For those who are familiar with Kutchh, and its people, there is no doubt that it is one of the most active hotbeds of entrepreneurship. A lot of the business in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is in the hands of the ‘kutchhis’ (those from Kutchh). Many of India’s largest companies and financial heavyweights are from this region, while Surat has been a force to reckon with in the global diamond trade. Amidst all this, one of the most interesting group that I have come across are the craftspeople and artisans working with traditional methods of craft – textiles, metal, wood, leather etc.

Beyond the timeless creative wealth that traditional craft creates, a conversation with one such craftsman – a handloom weaver – highlighted to me the value of crafts as a force of entrepreneurship. While talking about the world in general, his choices in life etc., he said that the strongest reason for him to stick to his family’s handloom tradition was the fact that he was an entrepreneur. He was his own boss, not reporting to anyone else, and his fortunes not subject to the whims and fancies of some better-educated higher-up in “a company”. To him, the sense of dignity from creating his own products and running his own trade was far more important than ‘earning more in a safe job’. An important learning to keep in mind during these times of hectic corporatization of Indian business.

The other aspect that is specifically important to the fashion / lifestyle products sector is the diversity of product base and the product development edge it provides the industry. The product development, design and merchandising capability is a backbone for the lifestyle / fashion / soft goods industry in India, that keeps it in the global competitive arena despite wheezing infrastructure, rising costs and other competitive inefficiencies.

An article by Shailesh Dobhal and Bhanu Pande in The Economic Times today refers to a growing inequality of income in India. (“India Rising, Bharat awaits for the trickle to turn flood”)

The change for all of urban India is reported to be 15%, which is quite visible, especially in the larger cities where the change is possibly greater. What is worrying is that even in rural India the change is 13%.

And these figures are for 2004-05, from a report authored by NCAER’s Dr. Rajesh Shukla. My guess is that the difference would be even higher now, 3 years later.

Obviously at a personal level this should concern all. Each person is part of the ecosystem – there is only so long one can hide in ivory towers behind tall walls and locked gates. We are most secure and content when our neighbour is secure and content. Stark disparities that grow even more stark are not a way to develop security.

However, one might ask, why should business managers in consumer goods and retail sectors concern themselves with this phenomenon from a business perspective?

The answer should be self-evident – as shared in a presentation at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Retail Summit in 2006 – a retailer can grow its market by encouraging the development of smaller enterprises, especially those in lower income areas. As these enterprises grow, so does prosperity and available income.

“Grow your wealth by growing someone else’s.” That may seem like an odd notion. But think – is it so odd?

In May 2007 Arun Maira, Chairman of the Boston Consulting Group’s business in India, presented scenarios that were developed in an exercise a few years ago, about the possible developmental trajectories of India. These include:

• “Atakta Bharat (India Stuck)” described as ‘Buffalos Wallowing’,

• “Bollyworld” (the crazy mix of glamour and tragedy) described in two parts as ‘Peacocks Strutting, Birds Scrambling’ and ‘Tigers Growling, Wolves Prowling’ and

• “Pahale India” (India First), subtitled Fireflies Arising.

Here’s his very thought-provoking article (India: Many Million Fireflies Now) that is well worth a read.

Creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem is absolutely critical to a healthy and vigorous society and economy.

Creating a “democratic” entrepreneurial ecosystem is even more critical to sustaining that health. A democratic entrepreneurial system is like all other democracies – inclusive and widespread – and vital to improving the baseline quality of life.

As we’ve pointed out elsewhere, retailing is not just a fundamentally entrepreneurial business, it also offers up a platform for the birth and growth of other entrepreneurial businesses.

Obviously, big retailers offer a change for companies to scale up faster, once they meet the performance criteria set by the retailers.

The interesting thing is that small retailers offer an even more interesting growth opportunity since, as their own business grows, they grow their supply partners as well.

Countless companies and brands have been launched on the back of the likes of Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, and in India retailers such as Pantaloon’s and Spencer’s (and even some of the early modern retailers in India that don’t exist anymore).

In view of this, it is wonderful to see 2-9 February 2008 being celebrated as Entrepreneurship Week (on the National Entrepreneurship Network’s website) and also its powerfully worded pledge.

At a faux “pubby” restaurant, I asked a friend why she didn’t order fries with the fried fish she had asked for? (I was looking for a carb-fat fix, but couldn’t legitimately order a whole portion just for myself.)

A withering look accompanied the dismissal, “You and your excesses!”

Undeterred, I went on, “But if I suggested having fish and chips?”

“Well, that would be a fine. That’s standard British fare.”  That clinched it for me. “So it’s okay to have it when you call it fish and chips, but not if you ask for “fried fish and fries”?!”

[After all, the Brits call French fries chips. The stuff that the Americans call ‘chips’ are actually called ‘crisps’ by the Brits – more logical, isn’t it? After all, the fries are not really crispy so it wouldn’t do to call those crisps!]

This kind of dilemma generally doesn’t bother the rest of the world – they either pick British English, or American (more and more), or just dispense with English altogether. But for Indians it can be quite puzzling and troublesome, especially those that have pedigreed “convent-education” – i.e. whose teachers were also ‘convent-educated’, and have drilled in the “proper” (i.e. British) spellings and names – and they run into Americanized environments such as food courts.

That led us on to a profound discussion about one of the most global and globally visible businesses – fashion – and how it binds the world together.

One would think that, as a globalised business, at least the fashion arena would be more inclusive and speak a common language. It does, mostly.

Till you hit ‘Sportswear’. It is a little strange.

I’m sure there is a conspiracy afoot – though I’m not sure who’s behind it, or who’s the target. All I know that it gets very confusing.

The first – most obvious and logical – image that springs to mind is that of athletes, active sports, and performance.  Caps, headbands, T-shirts and sweats, wrist bands, shorts, track pants, terry socks – you get the picture.

It’s quite clear.

You may be on the treadmill trying to lose weight, or on the court just keeping fit, or even on the fairways networking with your peers – there is an action-orientation as there is activity involved and a sporting game (whether team or individual).

There is a need for comfort and freedom of movement, a need for allowing sweat to evaporate and keep the body cool (but not too cold in case you are playing in the colder climes), and sometimes a need to prevent the odd wobble.

There is certain kind of clothing that fits the bill, and all of it is not appropriate to all sporting occasions or types of sport. For instance, swimwear on the tennis court may make the game more interesting to the spectators, but is of very little practical value to the players. (Having said that, “convergence” is a big buzzword nowadays, and some of the recent trends in women’s tennis apparel seem to be leading to the same conclusion.)

Good, then, you say – sportswear should be quite, quite clear – it is functional, and meant to enable specific performance.

Or is it?

Scan the websites, shelves or magazines, and the variety of merchandise that parades under the sportswear banner quickly dispenses with that image.  The category encompasses ‘sports-inspired fashion’ (and a truly inspired marketing person must have thought up that term) to casualwear, to clubwear, to the ‘I don’t know where-to wear’.

The sports-inspired look that grew big a few decades ago (think sweatshirts, track pants and sneakers) … and for some brands it seems to have become big again in recent times. The link back to active sportswear is quite clear in terms of styling, fabric and so on, so the use of the term is understandable.

The sporting brands also wanted new avenues to grow.

So you’ve got adidas, Reebok, Nike and their ilk doing casualwear or ‘leisurewear’, even as they plaster the billboards with sportspeople from basketball, football, cricket, and other games. But it’s not their problem – if someone with a ‘comfortable’ Body Mass Index wants to emulate the active image of Shaq or Air Jordan without really meaning to get down to the court, who is the brand to complain? Just make the ‘sporty’ clothes looser, bigger.

But somewhere along the way, sportswear seems to have become the ‘catchall’ category – a melting pot of styling (or the dustbin of style cues), depending on whether your perspective is inspired or inspiration-challenged.

For instance, it is easy to imagine that somewhere along the way, someone who did great T-shirts thought that actually he could increase his sales by selling jeans and chinos as well. And then others caught on to the trick.  Since these brands were already labeled sportswear, the definition stretched and then expanded to accommodate – just as sportswear does!

So now it is understandable to find some casualwear masquerading as sportswear.

But then you have menswear clearly targeted at the sport of ‘pulling birds’ and the womenwear geared for hunting at night. What should be clearly labeled clubwear is pretending to be casualwear and inching surreptitiously close to the sportswear label.

Then, there are these preppy types bringing on their University-team type look.

And the ‘ethnic’ print inspired skimpy halters and skirts whose only sporty function is to increase the heart-rate (the onlooker’s, not of the person wearing them).

The big thing about sportswear is ‘cool’.  Often it is about cutting edge.  So if the ‘cutting edge’ style looks like it won’t remain alive long enough to become a category by itself, it’s conveniently shoved into the sportswear category.

Sportswear is about slick and quick. It’s so fluid, so large, and so all-encompassing and messy (where are the boundaries?), that if there is a businessperson wanting to grow a brand fast, sportswear would be the category to follow.

It’s clearly a category for the Indian market, because there are plenty of bright young businesspeople who want to grow it big and quick.

I’m expecting a sportswear deluge. Just don’t ask me for figures or growth projections – let’s just say, they are elastic and accommodating like the category.

[Just to complete the story I began with – I got my friend’s fries, and wolfed them down, the waist elastic of the sports-inspired track pants expanding comfortably. None of that clubwear masquerading as sportswear for me – I was geared for the active sport of mall-crawl.

My friend meanwhile was going on about this particular store in New York, when I said, “I didn’t know they had shops for people interested is the social and historical study of mankind.” And that started a whole new argument – but that’s another story for another time.]

[This was the closing column “Checkout” for the inaugural issue of the Indian edition of Sportswear International.]

The recent stock market mayhem brings to mind another ‘boom’ – the much-hyped retail boom.

Booms and busts are complimentary, and always follow each other (if history is a teacher which we would care to listen to).

We are already seeing the signs of what people might call a slow-down in the Indian retail market. (Those people would have built their business plans, made investments and planned expenditure based on 50-500% annual growth, and would see a 15-25% growth as a slowdown.)

But for the most part, retail is an organic business, and a 15-25% annual growth is far healthier for most companies. It allows for infrastructure and processes to grow in a planned way. It gives the companies time to mature their processes and their organizations, and build businesses that are more sustainable. It allows the development of brands that are more lasting.

Growing retail businesses over time also allows them to develop the ecosystem around them organically – in my opinion absolutely vital for a healthy economic and social environment.