Rural India is being transformed and connected by Technology

1. Individual Assignment
India Marketing
By Disha Ghoshal
FT201032
Business Insights after talking to Mrs. Shivranjani who was the Principal of the local primary school that
housed about 180 to 240 students from class one to eight. She was 47 years old and had an acute
knowledge about the facilities of the village and honestly opened up about the various things about
Kadambadi that she could tell me. Though infused with a heavy southern accent,she was able to
communicate quite well in English
Our conversation began when I introduced myself as a student from Great Lakes and she immediately
informed me that her son studied MBA from SRM University. She was well aware of the fees of our
college and connected it to how education has become so costly. She submitted to the plight that many
children have to move to cities for further education and then they do not come back.
Market Insights:
1. I asked her about the advent of technology as I saw her using a One Plus 3 phone. She replied
saying that yes now most of the people have at least one phone in the house. Her high end phone
was gifted by her son however the phones in the village are basically feature phones that Jio
brought in two years ago. The benefit of free calls and lucrative prices has now made sure that the
village skip a generation of telephone lines and jump directly to watching YouTube courtesy Jio.
The brand has been able to penetrate the remotest of a village like kadambadi just as it planned.
2. She told me that her husband owns a Passion Plus bike that he uses to travel to his work. He is the
head of a security agency that provides guards to the wire factories and the resorts in
Mahabalipuram. Being the head, it is obvious that he earns a lot however, they believe in simple
living high thinking and he has not upgraded to a car or even a better bike because his current one
still works fine. The insight here is that repeat purchases especially for high involvement products
is much lesser in villages as people are more utilitarian and conservative.
3. I asked her about her daily needs. She said that the village has to struggle in terms of groceries
because they don’t a have a proper grocery store per se, so she has to go the market in
Mahabalipuram or Kalpakkam every two three days to get vegetables and fruits. She said that the
local vendor who sells vegetables does not have a lot of variety and many times they are stale.
This shows that the village is primitive in nature and needs infrastructure to bring convenience
and low cost products to the people. This could be developed into a business idea which could
generate employment, reduce people’s spending and effort on travelling and also help increase
the commerce in the village.
4. She said that almost everyone now communicates through WhatsApp and FB. This could be a
platform for big product companies to reach villages and capaitalise on this huge untapped rural
market that is now having aspirations at par to urban India.