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Topic : The Rise Of The New Consumer
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Today 'Poverty' Is Another Word For “Meaningful & Sustainable Living”

Created by : Namrata Pathak, Accounts Manager, American Express  | 05 15 2010 08:23:15 +0000
Industry : All IndustriesFunctional Area : Global Business(Strategy & Execution)
Keywords : customer companies poverty commodities sustainable commodity meaningful sustainable living 'poverty' is another word for “meaningful & sustainable living”
Activity:  348 views;  last activity : 12 18 2010 13:29:43 +0000

Within India, brands that automatically aimed for the pointy end of the market are now setting their sights on the lower fleshier parts. It’s tough coping with rising input costs and loss of pricing power. Names don’t automatically impress their new customers. But their bankers are crowding for autographs.

The silver lining is that once you learn to sell to the Chinese and Indians, you can sell more elsewhere. Recession-hit consumers in the developed world are re-discovering old-fashioned thrift. Bling is blah. The new status symbols are frugality and practicality.


So, Is Today 'Poverty' Is Another Word For “Meaningful & Sustainable Living”??

  
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It’s a tall order. Brands able to re-invent themselves into cheap, simple, convenient and sustainable avatars are discovering millions of new customers. In the past 18 months, global business has seen two tectonic shifts: a change in the volume of demand, and a change in the nature of demand. Demand has shrunk in developed markets and exploded in emerging markets. Plus a very different type of customer is now calling the shots everywhere.

Put together, it is virtually a revolution. Companies that sell raw materials and functional consumer products have coped better than most because while they could not do much about volumes, they were certainly closer to the new nature of demand. The old rulebook called it the commodity trap. Throw it away. Commodities are the new honey pot.
By Namrata Pathak, Accounts Manager, American Express  05 15 2010 08:23:15 +0000
 
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Sustainable? for whom? 40% above poeverty line? or for those 60% who cannot afford anything offered 'cos they don't have purchasing power or anything offered in the environment is too expensive for them to consume with what they earn?

Problem in India can be considered as an urn problem with red and blue balls in it say 50% each. You shake up and pick each ball, for any red ball picked you throw away and for every blue ball picked you add one more blue ball. If this urn picking is continued for some time we will see the number of red balls getting diminshed and number of blue balls increasing till all the red balls are replaced by blue balls.

The above ourcome happes when the initial distribution is 50/50. Suppose if it is 5%/95%, larger red, then we see that blue reaches only 10 and red disappears, which is the case with India.

This shows that an 'inducement' is needed for the environment which ofcourse have to be endowment and welfare, like social security for unemployed and efficient environement for the economy to avoid genocide of poor people.

Assume red balls to be poor and blue rich people.
By Mathew Cherian, Research Associate/Analyst, Western Michigan University  05 16 2010 06:52:42 +0000
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i agree with your views Ms.Namrata Pathak.

 
By NATTERAJA R. ARIKRISHNAN, GM-Projects, Bentec Electricals & Electronics Pvt. Ltd  | 07 04 2010 11:49:19 +0000
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Thanks for invite Namrata,

"Value for money" was never the word for spendthrift or over-profiteers.

And value for money may as much be applicable in monopolistic and cut throat competition, yet difficult to see from pure economist's spectacle or "make hay while sun shines" business.
By Ravindra Sharma, Managing Consultant, CHEF-India  | 05 19 2010 06:54:40 +0000
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Agree there: In times of plenty when the disposable incomes are large brands outperform. But when belts have to be tightened, it is utility value that matters - we can't afford ego trips then.

But no economic state is stable; the swing from good times to bad is its only permanant feature. So the tide that supported brand supports utility today and this will also turn on its head!
By Rajib Bose, Top Mgmt Manager/Sr. Manager, Sigma Consultants P Ltd  | 05 16 2010 04:00:00 +0000
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No, it is not so. It is misconception.
By SHRIKANT MANOHAR DANKE, Project Manager, Phadnis Infrastructur Ltd  | 12 18 2010 13:29:42 +0000
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Rabindra Nath Tagore, once wrote in lucid terms : "Oh poverty, U habe made me a nobel man ... ".

Here, things have been made messy by use of jargons .... !

However, in the old story, a senior frog raised his head above water and said to the boys ... " What is play to U ... is death to us ..  boys, pls stop it ". These boys were pelting stones towards the frogs.

Poverty, it appears, is to stay in India for some more time ... we must not play with the term 'proverty'.

"   .... are all Indians corrupt by birth .... ?" - the frog disappeared in water when asked this question.

 
By ASOKE KUSARI, Domestic Private Banking-Executive/Manager, A large leading PSU Bank - India  | 05 18 2010 17:40:00 +0000
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yes until a complete freedom is saught it would remain the same
By BHARAT KUMAR ANYAW, Construction-Construction Management, SARVODAYA GROUP  | 05 16 2010 09:43:07 +0000
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I think practicality and frugality are only in the dictionary.

Before TV came into our lives , 100 % of the population in this country was satisfied with radios , because radios were affordable , a pocket transistor costing less than Rs. 500.

Today , no household exists without a TV , at least in the cities. Only beggars don't have mobiles.

It is only the crorepatis who live frugally , if you take frugal living to mean saving enough for a rainy day. Everyone else lives as if there is no tomorrow.

All this talk of recession-hit consumers is in the US or elsewhere , where people were , in better times , living beyond their means , and for whom the recession came as a shock.

In India , where people are accustomed to a middle-class lifestyle , the recession has not had such an impact. The software professionals who were accustomed to 6-figure bonuses would have suffered , but for the average office-goer , I doubt that things changed that much.

In India , poverty is still the same - having to take the bus , not being able to send your children to good schools , not being able to afford a vacation every year , being in doubt whether you can marry off your daughter in style ,... Nothing seems to have changed in the last 50 years !
By K. NARAYAN, None, None  | 05 16 2010 07:53:36 +0000
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Is poverty the real substitute for the so called "MEANINGFUL & SUSTAINABLE LIVING. IF SO IS THE ANSWER WHY ONLY SELECTIVE BRANDS ARE ABLE TO ACHIEVE AND Y NOT ALL BRANDS?
By sudhakar , BUSINESS CONSULTANT  | 05 15 2010 09:36:19 +0000
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