The Great Indian "Potential"

Having been brought up in India, I was obviously used to standing in long queues pretty much everyplace I went and facing tough competition in pretty much everything I tried to do.

Whether it was buying/billing groceries, booking train tickets, booking movie tickets, visiting a temple, paying electricity/telephone bills, ATM's, banks, restaurants... queues, waiting, crowd and traffic was the way of day to day life.

Getting into one of the best college for engineering meant being in the first 120 amongst the 72,000 that applied…huh…"that's one in a 600!"

The good thing though were the 6 years of teenage that I spent in a completely residential school.

We were not familiar to the concept of money, since everything was taken care of, as long as daddy paid the school/hostel fees. The little that we kids did know about money was that it was a bad thing to have and the consequences of being caught with money in school would be disastrous.

In this part of the world, the demand/supply equations for almost anything always seemed balanced and life was just as easy as it could get. There were exactly as many glasses and plates for everyone as the number of us, as many seats in a class as the number of students, and an apple and a packet of milk everyday for each one of us.

It was indeed a world of its own, with just about 600 students on a fort spawning about 110 acres with over 50 teachers so that everyone could get their share of learning, 18 playgrounds so everyone could play at the same time…..wow

There was never a scarce for opportunities, if you ever wanted to do something beyond books, which children mostly did, there were options and options and options...

From creative extra curricular activities like Painting, Craft, Batik, Sculpture, Pottery, Wood work, Metal work, Paper making, Aero modeling to library, computers…and on and on and on

From vocal, orchestra and school band to any musical instruments...
Debates, Elocutions, Quizzes, Jam sessions, Socials and Plays...

Sports ranging from Football, Cricket, Hockey, Swimming, Squash, Tennis, Basketball, Table tennis, Badminton, Athletics, Horse riding, Cross country etc

Above all, there were things that needed nothing but company of good friends…gossip!

If this still wasn't enough, you could go beyond school boundaries for adventures ranging from Trekking, Skiing, Rafting, Cycling to Labor camps for social service or visit other schools for competitions or exchange programs.

It is true that there was certainly a strong competition in most of these activities…though I would attribute it to high spirits and passion versus pressure.

By March 2001, the glorious days of schooling were over and I was back to the other side of the world. The first few days were total fun given the new gift of freedom. I wonder if there is anyone who doesn't feel good to be out of school, no more exams after all :)

For the first few months, I cribbed and cribbed and cribbed… every place I went… every person I met… and everything I did… whether it was having to fight for movie tickets, standing in long queues for railway reservations, or travelling in jam packed buses on jam packed roads…

Illiteracy, Ignorance, Poverty and Population explosion had by now become my favorite topics of discussion...

However, even through the dusty roads and crowded lanes, one thing seemed clear… that India was moving… it was unstoppable… No matter how slow we moved and how long it would take… but it was undeniable… India was going to be a developed country one day…

The talks of India 2020 and India being a superpower were everywhere...

Well, it was evident that the lifestyle of an average Indian was going to improve (eventually), more and more of us were going to get some share of resources and technology in our lives, more and more of us were going to be productive and it was going to reflect through everything from education, food, textiles, retail, automobiles, telecom, electronics, aviation, housing, internet, services, banking and finance and what not... as and when their time arrived...

And slowly, at my own speed, I began to see the humongous potential and opportunities (particularly in evolution/expansion/scale out for businesses) that lay ahead...

Above all, I felt thrilled by the very thought of being able to see (and be part of) this transformation...

The usual crowds, queues and the same "One Billion" population that I used to be embarrassed talking about earlier had now become my starting point for doing Top Down evaluation of the size of Market/Opportunity for various businesses.

In the course of next few blogs, I will share some examples of quick evaluation of market potential for various businesses and sectors that I did mostly between 2003 and 2009.

A lot of people suggested me to cut down the length of my blogs…Just like cricket has moved from tests to one days to 20-20 now :)

(Jokes apart, I am done for the day...)
To be continued …