I coined the phrase about India having ‘democratised’ the ownership of diamonds back in the ‘70s when a unique combination of affordable Indian manufactured polished converged with the emergence of US mall-based mass merchandisers (Zale in the forefront!) leading to an extraordinary expansion in diamond ownership in the US and creating ‘promotional’ and ‘fashion’ diamond product categories which had not existed before.
An interesting article about India in Monday’s Financial Times entitled ‘A Nation Develops’ talked about the abundance of talent in India fuelling the shift from the global centre of outsourcing to one of innovation and described the Indian talent for ‘frugal engineering’ being closely linked to the innate Indian cultural mindset of cost consciousness.
The Tata group have now introduced the world’s cheapest car the ‘Nano’ an impressive product based on the concept of frugal engineering and sound conceptual marketing.
India, which has long been the production power house of the world’s diamond industry, can also claim now to be its creative crucible and its frugal approach to manufacturing, combined with solid entrepreneurial skills will in my view ensure its predominant manufacturing role in our industry.
I have never had any patience with the view that describes manufacturing as ‘a given’. Effective distribution to manufacturers remains the key to sustainable rough diamond pricing and conferences with titles such as ‘Mines to Marketing’ seem to conveniently miss the middle and most important M, Manufacturing as if diamonds somehow polish themselves.
An interesting article about India in Monday’s Financial Times entitled ‘A Nation Develops’ talked about the abundance of talent in India fuelling the shift from the global centre of outsourcing to one of innovation and described the Indian talent for ‘frugal engineering’ being closely linked to the innate Indian cultural mindset of cost consciousness.
The Tata group have now introduced the world’s cheapest car the ‘Nano’ an impressive product based on the concept of frugal engineering and sound conceptual marketing.
India, which has long been the production power house of the world’s diamond industry, can also claim now to be its creative crucible and its frugal approach to manufacturing, combined with solid entrepreneurial skills will in my view ensure its predominant manufacturing role in our industry.
I have never had any patience with the view that describes manufacturing as ‘a given’. Effective distribution to manufacturers remains the key to sustainable rough diamond pricing and conferences with titles such as ‘Mines to Marketing’ seem to conveniently miss the middle and most important M, Manufacturing as if diamonds somehow polish themselves.
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