Shailesh Dobhal: Let a million brands bloom

After industrialisation and mass media, digitalisation will usher in the next big wave of brand building

There is near unanimity that the country is on the cusp of a digital revolution. Over a quarter of the nearly-a-billion mobile consumers are now on smartphones, and cost and bandwidth permitting, can access data-rich content and services. Telecom operators are falling over each other to launch 4G - the next generation telephony that will enable consumers easy and faster access to data. The government, on its part, has made a mission in Digital India - a programme to deliver all citizen-centric services electronically and in an integrated manner with emphasis on creating the enabling infrastructure and processes.

The country's richest man, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani says optic fibre cable (OFC) network will soon reach every village, making India not just a "networked society" but a "smart" one too. Ambani is about to kick off his firm's ambitious telecom foray that will primarily focus on video and services through a mix of wireless and OFC network that reaches deep into the hinterland, besides covering cities and towns.

Electronic commerce is booming and already employs an army on product and service vendors - according to one report, Amazon already boasts of 50,000, Snapdeal over 200,000 and RIL wants to kick off its telecom venture with at least 30,000 and quickly ramp it up to 150,000.

There are over 300 million Indians on the internet today, and that number will grow exponentially - 500 million in the next two years according to a report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and KPMG. A measure of the nature of non-linear growth this market is witnessing can be gauged from frequent revisions in projections by even storied names in the forecast business. Investment bank Goldman Sachs now says the online market in India will cross $100 billion in sales in another five years, up from its $81 billion estimates in May.

Now, this "networked" and "smart" society, to borrow Ambani's terminology, will not just be satisfied selling or buying your favourite film star's soap bar! Make no mistake, this new ecosystem will challenge the old order, and many product and market monopolies, duopolies and oligopolies that have existed comfortably for decades will be dismantled. Hundreds of challenger brands will come up, riding on this new digital infrastructure that nullifies legacy businesses' erstwhile competitive advantage of access to physical stores across the country.

But a bigger opportunity awaits as consumers and citizens get on this networked infrastructure. Demand from such a huge consumer base will create its own supply of entertainment, education, products, financial transactions and services of all kind. Business history is replete with examples that show very few existing businesses have been able to fathom a new technological or consumer era. And it is this gap that millions of new brands can fill.

And as technology permeates and democratises to include people across different levels of income, education, language, geography and demography, there will be an upward spiral in the number of brands needed to address demand. A recent Nielsen research points to a high inclination to try new products by consumers in the Asia-Pacific region, with over two-thirds saying they did buy a new one in the last shopping trip. In contrast, respondents from North America, 31 per cent, and Europe, 44 per cent, seem less adventurous when it comes to moving out of their comfort zone. Another Nielsen study says that Indians'online behaviour is primarily driven by advertising, peer influence and recommendation. And in the last year alone, advertising-led online decisions to buy have moved up from 39 per cent to 50 per cent. Now if this isn't a clarion call to build a million brands, then what is?