Innovating for Rural Markets in India

The Indian rural market till long had been thought of as an inaccessible, unsubstantial market with limited purchasing power. This belief has prompted the marketers to blatantly evade the call of the rural markets. The truth of the matter is that all rural consumers are not poor. As revealed by a study conducted by NCAER, 'there are as many middle income and above households in the rural areas as there are in the urban areas'. The catch is that a sizeable portion of the rural consumer does not prefer to buy in bulk but have a propensity to buy in small amounts as and when required. This presses on the need for some change in the products, services and packaging and opens up a strong case in favour of innovation for the rural markets. Moreover the scattered and fragmented nature of the Indian rural markets makes distribution a cumbersome process. Unlike that in the urban areas, a member of the distribution channel in the rural area would end up catering to significantly lesser number of consumers in an area of comparable size. Establishing an intensively wide and deep distribution channel may not always be economically viable and profitable. This presents another scope for innovation for the marketer intending to penetrate into the rural markets. Other pertinent questions which may be answered through innovation are: how to sell profitably to the rural poor, how to reduce the cost of marketing communication and yet communicate more effectively with the rural masses, how to deliver an enhanced value to the consumers, what type of business models to develop for the rural markets, how to lower the price of the products and services for the rural consumers, how to make the products more cost effective and many more. The book attempts to give a brief account of the Indian rural market, explore the possibility of using innovation for penetrating into this market and point to and justify the suitability of some specific types of innovations for the rural market of India.