The Indian MNCs

I have been to Sri Lanka recently which is at a crucial juncture of its history now. First time presidential elections happened there after the ceasefire was declared on the civil war in 2001. the media is full of reports about claims and promises of the newly elected candidates who are again playing on the hopes of lankans.

On the business front, India is written large on everyone’s minds. The FM radio is full of ads of Indian products; (by the way, Santosh Gnanakan or Saggy-the ex-RJ of Bangalore now works for an FM radio in Colombo!) Roads are full of bajajs, TVSs, autos, marutis fighting it out with Toyotas, Mitsubishis and Nissans. Even the food is heavily influenced by Indian cuisine. When I was there in Colombo, CII was hosting a Made-in-India trade show to display some innovative products from here.

Throughout the early days of liberalization, our beloved communists were screaming that the western MNCs would take over Indian market. If you see the Sri Lankan market, it seems like Indian products are competing very well with a western product. For a Nissan Sunny, there is Tata Indigo, for an Isuzu truck, there is an Ashok Leyland, for a Caltex, there is IOC, for a KFC, there is Bombay Sweets!

So lets stop this MNC scare atleast now and start thinking about how to compete with them. Rarely we have seen a good quality product killed by an onslaught of a bad MNC product. Do you remember tasting Campa Cola two decades ago…