Historical Evolution of the Indian market

To understand the current Indian market, it is important to understand the evolution of the market in India over the centuries. India was a very prosperous economy in the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century until the European traders entered the country attracted by the prosperity of the region. The economic relationship between the European traders and India led to political linkages and eventually the British started to rule over India as a colony and the prosperity within India began to diminish. Along with it, the political freedom and the personal freedom started to diminish for the Indian citizens and this happened for about 300 years until the Independence of the country in 1947. Because of the manner in which the European traders entered the country & eventually the British ruled over India & as a consequence Indians lost their freedom, trade & economy was sub-consciously blamed as being the root cause for citizens of India losing freedom.
Hence the architects of the new India after independence in 1947 developed the concept of a self sufficient economy. One of Self sustenance and barriers to foreign businesses entering India. A lot of very fundamental infrastructure was built for agricultural economy, the dams, the water systems, the agricultural research, earth moving equipments, railway equipments, aircraft industries. These were all driven by public corporations owned by the government and were protected from international competition. So India was an economy which was insulated from global competition. In parallel the culture of India always encouraged education and learning and there was a good system of schools, colleges & universities, which had built talent within the country. By the 1980s people started to look at the success of globalization around the world and benefits of foreign competition and foreign markets. Indian leaders led by Dr. Manmohan Singh decided to open up the economy to the world to take benefits of globalization. So starting in early 90s there was a series of deregulation from the license Raj. This coupled with computer technologies which reduce the virtual distance between countries created a prosperous new India which also resulted in the new Indian consumer. So currently there are two very distinct markets which reside in India. There is the old stable market which is not consumption driven, which is very stable. Also there is the new global economy which is linked heavily to the international markets which is growing rapidly. These two economies are merging and creating lot of complex dynamics within the market. There are a lot of global companies which are coming into India and creating new jobs. The new wealth is creating new consumption patterns. So it is very important to understand the markets in the old economy, the new economy. It is important to understand the old generation, the new generation & the bridge generation. This is the context in which Indian companies have to rely on Market Research in India to help them navigate them through the market.

The eMpulse Team
(www.empulseglobal.com)