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ACC Report Final
ACC Report Final
5 Ps.
PARAG PARMAR
13202027
MBA Batch ( 2013 - 15 )
13202027@ksom.ac.in
Mr. Rajesh Sinha
School Of Management
ACC Ltd
KIIT UNIVERSITY
( 07 / 07 / 2014 )
DECLARATION
I, Parag Parmar, hereby declare that this project report entitled The comparative study of cement
brands in Asansol, with respect to company's 5 Ps Marketing mix. is an original piece of work
and is the result of my work on behalf of ACC Ltd.
This summer internship report has the requisite standard for the partial fulfillment of the MBA
program at School of Management, KIIT University. To best of my knowledge and belief no part
of this report has been reproduced from any other report and the contents are based on original
research. This project has not been submitted to any other university/institute for the award of any
degree/diploma.
DATE: 05.07.2014
PLACE: ASANSOL
SIGNATURE:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I express my appreciation and thanks to all those with whom I had the opportunity to work and
whose thoughts and insights have helped me in furthering my knowledge and understanding of the
subject.
My sincere gratitude goes to my corporate guide Mr. Rajesh Sinha, Head Sales Unit - Asansol,
West Bengal for his valuable and continuous support and without his valued guidance and
encouragement the completion of this project would have not been possible.
I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Panna Lal Saha, Head of Sales for Asansol Area Office
for his valuable guidance, support, suggestions and inspiration which helped me to do the project.
I would also like to thank all the Sales and Customer Service Officers of the company, who in
spite of their busy schedule have co-operated with me continuously and indeed their valuable
contribution and guidance have been certainly indispensable for my project work.
I express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Ashok Sar, Dean, School of Management, KIIT University,
Bhubaneswar, for providing me such an wonderful opportunity to explore the corporate
environment.
I would also like to express my profound sense of gratitude to, Prof. Ashutosh Kar, my faculty
guide and mentor of KIIT School of Management for guiding me throughout the project.
PARAG PARMAR
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sl. no.
Particulars
Page no.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
6-10
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
11
12
ACTION PLAN
13
14-27
SWOT ANALYSIS
28
RECOMMENDATIONS
29-30
LIMITATIONS
31
10
REFERENCES
32
11
CONCLUSION
33
12
ANNEXURE
34
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The report is the compilation of work done at ACC Ltd. as an Intern Trainee
wherein I undertook the project The comparative study of cement brands in
Asansol, with respect to company's 5 Ps Marketing mix.. The need for this project
is the requirement of more intelligence input for the Sales unit in order to keep the
growth in sales high and bring about cost reduction as well to increase profits and
contribution by getting better competitor insights.
The study based project was completed using primary data. It involved surveying
various cement dealers across the Asansol market about the 7 top brands in the
market right now. The focus of the study was to compare the marketing efforts of
the companies based on the Marketing Mix of ACC Ltd which consists of 5 Ps,
Product Quality, Promotions, Packaging, Price and Placement & Availability. These
were the factors used as benchmarks to prepare the questionnaire and go ahead with
a qualitative survey. The dealer perception was mapped, trying to keep myself as
independent a surveyor, as possible.
INTRODUCTION
About the company:
ACC (ACC Limited) is India's foremost manufacturer of cement and concrete.
ACC's operations are spread throughout the country with 17 modern cement
factories, more than 40 Ready mix concrete plants, 21 sales offices, and several
zonal offices. It has a workforce of about 9,000 persons and a countrywide
distribution network of over 9,000 dealers.
Since inception in 1936, the company has been a trendsetter and important
benchmark for the cement industry in many areas of cement and concrete
technology. ACC has a unique track record of innovative research, product
development and specialized consultancy services. The company's various
manufacturing units are backed by a central technology support services Centre the only one of its kind in the country.
ACC is now a holding company of Holcim Cements Ltd since its 2004 takeover and
in 2006 its name was changed to ACC Ltd, as it is known today. The company is
one of the market leaders across India, but isn't doing that well in the Asansol, West
Bengal region. It faces stiff competition from cheaper cement brands and local
players alike which have tipped the premium brands to become market leaders in
this eastern industrial belt of small towns.
ACC Ltd has 7 sales units under its Kolkata regional office. Of these 7, Asansol is
one SU catering to Major parts of West Bengal and entire North East under its 2
Area Offices - Asansol and Siliguri. Having a blended mix and variety of Slag and
Fly Ash cement, ACC is one of those companies with high potential and high brand
equity. Whole team at Asansol was changed by Last quarter of 2012 and a new team
ACC Ltd / KIIT School of Management Page 6
was brought in to bring growth. It is one of the highest growing sales units under
east RO.
ACC has made significant contributions to the nation building process by way of
quality products, services and sharing expertise. Its commitment to sustainable
development, its high ethical standards in business dealings and its on-going efforts
in community welfare programmes have won it acclaim as a responsible corporate
citizen. ACCs brand name is synonymous with cement and enjoys a high level of
equity in the Indian market. It is the only cement company that figures in the list of
Consumer SuperBrands of India.
MARKETING EFFORTS
ACC Ltd / KIIT School of Management Page 8
The company is currently pushing up its marketing efforts to regain market share in
this region which is critical for the growth of ACC. The marketing efforts of the
company range from installing kiosks, hoardings, wall paintings to bringing about
TV Ads in national as well as local channels.
The company also does a lot of BTL marketing in terms of giving gifts and POP
display items to dealers and masons, conducting meets for masons, dealers and
contractors in regular intervals. Also various schemes have been launched by the
company to cover various retailers and offer them higher margins over sales through
cash and non cash benefits.
ACC Upahar for dealers: This scheme runs from 1st March to 30th November
based on the average sales of a dealer. Average per month sales scheme, where high
value gifts are given in exchange for the points earned via average sales over the
months at the end of November and calculated from the SAP system, itself.
ACC Lakshya: It is a target scheme where dealers are set targets for sales and on
achieving the sales and the growth in sales, they get extra cash credit @ Rs 1-3 per
bag sold.
EMLP electronic mason loyalty program: This is a scheme for the masons.
Masons are the chief influencers for any buyer and when they influence a buyer to
purchase a minimum of 20 bags of cement at least, then they get a scratch coupon,
the points of which are enrolled electronically into the pre-made accounts of the
masons. Later these points can be reimbursed for lucrative gifts which even include
a motorbike.
SAP is used as an ERP tool to manage the whole integrated operations of the
business and bring out these various schemes effectively to the dealers and masons.
CHANNEL OF SALES
1. Channel of distribution: Trade
Company
C&F
Agent
Wholesal
er
Retailer
Customer
OR
Company
C&F
Agent
Wholesal
er
Custome
r
Company
C&F
Agent
Custom
er
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
1. To analyze the marketing mix ( 5 Ps ) of the companies in the market of Asansol.
2. To generate a comparative analysis of the various cement brands present in the
market focusing on these 5 Ps.
3. Find out the best practices being done by these companies which gives them an
edge over ACC in the market.
4. Find out the flaws in the marketing mix of ACC through experience sharing with
dealers and retailers.
5. Get in depth idea of frequency of activities being done by other companies.
6. Suggest some innovative recommendation to provide better POP display material
to dealers and improve marketing activity in the Sales region of Asansol to enhance
the sales of the Sales Unit.
SCOPE OF PROJECT
Research Design :
The research undertaken was Qualitative and Analytical in nature. I had to visit the
various retailers and gain their opinion and subjective assessment of various cement
brands and their marketing mix. The comparative study required generating
underlying information through analyses of data received. These observations have
been plotted into various representative graphs and charts which correlate to each
other to various extents and bring out reasons for underlying performance
parameters of the marketing mix.
ACTION PLAN
Duration Of The Project : 07.05.2014 -30.06.2014 (8 weeks )
1) 07.05.2014 - 17.05.2014:
Visiting the outlets with the help of the respective Area Sales Officers or customer service officer
as per their daily route plan.
Interviewing various retailers apart from the ones which were visited with the ASOs.
ACC Ltd / KIIT School of Management Page 13
Organizing a customer awareness camp for a new dealer, interacting with customers and getting to
know their perspective also.
3) 08.06.2014 - 24.06.2014
Going for independent surveys and interviewing new outlets not covered earlier with the ASOs.
Finding out requirement of dealers for potential POP display items through unstructured
questionnaire.
4) 25.06.2014 - 30.06.2014
Retailer Count
28
30
25
20
15
25
21
20
13
10
5
0
18
11
No. Of Outlets
15
14
15
Highest Demanded
Brand No. Of Outlets
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
12
7
Many dealers said they felt that Konark did not even need any promotion to drive
sales. Highest gap was found in promotion of Jaypee which might have something
to do with the selling off of the nearby plant and sales falling after that.
Different practices are also being done by Ambuja and Konark in terms of giving
mediclaim to dealer and their families, renovation of dealer's shops and offices, high
quality gifts, lavish meeting parties being organized in gaps of 4-5 months etc.
These efforts can be directly seen affecting sales as further in figure 11 we can see
that sales of Ambuja and Konark are the maximum as compared to others.
50
45
40
35
2
19
17
28
44
27
20
30
25
20
15
10
26
44
Knowledge about
Promotion No response
38
29
18
Knowledge about
Promotion Responses
count
5
0
lacking in tour schemes and the feedback also came that realization of these scheme
is not done on time and is delayed for months.
Overall the schemes show that sales is driven by such dealer oriented schemes the
most and mason schemes are there but not as effective as dealer schemes, that is
why the market leaders are not applying as much of them as dealer schemes.
70
60
37
50
40
30
10
10
4
18
10
20
10
23
2
11
3
22
15
2
UltraTech
1
6
Ambuja
10
Lafarge
Konark
Birla
None
10
32
30
25
20
15
10
5
8
1
15
9
4
20
15
19
13
10
5
21
9
9
12
15
8
Satisfaction with
Margin Not Satisfied
Satisfaction with
Margin Satisfied
Table 1.
of
for
Brand
ACC
UltraTe
ch
Ambuj
a
Lafarg
e
Konark
Birla
Jaypee
Packaging Quality
Aesthet Safe Durabil Reliabil Over Ra
ics
ty
ity
ity
all
nk
3.76 3.78
3.94
4
3.94
2
3.21
3.43
3.39
3.41
3.48
3.89
4.15
3.97
4.2
4.15
3.82
2.93
3.41
3.62
3.7
2.95
3.52
3.74
3.9
3.37
3.44
3.76
3.91
3.07
3.5
3.64
3.94
3.2
3.47
3.79
2
7
6
4
Ratings
Brands
Packaging Quality
Finding 11. The respondents were asked how long it takes for the goods to be
delivered to them from the time of ordering. As the dumps of all brands are nearby
most of the dealers get their deliveries within 24 hours. Only in some exceptional
cases were delays found in terms of places far away from Raniganj and some brands
like ACC, Ambuja and Lafarge take 2-3 days to deliver in times of crisis and
demand cannot be met the dealers during this time. This operational delay should be
minimized to offer best availability of goods in the market for the brand.
The market leader Konark doesn't face this kind of availability crunch and is always
available at counters for the customer to purchase.
Finding 12. The respondents were asked whether customers would switch their
brands in case a product isn't available. Most of the dealers felt that yes they were
highly likely to switch to another brand and more than 60% believed that customers
will switch to either to some extent or to a very high extent as their need was time
based and they would have to do with another brand as their construction activity
cannot be delayed. Hence if there is a supply shortfall then brands will lose out on
ACC Ltd / KIIT School of Management Page 21
potential sales fast as the customers are switchers. Hence it becomes important for
brands to make their product available in good time.
10
10
10
No of Responses
Fig 10. Likeness of customers to switch in case desired brand isn't available
Finding 13. The respondents were asked to state their monthly average sales of the
brands they sell out of the 7 brands in the survey. It was tried to ascertain that the
data is as accurate as possible, but the responses showed more of an average
monthly sale from that outlet.
It was seen that of the outlets surveyed, Ambuja and Konark were market leaders in
terms of average monthly sales. This is corroborative of the finding that customers
demand these two brands at the outlets the most. Also Ambuja's demand being so
high is due to a wider product offering than that of Konark. Other brands that follow
close by are Birla and Lafarge. Sales totaling 10767 Tons was recorded from the
surveyed outlets among the 7 brands being surveyed.
607 1122
1875
521
Ambuja
Lafarge
Konark
2887
2171
Birla
Jaypee
1584
13
16
11
6
No. Of responses
4.24
3.7
3.54
2.15
Avg Rank
9
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
No. Of responses
Exclusive Brand
14
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
8
4
Exclusive Brand
11
10
Highest Demand
Best Value
4 4
3
2
0
ACC
UltraTech Ambuja
Lafarge
Konark
Birla
0
Jaypee
Fig 16. Sensitivity of Price- Highest Demand - Best Value Relationship graph
Dissatisfied
Dealers
New Jaipur Marble
House
Martian Traders
Keshav Hardware
Anand Cement
Centre
Poddar Enterprises
Noorie Hardware
F S Trading
Sanchari Enterprises
G C Mondal
Chowdhury
Construction
Samir Gorai
M/S Dutta & Co
Royal Hardware
Ambuja
1 Keshav Hardware
Anand Cement
2 Centre
Manik Chandra
3 Rooj
4 Navgopal Majhi
UltraTech
Martian Traders
Anand Cement
Centre
Lafarge
Anand Cement
Centre
Manik Chandra
Rooj
Navgopal Majhi
Neha Enterprises
Navgopal Majhi
Asif Hardware
Noorie Hardware
Bachu Roy
AP Traders
M S Roy & Sons
Irfan Hardware
G C Mondal
M B Enterprises
Shila Enterprises
Sipra Enterprises
MMC Enterprices
Subrata Dawn
Samir Gorai
S K Sanyal
Royal Hardware
Ganguly Hardware
Shri Durga
Hardware
Modern Builders
Samir Gorai
S K Sanyal
Shila Enterprises
Shri Durga
Hardware
Titli Roy
Srihari Enterprises
S K Sanyal
Gold Schemes being offered on premium as well as non premium products by Ambuja,
Lafarge, Konark, Birla.
Tours being offered by all brands. Konark offering domestic tours to small dealers as well
at lower budget.
Cash back scheme being offered to dealers by Konark, Birla.
Points- purchase scheme being offered by all brands.
Mason schemes being offered by Ambuja, UltraTech, Lafarge, Konark, Birla similar to
eMLP.
Customer scheme, "Khushiyo ki barish", being offered by Konark in Monsoon. Other
customer schemes offered are best house scheme by Lafarge and UltraTech, where
customers house enters the contest for the best home.
Suggested Scheme:
1.
2.
Dealer loader: An incentive given to induce a retailer to purchase and display a product.
3.
Trade contest: A contest to reward retailers that sell the most product.
ACC Ltd / KIIT School of Management Page 29
Push money: also known as "spiffs". An extra commission paid to retail employees to push
products.
5.
Festive discount - Get x% of discount on Holy days like Eid, etc. for customers. This will
best utilize the intended marketing spend.
SWOT ANALYSIS
Weaknesses
Strengths
1. Quality perception is good in
the market.
2. Supply has improved and less
complaints by dealers.
3. Customers prefer the best
quality cement.
4. Customer service is one of the
best in the market.
5. Premium packing is highly
liked in the market.
Opportunities
1. Fall in market share of
UltraTech and Jaypee.
2. Dissatisfied dealers of other
competitor premium brands.
3. Scope for price revision with a
lower product in low income-price
sensitive markets.
4. Key account management
practices can be introduced for
dealers selling 100+ Tons in a
month for doing better business.
(New in the industry)
5. Lack of schemes knowledge
amogst most dealers can be used
as an advantage to go and push
ACC's schemes.
Threats
1. New entrants like Star and
Reliance already started
entering the clustered market.
2. Konark improving packaging
and handling along with
introduction of paper packs.
3. Birla doing lots of marketing
activity as compared to previous
years in order to capture market
share.
4. Untimely delivery of schemes
and marketing support can force
dealers to reduce purchase.
1. The company has the scope for going in for key account
management, something followed in large corporates mostly in
Services marketing, to enhance its outreach to dealers and nontrade markets. This can be done for dealers having sales of 100+
Tons per month. It will help stay connected to the key stakeholders
as well as derive plans to offer highest benefits. As a pilot project it
can be started for dealers having 50+ Tons of sales for 3-4 months
starting this Monsoon in order to drive some sales in monsoon and
post monsoon.
2. Change in design of marketing material to suit the dealers needs
should be done to provide more utility to dealers. Dealers look for
one time good investments in terms of marketing material rather
than giving small items throughout the year. Target time of 6
months should be taken to consolidate the marketing spend and
create at least 10 model dealers in these 6 months with model
display counters of ACC. From renovating the dealers counter to
make it suit ACC, high product information display area should be
there.
3. The schemes employed by the company are not as effective nor
as competitive as the other brands. Provide more of tour based
schemes and instead of spreading cash benefit to 3-4 schemes
extend it through one single channel that will consolidate the
benefits being received by the dealers. Consolidation of benefits
over the next 6 months should be taken as a target.
4. Engage in more customer engagement activities like camps,
lucky draws at malls, product description at weekly 'haats', and
maybe sponsor real estate expos. A target of 5-6 customer camps
in a month should be taken in Asansol market to engage customers.
5. Let display items, wall paintings, hoardings reach on time. There
are lots of delays in comparison to other companies who are more
proactive.
ACC Ltd / KIIT School of Management Page 32
LIMITATIONS
The duration of the project was 8 weeks and there are many more outlets in
Asansol that could have been covered , so to study all of them was not
possible as they were not clustered in any particular place but spread around
the entire vicinity and travel was a constraint without any travelling allocation
being provided.
The entire project study was limited to the sales district of Asansol only.
Language barrier was one of the most difficult problem faced as the local
language Bengali was not known by me and there were a few proprietors who
did not know Hindi or English, so communicating with them became a
difficult task .
Many proprietors of the outlets hesitated to provide the required information
as they felt it to be a confidential matter.
Visiting the outlets during customer hours was the only way possible, during
summers most outlets remained closed from 12-5pm. So, revisits to the same
outlets consumed a lot of time in the entire process.
I was new to the region of Asansol and getting to know the area took a lot of
time.
REFERENCES
1. http://www.acclimited.com/newsite/index.asp
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACC_Limited
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader
4. Marketing brochures of ACC Limited.
The above mentioned links were used to borrow some reference materials for the
purpose of project study .
CONCLUSION
The project study for 2 months in ACC Limited was a live experience where I got to
the real feel of the market and how dealer and customer perception is. I also got to
know what drives this perception and how varied as well as similar the Marketing
mix of cement companies are. The cement industry as a whole is full of challenges
which need to be overcome on a day to day basis to stay alive and afloat in these
cluttered market where each brand is fighting for its own space.
From the visit to different outlets it can be concluded that though ACC has a very
brand equity and a decent penetration in the Asansol market, but the market is so
price sensitive that a brand like ACC which is a premium brand is fighting for
survival and growth against brands like Konark and Ambuja which have created a
high brand recall amongst the customers and the dealers alike. The marketing mix is
good but with small improvements it can turn around the fortunes in the Asansol
market for ACC which has been showing good growth in the last 18 months.
Time bound implementations are a must and a Loss Leader strategy might work
well for a brand like ACC which has deeper pockets. By introducing this strategy a
price sensitive market can be championed.
ACC Limited also has to bring about more flexibility in policies for dealers in order
to keep them satisfied and the company should keep the dealers interests in mind as
well.
Overall the experience has been wholesome and has given me a lot of insights,
which shall definitely help me increase my business knowledge and help me in the
future to become an effective Marketing professional.
ANNEXURES
Annexure - I Questionnaire
Retail Wholesale
_____________
_____________
_____________
_____________
_____________
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
6 Birla 7 Jaypee -
_____________
_____________
_________________
_________________
Influencers
Customers
1 ACC 2 Ultratech 3 Ambuja 4 Lafarge 5 Konark 6 Birla 7 Jaypee 6. According to you which brand offers the best technical customer services?
A. ACC (1) B. Ultratech (2) C. Ambuja (3) D. Lafarge (4) E. Konark (5)
F. Birla (6) G. Jaypee (7)
7. Price is the most important factor for a customer while purchasing cement.
You agree?
A. Strongly Agree. (1)
A. Yes
A. Yes
A. Yes
B. No.
B. No.
B. No.
A. Yes
A. Yes
A. Yes
A. Yes
B. No.
B. No.
B. No.
B. No.
10. On a scale of 1-5, 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, how do you rate
companys packaging of products based on aesthetics, safety, durability,
reliability overall quality etc?
aesthetics
quality
ACC Ultratech Ambuja Lafarge Konark Birla Jaypee -
safety
durability
reliability
overall
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
11. On an average , what is the lead time between ordering and receiving of
stock for the following brands?
ACC _____________
Ultratech - _____________
Ambuja _____________
Lafarge _____________
Konark _____________
Birla _____________
Jaypee _____________
12. If stock of desired brand of customer is not available, then how likely is the
customer to switch brands for his purchase?
A. Highly likely. (1)
13. On an average , what is the stock you maintain for the following brands?
ACC _____________
Ultratech - _____________
Ambuja _____________
Lafarge _____________
Konark _____________
Birla _____________
Jaypee _____________
14. Which product will you suggest to the customer?
1. Product which gives you higher margin.
2. It is of best quality. 3. Product
with lowest price
4. Product which is always in stock. 5. Whatever the customer
demands.
15. Of the given factors that influence a customer's purchase, rank them from 15 according to the highest importance in influencing purchase, as 1, and lowest
importance in influencing purchase, as 5.
Product Quality _____________
Promotions _____________
Packaging Quality _____________
Price _____________
Placement & Availability -_____________
16. At time of purchase, which brand would you suggest to the customer? Under
that brand which product?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________
17. If you had to take exclusive dealership of one brand, which brand would it
be and why?
____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________
Thank you for your valuable time. Your confidentiality will be maintained and
the data used for academic purpose only. Survey conducted by Parag Parmar.
Certificate of Completion
This is to certify that, Mr Parag Parmar, has successfully completed his
organizational study and submitted his report entitled "The comparative study of
cement brands in Asansol, with respect to company's 5 Ps of the Marketing mix
of ACC Limited".
The duration of his summer internship project at our organization has been
8 weeks from 7th May, 2014 to 7th July, 2014, under the partial fulfillment for the
awarding of the MBA degree at the KIIT School of Management, Bhubaneswar.
Mr Rajesh Sinha
Sales Head, Asansol
ACC LIMITED