INTRODUCTION TO CASE

THE CASE IS ALL ABOUT HOW AMUL HAS FACED COMPETITION FROM THE TIME IT HAS COME INTO EXISTENCE AND HOW IT HAS TACKLED IT EFFICIENTLY AND EFECTIVELY

About the Company

Formed in 1946,is a dairy cooperative movement in India with 250 liters of milk per day with the name KAIRA DISTRICT CO-OPERATIVE MILK PRODUCERS UNION. A brand name AMUL is managed by GUJRAT CO-OPERATIVE MILK MARKETING FEDERATION LTF.(GCMMF). The brand name AMUL means AMULYA(Suggested by a quality control expert in Anand).Amulya in sanskrit means PRICELESS. DR.Verghese Kurien,former chairman of GCMMF-the man behind success of AMUL. Today AMUL is no.1 dairy in Asia and no.2 in the world.

Start of journey
When Amul was intorduced by GCMMF ,there was lots of competition in this sector.

Brand positioning was not there and it also lacked loyal customer base.

Even though quality wise it was best,it didnt get large customer base because large segment of consumers were illiterate.

It faced intense competition from approx 20 brands.

In march 1993,brands market share was 27.9%.

Brand Positioning
To have a BRAND DISTINCTIONcompany used four colour film design. The design was made easy with view that customer can recognize the product easily. It used different morning symbol like bird,sun and buffalo.

CONSEQUENCES
Rival brand took advantage and they soon came up with packet which look alike AMUL. Uneducated customers used to ask for packet of BHAINSWALA or HARAWALA. Retailers used to give them other brand milk as they were getting higher margin. Consumers were not at all aware of this fact. This also hamper image of Amul as they were consuming other product of low quality . Amul was back to square one.

Moving forward
Amul knew that other product were inferior in quality as well as quantity. It stated segmenting the market and came up with four types of milk: (Double toned,toned,standardized and whole) So in process it not only segmented the market but also created fresh ones.

Growing Swiftly
In 1994 company took several initiative for growth : Remove restriction on crate deposite. Giving incentives to field staff and appointing new retailers. As a result witin 8months retailers strength doubled to 1200. Company planned to increase number to 2000 . Company used market penetration strategy and reached outskirts too. To save on overhead cost company instead of selling directly, appointed distributors. Between february 1993 and 1995 number of distributor grown from 5 to 20. Among these were distibutors who had earlier served Amul rivals. Now next aim was to have 30 distibutors with 10-150000 lpd .

Launch of Product Range

In august 1994 Amul started coming with different products: Introduced first premium branded product AMUL GOLD full cream milk(rs11/ltr).

This overtook 20 year old market leader SHRESTH within 3 months.

Full cream milk was favoured by parents because of high fat and snf. Next was DOUBLE TONED at much lower price. Double toned was low in fat and snf and was preferred by diabetic and bp patients. It also made people move away from loose milk to pouches of milk.

Amul standardised milk (since 1986)was branded as Amul shakti.

GCMMF also launched small 200ml pouch which became popular in labour class. The 200 ml pouch was of rs1.70 which alone was sold more than 11000lpd.

Brand wins
Amul had made an intelligent strategy for its competitors: It had more of fat and SNF than required,hence forced its competitors to do same. It started printing the date and code number on pouches. Set up 8 to 8 counters at 20 major outlet selling at same price through out the day.

Used advertising for first time in this category in 1990,used Doordarshan at less slot rate.
Used press,radio,hoarding and cable tv for promotion. Today market share of AMUL is at commanding 52% with 2.5 lakh lpd in Ahemadabad.

THANK YOU
RAJ RANJAN DINESH KUMAR NIGAM T.EDEN