Indian gravestone industry

The market share of Indian manufacturers in Germany has tended to be stable in recent years. The long-term trend in Europe is towards cremation as the younger generation is showing less preference for gravestones. 

Limitations and restrictions on space in Japan, Australia and Belgium, for example, have further increased the trend towards cremation. But market share in Poland and other East European countries for the Indian companies is growing.

A recent threat the Indian industry faced was from China. Chinese companies have been processing blocks imported from India and reselling to Europe sometimes at prices that are about 20% lower than from India. But now this trend seems to have reversed as Chinese companies are finding it difficult to compete with Indian quality and price. Non availability of blocks from India as well as constantly increasing labour and other input costs have reduced the threat from China to Indian companies.

Competitve advantage

One relevant question is why has the Indian gravestone industry been so successful? The industry is, after all, totally export oriented, and there could have been strong competitors from other countries too.

The first and foremost characteristic of the Indian industry is it works with materials found locally. This simple fact, that the granite colours extracted locally are popular in the funerary industry of Europe and elsewhere, has provided the basis of a potentially successful industry.  

The second key aspect- the blocks needed for the funerary industry tend to be smaller as compared to those used for manufacturing slabs, and the prices of smaller sized blocks, as everyone in the stone industry knows, are often much lower than the big gangsize blocks, sometimes by as much as 70% is also important. Thus what would normally be considered waste material in the quarries becomes the all important but cheap input for the factories, enhancing their competitiveness. However, even this explanation is not complete. After all, small sized blocks could also have been exported at their lower price creating a successful industry elsewhere rather than in India where obvious advantages have so often been wasted away in the past. But transport of blocks, no matter how small the size, still involve sending many tons which are wasted when processed and the advantage, therefore, lies with the local manufacturer.

The advantage of time has also favoured the manufacturers in India. The cycle of order to delivery of finished material is much less when the processing is done locally than when done in Germany, for example.   

One characteristic of the funerary industry is the component of manual skilled labour is higher as compared to the other types of processing- and skilled labour in south of India in granite is abundant. The state of Tamil Nadu and the other states of the south have a tradition of craftsmanship in granite going back to more than a thousand years. Obviously labour in India is cheaper than in Europe, though the fact that the industry falls under the Factories Act means the workers in this industry are highly unionised with “privileges” like social security payments, provident fund, compulsory holidays, etc. which is still a dream for many other workers in India.

Added to the natural advantages mentioned above, an important reason has also been that the Indian gravestone industry made the wise decision of purchasing the most modern machinery from Europe and Japan. Thus there has been the realisation of a natural competitive advantage leveraged to create a genuine world-class industry. A textbook case in competitive advantage, if ever there was one needed. No wonder that the Indian businessmen are outraged at the attempts often made by some European companies to demonstrate that they are doing dumping, because if there was ever an example of a competitive advantage being fully harnessed to create an employment and wealth generating industry, this is one.