Why India can't stomach convenient
cola By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - Around-the-clock
automatic teller machines may provide cash at any
time, television channels may inform and entertain 24 hours a
day, but 21st-century India still can't offer a chilled Coke
or Pepsi in the middle of the night, unless one is
willing to cough up the extra cash at a posh five-star hotel. So
much for globalization.
The familiar
red and blue back-lit vending machines dot almost every
road and public place in every city worth a mention.
But India, it seems, has yet to reach such levels
of consumer maturity. The restriction on the sale of
liquor during certain hours is understandable from a law-and-order
point of view. But for Coke and Pepsi, it's an
altogether different story.
The
two rivals, speaking with one voice for a change,
are almost unequivocal in blaming their problems on the
rigors of automation. "Look what's happening to the
Delhi metro," is an argument relating to the
average Indian's unfamiliarity with automated infrastructure. A
rush of commuters ever eager to see, fiddle and tool
around with a new state-of-the-art metro in the capital had
systems almost crashing when the new rail lines were
launched with much fanfare this year.
Automation is second nature to Americans and it is said
that automated vending machines are a symbol of
creativity, inventiveness and a way of life.
Internationally, coffee, cigarettes, candy and cold drinks are known
as the "four Cs" of vending, notching more than 80% of product
sales through machines. In India, the past decade or so
has witnessed an explosion of this mode of distribution.
While Nestle took the lead in enticing corporates and
shopkeepers alike to get rid of the unhygienic
chaiwallah (tea vendor), Coca-Cola has
jumped into the fray with its "Georgia" vending machines
for piping-hot tea and coffee. But chilled soft drinks
still remain an issue, unless thirst either obeys
market timings or falls back on stocks at home for a late-night
urge to get chilled.
The maximum that India has
graduated to is the fountain model, where soft drinks
are vended in glasses. But then, it just provides an
option to the traditional glass bottle, and is still
subject to a counter being manned. So if one is working
or traveling late at night, and can't afford a five-star
joint, one is doomed to stay thirsty, or at most
consigned to the roadside tap, if one can find one.
If the cola giants are to be believed, the
bane has partly to do with economics and technology, but
more with culture. Although current technology used
in machines worldwide is in essence foolproof,
companies are still apprehensive of the Indian faculty to
"beat the machine" - a basic urge to try to tamper with technology
and get the goodies for much less, if not altogether
free.
"Indians have a tendency
to fiddle around and experiment with
curious-looking objects. Precautions against misuse by vandals have to be
taken. However, the fact that labor is cheap, unlike
abroad, makes matters simpler," says a spokesperson of Coca-Cola
India. At the cost of depriving the consumer of a sip
during the wee hours, companies seem to have received
an answer to their woes. And given that nightlife is
still not the norm in Indian cities, the cola giants do
not lose much, as compared with such places as London, New York and Los
Angeles, where nightlife brings in sizable revenues.
However, the presence of a human operator
is not only due to security considerations.
The initial investments by the cola giants were based
on installing low-end machines compared with their Western
counterparts. This has resulted in machines being prone to break
down. Further, they are programmed to accept only
customized vending coins rather than actual currency, all of
which necessitate a human presence and make usage very
limited.
"Modern technology will have
to be incorporated to make them user-friendly and
cost-efficient. Further, there is resistance by current
vendors, who prefer the status quo," says a senior
executive of Pepsi India.
However, deeper
cultural factors at also at work that have prevented the
cola companies going all the way. According to internal
studies by Pepsi, Indian consumers tend to be very
finicky as far as eating and drinking are concerned.
This doesn't have much to do with hygiene, but rather
the fact that Indians want their steaming cups fresh and
stimulating. And what better place than a footpath or a
hotel?
Also, users are quite wary of mechanical
contraptions that fail rather than work. Indians by
nature are suspicious of being short-changed. The
experience of the age-old weighing machines at railway
platforms and cinema halls taking the coin and then
refusing the weight card brings in apprehensions of
losing that precious amount to technology. If there is
no attendant, the consumer only has the machine to kick
and abuse, but without redress. "Such thoughts
frequently cross a consumer's mind as he approaches a
vending machine. If one such machine conks off, it could
be the last time the machine does not work. Hence no
Coke without a helping hand," says an executive of
Pepsi.
India is not foreign to the concept of
vending machines, though. In addition to tea and coffee,
soft drinks, milk beverages, milk, oil, packaged tea and
even condoms are today available through the machine-vending
route in the Indian market, mostly in upmarket shopping
malls or localities, but only with a person in charge.
Contrary to public perception, aluminum cans are
not too expensive, nor is the vending machine a
supercomputer India can't afford. It is the
price-conscious and somewhat suspicious Indian consumer
who would buy only from humans because he doesn't trust
a machine. And the companies do not trust the very few
who can damage the machine.
In this battle of
building and breaking trust, Indians are losing out on
one privilege - a chilled can of Coke or Pepsi at the
drop of a coin on a hot summer's night.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi
based journalist.
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