly take 1 day to deposit your amount into the bank, regardless of whether you give it in the morning or evening.
If I lose a debit/credit card, I really have no way to tell the bank that I lost my debit/credit card, except to call up my friends or relative to either give me the phone number to the bank’s hotline or ask them to do the needful. But if I ever call them up to ask about a few services, they’ll run a full check to make sure that it’s me!
While withdrawing money from an ATM I need to enter a pin number and there’s also a miniature camera on the front if you’ve noticed for security sake. But if I use a debit/credit card at a Visa POS, nobody ever verifies the signature, nobody ever asks whether I’m Bhushir Mankad or some Mr.Chagan Ghelphadiya.
Where’s the security? Where’s the assurance? There’s no consistency in any of the instruments used; be it cheques, pay-in slips, debit cards, credit cards, anything.
This is what happens when the Citi never sleeps – this was what my professor said to the whole debacle. (For the ones who didn’t get the joke… forget it…)
(inspired from the Service Marketing class which I took as an extra credit course, but wasn't granted one eventually!)
I Miss...
It has been like half a month in this city-state-country, and there are many things that I miss about Dubai.
I miss the mini-kitchen of my hostel room, I miss the refrigerator where I used to stock a crate full of coke or cartons of low-fat milk using which I made coffee everyday to fill my Starbucks sipper! J
I miss my ipod which was hooked to my ears for almost all the time except for when I was in class.
I miss Al Ain Centre and Jumbo which were like my gateway to the electronics world.
I miss the DragonMart (which was normally called as ChinkiMart) which virtually stored nothing of our use.
I miss the wide ocean near the Burj Al Arab, or even the crystal blue beach of Abu Dhabi.
I miss the mid-night birthday parties where the entire floor used to ransack one room to give a hell of a birthday bash, so much that even macho dudes used to end up crying like sissies.
I so very much miss Carrefour! It was like the citadel of hypermarkets for me.
I miss all the places that I couldn't visit simply because I was underage! (I'm referring to discotheques. The minimum age barrier was 21. And I am 20! L )
I miss Music Room, where I did get a chance to get in, and where they played perhaps the best Live Rock I've ever heard.
I miss WLAN, which was popularly known as 'chori ka net' before we got our own net connection in place.
I miss QDs which was like a slick lounge bar near the ocean shore and where I perhaps had the best sheesha till now!
I miss www.dubizzle.com which is like the best place to get used goods in Dubai at freaking low prices.
I miss the 3Dhs puff at the Chill Out Zone which had mayonnaise and coriander leaves on both the ends.
I miss the unlimited coke at the Internet City Subway outlet
I miss the mallu cab guy! Well, kinda.!
I miss the Shiekh Zayed where I hitch hiked for like 6 hours.
I miss many other things! Its just not easy to describe a nation where you barged in and left within a span of 6 months. There was too much of influx. And it takes time to settle in.
The tendency to believe
Sometimes, I feel we are really stupid people. Our heritage and culture system has taught a lot about respecting the elders, and giving due reverence. But as the days progress in this myriad of classes and field visits and case studies and all that's so very MBAish, there comes a realisation that most of the people who have succeeded are the ones who challenge the norm. We as duds accept what the elders have to say. The very thought of questioning what they say has never occurred to us. Perhaps that's why we never questioned the source of the data on the internet; perhaps that's why we never questioned what the eldest CEO sucker of any company suggested to do in a case study. Maybe that's why we even blindly listen to the professors as to what they say, without having an opinion of our own. And maybe, just maybe that's also the reason why we are so very confident of what the MNC's and other big companies are doing to our country. Maybe even more confident than the MNC's themselves!
There was this realisation that dawned upon me while shopping in Carrefour (the world's second largest chain of retail outlets after Wal-Mart), that while I was back home, every morning there used to be 2 bags of milk laid at my doorstep, freeing me from the trouble of buying milk; that at precisely 9 a.m. everyday a hawker selling vegetables used to pass through my house with fresh vegetables; that the local Kirana guy used to stock a few pieces of that special brand just because I used to buy from him; that the laundry guy used to come every alternate day on his skinny Kinetic Luna with BIG bundles of ironed clothes, and charging only Rs.1.5 per garment including the cost of the home delivery… and all of them, used to do this same mundane task, everyday with sustained delivery standards throughout the year. 24/7, 365 days a year.
And the lives of all these people are getting challenged because the MNCs suddenly realise that organised retail adds up to only 3% of the whole retail pie chart. And thus, they start setting up back end services, start having talks with Indian companies and everyone is all gaga over the influx of hypermarkets and all that stuff. The 'stuff' that's eventually going to get me a job once I get out of this value addition phase! And what upsets me even more is the fact that I'm going to be one of the catalysts in the process of the demise of these minions; these everyday people who have delivered value with such precision, on a regular basis for a long…long time. So much so that it has become like a well-oiled system, the absence of which puts you off entirely. Just recollect a day when the doodhwala didn't arrive, or the laundry guy didn't come making you to wear the previous day's shirt again or something. It puts you off to such a great extent.
And on the other side, when MNCs put up hypermarkets you go to those glittering places in your car along with the family for shopping! Earlier, the doodhwala used to come to your doorstep to deliver milk at HIS cost. And now, YOU are going to the doodhwala (hypermarkets for those who didn't get the metaphor) at his doorstep to buy milk at YOUR cost (obviously you must have used your car for the transport to the hyper mart you idiot!)
Now tell me who's a dud? The doodhwala, or you??
ZARA into India – Part 2
I think a few pointers were missed in the earlier article regarding Zara, which I'm including here. I still am of the belief that Zara won't be the type that it is in the European region as far as India is concerned. So in short, I'm still not convinced about Zara being able to make a mark like it did at other places.
The reason why I felt that Zara just might not work is not only because of the population not being fashion centric. But in places like Europe, Zara is positioned as a mainstream brand. Something like our Killer Jeans and Spykar Jeans and the likes. Now in their lines, Zara will have to make its way through.
Also, because of its peculiar characteristics of keeping low amount of every SKU, there are no chances that Zara might ever come up with a discount scheme or an end season sale. So that's also a put off for an Indian. Zara's design team as well as the manufacturing facility is somewhere in Spain. Now we all know that the cost of manufacturing in the textile industry is the lowest in India and China. Given this situation Zara yet prefers to stick to Spain as its manufacturing hub. True, the plant is highly capital intensive requiring lesser amounts of labour than most conventional plants do. Yet, the very fact that the plant is in Spain means that the clothes won't be as economical as we have in India.
I agree that Zara could be a niche player, but then there too its entire business model stands of no use. I mean what's the use of changing your inventories every fortnight if the stocks aren't moving? What do you do with your old stock?
My only point here is Zara's business model can't be deployed on an 'as is' basis. And if it doesn't, I don't think there's much to gain in the Indian context, at least as of now.! The topic is laid to rest. (Commenters! Fire at will…!)
Zara's Entry to India.. What say u..?
In fact I wish to do quite a bit of research into this one. But however, this thought has been boiling in my belly since quite some time, so I’m putting it on the blog. Now for those who don’t know what Zara is; well as a primer, you can say that ZARA is one of the very prominent fashion brands especially in the European countries. And since the era of retail dawns upon India, many brands have started shifting their faces towards the Indian sub-continent. Zara I believe must be one of them. I don’t have many news clippings to prove that they are seriously looking about foraying into India, but I’m sure they’re looking at the options.
Now allow me to tell what’s so special about Zara??? Typically, any firm that’s into fashion apparels follows a 12 month planning period. That means in any normal nicely running mill, Arvind Mills let’s say, starts its design phase for any particular season 12 months in advance. Thus, we can safely assume that the designers at Arvind Mills have begun the designing apparels for the summer of 2008. Cool no?
Well, for any layman this would sound like really hunky dory, but in real fashion terms, this 12 month-in-advance cycle actually sucks! And the reason is quite simple. Fashion is an ever changing phenomenon. And typically any fashion house can be called successful if it is able to respond quickly to the customers’ changing preferences with respect to fashion! And after knowing the kind of design cycle Arvind Mills follows, you certainly can’t call them as a responsive fashion house. In fact any fashion house of India can’t be called ‘responsive’ to consumer fashion preferences, since most of them follow the cycle that Arvind Mill does.
Thus, we can say that in India, it’s the fashion house that defines fashion for the people rather than the people determining what fashion should be! Quite eerie isn’t it? However, surprisingly, we don’t seem to realize the fact. And we quite easily accept what the fashion houses churn out for us.
This is where Zara comes in. Zara’s responsiveness towards the current fashion trends is as fast as 14 days max! That is, it senses the new fashion trends and is able to deliver designs pertaining to the upcoming fashion and hits the stores within 14 days! From fiber to fashion within 14 days! I think this is what we call as responsiveness.
How does this happen is sort of a complicated thing. It ranges from phone calls from every retailer to the head-office to online tracking of sales and stuff like that to a superb supply chain system. I won’t bore you on all this stuff, but my point is will this brand work if bought to India?
Let’s look at a few statistics to lure you into believing that it will work in India! Zara typically produces around 12,000 designs throughout the year, it produces designs in smaller quantities but produces a variety of designs. Which means lower quantity per design thus no off-season discounts or clearance sales necessary, and variety means more choices for the customer.
It is said that if you go to a Zara outlet and you like an apparel, the store attendant would prompt you to pick it up at that time only, since there are high chances that it would be sold out when you return back in a few days if you plan to pick it up later!
Also, there are around 200 designers who design the garments from fashion inputs received though phone calls from hundreds of Zara outlets every day. Ideally, there is an addition of 1-2 styles every week on a Zara portfolio.
After telling you all this, quite obviously you will tend to believe that Zara should certainly come to India isn’t it?
I say it shouldn’t. Here’s why.
One, there isn’t a sizable amount of population of India that changes its wardrobe every season. Most people don’t even really care about fashion specifics. In fact, there is a large part of the population that waits for the end season sale or the clearance sale to get their hands on the favorite brands. Fashion takes a back seat.
Thus, in this demographic build-up where people are not oh-so fashion crazy to change their pants every 3 weeks, the responsiveness, the 200 designers sitting in Spain and the supply chain counts for nothing at all.
You’re trying to give something to the consumer, and that too to a level he hasn’t matured.
Is it wise? I don’t think so.
What say??
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