Mamata Banerjee, Market Research & Your MSME

Mamata Banerjee can easily qualify as a poster child for why Market Research is so important! Why do I say so?

With elections to the W. Bengal State Assembly scheduled to take place in 2021, all political parties in the fray are now nearing the business end of the race. The stark contrast in their approach to wooing the electorate can be put down to one simple fact. How well they understand & tap into the issues, concerns & aspirations of the average Bengali voter. In order to this this, it is vital that they have a robust & reliable mechanism for filtering on-ground inputs. This filter is Market Research.

The frontrunner is the upstart in the fray, the Bharatiya Janata Party. Friends with generational roots in W.Bengal report that their parents who live in the state often tell them with a sense of dismay and resignation that a fading Laal Salaam & waning belief in Ma Mati Manush has ensured that the gerua (saffron) takeover of Bengal is complete.

How does the BJP do this? In state after state? With such consistency? Part of the reason can be attributed to the change in party working style brought about by BJP’s Past-President Amit Shah. Mota Bhai, as he is popularly referred to, was relentless and lead from the front. He followed a very scientific process of organizational strengthening and growth. Soon after the party lost elections in Bihar and Delhi in 2016 and amid murmurs that BJP’s golden phase could be on the wane, he went back to the grassroots. Focussing on expansion and membership, the party began to revive the cadre, went back to its strength of presence at the booth level and borrowed from the Sangh’s (RSS) outreach of door-to-door connect.

Amit Shah had his ear firmly to the ground & insisted on daily reportage from the states. While a breakthrough in West Bengal came in the form of 18 Lok Sabha seats in the last election under his watch, there is no let-up in preparations for the 2021 assembly polls. What many pundits fail to understand is that the BJP sees every election as a transaction between the party & the individual voter, to be played to maximum mutual benefit. This is why apart from using regular methods of electoral campaigning, it invests so heavily in below-the-radar messaging using WhatsApp groups, advertising on a giant scale on Facebook, Instagram and other such open, searchable platforms & campaigning door-to-door where physical canvassing & other such tasks are meticulously assigned & followed up with the party’s 18 Crore karyakartas (workers).

So it is only natural that in 2021, you can expect W.Bengal to turn saffron.

As a business owner what can you learn from this?

1. I can understand you think of your business as mighty & robust. I can also see why you believe you know best about how to run your ship. Every capable & competent business owner believes this. This is exactly what the redoubtable Captain Edward Smith of the ill-fated SS Titanic believed & what Mamata Didi believes! So, unless you want a shipwreck on your hands, its wisest to invest in market research that can spot, not just the iceberg for you in the treacherous waters of The Great Indian Bazaar, but also tell you how you can navigate it safely. At Cobblestones Consulting we have helped many business owners do precisely this!

2. Do not aim for ‘stability’ in your business performance. This is the mistake the almost-irrelevant Indian National Congress keeps making in election after election that it loses. Instead, like Amit Shah does, focus on ‘impact’. If Year 2020 has taught us all one thing, it is to expect the unexpected. Then adapt to thrive amidst the disruption, as best as we can. In the community-oriented भारतीय (Indian) mercantile ecosystem, fundamental boundaries that have specified the relationships, interactions, and possibilities of most businesses are rapidly blurring and dissolving. In भारत that is India, as these boundaries move, be they geographic, scientific, technological, institutional, or cultural boundaries, the results have been momentous. Industries and sectors have been converging, reducing the clear lines of demarcation originally defined and codified almost 70 years ago. Boundaries between and within firms have been weakening. Old distinctions between products and services are breaking down as businesses traditionally specializing in one seek to integrate the other, to create fuller “solutions” and more compelling experiences that serve customers’ growing expectations. In such a flux, the only way you can hedge your bets is by making business decisions in a minimal-risk environment. Cobblestones Consulting works closely with business owners in exactly such situations to provide decision inputs that help maximize clients returns with minimum risk.

3. Leverage technology, innovation & communication to maximize impact in new & existing markets. But rather than relying on advice from people who do not have much skin in your game, or foray into markets based on your ‘gut feel’ at best or a ‘wild hunch’ at worst, you need robust market research, such as the one provided by Cobblestones Consulting, to read underlying market trends. This is because, technology, innovation & communication are the tools you most frequently deploy these days to achieve an objective. This is the ‘what should I do?’ part of your business decision. And many entrepreneurs fail because they do not know the ‘why is the market showing this behaviour’ part. Unlike Mamata Didi who is busy safeguarding her home turf against a BJP-led ‘poriborton’ (change), strategizing with the help of advisors like Prashant Kishore & issuing lame sound-bytes, or the INC entering a poll alliance in the state with Left parties, Amit Shah invested early on in deep, reliable ground-level research in W.Bengal.

The research commissioned by BJP showed that voting in the state in 2021 will be driven by three main issues:

1 – The overarching aspiration of all Bengalis to create & live in Shonar Bangla, the golden Bengal that Rabindranath Tagore spoke of

2 – The clear religious polarization evident in voter choice & the overwhelming support PM Narendra Modi enjoys among the women electorate in the state  

3 – Transformation of the great Bengali pastime – adda and armchair revolution over cha-biscoot. Rapidly morphing into a real spirit of revolutionary nationalism in W.Bengal, this is being fanned by an increasing sense of impatience among large sections of the electorate, including some politicians within the Trinamool National Congress & the Left parties, who feel let down by the incumbent government’s inability to deliver change & progress.

If you see the BJP’s election-approach in West Bengal through the prism I’ve just created for you, you’ll understand why their juggernaut is unstoppable!

At Cobblestones Consulting, our research expertise is delivered in the light of such analysis. We not only tell you what business tactics will better serve you, we also show you why you need to do it. Do reach out to us at cobblestonesconsulting@gmail.com. Based on real-time, relevant, client-specific and rigorous market research, we will be glad to help you lean into your learnings & grow into a more confident business version of you.

Two Case Studies Showing You How We Did This With Clients In The MSME Sector:

Case 1 – Global Client:

Company profile: The client worldwide specialist in energy management and automation with a global presence in over 100 countries. It develops safe, reliable, efficient and sustainable connected solutions to manage energy and processes.

Innovative tech: High-end ePAC – Ethernet programmable automation controller

Introduced: 2018

Market Research Requirement: The client was a Market Disruptor in the Programmable Automation Controller (PAC) market in the country. To match the growth & expansion of IoT across major industries, it had become important to analyze and use efficient controllers that could handle the demand. In order to satiate this emerging need in the industries, a high-end controller which also enabled IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) had been introduced into the market.

The client commissioned Cobblestones Consulting to create a features-benefits grid that could serve as the basis for the marketing strategy of his product. This was done because this New Market Disruption targeted customers who had needs that were not being served by existing companies. Also, because this was unlike the traditional industrial marketing scenario, where the company would first develop products or services and then implement strategies to help attract new customers to their business. The research scope also included investigating how consumers were driving the market, not just a business. And how the client could tap into a market’s mood and provide what consumers wanted.

Positive impact: With Ethernet at its core, the product is the first smart/connected ePAC built for the Industrial Internet of Things in India, which improves productivity and efficiency in the best feasible manner. Based on market research insights provided by Cobblestones Consulting, the product was sold as an ePAC that could be effectively merged with the existing features of Unity PAC present in trending technologies, in order to provide it with a strong Ethernet base.

Sales pitches highlighted how it successfully optimized communications and improved the connectivity capabilities of clients which allowed these companies to react faster to information demands in a safe and cyber-secure environment. Slowly, consumers began to perceive the product as delivering an open, transparent, yet fully cohesive, stable and secured system, making it ideal for today’s dynamic market. The product USP was framed as “Built for the industrial IoT, the high-end ePAC is designed to provide total flexibility, and enhance efficiency in all major operations of medium and large companies”.

In just over a year since the conclusion of the market research assignment, this product has been successfully commercialized. It is widely used by Indian companies in industries as diverse as water and wastewater plants, hydropower, oil, mining, transportation, and gas.

Case 2 – Local Client:

Client Profile:

A renowned engineering company in Pune approached Cobblestones Consulting to survey the Indian market to identify market size, customer base and expected pricing for grain sorter machines based on line scan camera technology. Grain sorter machines are widely used by grain and pulses processing units, large stores and malls in India and abroad for colour sorting of rice, pulses, granules and a large variety of beans. Such machines are currently known to be manufactured in India, China and Switzerland.

Market Research Requirement:

1. Market size and granularity

2. Customer segmentation

3. Possible pricing

4. Prospect names and phone numbers

5. Access to interview questions and answers

6. Details on current best selling models in the marketplace

7. Types of grains that get sorted using these machines the most – rice, wheat, pulses, etc.

8. Competitive information

Post-Research Results:

Using the market research results, the company was able to understand customer demand and market potential (Market Potential Research), to identify its customer base (Market Segmentation Research) & synchronize the product-market fit (Pricing Research). Three years into the research, the company has an annual turnover in FY 19 of around Rs. 70 crores with about 2000 machine installations in India and the SAARC region.  

Image Courtesy: Google Images

How Aggrotech could be the next big thing for technology-led disruption and the new stop for MSME entrepreneurs

Economic growth in India in 2020 will very likely surprise on the upside. For the April to June quarter of 2021, India will hit a record high GDP growth. I assert this for two reasons:

1- Because 2020’s same quarter had the highest fall due to COVID! In fact, why wait till then? Just wait for Q3 (Oct-Dec, 2020). It will be +5% YoY & easily +12% QoQ. Since October this year it’s been a profitable quarter for many businesses in India.

2 – Simple maths. Real growth = Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) over 100. Compare this statistic to its pre-Covid2019 or 2018 levels. I won’t be surprised if Q1 of FY 2021-22 has +15% or even +20% GDP growth!

The news cycle today is abuzz with #FarmLaws2020. In the noise & din surrounding this issue, what is being missed is a glaring market opportunity, just sitting there, waiting for entrepreneurs to harvest ripe pickings! In India, the buzzword these days is “disruption”. Nowhere is it more relevant or more needed than in the Agriculture Sector which is still largely feudal in nature. What marginal & small farmers, who are the silent majority in Indian agriculture, want is the equivalent of a Tally in accounting—an everyday tool that they can use, with nothing fancy about it!

Disruption in a country like भारत that is India will happen on its own. Tech penetration is far more important. And it needs to be coupled with business model innovation. The time for Amul-like revolution in farming is on the cards.

With a turnover of $204 million, India’s Aggrotech Sector is at under 1% of its market potential today. A big chunk of the gains here will likely be made by companies addressing supply chain and financial services solutions, driven by the availability of affordable high-speed internet and the maturing of India’s digital aggrotech ecosystem.

This is where MSME entrepreneurs have a natural advantage. It is easy for them to migrate to this domain given their technology aptitude, access to labour & capital, infrastructure-creation capabilities & reach in both credit & business markets. The only thing they require is access to relevant, objective & timely market research to get a clear picture of this market’s potential & how they can leverage their capabilities in this area of business to maximize returns.

Over the past two years, Cobblestones Consulting has helped over 70 MSME’s transition to this sector. Our market research-based decision inputs have helped these industrial MSME’s diversify into new domains of food, aggrotech & rural fintech. These market research assignments have been a success given that they could generate monetary returns for our clients and feature a sizeable social effect as well. Do reach out to us at cobblestonesconsulting@gmail.com. We will be glad to share some of these case studies with you.

SNAPSHOT OF THE INDIAN AGRICULTURE TECHNOLOGY MARKET

If you an MSME owner in भारत that is India, the aggrotech sector affords you a safe & lucrative opportunity to grow your business operations & diversify your portfolio. India’s Agriculture Technology sector has the potential to grow manifold to $24.1 billion in the next five years, according to a new report published by EY India. EY estimates that of the five key categories of aggrotech that will control the lion’s share of the sector’s turnover, the aggrotech market for supplying farm inputs will lead the race to reach a size of $1.7 billion by 2025. The market for precision agriculture and farm management will grow to $3.4 billion in that time, while the market for quality management and traceability could be worth $3 billion. The market for tech enabled supply chain and output market linkages will be the largest ‘segment’, which could be worth $12 billion by 2025, according to EY. The second largest ‘segment’ in the overall aggrotech market could be for financial services, with a market potential of $4.1 billion in the next five years.

ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY PLATFORMS IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE

In India, we have small farmers distributed across large parts of the country, each one very heterogeneous. This means the solution delivery needs to be personalized yet it needs to happen on a scale. The only way this can be done is by leveraging digital technology. Technology platforms can play two very broad roles in this context:

1 – How do you make the production system more demand responsive? This involves transmitting demand signals & pricing mechanism information ahead of planting.

2 – How can productivity be raised through precision farming despite farmers needs being small & heterogeneous? This involves obtaining real-time information like hyper-local weather forecasts, technology-enabled equipment for precision application of inputs like micro-irrigation or zone-assisted spraying, on-farm assessment of quality through various equipment which is embedded in machine learning with different kinds of algorithms, advanced predictability of a potential diseases or pest infestations via remote sensing or looking back to examine how the farm has reacted in the past to various inputs & create an advisory on the nature of inputs that need to be used for the best output.  

WHY INDIAN AGGROTECH HAS NOT BEEN ABLE TO DELIVER LARGE SCALE RESULTS

Three reasons why this sector has not been able to scale up its operations & delivery mechanisms to a pan-India level are as follows:  

1 – In a country like भारत that is India, technology must translate into ‘real’ money for the farmer. With about 800 aggrotech start-ups operating in this sphere currently, only around 30-40 of them have become more mature in the sense of being able to translate a great technology idea into more money in the hands of the farmer. Apart from delivering value to the farmer, another issue that needs to get refined for these aggrotech start-ups on their journey is how they are able to create a viable business model for themselves in this domain.

2 – Creating point solutions for point products. It is not important to say that you have a hyper-local weather forecast that tells the farmer what is going to happen over the next one week on his farm. By itself, although this solution is solving a problem, it is not translating into more money in the farmer’s hands. The technology solution needs to go the extra mile & for example, tell the farmer what he needs to do given this weather forecast, where he can access credit and how he can deal with credit risk. This is a continuous activity that the farmer needs to tackle & therefore entrepreneurs need to create a Solutions Integrator that puts all these solutions together from the farmer’s perspective. This then needs to be delivered to the farmers on-ground by hand-holding them through the implementation process.     

3 – A lot of core data elements need to be built as a common platform. Ideally, the government is best placed to do this. It requires an identification process similar to the Aadhar ID project, where data is collected on each individual farmer, his land co-ordinates & the crop composition cultivated by him on his land. This forms the Core Data Layer that the government can set up. Early consultations in this regard are underway between the government & private players. The Ministry of Agriculture has conceived of an Indian Digital Ecosystem for Agriculture under whose aegis a Task Force has been set up, which is working on creating the Core Layer of Data I just spoke about. It will then engage with App Services & Solutions Integrator’s so that scalability becomes easier. If it is tested in one geography, on one crop, the question that then needs to be answered is, “How can we take this instantly all over the country?”

As all these elements are rapidly falling into place, we are witnessing technology getting harnessed for the benefit of the farmer. This is opening up a lot of business opportunities & potentially throwing up several unicorns in the Indian aggrotech space.

BRAIN FEED FOR BUSINESS OWNERS

Three questions in this regard, among others, that Cobblestones Consulting can help you answer:

1 – As an aggrotech entrepreneur or as an MSME entrepreneur looking to diversify operations into this domain, how can I access relevant information & accurate market inputs for better decision making?

2 – Driven by government legislation, digitization, connectivity & new modes of collaboration, important core structures of the agrarian economy in the country are quickly and dramatically changing or reshaping. How can I optimize both my plant & workforce utilization in this context?

3 – What is the market blueprint I need to follow to cash in on this attractive market opportunity in the aggrotech space?

THE LAST WORD

India currently has 896 aggrotech start-up companies, providing tech tools for pre-harvest, post-harvest and during plant growing periods. In India, #AgriTech is a promising market & a natural domain for technology-savvy MSME’s. It will take some time to make money here, but the satisfaction you get by using sensors, cameras and data analysis to help farmers grow better & more profitable crop yields, while reducing costs and water usage makes it worth the wait.

References:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/technology/indian-agri-tech-sector-can-grow-to-24-1-billion-in-five-years

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/technology/indian-agri-tech-sector-can-grow-to-24-1-billion-in-five-years-report/articleshow/77966874.cms?from=mdr

Image Courtesy: Google Images

#खट्टीमीठीछोटीसीबातें (#Khatti_Meethi_Chhoti_Si_Baatein) 

What HR can learn from the humble Bhatukali play

I’m a market research professional. Small wonder then, that my default attitude is that I always have my ear to the ground & my finger on the pulse of the audience. During this Lockdown, I found that while most Human Resources (HR) firms were busy grappling with issues such as boosting motivation during Work From Home (WFH), setting work/life boundaries, engaging WFH teams, managing performance under pressure & succession planning, it was amusing to hear the workforce buzzing with a different kind of grouse:

“ये HR लोग अपने LinkedIn bio me “Passionate about Hiring” लिखते हैंI ये कैसा passion है भाई? Candidates के e-mail का reply देने में तो नानी मरती है तुम्हारी” Translated this means HR needs to be more responsive to placements & job searches at the present moment.

In my opinion, what HR needs to do in India today is to discover newer perspectives to manage WFH challenges, understand how to set boundaries & expectations and implement Emotionally Intelligent communication techniques in their operations.

Doing this comes naturally to more than half the HR professionals in India. Why? 1 – Because they are women. And 2 – Because of how little girls in India are socialized.

During the endless months of Lockdown this year, many Indians experimented with food preparation at home. Social media was abuzz with creative ways to prepare the humble roti or thayir sadam. Preen pics of sleek looking kitchens with funky, new age pots & pans got more hearts than pics of babies & epic fails! Much noise was made about cooking techniques, cuisine, presentation. Over-rated chefs held sway. Folks like Gordon Ramsay who taught us to prepare left-overs from left-overs that tasted horrible (no wonder he doesn’t dare open a restaurant anywhere in India!) or Nigella Lawson, who I kid you not, taught us to prepare milk & buttered toast for breakfast (no wonder the lady is forced to make up for this level of skill in other ways). All this reminded me of how, in Corporate India, we look to the West for management tools & trends that are counter-intuitive for Indian conditions.  

We come from a land where culinary traditions stretch to the beginning of time. Our grandmothers & those before them served hearty, hot & usually tasty home-cooked meals at large family sit-downs at least twice a day! While today’s middle-class household has up to 50 types of utensils, a few hundred years ago, the average Indian middle-class household had around 200 types of kitchen articles! How did our foremothers get so skilled at running such a kitchen (forget the rest of the house & domestic affairs)?

By playing Bhatukali!

Growing up, most girls love playing ‘house-house’. In my state of Maharashtra, girls have been playing a desi version of this called Bhatukali for over 500 years now. The players in Bhatukali are all mainly girls from the neighborhood. However, young brothers who promise to behave well, may be included to function as men in the household. Leaves, flowers, pebbles, sand & marbles are used as ingredients for the meal. Sometimes mothers give the girls jaggery, puffed rice, peanuts and other dry fruits to play with, which are pretend-cooked & eaten in raw form.

A short Bhatukali session takes two to three hours. An elaborate Bhatukali can start early in the morning & runs all day long into which the girls replicate all the home management rituals and traditions they grow up with. Bhatukali players take on the different roles in the family and enact their roles with the appropriate attire & with meticulous precision. Through different roles girls simulate the routine within the household, demo grown-up behaviour & also trouble-shoot some of the crises that occur in homes like say, the unexpected arrival of a ‘vegan’ guest for a traditional, festival lunch.

Through this imaginative and meaningful play many Indian women over the years have learnt to have fun, to socialize, to think, to solve problems and to work cohesively in group settings. This play connected us with our imagination, with the environment & with people around us. We learnt to be socially, emotionally & environmentally responsible. We learnt to solve problems, manage money & work with different personality types towards a common goal. This play enhanced our social skills like language use, non-verbal communication & communal interaction. This is also why HR comes so naturally to so many of us Indian women.

So, the next time you see little girls throwing a ‘Barbie Party’ gift them a Bhatukali set. You will not only be promoting Indian toys & desi traditions but you will also be imparting little girls with the life skills they won’t learn in a hobby class or in the best B-Schools. And if you are invited to play, join in. As a woman, you will learn something new about managing social relations and also get a brilliant opportunity to impart life skills & job skills to eager little girls. As a man, this is your ‘made it in life’ moment. You are seen a ‘good boy’ and it’s the best feeling in the world to have your little girl not only look up to you, but also publicly exhibit that pride.

Image Courtesy: Google Images

Brand Tanishq’s TITANic Moment…and what we can learn from it

Now & then I come across business owners who tell me, “Oh, we’ve been in this business for many decades now…we know our customers quite well…we understand the dynamics of our business enterprise better than most others…we are quite aware of how the latest technology developments/market trends/govt. schemes/regulatory norms affect our business…our funds would yield better results if we put them into sales/HR rather than into market research…at the moment we really do not need market research, thank you!”

Okay. Gotcha. This is exactly what Tanishq thought too…and look what has happened to them!

One of India’s strongest brands, the Tanishq brand wagon has been rudely & swiftly upended by the treacherous iceberg that is the inscrutable, iconoclastic, opinionated Indian customer. This could not have come at a worse time for the brand. 2020 opened in the midst of an economic slowdown, continued into the Coronavirus Lockdown, moved into the Unlock phase & consumer demand had just started to pick up with the onset of the annual Diwali shopping season when Brand Tanishq was struck by disaster!  

As always there are two sides to this brand story at the heart of which is the tough-to-figure-out-and-win-over Indian customer. And they have both happened in the same span of less than a week, October 9-14, 2020 (I’m writing this on the 14^th of October).

Let’s start with the good news first. Last week, food blogger Gaurav Wasan shared a video of an elderly couple (in pic below) selling home-made food from a small kiosk in South Delhi. In the video, 80-year-old Kanta Prasad movingly lamented about the hardships that he and his wife Badami Devi (77) faced during lockdown. The video went viral overnight, reaching millions of Indians. By the next morning, huge lines could be seen outside their small eatery – Baba Ka Dhaba. Customers made a beeline to eat his food as did camera crews, bloggers and journalists. The fortunes of the elderly couple turned around overnight, as if in a straight plot lift out of Slumdog Millionaire. 

This ‘Baba-Ka-Dhaba effect‘ is being felt across the country, especially keenly in South Delhi, which has seen 150+ local, small vendors requesting customers to help them just like they did with ‘Baba Ka Dhaba’. In a manner typical of New India, brands like Baba Ka Dhaba are increasingly starting to emerge overnight & grow organically, shaped & promoted by proactive Indian customers who act as brand evangelists. It helps if business owners keep a good work ethic, are humble & grounded and focus on product delivery & service quality. This ‘Baba-Ka-Dhaba’ effect is something brands need to watch out for & capitalize on, especially in post-Corona Indian markets. 

Now for the not-so-good-news.

On October 9, 2020, Tanishq, a division of Titan Company that is promoted by the Tata Group released a video advertisement for marketing its newest jewellery line “Ektavam”. The audio-visual advertisement released simultaneously on mainstream TV channels & digital platforms showed how a Hindu daughter-in-law is adopted as one of their own by a well-to-do Muslim family. In the advertisement, the timid Hindu daughter-in-law asks her assertive Muslim mother-in-law, “Ma (mother), these Hindu baby shower rituals do not happen in your home…So how come now…”. The Muslim mother-in-law answers, “That’s because the ritual of keeping the daughter happy is in common to every household in India, be it Hindu or Muslim” The video ends with the message that if Indians come together as one, we can achieve whatever we set out to do.

So far, so good. The advertisement checked all the right boxes. Positive messaging. Visual appeal. Fantasy portrayal.

What followed next was a free-for-all social media slug-fest. Many Hindus on Twitter (the instant barometer of public opinion in India) found this video to be spreading Love Jihad. Muslim Twitter users on the other hand found it to be a beautiful example of Hindu-Muslim harmony. But the end result has not been a laughing matter for Tanishq. Hindus are target customers for the brand. With Diwali purchase season kicking off this Saturday and the majority of Hindus in India not looking to buy Tanishq jewellery, but patronize local brands instead, it promises to be a long & grim road ahead for this once-loved jewellery brand.

Hindus across the world are outraged over how their community has been depicted in the advertisement. The community is shown to be endlessly accommodating, patient, painfully meek, lost, slightly awed, confused & very taken in by the attitude of Muslims towards them & their rituals. This is why #BoycottTanishq is trending on Twitter & why the company was forced to issue an apology. Images of Tanishq jewellery stores pasting apology notes on storefronts are surfacing. Although the advertisement has been removed from official accounts of the jewellery brand on the night of October 12^th, a barrage of comments directed at the brand and Ratan Tata (under whose Tata Company, Tanishq rolls up) continues unabated as I write this.

What has added fuel to the fire is statements by ill-informed folks with a sizeable Twitter following like Rajiv Bajaj (entitled, 3^rd generation corporate scion & torch-bearer of a fading automotive brand) & Chetan Bhagat (house husband, self-styled ex-investment banker & purveyor of puerile prose with unimaginative titles that range from whole numbers to decimals). The gist of the comments uttered by these gems of Indian Commerce was that they being on one side and the surrender of Tanishq on the other highlighted the difference between spine and supine! Really? (eye roll) Someone needs a reality check!

All of this could have been brushed off as typical Twitter cacophony by Indians. But then news came in yesterday that Titan stocks had fallen 2.5% on a single day, soon after ‘Boycott Tanishq’ began to trend over the controversial advertisement. The company’s market cap has dropped by Rs. 2700 Crore at the time I write this. It’s certainly time for market pundits to wake up & smell the roses.

What shift in consumer attitudes have led to this unmitigated brand disaster? Why has this happened to a popular brand like Tanishq, smack-bang at the start of Diwali season when gold-crazy Hindus splurge big ticket amounts on jewellery purchases? What consumer signals did the brand miss? Can the brand recover? If so, how can it do this?

Sensible, scientific & rigorous market research can answer all these questions. Of course, hindsight vision is always 20/20 but this need not have been the case had market research been used sensibly right in the beginning, both by the brand managers at Tanishq & by the ad agency that commissioned market research for this advertisement. Like a double-edged sword, market research can maim just as easily as it can help brands monetize their offering. Like in the case of Tanishq, where market research may have been wrongly employed to feed into the Advertising/Brand Manager’s bias as (s)he looked to open newer target segments for the brand. By stretching brand equity past a reasonable limit, Tanishq stands to lose significant market share in the near future.

Let me use my own example to explain how this is happening to Tanishq. I’m one of those gold-crazy Hindus I just spoke about. Every year I buy some Gold Coins from Tanishq on Dhanteras. On Dhanteras eve, diyas (lamps) are lit at home which are kept burning ritually all through the night in honor of Devi Lakshmi and Lord Dhanvantari. The extended family joins me on this auspicious day & as a team, all of us ladies set out on our annual night shopping fun fest, usually chauffeured by a lone suffering male family member! We make new purchases, especially of gold or silver articles and new utensils. In the face of the insensitive Tanishq advertisement & the insincere company apology that followed it, this year, all of us family members have decided to buy Gold Bonds from RBI which will earn us 2.5% annual interest & are issued at a discount as compared to the market price. On the other hand, we have to pay premium prices for our purchases of Tanishq jewellery. This is a net gain, earning all of us wealth at the same time saving us time, money & precious petrol rupees!

How can Tanishq regain market favour with a typical value-conscious Indian ex-customer like me? The answer to this lies in market research. The company must clearly understand the reasons behind why its target customers have taken such offence to a simple advertisement that they are now taking their purchases away from Tanishq, ditching years of brand loyalty. Only when this reason is clearly understood can the company decide on taking the most appropriate corrective action. Failing this, they will just be deploying more lifeboats as they hopelessly watch their brand sink!

The Hindu outrage on social media over the Tanishq advertisement is a cumulative result of many factors. Poor timing by the Tanishq brand management team. Structural dishonesty in public discourse. A growing sense of dissonance among Hindus in India. The issue of reciprocity. If you’d like a detailed explanation of these factors along with a dashboard that tells you how to employ learnings from this to strengthen your brand, do reach out to us at cobblestonesconsulting@gmail.com. Based on real-time, relevant, client-specific and rigorous market research, my company, Cobblestones Consulting will be glad to help you lean into your learnings & grow into a more confident business version of you.

To conclude, here’s are 7 things that I can tell you as a market researcher, that could help you to avoid committing Brand Harakiri in India.

1. Question your customers relentlessly. Listen to their discussions attentively. Stop living in your parallel universe of biased opinion, one in which you can guilt trip customers into purchasing from you. With customers of New India, this passive aggression will take you down faster than you can let it fly.
2. In Business India these days, on-ground facts affect your bottom lines & brand sustainability more than your opinion as a business owner or brand manager. Do not get rigidly stuck in your beliefs simply because, “this is what I’ve always done & it worked fine for me till now”. Tanishq thought so too and the result is playing out publicly for you to see. In the choppy white waters of rapidly changing customer opinions & preferences in भारत that is India, learn to catch the downstream current & flow easily with it rather than wasting your effort resisting it, flaying about chaotically & capsizing in your effort to swim against it. Choose your battles wisely.
3. Surviving in Indian markets is all about maintaining balance. Toggle back and forth between leading the customer & learning from her. Do not get too solidified in the idea that YOU are leading anyone, be it your customer or the market situation.
4. Create wealth through stability. You can do this by staying in alignment with your company mission & entrepreneurial authenticity. 
5. Understand that in the customers eyes, you are no longer a hero whom they put on a pedestal. If powerful brands like Tanishq & Amitabh Bachchan are getting tanked overnight, you need to be vigilant & ensure that your brand does not take a dunking anytime soon. Expand how you see things by using objective, unbiased market research inputs.
6. Market Research, especially in Unlock season is no longer a luxury or an afterthought. It is an absolute necessity. Use it to avoid being stuck in a mindset that does not serve you anymore. In India, old allegiances & belief systems no longer hold true. Use market research to get rid of what is holding you back. Get into alignment with your customers, not with what you believe they want.
7. Make decisions in a stable, grounded way. Not on the fly. Only market research can deliver this stability to you at a time when customer preferences in India are changing at a very fast pace & their way of thinking is rocking both business & brand stability.

#खट्टी_मीठी_छोटी_सी_बातें (#Khatti_Meethi_Chhot_Si_Baatein)

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Obstacles don’t block your path. They are the path.

As a successful business owner in India, I’m often asked what special obstacles I had to overcome to establish & run my own market research agency, Cobblestones Consulting.

My answer: Not one.

I refused to play the blame game & took charge of my own destiny. Its as simple as that.

Like countless women climbing the corporate ladder in blue chip companies, I struggled with the ‘hard hustle’ vibe Corporate India runs on. I was working in a stable, predictable structure where will power, clarity & focus took center stage over ‘knowing’. Where knowledge was static with precise dimensions & exact design. Where goal-orientation called for me to be a master of planning & laying out guidelines based on logic & experience. The going was good till I reached the stage where going after what I wanted ‘too hard’ burnt me out.  

That’s when I decided to take a long, hard look at myself & change the paradigm in which I operated. As a market research professional, I am both a warrior & a healer. I successfully & swiftly troubleshoot business problems & heal the troubled entrepreneur psyche at the same time. This is what causes client stickiness with my company.

So, here’s what I can tell women out there looking to run your own companies. Put yourself in the spotlight. Understand & play to your strengths. Look your problems in the eye & create solutions that are rigged in your favor. Learn from men & use their business structures to your own advantage. Take on challenges with the quiet knowing that comes naturally to all women.

As women, our heritage blesses us with the ability to operate in the business world with duality of being. At a single point in time, we can be both soft & powerful, practical & spiritual and succeed spectacularly. As women, we are a powerful force filled with sharp instincts, passionate creativity & ageless knowing. Rather than run a tiring rat race, focus on the best way you can find & define yourself in the business world. Then, do that really well.  Allow your wisdom, compassion, courage & self-love to guide you in this endeavor. In my own business story, it was only when I fully accepted & embraced my femininity could I understand & exercise the full extent of my power.  

Always keep in mind that success in business comes in many shades of depth & variation. It is not a linear race to see who breaches the finish line first.

*Obstacles don’t block your path. They are the path*