There is lies, damned lies and statistics.  For American marketers, the image below from the new book  ”The Haves and the Have-Nots,” by World Bank economist Branko Milanovic can fall into the last of those categories. Milanovic sliced the income of national popultions into five percentile slices (“ventiles”), adjusted for purchasing power parity and compared various countries.

Inequality by country and income class. Milanovic in the NY Times

The blog on the New York Times concludes, looking at the data, “America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants. India’s poorest ventile corresponds with the 4th poorest percentile worldwide. And its richest? The 68th percentile. Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India’s richest.” 

Shocking, eh?

So the poorest 5 percent of Americans, the population full of the homeless, the recently release from prison (we have the largest prison population in the the developed world), the welfare moms, the food stamp crowd  are doing as well as the richest Indians. The ones you see sipping  Rs 45 lattes at Cafe Coffee Day, or boasting about their vacations in Phuket, or working at IBM and Reliance.  Even a casual visitor to India can tell that this can’t possibly be real.

Yes, there are 800 million destitute in India. But the consumption patterns of the top 100 million in India match American middle class patterns.  Sales of homes, luxury cars, airline travellers, and other indicators clearly point to a  group of consumers that are living the good life. So where is the mismatch?

Income: Fatherhood, Consumption: Motherhood

It’s likely to be between “income” and “consumption”.  While a few Americans may mis-report their income, by and large very reliable income numbers are available in the United States and Western countries.  On the other hand, you cannot gather accurate income information in India for a number of reasons.  In surveys, middle and upper class Indians will habitually under-report their income: partly out of humility and partly because they do not want to to attract the attention of the income tax department or dozens of sundry inspectors and bureacrats who want a piece of that income.   For top government employees, much of their “income” is in non-cash form, such as subsidized housing, paid vacation travel, theability to use some official cars for personal use, and so on.  In my view,  you are not comparing apples to apples when looking at income in the USA and comparing with India.  As they say, in India income is like fatherhood, you can not easily be sure who is the father of newborn.  On the other hand, consumption, that’s a fact, there is no denying who’s the mother of a new born.  So Dr. Milanovic, let’s do a version that measures consumption.

In the meantime, my clients at Amritt’s Market Entry and Growth Practice are making money hand over fist, regardless of what the economists say!

The British Prime Minister David Cameron is visiting India now, at least three months before the scheduled visit of U.S. President Obama. Cameron is distinctly focused on commercial ties. Especially with his recent interest in containing expenses at home, India seems to be on the forefront for business engagement.

In my posts I generally focus on economic, political and cultural ties between India and the U.S. but the British P.M.’s visit is interesting in terms of its timing. India’s Gen Y may not associate Britain with the country’s prolific use of the English language nor its love for the ‘gentleman’s game’- cricket. While bankers and business guys cheer for the launch of a solar powered mobile handset by Vodafone in India, the $2.54 billion tax issue that the same telecom giant has had with India may pop up as a spoiler.

The country that ruled India for 200 yearss is definitely intending to ride on the prospects that new India today has for itself and other strategic partner economies.
The new terminal at the Delhi airport might be the first sign of the 21st Century India that the British PM witnesses on his return to India. I will be curious to know how the U.S. President scores over his British counterpart when he visits India in November.

Do share with me your thoughts on the opportunities in India for U.S. businesses and if the British PM’s visit would have any impact on those.

A couple of years ago, I funded a short movie helmed by noted Hollywood director and my friend, Paul Maslak.  Paul has directed such stars as Kiefer Sutherland and Rebecca deMornay; and he was the ideal choice to demonstrate the verbal and non-verbal challenges for Americans doing business in India.

We have now made the movie available in two segments on YouTube. Make sure you watch both segments in sequence.

Segment 1:

Segment 2:

My book on Doing Business in India was published over a year ago.  Major media and the public at large have been very kind to it and it is now established as the “go-to” primer on the subject, far ahead of other books on similar themes.  I’ve been blessed to be mentioned in sources as respected as the New York Times and India Today. But I get even more thrills when reviewers on Amazon and other sites continue to compliment the book. Today, a friend sent me yet another new review, on Suite 101 where Prem Anand describes it as

“A “pocket guide” for non-Indians to know the essentials about the culturally complex country. A must-read for all business as well as leisure tourists travelling to India”