Franchising in India
India is a vast country with a population of more than one billion people. Following its phased opening of the many stifling government regulations starting in the early 1990s, the economy is doing extremely well with an achievement of attaining a GDP growth rate of 8 to 9 percent annually the last few years and a similar increase projected in the coming years. The economy is backed by strong fundamentals, with a vibrant and well regulated stock market with stable interest of U.S. financial institutions, excellent local financial and banking institutions and a government that is now open and willing to accepting foreign investment and other inputs. The services and manufacturing sectors with double-digit growth rates are doing exceedingly well and India’s lead position in the information technology domain is well-recognized all over the world.
The Revolution in Retail: The retail scene in India is currently undergoing a “sea change” with the emergence of scores of modern retailing malls, stores and multiplexes all over the country instead of the earlier dominance of millions of mom-and-pop stores and retail is the fastest-growing sector of the Indian economy. This change is clear and visible not only in the large metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkatta, Bangalore and Hyderabad, but is fast invading the many tier one and tier two cities, including Chandigarh, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kanpur and many others as well. With increasing purchasing power and changing lifestyles, particularly of the growing middle class of more than 250 million people (of this about 30 million have a combined purchasing power of US$230 billion and the six million “rich” have another US$28 billion, according to a recent Ernst & Y ...