India is one of the emerging economies of the world that developed countries would want to venture because of the availability of its cheap labor and a politically stable climate to do business with.
Wal-Mart in India has been here for two years now, doing agriculture, tapping its efficient practices to improve productivity and eventually reduce production cost.
Establishing good relation to farmers is the main objective of Wal-Mart plan. Wal-Mart needs high quality produce at low price to draw customers in volume.
The challenges are significant considering that buying and transporting produce are difficult task because India has millions of small scale farmers and an agricultural system riddled with middlemen.
In the state of Punjab where farmers are happy to supply vegetables to Wal-Mart because they say that they earned 5 to 7 % percent more than they earn from the local wholesale market.
The farmers further said, that they like working with Wal-Mart, they don’t have problem in paying transport for their produce because Wal-Mart picks it up from their fields.
However, not everyone is happy to Wal-Mart presence in India, many Indian activists and policy makers don’t want box retailing, because they fear that millions of small shopkeepers would be out of business with the practice.
The Indian government still does not allow Wal-Mart stores and other foreign companies to sell directly to consumers.
Wal-Mart is persisting its efforts in India because it is critical to its global growth strategy especially that it has been confronted with saturated markets in the US and other developed countries.
The company has to establish its presence in India where modern stores make up only 5% of the country’s retail industry.
Right now, Wal-Mart operates in India through a 50-50 joint venture with Bharti Enterprise, an Indian conglomerate.