Bangalore Mega-city and its Micro-cities: An Interview

Interview with Harish Bijoor

Brand-strategy specialist  &

CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

1.     The city has many micro-markets such as Indiranagar, Jayanagar etc. What has led to these acquiring a distinct brand image of their own?

In the beginning there is the city. And then there are the micro-cities.  We live in urban agglomerations that are getting to be bigger and bigger in some ways, and smaller and smaller in other ways. Both these movements work together. Mega-cities happen by the fact that more and more people from all over gravitate to live in these mega-clusters, drawn to the magnet city. And micro-cities happen within them as a reaction to the fact that the mega-city has gotten just too big for liking.

Micro-cities are movements that are spontaneous. These are movements that occur when smaller localities get more and more self-sufficient. People who live in these localities want to travel out less and stay self-sufficient for all their wants, needs, desires and even aspirations. These smaller localities then offer the best of F and B options, the best of shopping locations and the best of entertainment options. When a locality becomes totally self-sufficient with the bank branch, the eating out ‘adda’ and the shopping destination, the micro city emerges. In many ways, a Koramangala, an Indiranagar, a Kamanahalli and a Jayanagar are classic examples of the micro-city.

 Micro-city is therefore a city within a city. A self-sufficient cluster, content on its own. Each of these clusters gradually acquire their own unique identity and brand image. Over a period of time, new settlers in the mega-city pick and choose their own micro-city to live in, depending on the dominant functionality and dominant imagery that each conveys.

2.     Some micro-markets such as the Outer Ring Road are prime office space markets. Do you see these turning into the city's prime business districts commanding a premium in the future? What is driving them?

Even as micro-cities emerge, specialty districts will emerge as well. These districts will be the Shopping District of Bangalore, and the Business District of Bangalore and more. For all you know the BIAL area will emerge as the Aviation District of Bangalore.

The Prime office space locations that have emerged on the ORR and the IRR for that matter, as well as the ones that will emerge on the road to the Kempegowda International Airport, will command a distinct imagery of their own. The more builders and their marketers invest in this generic brand building opportunity of developing district-imagery oriented districts, the more will it benefit their price appreciations.

Imagine the opportunity to develop the BIAL area as an “Aerocity” and the ORR as the “OfficeHub” of Bangalore. And maybe an area in Whitefield as the ‘EntertainmentDistrict” of Bangalore.

3.     What are the attributes that give a micro-market its brand image?

Focus is important. A keen yen to focus on a set of three unique attributes helps the branding process that much more.  Look at Koramangala. It offers the widest range of food and beverage options you can imagine, in mid-price range. In addition to what it offers, if one can focus on street-food and offer an entire street that goes “closed to traffic” on a Sunday, and open to the street-foodies of Bangalore, the brand identity will develop, slowly but surely.

Koramangala then gains a magnet status on Sundays. When you think food, you head to Koramangala. If it is a Sunday, you go Koramangala. These micro-cities then start competing with one another, offering distinct USPs that help position every micro-city as it emerges.

A mega-city will then become a sum of its whole.

4.     Is the city heading towards an agglomeration of micro-markets, each with its own distinct image?

 Yes it is. I have explained this in detail. Bangalore will aggregate at one end. More and more people will throng to Bangalore as it offers more and more jobs. Bangalore will attract people from all types of cities, towns and villages. As the mega-city emerges as an ‘opportunity-center’, people will throng to it. Bangalore the mega-city will then become bigger and bigger. This mega-city will be a mixed city. It will have people form every country, and people from every state in India. It will have urban folk rubbing shoulders with rural folk who have just entered it.

In the midst of all this aggregation, will occur dis-aggregation. The micro-city trend will ensure this. Economic groups will form as a function of rentals in these micro-cities will dictate who can afford to stay where as well.

5.     How does this phenomenon of almost each locality being a micro-market impact the image of the city as a corporate/investment destination? 

As an investment destination, the mega-city will not suffer. The city will continue to attract interest. In fact micro-cities will bring about a better governance structure as well. Ward-level governance will need to deepen and the city will be managed better with boroughs of micro-city interests pushing more and more of local self-governance.

Our villages have local-self-governance mechanisms with Panchayati Raj in place. Our cities need to replicate that through the Corporation Ward level management system. There needs to be a greater degree of autonomy in the management of these boroughs. The locals who live in these micro-cities need to decide how their budgets will be deployed and on what. Citizen-participation, as an adjunct, will need to deepen in these micro-city management systems.

6.     What sort of impact does the brand image of a micro-market have on its real estate prices?

An excellent and positive impact. Real-estate prices will go in tandem with the image of the micro-city. The more you invest in a micro-city image, the more you rake it in, in terms of real-estate prices. I would recommend every real-estate player in the city to invest in the ‘think’ towards the micro-city movement.

7.     Is there need to plan some brand management for the city now with a view to attract global investments?

There is surely a need. Unfortunately, when it comes to brand thinking for a city, everyone puts it on the back burner. In the bargain, the city writes for itself a self-fulfilling prophesy of mediocrity. And that’s precisely what’s happening in and to Bangalore.

Twitter @harishbijoor

Bangalore the Ideas City

Rodin In Cubbon Park

By Harish Bijoor

I live in Bangalore. I love Bangalore. But that’s not why I am saying what I am going to say right now.

I do believe, if New Delhi is the political capital of India, Mumbai the commercial and Kolkata the ‘kultural’, Bangalore is indeed the Intellectual capital of India.   We are a city of ideas. A city of thinking people who think the past with equal aplomb as we think the present and the future.

While most cities today are very besotted with the present, we straddle every aspect of the past, present and the future, in our own true-blue Bangalorean way. Never mind the fact that we live treadmill lives, like everyone in the bog cities does, but we get off at times as well. And that’s the time we think. And sometimes act.

Bangalore today is all of 87 lakh people living cheek to jowl with people from 25 different Indian states and some 39 nationalities that have made Bangalore India’s biggest expatriate island. Bangalore is therefore a true-blue amalgam city of sorts. We are the melting pot city in India, if there ever is to be one, where different cultures, tastes, and most importantly ideas mix, rub shoulders and blend. This then is an ideas-laboratory of sorts. A place where new things are thought out. A few ideas flourish and most die of course. In many ways an idea is a sperm. It lives like one and dies like one as well. Very few germinate.

Bangalore today is really an ideas city. It has been one for a while now. Only thing is we have not noticed enough of it, and not made enough of it as well. This is an innovative city. Innovative at every level. A city of entrepreneurs as well. A lot of credit for this entrepreneurship streak needs to be given to the lakhs of new settlers we have welcomed into this city from every part of India and the world at large.

Let’s first credit every land entrepreneur who came in from Andhra and indeed the immediate neighboring states around us. Lets credit every retailer, whether it be in the space of grocery ‘kirana’ or gold retail, many of whom came in from Kerala and again our very immediate neighbor states. I can go on listing out terrains that cover technology, ITES, IT-end to end services, Biotech, manufacturing, pharma and literally every other idea vertical that has made this city what it is. A city of ideas. A city that has encouraged idea start-ups from the realm of the humble Momo-cart to high end embedded systems that run nations and their many programs.

The basic DNA of this city, from the bottom end of the corner 'kirana' grocer to the top-end of the IT-preneur is a city that is led and bled by ideas.  Look around, and it is not difficult to spot an ‘ideapreneur’ on the prowl. This guy has been welcomed into the fold of this very accommodative city. Never mind where you are from, all are welcome. There is no jingoism here. If your idea is good, you will survive here. And thrive.

The ideas that run here are both small and big. Decades ago we started with Pub-entrepreneurships. The theme pub started in Bangalore really. A space pub called NASA, a car pub called Black Cadillac, and 485 other variants happened here. The food revolution is a reality in Bangalore today. Every food-entrepreneurship is an idea whose time has come. Koramangala today boasts of the highest density of restaurants per square kilometer in India for sure, with its 458 offerings. The Café started in Bangalore with VG Siddhartha’s Café Coffee Day, and now we have 2950 of them belonging to a myriad set of brands all over India. The IT end-to-end services enterprises happened here and sprouted, just as did the BPO outfits that litter our lives, From bottom end to top-end, this is surely an ideas city.

One downside though. The idea sperms are many, but few meet and mate the money that is needed to ramp up the humble idea. One wonders where the moneybags are burying their moneys. Let’s dig.

In a way, if I were to look for an image icon that would represent Bangalore for what it is, it would not be the Vidhana Soudha, which we use so profusely. Neither would it be the visual of the “Namma Metro”.

Instead, I would land up right in Paris, run into the Musee Rodin and fly out Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” and plant it out here right outside Cubbon Park! Sorry Parisians! This is the spanking new thinking city of the spanking new world. Bangalore!

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Harish Bijoor is a Brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Twitter @harishbijoor

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

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Bangalore and I

Being Bangalore

Harish Bijoor

Bangalore means a lot to me. If I am asked to name one thing that excites me about Bangalore, that’s a difficult one. To me Bangalore is a ‘bisibele baath’! And I love Bisibele bath! My favorite vegetarian dish. It is so much like Bangalore. An amalgam of this and that.  A mixture of cultures, a mixture of people from all over India. A mixture of nationalities, with us housing the single largest population of expatriates in India. A mixture of tastes, a mixture of textures even. A veritable delight to the city palate at large.

Do I love this city? I do. I owe everything to it. My education, my life, my career, my friends, my relationships and most importantly my entire being. There is a state of mind called ‘Being Bangalore’. And I think I embody all of this, as many of us in this city do. ‘Swalpa adjust maadi’. And we do a lot of it.  I have done a lot of it as well.

My earliest memories of Bangalore as a kid are that of walking in good old Lalbagh, playing around, getting hungry and then being taken by my parents to good old MTR, where I would gourmandize on rava idlis, and those small little ‘gindlas’ (katoris) of pure ghee that added a taste of its own to the idli at large.

If I think later, my favorite place was the State Central Library in Cubbon Park. That stately little red building. To me this symbolized the one space of all reading and learning. I don’t know why, but I spent thousands of man-hours here. Reading the magazines and newspapers within its confines, and reading books within its confines as well.  Those days one could not afford to buy all the magazines and newspapers one wanted to read, and so, this was my daily haunt, visited religiously every day whenever I got the time (and there was so much of it in abundance then). I would cycle there every day from my home on Victoria Road on my reliable old blue BSA cycle and get back in time to be very hungry at home. Moving around took so little time, that one had all the time to focus on the real thing.  Reading and eating in my case. Two passions that I still hold on to.

And then there is my college. St. Joseph’s Arts & Science. I remember being more out of class than in. I was into every extra-curricular activity there was to handle.  I was in so many of them that I had little time for the curricular activities altogether. My favorite memory was that of an inter-collegiate magazine a few of us started called “Scribe”. We had St. Joseph’s Arts and Science, St. Joseph’s Commerce, Christ College, and of course the more exciting Mount Carmel College and Jyoti Nivas College onto it. We had representatives from each of these colleges on the Editorial Board, and all of us poured passion into it. Passion and time. This was the earliest business and consumer-touch venture that helped all of us hone our early and latent instincts for business and writing and communicating alike.

I can go on and on. Memories are such. “Being Bangalore” has been an experience to cherish and preserve.

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harishbijoor@hotmail.com

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The Bangalore Real-estate market

5 Reasons I am positive about India and Bangalore

By Harish Bijoor

The real-estate market of any city is a sub-set of the environment in the State it belongs to. And that is a sub-set of the country and its many policies, progressive or otherwise. Add to it the fact that the world is for sure a connected place today, and therefore there is a bigger environment that governs real-estate prices and practice, and that is the environment across the world at large.

Real estate is however all about geography that is real. It is about physical spaces that are about land, buildings, gated communities and more. To that extent, it is a physicality. A physicality that is very dependent more on the local than the global. To that extent, while the stock market of a country is all about being umbilically linked to the sneezes and joys of the world at large, the physical real-estate market is that much more local than global. And thankfully so.

In the world of real-estate, the further you move away in concentric circles from the local to the global, factors that affect the price point of real-estate get that much more insulated from the factors that surround. To that extent, the point I am making is a simple one. When you look at real estate, don’t fret and fume as to what is happening in Greece. Don’t worry that Nicolas Sarkozy has been replaced by Francois Hollande. Just don’t worry that you will not see Carla-Bruni Sarkozy that much in the news anymore. Just worry more about factors that are immediate and adjunct to the area of your investment. If you are planning an investment in Bangalore, worry more about what is happening to the governance structure in the real estate market, worry about jobs in the eco-system that throws up investors in the Bangalore real-estate market, worry about laws and rules that are in force and ones that will be enforced later than sooner. But worry about nothing more than that.

5 reasons why I am excited about Bangalore and India then, in that order:

1.     The aggressively young population

Bangalore boasts of a young population. While 54% of the population of the country is below the age of 25, Bangalore boasts of 63.6% below the age of 25.  A younger city means a hungry city. A city hungry for achievement, hungry for jobs, and most certainly hungry enough to invest in land and more. This young profile of the city is un-enviable. The only other city that comes close is Pune on this count. Young cities are hungry cities and hungry cities are investment friendly cities.

The downside of a young city is the fact that pressures to perform abound that much more in younger cities. Younger cities are high-tensile cities. No wonder then that Bangalore and Pune have emerged to be the suicide capitals of India as well. Sad fact.

2.     Spends and patterns of splurge in the TOP and MOP

The second reason why cities such as Bangalore are exciting places for the real-estate market for first buys, re-sales and repeat buys, is the fact that the splurge quotient of cities such as Bangalore is very high. The city is a polemical factoid. While Bangalore boasts of  10,600  Dollar millionaires at one end, at the other end, it also hosts large populaces of those living on the fringe of a hand-to-mouth existence. The real-estate market, sadly, depends on what the Top-of-pyramid (TOP) and Middle-of-pyramid (MOP) folk have to contribute to the kitty.

When you look at the spend patterns of the TOP and MOP profile, one witnesses no gloom at all. The splurge quotient is high on products and services alike. Super-market carts are still laden full with products that do not necessarily represent the best value-buys. The number of spas in Bangalore has grown from a measly 6 in 2001 to 121 in 2012. The number of beauty parlors has grown from a mere 107 in 2001 to 1220 in 2012. I do not have a comparative number for restaurants, but if you just look around, you don’t need numbers to tell you the story.

And every one of them is raking in the ‘moolah’. The point is a simple one. Never mind the fact that Greece is in trouble. Never mind that Europe is in shambles. Never mind that the Japanese economy is slated to de-grow at 0.6% p.a, in GDP terms. Just never mind. Look around and you will sniff prosperity and spends in your local TOP and MOP markets. Sadly or happily, the real estate market depends on its future on this market.

3.     The eastern investment mindset, and the shift from metal to land

This is a quick and happy one. Indians at large are very highly investment geared and investment oriented. The old mindset of investment was gold. This has held families in good stead over the years, particularly with gold prices ruling at an all time high as of today. This investment mindset has gradually shifted in the country from gold to land and dwelling units. The first things everyone wants to do, even before buying a Life cover in an Insurance policy, is to own a house or a piece of land. This has spurred and will continue to spur demand. Real-estate investment apathy has not set in as yet. It looks far way for now.

4.     The poised Next-gen ahead

The next generation is a very highly educated generation. Parents of the current generation have spent their lives working hard to educate their children and get them the best in terms of a qualification to earn more than they have earned. This is a good sign for the economy at large. This means the children of tomorrow will earn higher multiples than their parents did, net of inflation. This means there will be more money to invest. This is a trend that is quite unlike what we see in markets of the United States, where new generations are lesser equipped at large in terms of qualification and earning potential.

5.     Bangalore as a magnet city

The city despite all the ills we bemoan, is still a magnet city. We host mixed nationalities. We remain a secular city with secular intent. We are largely peaceful. We seldom fight. We might watch porn in the assembly, we might huddle our MLAs time and again in close-by resorts, we might clamor for free IPL tickets, but essentially we are a nice people living in a nice city. The city will still remain a magnet city. And that’s a big one for real-estate investments.

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Harish Bijoor is a brand-expert and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Follow him on Twitter.com @harishbijoor

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Brand Bangalore in the Future....

Brand Bangalore: A Fantasy

By Harish Bijoor

Q: You and I live in the same city. How do you see our cities change over the years? What is your fantasy for Brand Bangalore?

-Revathi V, Bangalore or Bengaluru (still confused)

A: Dear still-confused Revathi, the city of the future is more virtual and less real. A lot of us will be spending more time in a life that is virtual, rather than real. A few of my personal fantasies on Brand Bangalore of the future:

1. We will finally have a new name. We will officially be "Bengaluru". Never mind the fact that Mayawati-ji's BSP, which will be the ruling party in the state by then (thanks to the lack of an alternative) will want to re-name the city into something else altogether by then. The re-naming debate is a forever one.

2. Future Bangalore is a different city altogether. We are going to be a Lasagne city if you look at us top-down. We are going to be a layered-roads city. Roads at different levels that help make the commute that much more bearable. Bangalore has been the first to experiment with roads made of recycled-plastic. We will have more of these. Our pot-holes (they will still be around) will be filled with this plastic no sooner than they appear. Silicon will find a more functional use in our roads than in our cosmetic surgery parlors as of today.

3. Commuting from one end of the city to another will take no longer than 32-minutes. This is going to be true at-least across those stretches connected by "Namma metro", our own city lifeline. A fair number of our city-techies will work from the Metro, thanks to its superior ambiance than the one at the noisy home. Eight up and down journeys on the train, and the code is written, tested, packed and dispatched to the Project Manager. Time to get back home.

4. Bangalore will have the first Pod-hotel. A hotel room in a pullout drawer of sort’s establishment. A see-through pod-room equipped with the best. Just one thing will be at a premium: size. Expect every Pod hotel to be fitted into a 2400 sq foot space. A 40-room hotel. The creative one's will call it the "Coffin hotel".

5. Night-life in Bangalore would have gotten a bit too noisy. In any case our Excise rules do not permit drinking and dancing in public places. You will therefore have the pure drinking places and the pure dancing places. No transgressing here. You decide. Most of our nightlife places will be "No-noise" places even. Wear a Wi-fi headphone and dance the night away. No noise anywhere, except in your ears. Anyone looking at you will think you to be the lunatic you are. Imagine strobe lights, lasers and a silent party in full swing. The cops are happy. The dancers are happy. Bangalore has found its own creative solution to the party-angst at large.

6. Bangalore will be more virtual than virtual. The largest number of tablet-PC's will be in Bangalore. The city will be the capital of the touch-enabled device.  We Bangalroeans will live more virtual lives than real. The largest number of Facebook users will be from Bangalore. We will make all our friends and enemies on FB. The largest numbers of Google+ users will be from Bangalore. A record number of circles with the most innovative names will happen from here. Lady Gaga move over. The largest number of Twitter followers will follow @harishbijoor.  Touche!

Q: The snack-food category is on the fast track. What’s next here? Is there a market overseas for the Indian snack-food?

-Rajesh Thevar, Mumbai

A: Rajesh, I do believe the snack-food category out of India can go places if it sticks to the knitting. Investing deeply into the health platform without tampering taste and the fun of the snack environment it lives in, is a must. If it is able to do this, it will thrive.

The snack-food category is a forever category. As India and its brand image grows, Indian snack-foods and foods and beverages will grow in franchise globally. A great way of understanding a country is by tasting its food and snack. While food is difficult to access and is difficult to prepare in any condition, snack-food that is packaged is easily accessible and is easy to transport and easy to find on the retail shelves overseas. In many way, every pack of a Haldiram’s ‘bhujiya’ that is opened in Norway or Sweden or in Cincinnati, is taking a piece of India out there. Food imperialism at play.

As interest in India grows, interest in Indian foods will grow as well. Food diplomacy and its time has come. Indian packaged foods have a lot to gain.

Q: Baba Ramdev has not been able to make much of a success with his political entry. Despite all his popularity, why this?

-BB Joshipura, Lucknow

A: Joshipura-ji, Baba Ramdev is respected as a Yoga Guru. As a person who has brought healing for a whole lot of people. Transcribing and super-imposing the same equity onto the realm of political activism is a long-haul task, and could be a mistake as well.

What works in one realm does not work in another. That is the sensitivity of branding that people need to understand. One cannot assume all popularity is divisible and that all popularity can be appropriated equally, once had.

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Harish Bijoor is a business strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com