International retailers find big is beautiful in India
It is Peter Baker’s favourite time of year. In November, North India’s searing 30 to 40 degrees give way to cooling winds from the Himalayas and more modest temperatures in the twenties. The New Zealand-born business advisor’s neighbours in Gurgoan, a satellite city of Delhi, shiver and light fires at night.
“It’s still a bit hot for someone originally from Dunedin like me,” says Mr Baker a retail specialist with a career spanning Australia, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Hong Kong, China, Istanbul, Latvia and Great Britain.
Mr Baker is now helping international companies enter India as the chairman of retail consultancy Brandspoke. He plays a special role to New Zealand business coming here as an advisory board member of New Zealand Trade & Enterprise’s Beachheads programme. Mr Baker is also Chairman of the Australia New Zealand Business Association India in Delhi.
India’s combination of tigerish economic growth and urbanisation alongside a lack of basic consumer goods taken for granted in developed countries are exciting for an international retail specialist like Mr Baker. Recruited from international jeans brand Lee Cooper where he was the UK-based group head of retail, Mr Baker first came to the country in 2004.
“When I first came to India I realised almost everything is needed here. The equivalent of the population of many nations are coming into the market as consumers every year,” he says.
The district of Gurgoan where Peter now lives sprang into existence just a few years ago. The chauffeur-driven local and foreign business executives who live and work in the gleaming new tower blocks share traffic-choked dirt roads with migrant construction labourers, goats, cows, chickens, donkeys and the occasional elephant.
“As New Zealanders we tend to think of India as much poorer than it is. While some parts of this country are very poor, there is staggering wealth with areas that are extremely well-off and have been for a long time,” says Mr Baker
Peter’s first job in India was as CEO of the H&B Stores division of Dabur, one of India’s largest fast moving consumer goods companies, where he helped modernise retail operations. He saw the group win an award as most admired retailer of the year in India in 2008 and then spent a year as the CEO of the Faces brand for India’s largest retailer, Future Group.
In both jobs he was selling not only to the well-heeled upper and middle classes but people like the migrant construction workers he sees daily on the streets of Gurgoan. “In fast-moving consumer goods retail you are in one of the few professions that touch the lives of everyone in India’s economic pyramid, from the village upwards”, he says.
“Not all Indians people have basic medical services, power, water or banking, yet nearly everyone buys mobile phones, coffee and shampoo,” says Mr Baker. “There are around ten million new mobile subscribers every month. Many people may have only small amounts of money to spend but their sheer numbers are enough to influence the nation and they can drive the economy.”
Mr Baker is part of a close knit community of Australasians in Delhi. There are fewer than 300 New Zealanders living in India by Peter’s estimate, less than any country he has lived in save Latvia.
But their numbers are set to rise. Mr Baker expects that many New Zealand business people will be drawn to India in 2010 when Delhi hosts the Commonwealth Games. Through the Beachheads programme ,he is seeing at least one new kiwi company looking to do business here every month.
“New Zealand companies are very interested in India’s middle class which is growing by 20 to 30 million people annually,” says Peter. “To a Kiwi business, that’s like saying I’ll give you another market the size of Australia every year.”
- By Matthew Roy
First image by author, second image of a shopping mall in Delhi sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
