Most global businesses focus nearly all their efforts on selling to the wealthiest 14%
of the world's population. It's getting harder and harder to make a profit that way: these
markets are oversaturated, overcompetitive, and declining. The Invisible Market shows how
you can unleash new growth and profitability by serving the other 86%. Drawing on his
unsurpassed insights into marketing in emerging markets, Vihajan Mahajan offers detailed
strategies and implementation techniques for product design, pricing, packaging,
distribution, advertising, and more.
You'll discover radically different 'rules of engagement' that make emerging markets
tick, and how European and Asian companies are already driving billions of dollars in
sales there. Mahajan shows how to understand and manage lack of infrastructure and media,
low literacy levels, and 'unconventional' consumer behavior. Mahajan previews the
future of emerging markets, showing how to segment income strata, leverage price
elasticity, and more. As traditional markets become increasingly unprofitable, emerging
markets become your number 1 opportunity for growth. With this book, you can act on this
historic opportunity, before it's gone forever.
Features
- Why emerging markets are now your number 1 growth opportunity and how to win
there, one step at a time.
- Specific, proven solutions for product design, pricing, packaging, distribution,
advertising, and more.
- Creative ways to tap into the informal economy, build on local tradition, use expatriate
word-of-mouth, leverage price elasticity, and more.
Contents
About the Authors.
Seeing Geeti.
Preface: Do You Want to Be in This Market? Can You Afford Not to Be?
Acknowledgments.
1. The Lands of Opportunity.
The 86 Percent Opportunity
Opportunities at Many Levels
Characteristics of Emerging Markets and Opportunities They
Create
Finding Solutions
The 86 Percent Solution
Notes
2. Don't Build a Car When You Need a Bullock Cart.
Designing for Six-Yard Saris
Back to Basics
Riding the Bullock Cart
The 86 Percent Solution
Notes
3. Aim for the Ricochet Economy.
The Ricochet Economy
Taking Aim
More Bounce
The 86 Percent Solution
Notes
4. Connect Brands to the Market.
Market-Stall Economies
Brand Consciousness
Strategies for Harnessing Local Brands
Brands on the Run
The 86 Percent Solution
Notes
5. Think Young.
A Fountain of Youth
Strategies for the Youth Market
Youth Leads to Growth
The 86 Percent Solution
Notes
6. Grow Big by Thinking Small.
Inverted Pricing
Small Homes
Strategies for Thinking Small
Small Wonders
The 86 Percent Solution
Notes
7. Bring Your Own Infrastructure.
A Tale of Two Markets
Regulatory and Financial Infrastructure
Finding Opportunities in Infrastructure
Overlapping Infrastructures
The 86 Percent Solution
Notes
8. Look for the Leapfrog.
Leapfrog Strategies
Beyond Appropriate Technology
The 86 Percent Solution
9. Take the Market to the People.
Complex Distribution
Strategies for Taking the Market to the People
Seeing Opportunities That Are Off the Grid
The 86 Percent Solution
10. Develop with the Market.
Strategies for Developing with the Market
Four Paths
Evolving Opportunities
The 86 Percent Solution
Notes
Conclusion: An OpportunityNot to Be Missed.
Appendix A: Complex Tapestry.
Convergence of Civilizations
Realizing the Gains
Population Equals Profits
Notes
Index.
Vijay Mahajan, former dean of the Indian School of Business, holds the
John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business at McCombs School of Business, University of
Texas at Austin. He has received numerous lifetime achievement awards including the
American Marketing Association (AMA) Charles Coolidge Parlin Award for visionary
leadership in scientific marketing. The AMA also instituted the Vijay Mahajan Award in
2000 for career contributions to marketing strategy.
Mahajan is author or editor of nine books. He is one of the world's most widely cited
researchers in business and economics. He edited the Journal of Marketing Research,
and has consulted with Fortune 500 companies and delivered executive development programs
worldwide.
Kamini Banga is an independent marketing consultant and managing
director of Dimensions Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. Her clients have included Cadbury, Philips,
Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, and many others. She has traveled extensively in Asia
and Southeast Asia, conducting training programs on market research and consumer behavior.
During a three-year stint in London, she worked with the Harris Research Center as a
consultant on ethnic issues for companies including British Airways and the BBC.
Banga writes and edits business articles for Economic Times, The Smart
Manager, Business Today, and other leading Indian business publications, and is
a non-executive director on several company boards. She is a graduate of the Indian
Institute of Management, the premier institute for MBA education in India. A former
resident of Mumbai, India, she now lives in London.
Hardback, 256 pages