Business as usual

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT INDIAN BUSINESS almost inevitably come around to discussing the unique concept of jugaad. The quick-fix, out-of-the-box innovations end up defining Indian business rather than defining the way in which specific problems are solved. There is, as yet, no word to define businesses that take unconventional paths for conventional results—business as unusual, if you will.

There may not be a word for it, but the concept is here to stay. It has to do with businesses trying to adapt to the changing times, to more educated workers, to more evolved customers, to technology, and the like.

Speaking of unusual, we look at the business implications of socialism as we know it today. Even as academicians argue for and against the concept, factories are functioning to capacity to meet a sudden demand brought about by the government’s experiment with cash transfers to the poor. The idea behind transferring cash is to put the individual, rather than the state, in charge of his or her spending. This has been borne out by pilot projects at the district level in parts of India, and abroad in Brazil and Mexico. This does not mean that the poor are much less poor, but it does mean that they behave that way.

The money in their wallets or bank accounts has been put there by employment guarantee schemes such as the MGNREGA, or given to them in lieu of free or subsidised grain and fuel. And while they do spend on these essentials, they also start buying goods and services that are outside the public distribution system—chips, soaps, tea, and biscuits.

It’s not just the consumer goods and personal care products companies that are looking at the non-urban markets. Internet companies such as Google and Facebook have realised that if they want a new generation of customers, they have to look beyond the English-speaking urban population. It’s not going to be an easy journey, because these companies have to dismantle a whole set of assumptions and build new devices and content for the new market. But if that means getting the next 150 million and eventually 500 million customers, these companies are game.

This is not an exercise for a vague future date; companies are already introducing voice-driven apps, keypads in various Indian languages, and the like. One of the unintended fruits of this increased Internet reach has been that traditional labour or trade unions seem to be coming to an end. Workers belonging to the connected age are more aware and far better networked than their predecessors. At the Bajaj factory in Pune, for instance, line workers talk regularly with factory workers in Japan and Europe. The line between management and worker is blurring, and that’s largely thanks to access to the Internet and all that it holds.

Of course, not all grand old ways of business are related to the Internet. Take a sport, for instance, and serve it up in an unusual way. We’ve seen that happen in an insanely profitable way with cricket. Now, tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi is trying to do the same with the other “gentleman’s game”—tennis. His revolutionary idea of an IPTL (cricket’s T20 format in tennis) is backed by his knowledge of the game, his close ties with other players, and a very practical business sense.

Essentially, unusual times call for unusual strategies.