Everybody loves a good rural mart

It has been growing at 12-13% over the last decade

As urban market is getting saturated, rural market is rapidly occupying the centre table of discussion for both the corporate world as well the top business management schools ( B-School) of the country.

"The rural market has been growing at 12-13 per cent as compared to 7-8 per cent growth of urban counterpart, over the last decade. Moreover, the urban market is getting saturated and corporate are now looking sincerely towards the rural market in a much serious way,"said Pradeep Kashyap, an eminent personality in the field and author of 'The Rural Marketing Book', on the sideline of panel discussion on 'Rural marketing: Back to the Future' organised by Calcutta Management Association (CMA).

In order to sustain the business in rural regions, the economy would be desperately requiring B-School graduates with special knowledge about rural marketing, added Kashyap.

"Only 50 odd B-Schools, in a lot of more than 1000 B-Schools in India, offers some specialisation in rural marketing. But with the changing environment, nearly all the top B-Schools of the country are thinking about this course significantly,"said Kashyap.

The rural market is of the size of around Rs 1,25,000 crore of which the FMCG segment is nearly Rs 65,000 crore with an agri-input market as big as Rs 45,000 crore, he informed.

Moreover, the rural markets contributes nearly 53 per cent of the overall FMCG market and 59 per cent of durable goods market, he informed.

Lack of in-depth knowledge about the rural market and customer psychology, dearth of proper distribution network and communication barriers have remained the major constraint in rural marketing in India, explained Kashyap.

"The number of rural villages in more than 6 lakh as compared 5,000 urban towns and therefore, distribution of goods in such a large number of places have always remained a problem for all the corporate. The corporate has been preferring the urban market because of the market knowledge and size, but things are desperately changing as is evident from big names like Hindustan Lever Ltd and ITC Ltd looking into this market significantly,"he noted.

Kashyap further assured that India would witness significant changes in various areas related to corporate attitude, innovative strategies and advertisement, and in every individual area related to this upcoming subject.

It was also noted with government spending enormously on rural infrastructure under schemes like 'Bharat Nirman', purchasing power as well as consumption propensity of rural dwellers would significantly increase, that might result into three to four folds increase in its size.