Last night's new BBC Two series, Welcome to India, was required viewing at Francis Towers. Memories of the sights and sounds (and smells) of Mumbai are still fresh after my visit to PrintWeek India's recent Conclave and Awards. And I also came back with a printed model of the Taj Mahal (I kid you not) as a permanent reminder of the trip. The programme was eye-popping and mind-boggling, just like the country itself. It threw up some fascinating stats: one in six of the global population live in India, and 11% of the world's gold adorns the hands, wrists and necks of Indian housewives. If you didn't watch it, I urge you to catch up on iPlayer ASAP and make sure you watch the rest of the series. At PrintWeek India's conference one of the speakers was Ravi Kiran, co-founder of a business called Friends of Ambition. What he had to say was fascinating, because his focus is on the enormous growth potential in India's second and third-tier towns and cities – so-called 'Middle India'. Indeed PrintWeek India's own circulation extends to printers in 350 different cities across the country, and analysis of their own circulation data led my colleagues to Kiran's work. Of 5,300 Indian towns described as mid-sized, Kiran's company has drilled down and chosen to focus on just 62. And in those 62 towns there are 51,000 companies with turnover of £1m or more, and with the potential to grow. He cited the example of an Indian computer graduate who worked in Silicon Valley for a while, then came back to India to set up his own data analytics business. He set it up in a second tier city where suitable property and a pool of workers were readily available and affordable, unlike, say, the sky-high office costs in Mumbai. This company now employs 600 staff. "Growth has a possibility to cascade, it's an infection we want to catch," says Kiran. Why should we on the small island be interested? Two reasons: know the capabilities of your current and likely future competitors, or indeed business partners.