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Marketing the India brand
Wednesday, 03 December 2003, 20:30 IST
CHENNAI: Corporates have to battle prejudices associated with the 'Made in India' tag because the country is still associated with snake charmers and other exotica, leaders of southern Indian firms said here.
They were speaking at a two-day seminar on "Branding for Exports" that began here Tuesday, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Nobody can believe that India, with images of "unclean" cities and villages, can be leaders in sanitary ware, or that swings in Mediterranean gardens come from India, experts said.
The stories were not about giants like Infosys, Wipro, Tata Steel or Reliance.
Case studies presented by industries in the south included those of the TCS experience, the Titan turnaround and EID Parryware's forays into foreign shores.
The seminar raised vistas of Spanish villas and Californian beaches where India made its presence felt through a hammock swinging in the gentle breeze.
Experts and policy-makers gave their views on how to get about building the India brand name while industry leaders shared their day-to-day experiences.
Additional export commissioner and zonal joint director general of foreign trade R. Buhril warned: "We can expect (trade) negotiations to become tougher and tougher, countries becoming more and more aggressive.
"And the coming years may bring more pressures on our country, which will have a telling effect on our economy. Alliances are the name of the game. Industry wise, it will be mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances."
He said India's recent trade missions in China were very successful. "There may be joint ventures" soon to promote both countries' handlooms in other regions.
Buhril added: "We are almost certain to achieve our target one percent share in global trade by 2007."
S. Ramachander, an expert in foreign trade and brand building, said it was the customer or buyer who built a brand, not the marketer.
"A brand is a risk reducer," he argued, but just the brand will not sell. "The product has to deliver" for any brand to survive.
Experts said Indian companies should not at once try to compete with big fish and global companies. The best way would be to first capture niche markets.
Titan Industries, having captured the Middle East and several European markets like Greece, Portugal and Spain, is now looking at Latin America and Indonesia.
However, Titan's most eagerly awaited venture will be in Pakistan. "We are just waiting to board the flight to Pakistan," Meera Harish, Titan's export division chief, told her audience.
Pony brand needle maker from Udhagamandalam, Needle Industries, talked of capturing the Chinese markets while Inca Hammocks' S.N. Bhatt talked of how the firm was Walmart's leading supplier.
EID Parryware's G. Ramprasad spoke about how India was taking sanitation to Israel and South Africa while T.V. Kamalakannan described how TCS was no longer an Indian company but had adopted global practices to become a global service provider, branding services at par with the likes of global giants like IBM.
Source: IANS
Source: IANS