Marketing Management

Hindustan Unilever Limited

Area – Burhanpur (M.P)
Main distributor – Mr. Prem Sablani
Area Sales Manager- Mr. Rajendra Rathore
Most selling products – lifebuoy, lux, Wheel, Ponds, Fair and lovely, Clinic Plus

Q. How many retailers, wholesalers and distributors are there in his/her territory? 
Ans. Retailers – 2400 (approximately) including drug stores.
Wholesalers – 450(approximately)
Central tie-up – 1 (Vishal mega mart)
Distributor – 2

Q. What are the distribution gaps in this territory?

Ans. The following mentioned are the different types of distribution related gaps that have
been identified so far:
1. Credit issue: - Many retailers and wholesalers face the issue of high volumes of sales
taking place on the credit basis, which creates the lack of funds for them and that
eventually results in the inefficiency to do the business with distributor. This issue is
very prevalent in the suburban and rural markets as most of the consumers are daily
wage earners or are monthly employees at some businesses and pays the money
either in the beginning or the end of the month. These also creates a high change of
bad debt for the sellers and thus creates a lack of confidence in buying more product
and stocking it from the distributor is reduced.
2. Economy for small products: - In this territory, as the consumer is a low wage earner,
the buying power of the consumer is reduced to buying only the small quantity of
products and that creates another challenge as the sale of the more profit making big
packaged products is reduced. Along with that the transportation expenses for these
small products effect the profit margin to the sellers and thus again demotivates them
to do the business.
3. Increasing dominance of ayurvedic products: - As the inclination in the region is
increasing towards the use of Ayurveda based products, the company is struggling to
retain its already established “Market hold”. The company is fighting with many
companies in the region such as, Patanjali, Gayatri parivar products, Shri shri, etc as
they are getting much desirable day by day.
4. Other competitions: - Another type of competition that the company is facing in the
same domain as its own is by the national level as well as some of the local level
competitors like Jain company ltd., Sabunwala and other such local manufacturers
which provide for a value for money proposition in the market.
 5. COVID- 19 supply chain disruption: - The region under the question here is located at
the border of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, and the current situation of
Coronavirus stopped the total distribution channel and transportation of the
company’s products, which made the company suffer in a created and flourishing
market.
6. Perceptual gap:- in the rural areas, people connect person and product more than
they connect the company and product, which confuses the consumers between
different products and makes them question their purchasing decisions. For ex: in the
recent past, the people of a village near the region the consumers made a perception
of the company as a high end soap brand looking at the prices of products like dove
and pears, to such extent that they stopped using low range products like lux and liril
as they were also from the same company.
Q. What are the way forward to fulfil this gap?
Ans. The company is right now focusing on 2-3 major issues in the region, such as:-
1. Educating the rural area people on the importance of personal hygiene and personal
care, including the beauty sector as well. They are trying to push the beauty creams
and its advantages as that would automatically make them to buy the basic products
along with the beauty products.
2. In the washing powder segment, they are coming up with smaller and cheaper
alternatives to cater to a large uncaptured and easily influenced audience.
3. Focusing on pushing the right product in the right market segment, and looking
closely upon the positioning of the products they are putting in the market.
4. Ensuring that the distributor allow the credit sales and encouraging them to increase
the credit limit.
5. Displaying the harmful effects of use of local and low-quality products.

# Some suggestions: -
1. Using the scientifically proven methods in differentiating themselves from the
ayurvedic products and providing the small packages as a hamper to use instead of
their everyday products.
2. Making sure about the visibility of the products in the shops be it retail, wholesale or
in malls in both the urban and rural market.
3. Explaining the consumer about the difference in the product so that they don’t
confuse between the products and look at the whole company in a questionable light.
4. Pushing the products in big organisational structures so that it will ensure us about
the regular supply and that too in a bulk amount which can help in increasing the
sale.
5. Motivating the sellers with incentives and other prizes to ensure that they work in sink
with the company’s requirement.
6. They should empower the wholesaler to push the company’s product as that will
result in less sale of the competitors products.
7. The company should not break the biases that are working in the favour of the
company. For ex: use of clinic plus as a vehicle washing product and many others.
8. They should focus more on the low rate products in economically backward markets
and should avoid the visibility of expensive products.
9. Production of smaller and cheaper products should be increased as that is the need
of the region and that is where the company can outrun its competitors due to its vast
reach and established market requirement.
The company status is about to change due to its merger with GSK(GlaxoSmithKline
plc) consumer healthcare division in India. And the working structure might also
change a bit.