Ikea wins Indian agency approval for stores

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skumar9988

Adept
Great news, atleast for me :)

BBC News - Ikea wins Indian agency approval for stores

India's foreign investment agency has approved Ikea's entry into the Indian market, bringing the Swedish firm closer to being the first major foreign retailer with wholly owned outlets.

Ikea plans to open 25 stores, investing about $2bn (£1.3bn) over the next 15 to 20 years.
The proposal now needs approval from the federal cabinet.
It comes with Indian policymakers trying to boost foreign investment to spur the slowing economy.
"The government is committed to play a constructive role in encouraging FDI (foreign direct investment) specially in areas which create jobs and provide technological advancement," a statement from the trade minister said.
Last year India changed its policies to allow some foreign retailers to own 100% of their Indian subsidiaries.
It also allowed foreign multi-brand retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour, to own as much as 51% of outlets.
This was Ikea's second attempt to get approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board.
In November, the board cleared the proposal but restricted Ikea to selling furniture and not products it does not brand, including food and beverages, textiles, books and office supplies.
Ikea objected to those requirements and resubmitted the proposal. Monday's decision allows Ikea to bring the same model it uses elsewhere to India.
"We consider this as a very positive development," Juvencio Maeztu, IKEA country manager, said in a statement.
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Lets see how much time it takes for them to open their first store. I am sure looking forward to it as i have previously visited IKEA and find them good.
 
asingh said:
Yea, the stores are good. True. Let us see how much bottleneck and bureaucracy they shall face.
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I'm sure they have studied India's model by now and know which hands to grease and when. They wouldn't commit to a billion dollar investment without knowing about the shitload of red tape and bureaucracy they will have to wade through to make it to the finish line.
 
Sei said:
I'm sure they have studied India's model by now and know which hands to grease and when. They wouldn't commit to a billion dollar investment without knowing about the shitload of red tape and bureaucracy they will have to wade through to make it to the finish line.
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I really doubt any model can properly tell the red-tape and hand greasing one has to do. It is dynamic. Of course they will be "aware" of it. But Indian bureaucracy is like predicting when it will rain, or when the goat in Afghanistan will fart. ha ha. They can do anything, anytime, anywhere.
 
asingh said:
I really doubt any model can properly tell the red-tape and hand greasing one has to do. It is dynamic. Of course they will be "aware" of it. But Indian bureaucracy is like predicting when it will rain, or when the goat in Afghanistan will fart. ha ha. They can do anything, anytime, anywhere.
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I believe it is much more simple. Generally they will hire a guy here with rich experience in the respective field who knows how to dodge the bullets (and get work done) and they pay him bucketloads of money. Since most of them have billions of dollars in reserves, they are at ease about the whole proposition as they come with a long-term view. And our greedy politicians are more than happy to oblige since they will be lining their pockets with money and at the same time they can brag about bringing prosperity to the state. And I am not even going to go into the whole real-estate shindig the politicians have along with the builders.

IMHO, it is very easy if you know you can get your way with money rather than the other way around.
 
^^

What the above said.

I personally know someone, my age :mad:, gets paid handsomely doing exactly what it says, I mean EXACTLY. Yea IIM-A grad he is. Working for another "ever-rolling-elected-guy" though. :p :p :p.
 
Sei said:
I believe it is much more simple. Generally they will hire a guy here with rich experience in the respective field who knows how to dodge the bullets (and get work done) and they pay him bucketloads of money. Since most of them have billions of dollars in reserves, they are at ease about the whole proposition as they come with a long-term view. And our greedy politicians are more than happy to oblige since they will be lining their pockets with money and at the same time they can brag about bringing prosperity to the state. And I am not even going to go into the whole real-estate shindig the politicians have along with the builders.

IMHO, it is very easy if you know you can get your way with money rather than the other way around.
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Tell that to Telenor whose license was arbitrarily cancelled and they decided to write off the huge investment that they had made.
 
Sei said:
I believe it is much more simple. Generally they will hire a guy here with rich experience in the respective field who knows how to dodge the bullets (and get work done) and they pay him bucketloads of money. Since most of them have billions of dollars in reserves, they are at ease about the whole proposition as they come with a long-term view. And our greedy politicians are more than happy to oblige since they will be lining their pockets with money and at the same time they can brag about bringing prosperity to the state. And I am not even going to go into the whole real-estate shindig the politicians have along with the builders.

IMHO, it is very easy if you know you can get your way with money rather than the other way around.
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Yups..but things can go wrong very very fast when deals like this are done. I actually feel sorry for Ikea coming in. :)
 
manu1991 said:
Tell that to Telenor whose license was arbitrarily cancelled and they decided to write off the huge investment that they had made.
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One exception doesn't change the general rule. I am not familiar with what exactly happened in Telenor's case. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theory (theorist?), it would be naive to believe that rich, powerful men and politicians are not involved in a country like India where nothing escapes the hawk-like eyes of the politicians - they have slowly and steadily dug their claws firmly into every business possible; schools, colleges, factories, malls, real estate, to name a few. And all this is aside from the scams.
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raksrules said:
Sorry for Ikea...why ? :unsure:
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He probably is trying to imply that Ikea will run into many hassles here and it may not be in their best interests to be here.. @asingh, please correct me if I'm wrong as I'm just assuming :)
 
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Definitely good news. I hope the outlets come up real soon. :p

Been to a few Ikea outlets in the UAE - fantastic stuff. Most of them are DIY and the best part - cheap and affordable. There was this computer desk I saw which retailed for 300 Dh back then (2005) - it could be assembled in at least a dozen combinations. The components were very sturdy with decent build quality.

This will give the local furn. outlets a very serious competition - talking of @home, Housefull, Style Spa and the likes.
 
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Gannu said:
Definitely good news. I hope the outlets come up real soon. :p

Been to a few Ikea outlets in the UAE - fantastic stuff. Most of them are DIY and the best part - cheap and affordable. There was this computer desk I saw which retailed for 300 Dh back then (2005) - it could be assembled in at least a dozen combinations. The components were very sturdy with decent build quality.

This will give the local furn. outlets a very serious competition - talking of home, Housefull, Style Spa and the likes.
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My wife used to go bonkers in IKEA looking at all those furniture and even the small kitchen and home accessories. Since we were coming back we couldn't buy a lot of things, else she had all plans to put stuff from IKEA in the house. The only things we bought was garlic press and microwave containers.
One thing we particularly liked was the IKEA Napkin holder.
 
you guys are crazy to think after all this palm greasing and huge initial investment in store space in overpriced malls, the prices will be similar to other countries. Prices for their goods would most probably be amongst the costliest in India.
 
I can't wait for Amazon to start their services in India. Indian e-retailers are fleecing the customers now that they've gained customers' confidence.
 
6pack said:
you guys are crazy to think after all this palm greasing and huge initial investment in store space in overpriced malls, the prices will be similar to other countries. Prices for their goods would most probably be amongst the costliest in India.
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Kinda agree. Pretty much any 'phoren' brand coming to India tries to position themselves in the elite segment.
 
6pack said:
you guys are crazy to think after all this palm greasing and huge initial investment in store space in overpriced malls, the prices will be similar to other countries. Prices for their goods would most probably be amongst the costliest in India.
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Costliest?. I dont think so, I feel they will have atleast mid range products too.
 
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