Page 22 - DMGT545_INTERNATIONAL_BUSINESS

Unit 1: International Business: An Overview

l Gloves notes
l Goal keeper’s gloves (Football/Soccer)
l Boxing gloves.

cricket equipment
l Worldwide distributor for Spading Cricket Bats, Balls and Protective equipment.
Hockey equipment
l Worldwide distributor for Spading Hockey Sticks, Balls and Protective equipment.
Based in Delhi, Rajan Mayor, 41, is the CMD of the group, which also comprises an IT
division working on B2B and B2c solutions; Voyageur World Travels in the tourism
sector; a houseware exports division specializing in stainless steel kitchenware, ceramics,
and textiles; and a high school. Younger brother Rajesh, 34, is the Executive Director and
looks after all the divisions operating in Jalandhar, Technical director Katz Nowaskowaski
divides his time equally between India and Australia, where he looks after the group’s
interests. “While inflatable balls are our prime competence in our core business, we are
presently focusing on golf balls, for which we are the sole producers in South Asia. Out of
a total ` 300 crore of sports goods business generated in domestic market, most of which is
supplied by the unorganized players, golf balls constitute a miniscule amount and therefore
we came up with a 100 per cent EOU for producing golf balls. Later, the same facility was
utilized with little moderation for tennis balls too,” says Nowaskowaski.
Clarifying that the sports good industry in India only includes playing equipment and not
apparels or shoes, D K Mittal, chairman of the Sports Goods Export Promotion Council
and joint secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, has certified Mayor Group as the number
one exporter since 1993 till date, barring 1996. However, SGEPC secretary Tarun Dewan
points out that being the number one exporter does not mean that Mayor is the number one
brand being exported. “Actually we have tie-ups with Dunlop, Arnold Palmer, and Fila for
manufacturing golf balls. For footballs and volleyballs we have associations with Adidas,
Mitre, Puma, Umbro, and Dunlop. We manufacture soccer World Cup and European
Cup replicas for Adidas, which is a huge market. Only 400 balls used for actual play in
the World Cup are manufactured in Europe and that too only for sentimental reasons,
otherwise we are capable of delivering products of the same, if not better quality. Now
since we manufacture balls for them, we cannot antagonize them by producing balls of
similar quality with our own brand name. Secondly, I agree that competing with such big
giants in the world market in terms of branding is a task that is well beyond our reach at
the moment. However, we are trying to brand ourselves in the domestic market and that is
one of the prime focus areas in the coming year,” says Rajan.
Coca-Cola, Unilever, McDonald’s, American Airlines, Disney club, and other such big
brands come up with huge orders at times for golf balls with their logos for promotional
schemes. However, there is no mention of the producing country since these companies
do not want to show that balls they deliver in the US are being produced in Asia, “Not
only is our quality good enough; labour in India is cheap enough to churn out a much less
expensive product in the end. Yet, the main threat to our industry comes from countries
like Taiwan and China, who have already cornered a chunk of world markets in tennis,
badminton, and squash rackets. This is primarily because of two reasons—slow responses
to our needs in tune with the market requirements from the government and lack of
infrastructure. And most importantly, tags ‘Made in China’ or ‘Made in Taiwan’ are more
acceptable in the West than ‘Made in India’ or ‘Made in Pakistan’. One of the mottos of the
Mayor group has been to make ‘Made in India’ an acceptable label in the West. For that we
stress quality, timely delivery, and competent rates. Yet, a lot depends on perception value,
which in our case is sadly on the negative side, much owing to our government’s stance
Contd...

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