Let's imagine for a moment that the government was a company, and the recent fumbled (and currently, failed) attempt to open up foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail a very important product launch for that company.
What would have been that company's fate after such a botched launch? The answer's a no-brainer. Creditors and takeover sharks would have been circling as we speak, and the company's CEO and CMO (chief marketing officer) would be facing the axe.
Fortunately for Dr Manmohan Singh, the government is a politico-bureaucratic entity, not a corporate, so his corner office is not threatened. Neither does retail FDI's CMO, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, have anything to fear because of the failure.
India Inc has often grumbled that if only the government were run like a corporate entity, most of the problems of governance — or rather, the lack of governance — in the country would be automatically solved. It is an intriguing idea. Politicians have attempted in the past to function in the manner of corporate executives rather than the stereotypical work style of your average ‘khadi-topi' politico. Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, for instance, enthusiastically embraced this image, going so far as to call himself the ‘Chief Executive Officer' of the state, and holding ‘board' meetings with senior babus.
Successful examples galore
But running a business is not just about wearing sharp suits and flying around holding meetings. It is all about the ability to read one's environment, the ability to take quick decisions — and above all, the ability to market one's product or service.
Look at any successful CEO today, and you will see an extremely successful marketer. Apple wouldn't be Apple as we know it, if it weren't for Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs was, above everything else, a brilliantly gifted marketer, with a genius for not only visualising what the customer wanted, but with an unmatched genius for then selling that product to the customer.
There are enough examples at home too, to back this view. K.V. Kamath was not just a great banker — he was also a superb banker, who was able to sell the idea of efficient banking successfully, so much so that ICICI Bank became India's largest non government-owned bank in less than a decade. Infosys managed to push itself into the global top table of information technology companies, not just because it had great programmers — something that its peers in the business in India also possessed — but because of the ability of a Narayana Murthy or a Nandan Nilekani to sell the idea of Infosys.
If government has to work like a corporate, and if government wishes to enjoy the kind of success enjoyed by a successful corporate, then it too, needs to develop this kind of marketing savvy in its CEOs and CMOs.
No SELLING OF REFORM IDEA
One of the principal reasons for this government's failure to carry through its reform agenda, in my view, has been its inability to market the idea of reforms. Of course, it does not help that the environment has changed dramatically in the two decades of the reform experiment in this country.
The very success of these reforms — the kind of growth the Indian economy witnessed in the past, or the kind of increase in general prosperity and the real reduction in poverty that this brought about — has also meant that the overall risk-taking ability of the system has come down. People, by and large, have more to lose if the experiment fails now — and hence are more averse to taking risks with the system.
This was not so twenty years ago, when the reform process started. At that time, the country was in a crisis, forced into an unprecedented pawning of its gold reserves in order to tide over its balance of payments crisis. This was a cathartic moment, since the very act of pawning the gold, a deeply traumatic event for the average Indian, served to signal the depth and seriousness of the crisis.
Then in stepped a skilled political marketer in the shape of the late P.V. Narasimha Rao, to do the far tougher job of actually selling his able finance minister's reform prescriptions, to his party, the Opposition and to the public at large.
But the current government appears to have internalised few, if any, of the lessons from that experience. Which is surprising, since the current Prime Minister had the best seat in the house back then to watch the process at work, in his capacity as the then Finance Minister!
Woo and win
Nothing other than a failure of marketing can explain the kind of opposition to FDI in retail that we are currently witnessing. After all, the idea was first mooted by the NDA government, then revived again nearly two years ago, in the form of a draft policy paper put up for discussion.
At that time, there was no sign of the kind of extreme reaction that we are seeing today. Which again, is not as unusual as it may seem. After all, it is not as if the BJP is ideologically opposed either to reforms in general, or retail reforms in particular, since both figured actively in its agenda when it happened to be in power. The same goes for the other Opposition parties, all of which are following broadly similar liberal/reformist agendas in the states where they happen to be in power. Some discreet political prepping, and selling the idea to the larger public in the interim, could arguably have led to a smooth passage for the measure when it actually took place.
India has changed dramatically over the past two decades. It is a smarter, richer and above all, a younger (in demographic terms) nation now. It is a country which is hungry for change and eager to embrace it. From mobile phones to fast food, from fancy cars to financial instruments, it is quite prepared to adopt new things — but it needs to be wooed first. It is time the government got its marketing act together.