I often wonder why we need to posses things in life? Is it because we like owning things to have full control and use them at your comfort or just to show off? Some might also want them to pass their inherited “property” to their future generations. I must combination of most of the mentioned above. But many a times, possession of these lead to tensions and huge liabilities. It is like sacrificing good things at present to ensure or at least hope to enjoy bigger things in life. Fallouts of such liabilities might even tear you apart.
The current downturn has raised several questions on this conventional thought process. People have started shortening their long term plans. People have started talking about leasing goods for their comfort rather than owing them. Say, a flat purchased for a loan of 50 lakhs with EMI’s running up to 25 years where future has so much unpredictability has made this idea a futile one. Why not lease out a flat? People might want to move on after 3 or 5 years. Why own a car for the entire life when you know that you only want it for good 3 years? Jewellery, another big ticket purchase can easily be possessed for a given amount of time. The idea of leasing out a big ticket item can be easily extended to designer cloths, furnishments and every costly product.
But the big question is then, Who owns it finally, manufacturer or the dealer? Isn’t this idea tried out earlier? Well, don’t know much, but for sure not very popular at least in India. Who gains? In my opinion, Customers to a great extent. His risk is shared for nothing. Is it implementable? Yes, it needs good bit of planning and involvement of large number of product manufacturers and dealers. If everything is on lease, then what sells? All services and low cost products. How does it help customers? Products can reach customers who really wants them in a hassle free manner. What could be a typical lease period? 3, 5, or 9 years, very much subjective to the product and the deal. How can product quality be measured and maintained? Yes, it needs every product to be tied up with several quality tags.
Let me hear this from you. Don’t you think that subscribing to AT&T for a 2 year service package makes more sense than subscribing to Airtel. What do you think about it?
1 comments:
Leasing out is already present in india in unorganised way.
House to Business suites , jewellery to cars are available on lease - terms highly dependent between the lessor and lessee. If there is an organised player entering in a big way I think there is a large scope for improvement.
However challenge is to identifying defaulting customers. Unique Id for people and Office/residential Address is a Big challenge - absence of which lead to higher risk and higher risk premium perhaps making the service prohibitively expensive..
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