Globalization Strategy

Thank you Devinderji, for drawing attention to this issue which is kind of slipping by..the situation now seems to be that the aam admi is attacked on so many fronts that he doesnt know what to retailiate to(I am sure thats a strategy in itself of the powers that be)!

The figures of Wal-mart in US are mirrored by Tesco figures in Britain and Monbiot discusses the impact of box-retailers on his website in detail . They have devastated towns, cities and rural areas and small local groups in US are fighting to regain some kind of foot hold in re-creating a local economy .. these stores are the epitome of a monoscape with no room for local flavor or local enterprise....We in India trying to destroy that very thing, which the west is struggling to recreate These shops are nothing better than modern day sweat shops who pass on their burden to the state and citizen .......

It truly truly appalls me that we refuse to look at the downsides of all these developments and learn something from them, instead insist on repeating the mistakes of the first world, which for a poor over-populated nation like India will prove to be very very expensive....we are already seeing it in farmer suicides and unprecedented levels of migration from rural to urban areas...

Our wonderful urban middle class consumers who think that these retailers are going to the mecca of shopping will soon realise something else: the picture is not pretty at all, even for the darling urban middle class consumer.... Today in mid west US you would have to get into a car and drive a couple of miles atleast, if you ( god forbid) run out of milk on an evening...there are no small shops , nothing accessible at walking distance ...Once you are in after parking 300 metres away, you have to go through the rigamoarole of picking a basket and walking to the farthest corner of the store which is where essentials are stacked ( based on brilliant marketing strategy of making every customer walk the length of the store ) and then join the interminable queue manned/womaned by person earning poverty wages, who is least interested in dealing with you , ( ofcourse you can circumvent that thru the store 's brilliant strategy of 'do it urself' and check urself out, this is how stores outsource their work to the customers and keep their operations tight) and then back, get into the car , park the car, get back home and by then the tea that you wanted( a good one hour back) in the first place will also have to be accompanied by an aspirin ( god forbid u need to get that one from a drug store ...). These box stores are a consumers worst nightmare and have led to interesting statistics where americans spend more time shopping than with their children...
- Sreedevi Lakshmi Kutty