Understanding the Indian consumers and how difficult it is for an marketers to carter to the Indian market to satisfy and meet their wants and demands. This presentation is based on a book by Rama Bijapurkar who has brilliantly highlighted facts which one would have never thought of. No matter how simple it seems to launch a product in India because India is a huge market but it has problems which many marketers tend to ignore.

1. We Are Like That Only
Understanding The Logic
of Consumer India
Rama Bijapurkar
Project by (e-MBA : Marketing):
Zubin Daver (13088)
Dipesh Sanspara (13089)

2. About the Author
• One of India’s most respected thought leaders on
market strategy and consumer behavior.
• Acclaimed for her unique 360 degree insight on
consumers and creative thinking on new products and
new business models for emerging markets.
• Consultant for an impressive list of companies from
established Fortune 500 corporations to interesting
Indian start-ups.
• Independent director on the boards of some of India’s
leading companies and visiting faculty at the Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

3. Changing Indian Scenario
• Future growth market in the world
• Change after 1991
• Number of international brands on a rise
• GDP and National Income
• Changing preferences

4. Lessons for New Entrants
• Study the market very careful
• Existence markets have robust products
• Emerging markets not same as developing
markets

5. Do you know India?
• Marketers’ question
• Truth about India
• Schizophrenic India
• Existence of several sectors
• Strategy in India

6. Why India then?
• Guaranteed growth in future
• Young people and new markets
• Low country risk
• Strong institutions
• Welcoming the change
• China versus India

7. Goldman Sachs said
“The world’s largest economies may not be the
world’s richest economies. Being individually
poor but collectively rich differentiates
emerging market economies from developed
ones.”

8. Understanding the Indian Market
• There are 3 broad segments in the Indian market -
premium, popular and discount.
• Unorganized Market versus Organized Market
• Initial Assumption
• FMCG Market
• Paradigm of premium is for rich, popular is for middle
income group, discount is for poor.
• NCAER has clustered Consumer India into 5 types of
consumer groups: the rich, the consuming class, the
climbers, the aspirants and the destitute.

9. Consumer Groups

10. Purchasing Power of Indian Consumers
Forecast from 2005-6 to 2009-10:
• Number of rich households
• Rural Middle Income Group
• Population growth rate

11. My Target for Schizophrenic India
• Existence of 5 consumer groups: the rich, the
consuming class, the climbers, the aspirants
and the destitute.
• Urban India versus Rural India
• So many states and so many languages
• 5 economies: agriculture, manufacturing,
government, services, IT.
“The good news is that there is plenty of choice for creating
competitive advantage by defining ‘my target for India’
innovatively.”

12. Demographics, psychographic
determinants of consumption
• SEC A1-Tip of India iceberg
• SEC A,B- Prospering and spending
• SEC C+R1- Middle-income group
• SEC D+E1+R2- Mass market
• SEC E2+R3- Poor but consuming
• The self employed as a distinct consumer class

13. Demographics, psychographic
determinants of consumption
• Consumer India can be divided into:
– The Resigned
– Strivers
– Mainstreamers
– Aspirers
– The Successful

14. Predicting Change in Indian Consumers
DNA of Indian society: this as well as that
Battle between tradition and modernity was
buried

15. Changing Cultural Foundations
• Increased bargaining power of the poor
• Strengthening the poor
• Modernity is nothing but modified tradition
• Range of aspirations are socially legitimate
• Child-centricity

16. Changes in the Cultural Foundations will
impact in the following way:
Indian consumers are far more ok with the ‘do
good’ products and it will be some time
before the ‘feel good’ products find their place
in his/her purchase priorities.

17. Three Big Consumer Segments
• Rise of ‘generation next’ - Youth
• ‘The new emerging Indian woman’
• Rural India

18. ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ Consumers
• Size of the BOP market is 650 million people
• Individually earn less than a dollar a day
• Collectively account for 30% of the national
income, a little over 33% of consumption
expenditure and a little over 20% of India’s
savings
• The BOP is rising fast in terms of absolute
required amount of income earned
• Hunger for Knowledge and information is
extreme

19. Understanding the ‘bottom of
the pyramid’ Consumer
• Characteristics of the BOP consumer:
• Poor but not backward
• They value all kinds of productivity devices
that help them earn more
• Poor consumers do complicated value
processing
• Poor consumers are technology embracers

20. So finally what India wants?
India requires the creation of new solutions, rather
than the transplanting of strategies from other
markets. It requires companies to use their core
competence to the best limit, and apply it to new
markets. This will help to over ‘problems of India’
by giving ‘solutions made for India’.

21. Thank you