I purchased a boAt Stone 1000 Bluetooth speaker. Saw Rudolph use it, loved the sound (at that price point), bought it. Great product. Portable and handy.
It is Made in China. Their website claims that their products are Made in India, but their largest selling speaker is made in China. It says so on the box.
They closed March 2020 with a revenue of ₹700cr, and a PAT of ₹50cr. But they can't make a product as simple as a battery operated Bluetooth speaker in India.
(Their website also does not mention any e-waste information. No way to send them back a used product. This is in violation of Indian law, of course. They signed up for e-waste recycling only 4 months ago, well after a ₹700cr turnover. Five years too late.)
Time was, when India had a marketing challenge. We used to talk about a lack of management skills and colleges. Amul was an awesome model of how we had a product (dairy), and then someone (Dr. Kurien) came along and figured out how to package and market it.
Now we have a bunch of companies that make nothing. Design nothing. Just fly down to China, pick and choose some products, slap their logo on, and market the living shit out of it.
Before liberalisation, and well after it, India had at least half a dozen monitor manufacturers. We made lakhs of monitors in India. Last week I came to know that the last domestic monitor manufacturing facility stands in Pondicherry. It assembles monitors for 20 different brands.
That's it. One factory. Making something as simple and straightforward as monitors. Arguably, making monitors is simpler than making speakers, because you don't have to worry about frequency response or battery life.
I don't know where we went wrong, for manufacturing to be so completely wiped out from our land. I am sure it wasn't one mistake - it was a series of missteps. But I can sure as hell say that what happened to American manufacturing is happening in India. There is venture capitalist dollar chasing the next unicorn that can market some new crap to young Indians. And avoiding manufacturing like the plague, and encouraging outsourcing, is just one of the many toxic traits of VC dollar.
It is Made in China. Their website claims that their products are Made in India, but their largest selling speaker is made in China. It says so on the box.
They closed March 2020 with a revenue of ₹700cr, and a PAT of ₹50cr. But they can't make a product as simple as a battery operated Bluetooth speaker in India.
(Their website also does not mention any e-waste information. No way to send them back a used product. This is in violation of Indian law, of course. They signed up for e-waste recycling only 4 months ago, well after a ₹700cr turnover. Five years too late.)
Time was, when India had a marketing challenge. We used to talk about a lack of management skills and colleges. Amul was an awesome model of how we had a product (dairy), and then someone (Dr. Kurien) came along and figured out how to package and market it.
Now we have a bunch of companies that make nothing. Design nothing. Just fly down to China, pick and choose some products, slap their logo on, and market the living shit out of it.
Before liberalisation, and well after it, India had at least half a dozen monitor manufacturers. We made lakhs of monitors in India. Last week I came to know that the last domestic monitor manufacturing facility stands in Pondicherry. It assembles monitors for 20 different brands.
That's it. One factory. Making something as simple and straightforward as monitors. Arguably, making monitors is simpler than making speakers, because you don't have to worry about frequency response or battery life.
I don't know where we went wrong, for manufacturing to be so completely wiped out from our land. I am sure it wasn't one mistake - it was a series of missteps. But I can sure as hell say that what happened to American manufacturing is happening in India. There is venture capitalist dollar chasing the next unicorn that can market some new crap to young Indians. And avoiding manufacturing like the plague, and encouraging outsourcing, is just one of the many toxic traits of VC dollar.