Made for India

While consumers across the world be seeing a growing spot of Made in India labels on the goods they buy, Indian shoppers are witnessing a more insidious change. Increasingly, multinational companies are selling products that are not fairish made in &8212 but that are made for &8212 India. total generations of Indian consumers, who once felt glad simply for being able to arrest the same swords as the rest of the world, are now realizing they fire ask for products that whollyow for to their wants and needs.And they stand a good recover of getting what they want. The willingness of big brands to customize their products was never the issue, says Harminder Sahni, managing film director of Technopak Advisors India, one of the countrys largest management consultancies. What has changed is that the Indian market has finally reached a unfavourable mass &8212 after the U. S. and China, this is the largest consumer market in the world &8212 that justifies the investment. That wasnt always the case.Before the Indian economy opened up in the early 1990s, imported goods were a sought-after(prenominal) commodity, their contraryness often being their roughly desirable attribute. Not surprisingly, then, many multinationals didnt gauge success would require much causal agency when their brands finally entered the country after 1991. Things defy changed. As Indian consumers became more certified of trends and advancements in technology, they began to demand similar sophistication. more(prenominal) important, they wanted products built to their needs.That meant not just auto unstables, household appliances and consumer electronics, but also mobile phones, foods and apparel. Earlier, there was a reverence for anything foreign because local products were of terrible quality, says Abraham Koshy, professor of market at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). plainly as the market developed, the focus started shift from the product to the bran d. Customers started patronizing a brand only if the product suited them.So the need arose for companies to adjust their products to customers requirements. It isnt only slightly holding on to existing customers. If repair a products design or introducing a variant will help a brand reach out to an excess customer group, most companies would think it price the investment. Brands that establish their relevance with customers do well, says Shripad Nadkarni, director of MarketGate Consulting, a Mumbai-based marketing and brand consultancy.The change magnitude use of third-party sourcing helps further the customization cause companies can simply take on redundant local suppliers who will adapt the products for diverse markets and customer groups. Of course, localization doesnt work for all products. Many high-end luxury goods, for instance, rely on their country-of-origin tag to enhance their brand appeal. A Made in India label on these products would be disastrous, says Technopaks Sahni. Koshy adds that products where the unit consumption is wiped out(p) may not justify bulky outlays on customization.