Online Matchmaking in India is Part of a $20 billion Industry

27 June 2007 - 12:43

Online Matchmaking Indian-style

For the full article by Danil Pepper see Indian Matchmaking
Matchmaking in India is a $300 million business

One Indian matchmaking service, Shaadi.com, has a database of 400,000 verified candidates (that’s a lot of verification !) and a global audience of 9 million registered users (and rising). For a fee of $200 you will be ranked higher, and adverts will be placed in newspapers. I've always been fascinated by money and the influence it exerts! Perhaps that should be the subject of another blog?.

Arranged marriages are nothing new in India of course but technology is now starting to replace the more traditional family methods and a good catch is now seen to be someone working in IT, whereas before it used to be accountancy or law. This is a good time to be a geek in India! You get the money and your pick of the gene pool!

To understand the jargon used in matchmaking in India you need to know that a "well-settled family" means upper-middle class; and a "simple woman" means no partying !

Anupam Mittal the co-founder of Shaadi.com estimates the size of India's matrimony industry at close to $20 billion. So clearly this is big business. The matchmaking alone, without the actual wedding, gifts and parties is worth around $300 million. A middle-class family of a bride will spend generally over $15,000 on the wedding, which is 4 x the annual per capita GDP in India's.

Mittal started his company in 1997 after a fortuitous meeting with a traditional matchmaker in Bombay. "I got very intrigued by what he did, and very soon it got me thinking - by God, the choice for a life partner is determined by how much weight this guy can carry and how far he can carry it."

Initially the online portal was used more by expatriates, but now approximately 70% of Shaadi.com customers come from India with the rest from the U.S., Australia, Britain and the Gulf. However, less than 5% of India's population is currently online, which means there is enormous scope for growth. Mittal, is busy opening more storefronts and who can blame him.

Shaadi.com obviously has competitors, one in particular BharatMatrimony.com in southern India started in the U.S. in the late 1990s. Its founder Murugavel Janakiraman used to hand out fliers advertising his portal at South Asian events. He moved to Chennai in 2004 and has recently built new headquarters there.

With 64% of the Indian population below the age of 30 the market is strong. BaharatMatrimony has 63 walk-in centres in India, mainly in the south, and plans to increase this number to 300 over the next 18 months. Shaadi.com has plans to add up to 400 centres over the next 2 years. Together the sites claim over 700,000 "success stories".


shaadi indian matchmaking india matrimony bharat mittal janakiraman online web internet

THREE MONTH 'INDIA NOW' FESTIVAL IN LONDON THIS SUMMER

22 July 2007 - 15:45

In July London will be hosting an India Festival (probably without the elephants) which will last for three months and is designed to showcase India’s popular culture, arts and cuisine.

‘India Now’ will comprise several events across London dedicated to Indian art, films, food, theatre, music and fashion.

The festival will be launched by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, on July 15. The theme is to be “India and London — Partners in Globalisation.”

Over 150 cultural organisations and attractions will participate in the season which will be dedicated to India's contribution to world culture, its rich tradition and most importantly raise awareness and celebrate new Indian trends across art, film, theatre, food, music and fashion.

Promoting the event Ken Livingstone said “India is not only one of the world’s most important and rapidly growing economies, an emerging economic superpower, but it also has one of the world’s most important cultures. In 2007, we are aiming to strengthen London’s relations with India, building on the significant contribution the Indian community - the largest minority national group in London — already makes to the economic, cultural and social success of the capital.”

Livingstone is expected to visit both New Delhi and Mumbai with a delegation of representatives from London businesses, with plans to open mayoral offices in both cities.

There will be a number of attractions, including a three-week Indian-themed festival at Trafalgar Square in August. In September, Regent Street, one of London’s busy shopping streets, will be transformed into an Indian streetscape complete with music, sculptures, food and artisans.

Other highlights include Indian-themed club nights, stage performances at the National Theatre and an art exhibition at the Museum of London.

And of course Bollywood will be well-represented. The premiere of a Hindi blockbuster at Somerset House is planned. According to sources in Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan’s Chak De India and the John Abraham-Bipasha Basu starrer Goal are strong contenders for the honour. The premiere will have several Bollywood stars in attendance, says Mark Prescott, who heads the Cultural Campaigns department.

Knowing the Indians' love of sound, light and life, I expect it to be an animated and exciting festival which hopefully will bring some much needed colour and life to the streets of London.

india now
festival
london
livingstone

Western Executives are Starting to Look for Jobs in India

17 June 2007 - 20:20

The Brain Drain Heads East

More and more westerners are feeling the pull of a job in India and the opportunities it represents and above all the possibility of working in a country experiencing rapid growth. India's real GDP grew by 9.2% in the year to last September. In addition to this optimism is widespread, in a recent survey of 32 countries Indian businessmen were the most upbeat : 97% of the respondents said they were bullish about the future

Up until very recently not many westerners would have considered India as a place of employment, but the times they are a changing. After the hippies of the sixties and seventies India is now starting to see an influx of affluent executives (who may in fact be ex-hippies). The number of expatriate managers hired by Indian firms has in fact risen by between 5 and 15% in recent years. Clearly salaries in the West are higher than in India, but as growth has soared the salaries being paid have risen too.

New industries are opening up in Asia on the whole, such as tele-communications, retail and insurance amongst others. But given the rapid growth in India there is now a dearth of home-grown talent to fill the top jobs and managerial positions and executive pay is starting to become very competitive compared with the West.

There are also Indians who moved to the West who are now considering moving back to India. For many among the millions of people of Indian extraction around the world, these pay trends present a tempting chance to rediscover their roots.

In public relations for example outsiders are urgently required in India to train staff. This is mutually beneficial as local staff get the training they require and expatriates get the experience of living in India.

The biggest obstacle to growth of 9% or more is of course India's infrastructure - especially its awful roads, ports and power - China spends seven times more than India on its infrastructure.

Labour laws are also a severe problem, no Indian company employing more than 100 people can dismiss anyone without Government permission!

Finally the quality of public services is also a problem, from education and health to the provision of water. Half of urban households do not have drinking water within the home; one quarter have no toilet, either public or private. The rapid expansion in India seems to have made matters worse too. In Bangalore for example water is now available for less than 3 hours a day, compared with 20 hours in the early 1980s.

These problems need addressing but are not insurmountable and no doubt they will offer further opportunities for expatriates and non-Indians keen to experience something new in a vibrant and growing economy.

Further reading :
BBC
Economist
JobsInIndia
Tages:
india jobs
executive
expatriates

Indian Vegetable Traders React Violently to Arrival of Supermarket Chains

17 June 2007 - 01:36

Indian Vegetable Traders in Riots against Supermarket Chains

The Indian food retail market is big business ($200 billion) but traders are not happy about the rapid roll-out of supermarkets.

In May an angry crowd of vegetable sellers ran riot through a newly-opened Reliance Fresh supermarket in India's Jharkand state. When Reliance opens its stores in Mumbai people are expecting the same thing to happen, except on a bigger scale.

A week after the violence in Jharkand, a Reliance store was attacked in Madhya Pradesh, and, faced with mounting protests, the chain has been forced to postpone opening its store in Bhopal.

Politicians are also getting involved, the Communist Party of India, a powerful force in India, has called for a licence system with strict quotas for local supermarket chains, and a ban on the involvement of foreign chains such Wal-Mart, Tesco, Carrefour etc...

Wal-Mart is the biggest of all the chains and it intends opening is first hypermarket in India early next year and has plans for a chain covering 10 million sq feet by 2015. Dharmendra Kumar, of No FDI in Retail, which is opposed to international companies in the Indian retail sector says : "Wal-Mart is …. enemy number one. They have a huge capacity to source goods from outside, which will not only hurt the small retailer but small manufacturers."

In the UK retail chains are well-known for paying farmers very low prices while at the same time raking in vast profits, so Indian retailers and wholesalers would be well-advised to resist the spread of supermarkets in their country.

Reliance Industries is India's largest private company and its billionaire owner Mukesh Ambani plans to open 4,000 to 5,000 shops in the next 3 to 4 years, a staggering number, which in the US or Europe has taken 40 years to achieve.
Reliance plans to replace India's traditional food-supply chain with its own ‘rationalised’ system, which will no doubt mean low wages, low prices to farmers and even more billions for those at the top.

According to Bhupendra Bhosle, a trade union member, "If Ambani starts collecting vegetables directly from the farmers, the middle men are going to face a lot of unemployment problems."

Profits can be big for vegetable traders, they don’t like to reveal their margins but one trader has said that he buys green chillis for around 9 rupees per kg, which he then sells on for 120-130 rupees a kilo to smaller wholesalers (sounds like daylight robbery to me ! Ed.).

With such high profit margins it is not surprising that Wal-Mart and Reliance have decided they want a piece of the action, but they are unlikely to find the going easy.

Full article here : Independent

Indian IT Professionals get the Women and the Money!

12 June 2007 - 14:05

Geeks are Good in India

Arranged marriages are nothing new in India but aparently Indian parents are turning to the Internet more and more to find partners for their children.

Indian men want attractive, educated young women (don't we all!) and Indian women are more interested in hard cash. So if you're ugly and making money then you can still drive a hard bargain!

bharatmatrimony.com is a wedding website used by more than 10 million subscribers around India, that may seem a lot but given the population of India is around 1 billion there is still plenty of room for growth.

Mrs Khatoon for example says she is looking for an IT professional for her daughter, preferably based in London, or someone who will be able to work overseas in the future. Good for you Mrs Khatoon, but why on earth people want to live in London (or the UK at all) is beyond me. It's a boring hole! Go to Australia or the US, the quality of life is far better.

Just a decade ago Indian parents put civil servants and accountants at the top of their marital wish list, as they had a guaranteed stable and steady income and a job for life. But the technology boom in India has changed all this.

Mrs Khatoon's eldest daughter is married to an IT professional living in London and she wants the same for her younger daughter. IT professionals are seen as providng a secure financial future

Murugavel Janakiraman, the CEO of bharatmatrimony.com claims this attitude is now widespread and is not exceptional. In recent years India's technology services sector has seen a boom with millions of new jobs. There are not enough engineering and IT graduates to fill the positions available.

According to Nasscom, India's software trade body, there could be a shortfall of half a million IT professionals by 2010 and salaries are going up as a consequence. (I knew I should have studied IT!)

So IT professionals are the hottest property in terms of both employment and marriage. They really are in a seller's market - in fact in two seller's markets at once!

IT workers start their careers with a salary of around $800 a month (around twice what professionals in comparable jobs earn) and their salaries will rise around 20% a year on average.

IT professionals are suddenly cool which comes as a pleasant surprise to them as they have thus far been classified as nerds, geeks or worse .

Anup Gandhi, says "I think it's fabulous that we're now in such hot demand, " - well he would wouldn't he! It's always nice to be popular - but take care Anup they are only after your money! They are not at all interested in your quirky social habits or skills.

"If an Indian woman wants me" he says "I think that's a very good thing!" Hmmm it would be nice to see a picture of Anup.

The latest economic forecasts provide more good news for choosy IT professionals. The Indian economy has expanded by more than 9% and services represent one fifth of that growth.

Technology is expected to contribute almost one tenth of India's GDP by 2010.

So all those boring geeky IT guys have never had it so good - are you jealous? Well lock yourself away in a room for a few years, don't wash, and learn all the latest nerdy computer games, the girls will love you !

Full article here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6723385.stm