Impact of IT on Rural Marketing

Information Technology has an overwhelming influence on all the spheres of life; here we will try to look at the influence of IT on rural marketing in general and distribution in particular. Two examples have been discussed; one would be the use of GIS (Geographic Information System) and second would be emergence of rural kiosks.

First the application of GIS. The software is facilitating distribution in villages. Satellite images have been used to identify clusters of villages, their distance from the town and roads. Using this data decisions on where to set up distribution points, setting up distribution routes and which clusters to cover can be decided much easily.

In the last five years many companies like ITC, Parry’s, HLL have come up with rural kiosks, which is basically a net-enabled PC installed in a village. Though the main objective of setting up the kiosk is not distribution, like ITC's e-choupal is there as a procurement point and HLL i-shakti is an extension of its shakti scheme in rural areas. But once the infrastructure is in place, it will be and is being leveraged by these companies to sell their products and non-competing products from other companies.

The editorial in today's Economic Times (25th Oct , 2006)on BOP (Bottom of the pyramid) markets in economic times has triggered this write-up. In the editorial the author has been critical of the examples used by C K Pradhalad in his book "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid". Rather than getting into identifying the faults with the idea proposed in the book I would like to focus my energies on what identifying the areas of the work which could be put use in rural marketing in India.
The first big plus of the book ha been that it has for the first time brought consumers with low purchasing power into lime light , and because it is being promoted by one of the foremost management thinkers of the world it is getting sufficient media attention. The basic proposition of the book is that don't ignore the consumers at the lower end of the pyramid and that corporations can collaborate with consumers to co-create products and services which could lead to a win-win situation.

To be continued …….

Rural marketing has been defined by different people in different ways , some people see it as the marketing of agricultral produce to urban markets, others see it as the marketing of products produced in urban areas in villages. There are a few others who take the view that handicrafts and other products produced by the rural folks is rural marketing.