Brands Beyond Borders

We live in an 'attention' economy. Brands are the lighthouses in an attention economy. I have written many times about India building global brands, but our progress is slow.

- SHIV SHIVAKUMAR

I hope there are no doubts as to why we must build brands. A recent global brand value study by market-research company Kantar showed that the Top 10 brands' value went up by 441% in the past 19 years. The S&P 500 company aggregate brands grew value at 312 % in the same period.

A socialist mindset does not encourage brand building since it clashes with the government's ability to decide what's right for consumers.

Even in socialist India, we sought consistency in government brands like the Janata Bazaar, ISI symbol as a quality guarantee.

More Local Than Global

Why has been India slow to build global brands?

I am not sure Indian leaders have the ambition to build a global brand; it requires commitment and long-term focus. Indian owners need to think beyond family legacy if they want to be global. Indian leaders tend to think of government-support-led business creation versus consumer-loyalty-led business brands.

We value information over insight. This is input management, not output thinking. Our thinking must apply creativity to the information we have, that's a shift from school syllabus upwards.

We are comfortable with trading, since it is price led, supply-side led, not demand-side led. Trading is in our blood thanks to history.