Santosh Nagar is almost a city within a city. Inside this sprawling slum in Mumbai’s north-western suburbs are rows of houses that sit cheek by jowl with each other. Over 20,000 residents run businesses from tailoring to soap making in its narrow, labyrinthine bylanes. There are almost half a dozen schools and hawkers selling everything from brooms to insurance policies. Not to forget the ubiquitous kirana store, one every 15 metres, serving a growing demand for everyday household items, from mosquito coils to popular detergent, from lanterns to shampoo sachets.
Ravi Maurya, whose tuck shop lies amid this hustle-bustle, has been doing brisk business in this urban slum for a quarter of a century. Maurya wouldn’t think of moving out of Santosh Nagar. This is where he’s always lived — and earned his livelihood, serving countless customers, many of whom transact no more than Rs. 5 at a time. Maurya’s merchandise is also tailored accordingly — small pack sizes, lower priced products and lesser known brands. The national brands that get advertised on television don’t always make it to Maurya’s shop shelf, unless he decides to go to the local wholesaler and buy his supplies. The large company distributors shun stores like his situated inside the slum, preferring to restrict themselves to the larger outlets, about a kilometre or two away. “They just didn’t care about us,” says Maurya.
In 1999, Kurkure’s unexpected success — Anand was then the MD of Frito-Lay India — changed things and grabbed the attention of PepsiCo’s global bosses. Yet even Anand acknowledges the fact that the Lehar brands of namkeens and bhujiyas being part of the larger foods division did not get the attention it should have. He left the Indian operations in 2007, and was the Business Unit General Manager for South East Asia until 2010. Today, he is back at a time when the beverage and snack-foods businesses have been combined together. Anand is now trying to figure out a whole new BoP business model that allows PepsiCo to take on the local halwai — while leveraging the scale and technology that its business already has.
Understanding the BoP consumer
(This story appears in the 20 January, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
To, Samar Srivastava Dear Sir, As it is rightly said by you if we can identify from the article this approach by PepsiCo India is more COMPETITION FOCUSED STRATEGY rather than CUSTOMER FOCUSED STRATEGY.
on Jan 19, 2012I m really happy to read this articals because of MANU ANAND is a great man in the industry and his thinking is also, he thinks always different like this.
on Jan 18, 2012