Rakesh Wadhwa:

Indian are very price sensitive and have a difficulty, accepting the price mentally, irrespective of their socioeconomic background. So does branding and strategies revolving around creating a brand will really work on them or it's just price and value for money, which is the most important factor?

Rama Bijapurkar:

It's not price it's value. Value = benefit minus cost. There is a segment that is what I call “money for value” - I will pay more for better. There is another segment that says “I will balance benefit and I will balance cost and I will find the optimal solution”. That's where a lot of consumers lie. There are people who say that “This is the total amount of money I can afford to spend”. Cannot buy a sanitizer “N” number of times. In this small amount of money, what is the best I can buy? Even B2B worlds like that.

This is the amount of money IIM Ahmedabad can spend, let's say. Within that, what is the best solution that I can get to run really kick-ass online classes? There is a segment below that that is what we call the price point which is just like “Even if you auction me on the public square, I will be sold for no bucks”. What is the maximum benefit I can get?

So I think, you know, it is not true that they buy the cheapest possible. They do process benefits and costs. That was an example I also gave you. And as far as branding is concerned, I would say a brand is talking your walk. If you don't have a walk-in terms of benefit minus cost you versus the next person, if you don't have relevance. A brand is really a magic, it may work sometimes it may not work sometimes. But I think Indian consumers are very smart in the way they process a brand.