Dear Delhilive Readers, It’s our pleasure to have Mr. Jayant Kochar on TAKE 5 this week. Mr. Kochar is the founder of Go Fish Retail Solutions- provider of advisory solutions to the retail industry. He has been instrumental in getting brands like Lacoste and Barista into India. We have tried asking Mr. Kochar on various aspects of the branding in India, regulations in retail and other business issues. Hope you enjoy this conversation with Mr. Big Brands aka Jayant Kochar.


TAKE 1

Delhilive- Mr. Kochar, thanks for joining us on this forum. You have been instrumental in launching brands like Lacoste and Barista in the country. How challenging is it for the new brands to make a mark in developing countries like India?

Mr. Jayant Kochar- Developing markets have some challenges and some advantages. The main advantage is the lack of competition. There are very few brands here in most categories, and even less good brands. However, as you would expect, in the areas where the competition is the strongest, the brands are the best - like Telecom (Airtel, Hutch) and Aviation (Jet, Kingfisher, Indigo).

The challenges are mainly to do with infrastructure (there is too little of it) and regulation (there is too much of it). Instead of doing what they should be doing (providing infrastructure like Roads, Water, Electricity, Transport), the regulatory authorities are busy imposing restrictions and regulations on what industry does. Apart from that, the biggest challenge in most developing countries is  the low exposure to brands. So people keep saying "why pay Rs 10,000 for a pen, when we can buy one for Rs 10?" (or why pay Rs. 2500 for a shirt when we can buy one for Rs. 250, etc). In some categories we understand brands. E.g. toilet soaps - we understand there is a difference in Lifebuoy and Dove. We also understand this in Cars - the Nano is not compared to a BMW. But in many categories, it will take time. Also, as the market grows in maturity and size, it will naturally get differentiated, and people will understand that different brands serve the needs of different customer segments, and many of these needs are not addressed just by the product features, but by the brand personality.


TAKE 2

Delhilive- Premium brands like Harley Davidson have started venturing into the Indian market. General Motors claims India to be its most important market. Do you see other well known luxury brands making a beeline towards India following these trends?

Mr. Jayant Kochar- There are actually very few luxury brands in India, and the few that exist have a very small presence. Harley Davidson may be a premium brand, but it is certainly not a luxury. The only GM brand that is close to luxury is Cadillac, and they have no intentions at all of launching it in India. It's true that many luxury brands have made a beeline to India, but the assumption behind that was that India would have at least 10% of the luxury market of China. The fact is that any kind of comparison of the Indian market and the Chinese market is farcical. Ferrari has 13 dealers in China, but no reason at all to appoint even one in India. Most luxury brands offer their web sites in 3 languages - the language of origin (e.g. Italian or French), English and Chinese. Don't expect to see Hindi on their web sites any time soon!

The other problem is the government policy of dissuading people from coming and spending and investing in India. If they were to allow it, many luxury brands would like to open up here, Instead, they have to depend to different degrees on local partners or franchisees - who are in many cases just well connected page 3 socialites who have a fairly good idea about how to buy luxury, but very little concept of how to sell it.


TAKE 3

Delhilive- Retail is yet a debated topic in India. With single brand retail still closed for FDI and Multi-Brand retail open with a limit of 51% for foreign players do you think India is losing an opportunity to pile up its forex reserves?

Mr. Jayant Kochar- Yes, India is losing BIG time. FDI would bring best in class systems and processes and technology. It would bring trained and qualified people to manage retail businesses (today most of the managers of the biggest retail firms spend all their time in meetings, answering emails on their blackberries and understanding their compensation packages. They do not visit the stores, have little understanding of retail realities, and wouldn't be able to recognize a Customer if he punched them in the face). The impact of all this would be to raise the standard of the industry, and to help increase consumption, which would spur the economy even further. The fear expressed by protectionist (misguided) politicians is that the foreign retailers will raise prices and take away huge amounts of profits from the country. The biggest retailer in the world is WalMart, and they are the biggest only because they sell at the lowest prices and offer the greatest convenience to Customers! And there is very little likelihood of these retailers making any profits at all in the short to medium term, let alone actually taking money out of the country. In the mean time, what they WILL do is create employment, make suppliers more efficient and thereby reduce prices for Customers, invest in infrastructure, and pay taxes to the government, and benefit the economy and country in many ways. We have seen the beneficial effects of foreign participation in so many industries including telecom, automobiles, aviation, hospitality, power and infrastructure, and many many more. Why deprive ourselves of even more benefits?



TAKE 4

Delhilive- You started your own venture by the name of "Go Fish Retail". Would you like to tell our readers about it and what motivated you to take up this endeavor of yours?

Mr. Jayant Kochar- Go Fish Retail Solutions is a strategic retail consultancy. We help retailers become more profitable, and we help potential retailers set up successful ventures. There are very few people with a good understanding of the key success factors in retail in India - in fact many international companies really do not know how to go about setting up a business in India at all, let alone a retail business where the challenges of understanding the diverse Indian markets and consumers are immense. So I gathered an excellent team of professionals, and we are able to do what we enjoy and help set up interesting and exciting businesses.   


TAKE 5

Delhilive- India has often been predicted as the next economic super power of world subsiding giants like U.S. Is it a too optimistic view or you really see this happening someday?

Mr. Jayant Kochar- We will definitely overtake a nation like the USA one day. China is a different matter, unless it disintegrates under the weight of its internal contradictions… But the bottom line is that yes, we will definitely become a super world power, if not THE super world power. Actually we will not become a superpower, we will REGAIN the superpower status that the Indian kingdoms collectively had before the British Raj. But the fact is that it will take a long time, and will happen only when we have governments that are strong enough and motivated enough to stop pandering to vote banks, and start focusing on the four important issues - education, employment, infrastructure and health. That unfortunately will not happen in the near future, though we all live in hope.....

-----------------------------------------------------------------
TAKE 5 is all about the common people like you and us. People who have thought differently and brought a change in this society.

 
Next week we would again challenge some personality to face TAKE 5. Keep tuned to Delhilive for all the updates.