For those who are familiar with Kutchh, and its people, there is no doubt that it is one of the most active hotbeds of entrepreneurship. A lot of the business in India's financial capital, Mumbai, is in the hands of the 'kutchhis' (those from Kutchh). Many of India's largest companies and financial heavyweights are from this region, while Surat has been a force to reckon with in the global diamond trade. Amidst all this, one of the most interesting group that I have come across are the craftspeople and artisans working with traditional methods of craft - textiles, metal, wood,…
An article by Shailesh Dobhal and Bhanu Pande in The Economic Times today refers to a growing inequality of income in India. ("India Rising, Bharat awaits for the trickle to turn flood") The change for all of urban India is reported to be 15%, which is quite visible, especially in the larger cities where the change is possibly greater. What is worrying is that even in rural India the change is 13%. And these figures are for 2004-05, from a report authored by NCAER's Dr. Rajesh Shukla. My guess is that the difference would be even higher now, 3 years…
As a working wife and mother who wants to run her home as competently as she runs her business, the advent of ‘organized' retail, super markets and well formatted MBO's seemed like an answer to one's prayers. Yes, this was certainly what I dreamt of whenever I raced against the clock to get the month's grocery shopping done in time to get home to cook dinner; or when the family had to subsist on instant noodles because picking up one's dry rations and veggies from different locations at the end of a working day didn't work out because of time…
A few days back I met a friend, a mother of a six year old and a primary school teacher by choice (so that she can be "gainfully occupied"!). We exchanged the woes of being a working woman, and she exclaimed that she was planning to begin getting her lunch and dinner organized through a "dabbawala". This would free up the time spent on "non productive" chores of buying monthly grocery, the weekly veggies and stocking up to spend on "more important" activities in life. No, she is not necessarily representative of a particular consumer segment, nor can one say…
Creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem is absolutely critical to a healthy and vigorous society and economy. Creating a "democratic" entrepreneurial ecosystem is even more critical to sustaining that health. A democratic entrepreneurial system is like all other democracies - inclusive and widespread - and vital to improving the baseline quality of life. As we've pointed out elsewhere, retailing is not just a fundamentally entrepreneurial business, it also offers up a platform for the birth and growth of other entrepreneurial businesses. Obviously, big retailers offer a change for companies to scale up faster, once they meet the performance criteria set by the…
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
