Yale China-India Consumer Insights Conference

The China India Consumer Insights Program (CICI Program), an initiative of the Yale Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management, recognize the unique challenges and opportunities that China and India present. The program�s mission is to nurture and support multi-disciplinary research on the changing consumption and investment behavior in these countries within the broader context of their rapidly changing societies. The program has organized a two day conference on China- India Consumer Insights.

The welcome and overview for the conference is being given by Sharon Oster, Dean and Frederick D Wolfe Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship; K Sudhir, Professor of Marketing and Director of the China India Consumer Insights Program, and Ravi Dhar, George Rogers Clark Professor of Management and Marketing and Director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights. Following this is the keynote address by Adil Zainulbhai, Managing Director, McKinsey & Company, India.

Panel discussants for the first session on Demand Evolution- Part 1, has Rama Bijapurkar, Infosys Technology, presenting on the Indian Consumer- A Big Opportunity but Even a Bigger Challenge; Erik Roth, McKinsey & Company, addressing the issue of, �Wealthier, More confident Chinese Consumers Getting Harder to Please� and Stephen Hoch, Wharton School of Business speaking about the evolution of India in retail shopping. The session will be chaired by Suman Berry, NCAER, India.

The second session on Consumer Finance has Zhiwu Chen, Yale University and Junlin Du, Indiana University speaking on Financial Development as Foundation for Individual Freedom, Rajesh Shukla and Preeti Kakar from NCAER on Economic Well-Being of Indian Consumers; John Papp, Princeton University, Erica Field, Harvard University and Rohini Pande, Harvard University analyzing the evidence from India on repayment schedules and default microfinance. The session is being chaired by Subrata Sen of Yale University.

Martin Ma, Boston Consulting Group speaks on �Digital Consumers�; David Atkin of Princeton University examines �Trade, Tastes and Nutrition in India�, K. Sudhir, Boudhayan Sen of Yale University and Rajesh Shukla and Preeti Kakar of NCAER, India, jointly investigating the �Demand Dynamics for Durable Goods in India� in the session on Demand Evolution- II. Mushfiq Mobarak of Yale University will chair the session. The last session of day one has Jinhong Xie, University of Florida, chairing the panel on Socio-Cultural Issues. Deborah Davis of Yale University will speak on Social Capital and Social Networks in Urban China. Lisa Bolton, Pennsylvania State University, Hean Tat Keh, Peking University and Joseph W. Alba of University of Florida jointly investigating price fairness perception differences across cultures. The last speaker of the panel Julien Cayla, Australia School of Business, will present on �Inventing the Nation: Marketing and the Politics of Nation-Making�. The day ends with concluding remarks from Russ Winer of MSI, one of the sponsors for the conference, followed by a keynote address from Deepak Advani of IBM.

The second day is kicked off with a panel discussion on Retailing Revolution in China and India. Moderated by Stephen Hoch, University of Pennsylvania, the panelists include, Rama Bijapurkar, Infosys Technology; Gao Wang, China Europe International Business School; Rajiv Lal, Harvard Buisness School and Victor Yuan of Horizon Research Consultancy Group.

Marketing and Consumption is the fifth session and is chaired by Vithala R. Rao, Cornell University. Victor Yuan, Horizon Research Consultancy Group presents on �Media Influence on Consumption in China and India�; Laurens Debo, University of Chicago and Sunder Kekre, Jian Ni Baohong Sun of Carnegie Mellon University, jointly looks at �Chanel Motivation in Emerging Markets: An Empirical Analysis� . �The Art of Price War and the Logic of �China Price� is examined by John Zhang, university of Pennsylvania and Dongsheng Zhou of China Europe International Business School. The final speakers of the day are Peter Golder and Tingting Fan of New York University and Kevin L. Keller jointly presenting, �Evolving Brand Preferences of Young Chinese Consumers�.

The Yale Center for Customer Insights has organized conferences since 2006. Some of their past conferences have focused on Marketing Innovations in Products and Communications (2006); Innovating and Marketing in an Accelerated Marketplace (2007) and Green Consumer Values (2008) to name a few. The Center’s goal is to promote new insights based on partnerships that involve academic researchers from multi-disciplines and decision makers in the public and private sectors. Technological advances, theoretical developments, and new methodologies provide an opportunity for greater understanding of the role customers play in the performance of products, services, firms, and institutions.

The Yale Center for Customer Insights facilitates the interaction between marketing executives and academic scholars throughout Yale University who share an underlying interest in understanding customer behavior and marketplace dynamics. Through collaboration with senior marketing teams and scholars from a variety of disciplines, the center brings current knowledge from across different disciplines into insights for marketing innovation. By bringing the analysis of customers to the forefront, the Center facilitates the achievement of innovative solutions for new products and services, as well as redesigning marketing processes to be more effective and efficient.

The China- India Consumer Insights Conference has been made possible by generous support from the South Asian Studies Council, the Council on East Asian Studies, the Yale India Initiative and the Yale China Initiative.