Make no mistake. India, a trillion-dollar economy already, could be the site for some of the most riveting corporate battles the world has yet been witness to. Raids, skirmishes and all-out wars in which the globe?s most aggressive forces have decisive stakes. It does not take an ear to the ground to hear the rumbles getting louder. The air is thick with noises that lend credence to the assessment that Indian markets for several products and services have grown large enough, and hold sufficient promise of expanding many times more, for the world?s most ambitious companies to deploy the heftiest of resources and sharpest of strategists in their efforts to secure them. In two specific markets, namely small cars and mobile telephony, the corporate rhetoric is accompanied by sparks that can well be interpreted as battle flares.
For Suzuki, the Japanese maker of motorcycles and small cars, the Indian market is of enormous significance, with a large part of its sales coming from here. So, the threat from Tata Motors? Rs 1-lakh car due next year is provocation enough for chairman Osamu Suzuki to cast doubt on Tata?s ?responsibility? towards safety and the environment. Tata, in response, has issued a dignified statement defending its eco-consciousness, but as its launch date nears, it may find itself going on the offensive to take over Suzuki?s heavily fortified entry gateway to the car market?which could then cross the annual 2 million units level at turbo speed. In the even more bitterly contested telecom arena, with 220 million handsets in use already and 1 million more switching on every four days, the resource being fought over is radio spectrum. The difference is that this field has an extremely powerful entity that can change the game?the government. Thus it is that a battle of letters written to the government has begun spilling over into the media, and ceding even a nanoHuertz to rivals is being seen as a mortifying opportunity loss by big operators. There is more sabre-rattling to come. Questions of what works in whose interest are even more vexatious since India?s defence services want to conserve spectrum for themselves and the telecom sector has been deemed sensitive from a security standpoint as well. Unless the government?s involvement is made transparent to all, the spectrum wars risk turning ?radioactive?.
