Through a case study on the Tata Iron and Steel Company, this article aims to clarify how a large-scale Indian industrial enterprise developed its business strategy in order to expand suitable sales networks in the 1920s, when the consumption pattern of steel changed drastically. In correspondence with the change, the company devised a business strategy to develop its sales network to minimise information asymmetries between the company, the end user and the intermediary merchant. The development of the sales network enabled the company to cultivate an emerging demand in domestic outlets, thereby helping the company survive after the 1920s. Besides, these successes could have prompted the House of Tata, the family owning the steel company, to initiate development in the domestic market to further its interest after the 1920s. Presumably, this resulted in the sharing of its views with some of the local merchants and entrepreneurs who had opposed the laissez-faire policy of the colonial government to preserve domestic outlets in their hands.

http://ier.sagepub.com/content/48/1/83.abstract