雀巢公司首度承认忽略了印度社会内的富有人群
Nestlé, the world’s biggest food company, has admitted to making a strategic error in India by ignoring more affluent consumers and pursuing buyers of cheaper sweets and noodles.
世界最大食品公司雀巢公司(Nestlé)承认在印度犯下战略性错误，忽略了更富有的消费者而把主要目标对准了那些购买较廉价糖果和面条的顾客。“We made a mistake,” said Nandu Nandkishore, who heads Nestlé’s Asia business. “We basically focused on driving the mass market and we really ignored a little bit the emerging affluent segment.”
雀巢亚洲业务主管南都•南基绍尔(Nandu Nandkishore)表示：“我们犯了一个错误。我们基本上将精力集中于发展大众市场上，对正在兴起的富有人群确实有所忽略。”Like other consumer goods companies, the maker of KitKat chocolate bars and Maggi noodles has been increasing its focus on emerging markets, which now account for 43 per cent of its $98.2bn global sales.
和其他消费品公司类似，这家奇巧(KitKat)巧克力棒和美极(Maggi)面条的制造商一直在加大对新兴市场的关注。如今，新兴市场销售额占雀巢全球982亿美元销售额的43%。
But, like some of its peers, Nestlé is having to redraw its strategy in the face of depreciating local currencies, slower economic growth, higher input costs and rising domestic competition.
然而，和部分同行类似，面对当地不断贬值的货币、放缓的经济增长、更高的投入成本以及日益加剧的竞争，雀巢不得不改变其经营战略。These factors have proved especially punishing for makers of cheaper, mass-market goods – as L'Oréal has already discovered. Last week, the French cosmetics group halted sales of its mass-market Garnier brand in China.
正如欧莱雅(L'Oréal)已然发现的，事实证明上述因素对于廉价大众商品制造商的负面影响尤为严重。上周，这家法国化妆品集团停止了其大众市场品牌卡尼尔(Garnier)在中国的销售。Nestlé’s sales in India had been growing at about 20 per cent a year in the three years to 2011, but this growth decelerated sharply – to 8 per cent – in the third quarter of last year.
在截至2011年的3年里，雀巢在印度的销售额保持着约20%的年增长率，但在去年第三季度，这一增速急剧下滑至8%。In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Nandkishore said that at the peak of its sales growth in India, Nestlé focused primarily on making its more mass-market products available to large numbers of new, cost-sensitive consumers, largely in the countryside – even though demand for premium products at the upper end of the market was also exploding. “We have realised this already,” he said. “We’ve been working to plug that gap.”
在接受英国《金融时报》采访时南基绍尔表示，在印度销售额增长最快的时候，雀巢主要关注的是，如何向大量对价格敏感的新顾客（多在农村地区）提供旗下那些更大众化的产品——尽管高端市场对高档产品的需求也在迅猛增长。他说：“我们已经意识到了这一点。近来我们一直在努力填补这一漏洞。”The Swiss manufacturer is now switching tack in India to cater to more affluent Indians, whose household budgets are more immune to the country’s rising inflation and faltering economy.
这家瑞士制造商正在调整在印度的经营战略，以迎合印度更富有的人群。面对通胀的不断加剧和经济增长势头的减弱，这部分人群的家庭支出预算受到的影响比较小。
