Thoughts on Toy Markets in India

It has been sometime I've posted here - partly because of the multitude of things that are there to be read on the internet and partly due to the fact that I've become lazy and spend a lot of time reading unrelated things. But laziness is a different story and I shall discuss it at length some other time.
Now that I am in Mumbai, I have been visiting different malls in the city and a lot many times I go there with a relative who has a kid or with someone who wants to buy some gifts to their relatives' newly born ones. (Its baby boom in India I suppose) As a result, I have been visiting the kids section - especially the toys and games section in search of gifts for kids.

Games and toys have been a very important part of my childhood. Every summer, I used to eagerly go to toy shops in Mumbai, spend days deciding one toy/game (I was allowed one game per vacation) & then buy one at the end of my stay at Mumbai. So, going into this toys divison makes me kind of nostalgic.

According to different press reports, the size of Indian toy market is  between Rs 7500 & Rs 9000 crore with around 15% growth expected annually. Based on this, it seems the demand of toys and games is huge and growing. However, when I look at the supply side, I am largely disappointed. The supply comes from some large global players like Funskool, Hamleys and ofcourse China. Global companies like Mattel, Lego, etc have also now started entering the market through the network of different retail super / hyper markets. However, 90% of the toys still come from the unorganized sector.

What I find disappointing in this supply side is that there is no Indian toy brand that is clearly visible among the so many toys and games in the market. Yes, quite a lot of toys are made in India but the brand is missing. Thee is a huge potential for some new player to establish in the market. Toys related to mythological characters aren't much visible in the urban market. I guess a toy brand which is related to mythological characters depicted in a modern style shall be a good idea to make a dent in the games and toys market jst like Indian comics did in the past by focus on traditional characters.

Another thing I've come to observe is that there is a huge gap in introduction of new products in some segments of this market. Now, the toys and games market can be divided into different categories like:

• Soft toys, dolls, hobby sets
• Educational games like puzzles/ mechanics, craft
• Group Board Games
• Plastic, battery operated & music based toys
• Cars, automobiles

New products are generally introduced in the categories of soft toys, battery operated toys, cars, etc. We can get to see a huge variety in these categories & new products being introduced regularly in these categories. The quality of toys in this category also seems to be getting better and better each day. (No comments on the Chinese toys)

However, in categories like Puzzles and group board games, the number of new additions has been dismal. While I do understand that introducing different shaped/sized products is far easier than developing conceptual games, it feels disappointing to see the same board games in stores as there were 15 years ago. I do see the same games like Monopoly, Scotland Yard, Life, Mechanix, etc. Yes, I did see some new offerings like Don - The game begins, Disney board games; but when I read the concept, the games didn't sound like fun where I, as a kid, would like to spend the whole weekend. Not much innovation is seen in this category of toys and games market.

One more thing I've come to observe is that the small stores meant exclusively for toys have ceased to exist atleast in the tier 1, 2& 3 cities. Now, toys form a section of a gift store or some stationery store. The fact that more and more toys are being sold in the malls means the toys are getting expensive. As such, the lower middle class and also the middle class is not able to afford these toys. I think more such stand-alone games and toy stores should be built.

At my hometown, I recall, we had a library of toys which allowed me to get one toy for each week. That way, I could come across a lot of different toys. I believe such concepts shall give a boost to toys circulation and also help children to imagine, develop and grow.

And last but not the least, with online shopping (e-commerce) increasing in double digits in India, online games and toy stores offer a huge scope. Players like Flipkart, infibeam, etc do have a small section for toys and games, but the variety isn't much and so offers a great opportunity for a new niche player to tap into the growing product e-commerce market.

In short, I believe that Indian games and toys market is still a huge opportunity for a big local player to tap into. Innovating board / concept games to make sure group games last for hours together, creating stand-alone toy stores for affordability, setting up online games stores for easy accessibility and introducing the concept of toy library are some things which can be taken to tap the huge potential Indian toy & games market has to offer.

What after IT growth declines?

The past decade in India has been majorly driven by the growth in IT and ITes. This sector has been the job creator for the last decade especially among the rising number of engineers. The IT companies have been well known to provide jobs to college graduates of any engineering field as long as he/she is able to read and write properly :P. But son a serious note, the majority of the employment generated during the past decade has been in this field. However, the future growth of this sector is not looking that strong, Like everything has an expiry date, even the growth of this sector has been and the growth rate in this sector is now falling. Going by reports of Infosys and some Indian major IT companies, the forecast for the next year is bleak and growth shall be tepid in the future.
Lower growth means less hiring and as a result shall lead to unemployment amongst educated Indians. India desperately needs a new sector where the graduates from colleges can be placed like the IT companies. So, which sector shall replace the IT sector? Where shall majority of employment be generated in the future? I ponder over such questions at times.

The new manufacturing policy announced by GOI seems to be the answer to this. The aim of the policy is to generate 100 million jobs in the next decade. While the intention of the policy seems to be right and also the approach seems right, I doubt whether the target of generating 100 million jobs shall be met.

I think that the following reasons will act as a deterent for youths, specially engineers to join manufacturing:
1. Physically tough conditions - Manufacturing generally involves working in industrial areas under tough physical conditions like noise, vibrations, pollution, etc
2. Shifts in factories - Manufacturing generally is ta 24 x 7 continuous job which might involve working in shifts at factories which acts as a big deterent
3. The missing glamour of IT - Factory life doesn't have glamour of the IT grand offices and involves handling unskilled labour.
4. Outside city limits - Factories are geerally situated in industrial areas outside the cities whereas IT jobs could be in the cities as well.
5. Emergence of higher studies - Due to the emergence of higher education centres for management studies, people shall prefer to join some other sector.

The jump by Indians directly to services bypassing manufacturing initially also is a big factor behind rendering manufacturing sector unattractive as an employment sector for engineering youth.
An article from New York times describes a situation in US about lack of sufficient middle class technical manpower to execute big engineering and logistical projects.


I think a similar threat also exists in India if we do not concentrate on building and harnessing sufficient technical skills in this field.
The rising expectations, the growing impatience of the youth,  the want for easy money wihout toiling hard could also turn youth towards service sector like that in US.

Maybe it is time, we focus on developing technical skills necessary to implement and execute the manufacturing policy.

P.S:- In case any person reading have any idea, kindly let me know why is this blog viewed more in countries like Russia, Canada, Lativa and a host of countries where I know no body. I would like the blog to be read by people rather than BOTS.

On morning walks

Inspite of me staying at hostel for so many years and living away from parents, I take pride in calling myself an early riser. I have been an early riser throughout. Right from school till today, I have been waking up early. I believe that one takes less amount of time to complete a work in the morning when compared to night.
This habit I believe has been inherited from my father. He has been an early riser as far as I can remember. His routine of going for a morning walk has seldom been broken and he has been following this routine of going for a morning walk since almost 15 years. The morning walk has made him increase his contacts in the city, make new friends and develop his business. He has obtained quite a lot of clients due to the network developed during the morning walks.

For me morning walk means to enjoy the sunrise, meet new people, talk to them, make a plan for the day and enjoy the nature. Specially during winters. A sense of discipline is inculcated because of this habbit of getting up early and going for a walk. I am not very regular for a walk but make it a point to go for it whenever possible.

However, a few things I see at Mumbai disturbs me. Lack of walking/ jogging parks, long commuting hours and the lifestyle of people has made it really tough for people to be regular for morning walks. Reaching offices on time is by far the biggest tension in minds of most of the people. Also, the evolution of the 'gym culture' has made the people who have time to go to the closed spaces for exercises.

I, fortunately have a good walking track nearby the place I reside. I've been able to know some people in the society I stay. However, most of the people who come for walk [During the time I go] aren't regular. I fail to locate an interesting person the very next day. Nevertheless, it provides me an excellent time to plan for the day, think about work and watch young people playing sports on the ground.

Hope to be more regular at the morning walks, develop good contacts and (show-off :P) get some discipline restored.

Happy New year

I was thinking of putting down how the last year has been for financial markets and stuff like Anna and other political issues :P. But looking at the sheer brilliance of Deepak Shenoy in his year review post (Here), I no longer feel the need anymore. A crsip, humorous & a great sum-up post indeed. Cheers.

So, the year 2011 finally ended. It has been a year when I learnt a lot about human behavior through observations, faced a lot of tough decisions - some with and some without parents' approval, took upon a tough journey hoping for a fruitful end and also spent a lot of time alone introspecting. It has been an year when I spent a lot of time online - both using the desktop and the smartphone onTwitter, FB and more importantly Google reader. I think I have spent more time surfing these sites than that at my home.

Hope to be more productive in this new year and learn lot of new and exciting things.

To all those who read this, wish you a happy new year.

Dependency

Google has been making a lot of changes ever since it launched google plus - trying to integrate all existing functions. Gmail was revamped recently with quite much publicity but very quietly, Google has revamped Google Reader, a reader which has enabled me to read so many things on one platform. Now after revamp, the facility which enabled it to be viewed on my non-android phone has been discontinued and now it takes more time to open articles and to read things on this platform. The seamless reading experience is gone. There being not many good alternatives to this reader, I have to change accordingly now in the way Google wishes to.

Sometimes I wonder how much dependent I am on this company. My job exists because of google since it empowers a novice like me to get relevant information. Had google not been there, the job would have to be done by a much more experienced person. Its like I am too much dependent on the products of this company.

Generally to avoid overdependency on one particular vendor, OEMs develop alternate vendors. Big chemical firms help develop alternate source of raw materials by investing in smaller companies. Investment is done in a lot of instruments to avoid overdependency on one particular instrument and possibly also maximize returns. So, everywhere possible, we try to develop alternatives thereby avoiding dependency, enhancing competition and improving service/product.

But in the case of Google the entry barrier or the technological and data barrier is very high for a new search engine and similarly developed product. I cannot envision even one search engine even close to Google. Alternatives of Google Reader all have major issues with integration and quite a lot of them do depend on google reader for feed as well. There seems no alternatives to these widely used product.

I can't imagine what hell will break when google fails to function even for a single day. So much dependence.

Damn.

Today, we adjust according to them because we have no alternatives. Who knows Google will start charging for conducting searches in the future. What shall we do then?

Its high time someone develops a viable alternative to these useful applications so that if anything undesirable occurs to Google, our lives aren't affected.

Having no other option I have now adjusted my phone according to the new url settings and read but the experience is in no way same. May be thats the price I am paying for not using Android operated phone.

Erosion of shareholder value

Here's an example of how shareholder value is destroyed by PSUs on a continuous basis.

I've come to a conclusion that PSUs do not have the shareholders value in mind at any point of time.

 MOIL:  Share price since its IPO.

If this is what is going to happen, I would prefer there is no disinvestment in the PSUs. 

Heights is how the hell did the lead book managing bankers ( IDBI Capital, Edelweiss Capital and JP Morgan India in this case) manage to price the shares so high. One should learn from these companies to create a hype, make the pitch and sell a useless product with audacity. These I believe are the pure markting companies, guess even better than those FMCG companies. These bankers know how to use their brand power to mobilize money.  A perfect way for government to get public money.

I was thinking of investing in MOIL but thankfully I didn't do so because of my habit of delaying.
No investing in PSUs.

On Bus conductors

I've now got used to traveling by BEST buses in Mumbai for daily commuting and have been observing and talking to the bus conductors about their life and experiences. I used to think that the job of a bus conductor is quite simple but looking at the mental and physical effort put in by them, I have come to a conclusion that the job is really a tough one, especially on crowded routes like Sakinaka where the buses are perennially overcrowded.

The job of a bus conductor not just issuing proper tickets to the commuters but management of a lot of things simultaneously, especially during short crowded routes.He has to see that bus waits for adequate time at bus stops, interact with people with all sorts of background for tickets, not allow the bus to be overcrowded, resolve quarrels, give directions to people to reach their destinations and move back and forth the crowded bus aisle where it is nearly impossible to move. The working conditions are pretty harsh with space barely enough to allow him breathe. At times, they get pretty much worse than a factory worker too.

Their work involves problems like getting exact change especially during mornings when everyone is helpless, getting on time for the next assignment, the union issues, manager (HR) issues who cannot understand traffic conditions and schedules things quite impossible to achieve, etc. The introduction of new ticketing system has made matters worse especially when 1 out of 7 ticketing machines doesn't function as required.
All this for a salary starting with around Rs. 12k/ month and a yearly increase w.r.t an inflation adjusted index.

Yet, despite all these harsh work conditions, the bus conductors, most of them, are some of the most humble people around. Most of them love talking to and are glad to discuss all about their jobs and the BEST when they have free time. "It was very smooth & enjoyable some years back when it wasn't so crowded" said one of them while describing change in their work loads.
This Khadi clad public servant, who is is taken for granted by people, remains one of the many unknown faces who make our life comfortable.

Makes me wonder how come the younger generation which has more hospitable working conditions & better salaries are not be so humble.

I simply love this scene from  'Swades' where a combination of stars depict the simple plough.

Crib

There are times in life when you start thinking about your life and your future. A time when one starts questioning the decisions made by him during crucial junctures of life - future determining decisions. Sometimes I think, I'm generally only operationally sound yet that basic strategy of life (to be followed) is missing and I am taking life as it comes without adequate planning. How different would life be had I accepted the US university offers or had done a PhD or had taken up the bank job offered at my B-School or had not left my first job. Destiny it seems always has different plans, especially for me. I did masters in operations, finance management and, thankfully,  landed up in a marketing job. Never has the normal course of action taken by peers been my course. While it is nice to hear of such absence of strategy in movies (like Jab we met, znmd, etc), implementing it becomes an issue especially when you have financial obligations and peers who are doing way better than you in this regard.

Wonder what life has in store for me in the future.