ICONIC investor Mr. Warren Buffett has said it right -- that Indian market has “unexplored opportunities”, which he would look to tapping through his company Berkshire Hathaway. Whatever Mr. Buffett does to enhance his company’s business prospects is his issue to tackle, but what he has said about the Indian market having untapped opportunities needs to be pondered over. Those who have understood the way modern national markets function will realise the truth and substance in Mr. Warren Buffett’s statement extolling the virtue of the opportunities the Indian market has on offer. The legendary management Guru (the late) Prof. C. K. Prahalad had insisted that the Indian market really had a lot of untapped potential for growth. In his seminal work titled “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”, Prof. Prahalad (co-authored by Mr. Stuart L. Hart), talks of how in most economies the bottom layers are rarely reached by the investors and entrepreneurs. But if those layers at the bottom are tapped appropriately, then a massive fortune may unfold for everybody’s use and benefit. We recall the Prahalad-Stuart assertion against the background of Mr. Warren Buffett’s authentic statement that Indian market has a lot of unexplored opportunities that are waiting to be tapped and used. If that process really gets initiated -- by Mr. Warren Buffett and others -- then a grand push to the Indian markets can be expected.

 

Even though the Indian economy has travelled much distance -- from the 10th position on the global ladder to the present fifth currently -- the Indian marketplace offers a tremendous untapped opportunity for enterprising investors, in all layers of the pyramid. The mention of the “bottom of the pyramid” in Prahalad-Stuart book refers not to deprived social classes but to the rural or semi-urban markets with reasonable purchasing power but do not have the marketplace where the people can expend their resources to acquire things for better life. There is money good enough to be mentioned specifically. There also is a will power to expend the money to acquire things -- but the market is not fully functional in terms of supplies that match the demand or effort to ignite the social desire to make purchases from the excess of money that the people possess. If the people’s purchasing power gets an opportunity to acquire things to improve the quality of life, or even indulge in extra buying, then the cumulative activity will boost the economy in general and the lives of the investors or of the members of the business circles.

 

When a billionaire investor like Mr. Warren Buffett talks of “unexplored opportunities”, he seems to suggest a wide range of economic engagement that would eventually boost the market by bolstering the economic demand. However, this is not a plain process of investment and hiking of the demand. If the untapped bottom layers of the economy are to be utilised more fully, then a systematic effort will have to be launched at the governmental and private sector levels so that money acquires a creative fluidity. In the current conditions in Indian economy, such an effort should not prove to be difficult to be put into effect. All the Indian economy is looking for at this stage is actual leadership from the Government as well as from the private sector through different channels. In fact, such an effort can be given a very strong Indian touch by pursuing carefully defined national goals. Once the local market gets ready for an enhanced activity, foreign investors would find it easier to increase their outreach to lower layers of the vast Indian marketplace.