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Topic: Market Campaigning of BATA
 Executive Summary
Bata is widely recognised as a leading footwear brand and people extensively prefer its
products for comfort, style and price. With such perceptions, it serves more than a million
customers each day. However, the entry of new global, as well as domestic players in this
segment, has significantly impacted its business. The most critical weakness for such
losses was in its inefficiency to adopt rapid changing business environment and least
attachment with trends. However, Bata has always been in a favourable position with its
strong and vast distribution system. Implementation of internet-based retailing will
additionally help this organization to adopt innovative marketing campaigning to target a
larger consumer base. Therefore, with adequate corrective measure, Bata can easily
manage to recover such losses discussed in this report.
Table of Contents
1.0. Introduction..................................................................................................................4
2.0. Situational analysis of Bata..........................................................................................4
2.1. Competitors of Bata.....................................................................................................4
2.2. Critical success factors for Bata..................................................................................4
2.3. SWOT analysis of Bata...............................................................................................4
2.4. Current situation of Bata..............................................................................................5
3.0. Targeting and market positioning................................................................................5
3.1. Targeting......................................................................................................................5
3.2. Positioning...................................................................................................................5
4.0. Conclusion and recommendation................................................................................6
1.0. Introduction
Bata is a reputed and leading footwear manufacturing company in the world. Started in
1894, this Lausanne (Switzerland) based company is a completely family-owned
organization and has sold around 14 billion pairs of kids, men and women footwear
(Shoes, slippers, sandals et cetera) across nations (Fivez 2016). As per its reputation, the
company has concentrated on providing designed, durable and authentic products at
affordable prices. This particular strategy has somehow worked for it and helped this
company to expand its business all across the globe (Soni and Jamaiyar 2017). However,
in the Indian context, while looking at the current market scenario, it is a little bit complex.
Customers are looking for genuine, well-crafted, diversified and quality products, that too
at cheaper prices. Higher competitiveness has additionally made the situation challenging.
Therefore, this report will conduct a situational analysis to propose adequate marketing
and campaigning strategies to improve its positioning to enable this company targeting
larger and extended customer base shortly.
2.0. Situational analysis of Bata
As per the current business environment, the market has become much more diverse than
it was ever. It has witnessed multiple changes including those of market uncertainty as
well as unpredictable consumer behaviour. Hence, as stated by Cooper (2019) continuous
improvement, consistency in services and innovation has become a key business element.
Subsequently, a competitor analysis has become increasingly significant to acknowledge
opportunities and position its brand ahead of others. Therefore, the next segment of this
report will identify and discuss two major competitors of Bata in the Indian footwear
market.
2.1. Competitors of Bata
i. Relaxo Footwear: Relaxo is the most prominent competitor of Bata in the Indian
market (Roy et al. 2016). With its wider reach among the lower and middle-class
population as well as a large number of selling points in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, it has
become a 14,891 crore INR organization in terms of market cap. Therefore,
analysing its marketing and business tactics is essential for Bata to make a place
for its footwear products.
ii. Khadims India: It is the next prominent competitor of Bata with more than 750
stores and retail outlets selling a wide range of products such as slippers, shoes,
sandals, sneakers et cetera in India (Singh et al. 2015). In the last financial year, it
has crossed the mark of 800 crore INR in India.
2.2. Critical success factors for Bata
Footwear industry in the Indian context is highly fragmented and competitive. In such a
scenario, analysing critical success factors is the most crucial thing that will heavily impact
the ability of Bata to succeed and grow. As indicated by several market research, quality,
comfort, style, design, fashion, price and branding are the most prominent success factors
for Bata in India. Therefore, the company needs to focus on these factors to have a better
understanding of this market domain.
2.3. SWOT analysis of Bata
Strength Weakness
 Global presence with its operations in  Poor quality perception due to lower
nearly 70 countries. product price.
 Better market penetration  Falling sales
 Strong and extended distribution  Limiting market share due to
network increased competition
 Affordable price
Opportunity Threats
 Expanding rural Indian market  Intense competition
 Footwear becoming a fashion  Duplicity
 statement
 Increasing demand for premium
quality footwear products

2.4. Current situation of Bata

With its 8 decades of operations in India, Bata has developed a strong brand reputation
and equity in India; where it holds around 16% of the total footwear market share. The
company has always believed in investing to develop a strong and efficient distribution
network. As it is the foundation on which success will rely in coming years (Owako and
Owako 2019). Today, it has a strong network of more around 1,400 active stores in India
with its annual turnover reaching around 3,000 crores INR However, with the entry of new
competitors, Bata is continuously facing intense market competition and has resulted into
a straight 6% decline in market share (Srinivasan et al. 2018). Lower product price
creating poor product quality has additionally been a concern for the organization. This is
the primary reason which is making it difficult to target youth population.
3.0. Targeting and market positioning
3.1. Targeting
i. Target audience: The Company needs to specifically target both male and female
customers in between age groups 18-30. This is strongly backed by the fact stating
India as a country having largest number of youth population.
ii. Income level: Considering the intensity of competition in higher price segment, the
company needs to continue with its policy to target lower and middle class
population. With subsequent marketing, the company can additionally score in
higher income range as well.
iii. Psychographics: It predicts consumer preferences and lifestyle. Therefore, in
other way, it helps in identifying potential buyers for its products (Nasir et al. 2015).
While considering the target audience, the company needs to focus on fashionable
products ranging from sports shoes to sneakers and trendy slippers.
iv. Geographic location: Witnessing the expanding rural market, the company should
consider on expanding its operations much deeper into rural areas, while
maintaining its position in aforementioned cities.
v. Usage: Identifying the purpose for which consumers want to use their products is
an essential component for meeting business goals.
3.2. Positioning
Bata deals with the manufacturing and sells of a wide variety of footwear products made
from canvas, plastic, leather and rubber as raw material. To cater its objective of targeting
18-30 years of consumers, it specially needs to prioritize latest trends and technology
during the entire process of product designing and manufacturing. The perceptual map
drawn below additionally identifies price and quality as the two major deliverable values
that should be in the centre of all the strategies amid increasing competition.
  Affordability: A large number of target audiences i.e. 18-30 years are generally
students, and affordability is a major concern for them. Therefore providing new and
trendy collections with latest design and style within normal price range will serve
organizational objectives.

 Quality: To serve its consumers with passion, meeting quality standard is the one
major criterion. Today, consumers prioritize quality over price. Thus, providing
enhanced quality footwear at affordable prices will help in exceeding consumer’s
expectation.
4.0. Conclusion and recommendation
From this analysis, it has been identified that the Indian footwear industry is expected to
grow exponentially and thus, Bata has a lot more to extract from the market. Accordingly,
the company can deviate some of its focus on child and women footwear segment to cope
up with business opportunities emerging with trends and styles. Moreover, to compensate
the losses incurred due to the entry of new competitors, the company can also enter into
high margin leather product segment such as belt, ladies bags, caps et cetera. Making
arrangements for internet based retailing will additionally help in targeting the new age
tech-savvy consumers.
References
Cooper, R.G., 2019. The drivers of success in new-product development. Industrial
Marketing Management, 76, pp.36-47.

Fivez, R., 2016. Every child deserves bouncers. In 28th Joint Doctoral Seminar in History
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Nasir, M.A., Wu, J., Yago, M. and Li, H., 2015. Influence of psychographics and risk
perception on internet banking adoption: Current state of affairs in Britain. International
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Owako, L.A. and Owako, L.A., 2019. Strategic Responses Adopted By Bata Shoe Kenya
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Roy, R., Sharma, A. and Bhoyar, P.K., 2016. Indian Footwear Industry: Consumer
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Singh, N.P., Sharma, S.K., Singh, D. and Kalra, S., 2015. Analysis of Perception of
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Soni, P. and Jamaiyar, A., 2017. Use of Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET)
to analyze brand gap case study on a footwear company–BATA, India. IOSR Journal of
Business and Management (IOSR-JBM), 19(5), pp.1-9.

Srinivasan, S., Leung, I. and Pitcher, Q., 2018. Bata versus Relaxo—Analyzing
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