A senior management consultant recently said that the reason a number of Goan businesses are not growing is because they are not looking at other parts of India for expanding their market. This makes the situation peculiar because Goa on its own is a very small market.
At around 15 lakhs, the state’s own population is lesser than the population of most districts in India. Moreover, since 1990s, Goa’s population has remained flat. This means that there is very high possibility that sooner or later the state’s population will start declining.
In other words, not only is the local market not growing but it is very likely that it may start declining very soon. This means that Goan businesses will have to look out to other states of India to find newer markets for their products and services.
So far, tourism and mining are the only two industries, which have been successful in finding a customers outside the State. Tourism, by the very nature of the business, focuses on outside customers. The mining industry had been exporting iron ore for many years.
But, apart from these two industries, hardly any Goan business has actively looked at finding markets in other parts of India. Historically, Goa’s connectivity has been poor, whether we talk of roads or railways, which might have made it difficult to trade with other states.
This problem has been taken care of to an extent thanks to the growth of Konkan Railways and also better highways. The main issue is most local businesses don’t even have a mindset of aggressively finding newer markets.
Take the case of food products like pork sausages, pickles, kokum, local rice, etc. A number of tourists buy Goan food products whenever they are in the State. There is clearly a market out there but not many people have tapped it.
A question must also be asked that why local travel companies have not expanded their wings to other parts of India. Goans have an innate understanding of tourism and hospitality, but hardly any Goan brand features among top Indian brands in these industries.
Clearly, the mindset has to change because the opportunity is huge. The central government and the state government have plans to improve Goa’s connectivity to other parts of India through air, railways and highways. Improvement in infrastructure has to be utilized to grow local businesses.
In fact, ‘Vibrant Goa’ which is scheduled to happen from October 17-19 this year, is expected to bring 2,000 Indian companies to the state. The local businesses must make use of this opportunity to network with Indian companies to find newer markets for themselves. Otherwise, they may find it really tough to grow.
