A leading beverage company entered India with a typical global business model—sole ownership of distribution, an approach that raised costs and dampened market penetration. The company’s managers quickly identified two other big challenges: India’s fragmented market demanded multiple-channel handoffs, and labor laws made organized distribution operations very expensive. In response, the company contracted out distribution to entrepreneurs, cutting costs and raising market penetration.
A big global automobile company has become the one of the largest manufacturers in India, growing at a rate of more than 40 percent a year over the last decade, by building a local plant, setting up an R&D facility to help itself better understand what appeals to Indian customers, and hiring a well-known Indian figure as its brand ambassador.