Clusters and the Indian Potter
There is a new concept doing the rounds these days, about business clusters. These are concentration of inter-connected companies and institutions in a particular field, and encompass an array of linked industries impotant to business. This is a concept which is gaining popularity quickly, and a lot of countries have found that this is more advantageous.
With clusters comes an important concept known as co-opetition. This is defined as competition along with collaboration. Thus the players involved should try to seek maximum gain, but they should play fair. Many advantages come with this. A province in China which has adopted this, produces 60% of the world's socks.
Also, from the above example, identifying a core competancy is very important for the setting up of a cluster. These clusters specialize in very specialized products - glass bottles for perfumes, winter car testing facilities etc. Hence, core-competancy and co-opetition are the two major factors identified.
The issue is, How is this implemented in India? One of the things could be that we have the government educating people about the same, and provide funding along with the setting up of hard and soft infrastructure (such as schools which help in further developing the core competancies). However, the need for the private sector taking things into their hands, and bringing about a reform as regards policy building is a more viable and feasible solution. For example, take pottery. Right from making potters wheels, to making pots, to making glazed pots to even jewellery - all that can be achieved by converting a few potters village into a cluster and educating the people about the same. It would also solve the problems of employment by a large margin. With 2 million potters, and only a 4% world market share - the opportunities are endless!
With clusters comes an important concept known as co-opetition. This is defined as competition along with collaboration. Thus the players involved should try to seek maximum gain, but they should play fair. Many advantages come with this. A province in China which has adopted this, produces 60% of the world's socks.
Also, from the above example, identifying a core competancy is very important for the setting up of a cluster. These clusters specialize in very specialized products - glass bottles for perfumes, winter car testing facilities etc. Hence, core-competancy and co-opetition are the two major factors identified.
The issue is, How is this implemented in India? One of the things could be that we have the government educating people about the same, and provide funding along with the setting up of hard and soft infrastructure (such as schools which help in further developing the core competancies). However, the need for the private sector taking things into their hands, and bringing about a reform as regards policy building is a more viable and feasible solution. For example, take pottery. Right from making potters wheels, to making pots, to making glazed pots to even jewellery - all that can be achieved by converting a few potters village into a cluster and educating the people about the same. It would also solve the problems of employment by a large margin. With 2 million potters, and only a 4% world market share - the opportunities are endless!
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