Until five years ago it was a common perception that India’s future is in services and that we are not good enough to develop and launch significant products. Not anymore. Nasscom’s annual product conclaves are becoming unmanageable as the number of product startups participating is growing by at least 25 percent a year. Of late, other startup meets are held in large convention centers to cater to the rush unlike earlier when they were in small hotel conference rooms.

It’s not difficult to know the reasons for the surge in excitement to develop products in India. As always, a few success stories boost the confidence and when the architects of these become ambassadors of the fledgling product movement, it is bound to catch on. Tally, Makemytrip, Naukri, Tata Nano, Redbus, FlipKart are just a few that have become household names. With several hundred Indians producing products for global companies such as Yahoo!, GE, and Google in India, the confidence among young Indians is contagious.

Young Indians today are less fearful of failure, have greater self confidence largely from travel and interaction with global product companies. The middle class obsession with jobs is slowly giving in to entrepreneurial urge.

The beginning so far is good but there’s still a long way to go. The product ecosystem is still very weak. There aren’t enough incubators and venture or angel funding. The process of turning a product idea into a business is still cumbersome wherever government approvals are involved. Remember, India is still one of the worst places to do business as per global surveys.

Then what’s the purpose of ProductThinking? Just like movements in System Thinking and Design Thinking, which too are in a nascent stage in India, there’s a need for fostering Product Thinking in colleges, universities, shop floor, board rooms, water cooler spots and on the streets so that India transforms into a product country even as it excels in service solutions.

Dynamic journals/newsletters/magazines with updates, insights, case studies and interviews from the product community to the outside world are a necessity. A vibrant media is the oxygen for any transformation. Today, co-creation of content with the readers is a sure way to keep the content fresh and relevant. Please send in your ideas, case studies, blogs and articles.

For a short period, ProductThinking will be part of ManagementNext until it gains enough muscle to fly on its own. Will let you know when that happens.

Do send in your feedback, comments and suggestions to make ProductThinking a useful initiative.

ProductThinking is a joint initiative of ManagementNext and Adaptive Marketing run by Pinkesh Shah. The Institute of Product Leadership, Bangalore is a partner.

Benedict Paramanand
benedict@managementnext.com