Competitive Disadvantage

On a visit to Washington, I took with me a carton of Gold Flake and five boxes of Ship matches. To see me through the trip. Smoking in the United States is a nuisance. You feel like a pariah. At the airport, there is a smokers lounge, encased in glass. You are like a fish in an aquarium, people peering in from outside to gaze at these obnoxious creatures. The only place where one can smoke in peace is the streets. I was thus merrily walking along K Street, puffing a cigarette. Whereupon I was stopped by two black women who wanted a light. I fished out my box of Ship matches. Indians tend to strike the match away from them.

 

Many Americans strike the match towards them. This doesnt work with Indian matchsticks. They are too weak, they snap. The two black women struck five matchsticks, before giving up. Finally, I lit their cigarettes for them and began to walk away. But they called me back. Where did you get these matches? they asked. Can we keep this box as a souvenir? Apart from the excise label, there is nothing on Ship matchboxes to indicate that they are made in India. The place of manufacture is invariably covered by the excise label. I parted with the souvenir, I still had enough matchboxes to spare. A little later, I was stopped by a white man. He too wanted a light. This time, I was wiser and lit his cigarette for him. Mind you, Ship matches are good matchboxes by Indian standards. The sticks dont have powder missing from them.

Last weekend, our neighbourhood was in turmoil. First thing, Sunday morning, three characters turned up and demonstrated how easy it was to steal a car. Locked ones. All Marutis of various varieties, 800, Omni, Gypsy, Zen, 1000 and Esteem. A steel scale was inserted through the rubber lining on the window. Slight pressure and the lever on the lock snapped open. Owners were aghast. These characters then began their sales pitch. Spend one hundred and fifty rupees and instal plates inside the door compartment. The trick will no longer work. For a Maruti 800, additional precautions are necessary. Apart from front doors, the rear doors of a 800 can also be opened. The knobs that lock and unlock doors have heads at the top. This permits a wire with a loop to be inserted. Fiddle around with the loop until you have a fix on the head. The rest is easy. So these knobs had to be replaced with knobs that didnt have heads. Free of cost, as part of the one hundred and fifty rupees.

Our neighbourhood has a large number of Marutis. Not a single owner refused to instal the plates and new knobs. You dont save one hundred and fifty rupees when you have spent two to six lakhs on a car. Maruti has been around for more than 10 years now and this problem is also a decade old. I refuse to believe that Maruti is interested in social causes like providing employment to these enterprising characters.

I also refuse to believe that better locks require advanced technology that is not available. The point is simple. With the kind of market share Maruti has, the company is simply not bothered. And it wont bother until competition hots up.I have had several problems with flight cancellations on Modiluft. So I have switched from Modiluft entirely. But recently, I was forced to travel by Modiluft because someone else sent me the ticket. The flight was on a Sunday. That too, around noon. Delhi airport was therefore not at its efficient best. Normally, you can pass through security after checking in. So that you can find a place to sit. This time, security wouldnt let me through. The necessary announcement had to be made by the airline. I went to the Modiluft customer services counter (which was unattended) to request them for the announcement. Didnt work. Modiluft blamed it on security. Security blamed it on Modiluft. After shuttling between the two a couple to times, I gave up and decided to stand and wait. I amused myself by reading the boarding pass. There was plenty of stuff for amusement. At the back of the boarding pass, Modiluft announced a Cloud Nine offer, in collaboration with Van Heusen. If you presented the boarding pass at a Van Heusen showroom, you would get a 5 per cent discount. You could also win two free tickets in a raffle. What is amusing about such freebies, you may ask. The offer ended on September 30, and I was travelling on October 27. All this reinforced my decision to stay away from Modiluft. Competition offers me that choice. And if the Marutis and the Modilufts do not mend their ways, they will, sooner or later, go under. This threat of competition spurs efficiency. You cant have efficiency without competition. This is such an obvious proposition that I fail to understand why people dont accept it. The only explanation is our dual role as consumers and producers. As consumers, we welcome the competition. But as producers of goods and services, we feel threatened and resist it.