To begin with, what really inspired me to write this piece? Is it because I am an employee of Bayer
MaterialScience- a chemical company with a very rich heritage and a long drawn
history of innovations? No! Or is it
because I am a part of Industrial Marketing team which day in and day out, has
been trying to change the way we conventionally have been looking at the businesses?
Definitely No! Then what is it? Well……
Let me just get you a sneak peek into my life. I recently
got wedded to my childhood friend (& not childhood love interest). She is a
complete gadget freak. My usual day starts with, her playing music on our newly
bought home theatre system. She is at times (read most) very careless with her
gadgets, throwing them around all the time. C`mon! You got to make scratch resistance screens
with stronger bodies… We can`t buy a new gadget every day. My brother, who is
staying with us for the time being, on the other hand is obsessed with automobiles.
He can literally identify the model of the car just by seeing the tail light from
far off. Back home, for the past 7 years, my mother has been complaining about
the poor construction at our house. There have been issues with one of the
corners and it leaks badly in each rainy season.
My life almost entirely revolves around these 3 platforms,
literally. As soon as I step into the office and log into my computer. I see a
mail mentioning the platforms and how we need to align our strategies with
these platforms. I along with many other colleagues face difficult time trying
to figure out what the customer needs? Organizations spend millions in
understanding what customer needs, often not realizing that during the office
hours and before & after, as well, they have consumers all around them. In
fact they are the consumer themselves.
Without doubt our life is dependent too much on housing (construction),
mobility & IT & electronics and other consumer products.
Let me now, take a pause and ask myself a question, what is
it that I want to achieve out of this piece? Is it to tell you that customers
are all around us? May be up to some extent it is true, but not entirely. What
I am trying here is to understand the 3 platforms from a slightly different
perspective.
Often, my start to Mondays is slower than the other days. I
usually take the office bus rather than commuting by own vehicle. There are 3
reasons to it: first of all, the fuel prices are soaring high. Secondly the
traffic is a menace and thus you would always want to refrain from driving
yourself. C`mon! You are already half drained
out because of Monday Blues and then you want to exert yourself by driving?
Thirdly, I am one of those kinds who are always worried about energy conservation
and yet in our quest for survival rarely do anything about it. This is the
least I could do, right? Why adding more CO2 when you already have a
bus going that way? These are the problems that I face as a consumer. Now, zoom
out, some more and more and more. There it is. You have a bird`s eye view of
the whole situation. You now have a macro view of the entire situation.
Fuel Prices: There has been an acute rise in the prices of
the fuels in India in the last decade (Petrol & diesel rose by 250 %). When
I did a simple guestimate of how much do India as a nation spend on just
commuting, I was surprised to see a mind boggling figure. The figure, as the
guestimate yields, is somewhere near 71 billion INR daily or 400 billion USD
annually. It is inclusive of both public and private transport. Though, I feel the
figure is on the conservative side. (It is not inclusive of transporting goods
etc.)
Traffic congestion: The current status of local commuting is
completely wretched because of the level of masses that they handle. The mobility
infrastructure is under a lot of stress. The new cars are faster than ever but
choked traffic means you are commuting slower than ever. It is indeed an irony.
The roads don’t seem to change overnight. So I did a guestimate again. In
Mumbai alone, 200 cars & 300 bikes are added daily. The number in 2012
totaling additional 73000 cars and 109500 bikes on the Mumbai roads mean the
number of vehicles would rise to 2 million. So, the result is more congestion
on the same roads. Which means the probability of you getting stuck on the
Mumbai roads goes up by .036. Thus,
it makes me think if India is yet prepared for so many private vehicles on the
road. The question is what is government doing to address this issue? What are
the automobile companies doing about it? What are we as material & polymers
company doing to address this issue? The change is ought to happen in the
current trends. Are we prepared for this change, when it happens? Do we have
the solutions for these issues?
Sustainability: India still contributes very less to the
global mobility emission. The developed nations contribute 66% to the total
(16% of world population). But still, there is a long way to go in this regards
for India. We are already facing a lot of issues because of emissions due to
inefficient engines. The pollution related diseases and ailments are on the
rise and this has strained the economy (because of higher medical expenses. So, we could quantify the losses here as well?).
Now, when the entire scenario is zoomed in and zoomed in further,
I see myself as an individual customer again. When I see the situation around
myself, I certainly do not want faster cars. They will not solve any purpose. I
want to see limited number of cars and more of public transport. I want to see
a better door to door connectivity. I want to see
higher capacity public transport to reduce the congestion on India roads. I
need more fuel efficient vehicles on the road. Because that is what Indian
mobility needs and not fancy fast cars. Probably that is something that EMEA,
NAFTA needs but India? A Definite No!
Tomorrow will be another day, another challenge that I ought
to face, as an individual consumer and as a society. Keep following!
