Failure is the least aspect that anyone who is about to start a business realize to think about. For sure, no one would start a business expecting a failure, but what if we doubt on the possibility of getting success and still not preparing ourselves for a self-test just because of the fear of realizing the failure. I think most of the small startups fail due to the lack of market research and the wrong identification of market opportunity. In other words, obstacles to the society means opportunity to a business person and again that opportunity should be a solution to the society.
Tata Nano was successful in India not because of anything other than the proper identification of market opportunity, absolute targeting, and the proper conveying of message to the target market. Tata Nano was a campaign behind the understanding of middle class dreams of buying a car, which was an impossible obsession to many Indians who belong to middle class worries, saying that India is a country populated massively with the middle class and lower class segments. The concept of Tata Nano was raised on behalf of the middle class of dream of buying a car. Hence, for a middle class person, buying a car would denote many benefits such as fulfilling the need of carrying out a small family during short journeys, fulfilling the shopping needs, freedom from the allergic of travelling in buses and several etc can be further listed as such expectations.
So, the market gab/opportunity was properly identified but what about the capability of the target market? Yes, most of the middleclass people can afford to a motorbike or a three-wheeler while they can’t buy a Nissan or BMW or even a Maruti at times. Here is where Tata Nano threw the ball to the right hand, yes, their price was just 250 dollars- the price similar to motorbikes and three-wheelers. Their advertisements clearly showed the advantages of buying a Nano rather than a motorbike, and the benefit of buying Nano rather than buying a three-wheeler so that it can be used as a taxi and how they can earn with that in a better manner. This is how the concept of Nano succeded in the Indian market, in other words, the right ball was thrown to the right hand.
Let’s say a bikini company expands its business in Saudi Arabia...what would be the result here? Here, we can’t fool ourselves saying that if the bikini is manufactured in a manner that respects Islamic culture(?), then it would turn to be an opportunity. Nope...if we say so, it would be a fundamental damage to the concept of bikini (why wearing a bikini if they don’t like to expose glamour?) and even to the concept of Islam (why would a modern Muslim girl prefer to wear a fully-covered bikini facing to problems, rather than wearing her traditional dress?). Hence, this is a wrong ball to the wrong hand, which means total loss. So, throw the right ball to the right person at the right time for a good business.
