Asian Paints

Case Study:

ASIAN Paints:

Submitted to: Prof. Rahul Gupta Chowdhry

Submitted By: Group 8: Arpita Bahadur Gaurav Kumar Manish Gupta Pavan Kumar Ranjini K Ballal

Vani Vyas

INTRODUCTION: Asian Paints is India's largest and Asia's third largest paint company today, with a turnover of Rs 44.04 billion (around USD 1.1 billion). The company has an enviable reputation in the corporate world for professionalism, fast track growth and building shareholder equity. Asian Paints operates in 20 countries and has 28 paint manufacturing facilities in the world servicing consumers in over 65 countries. Besides Asian Paints, the group operates around the world through its subsidiaries, Berger International Limited, Apco Coatings, SCIB Paints and Taubmans. The history of AP dates back to 1942. It was started by four entrepreneurs, Champaklal Choksey, Chimanlal Choksi, Suryakant Dani and Arvind Vakil, as a partnership firm for manufacturing paints. Asian Paints has the largest range of colours in the market (e.g. Over 127 shades of green, 206 shades of blue, 118 shades of yellow and many others) and the outlet allows the consumer to choose any among a vast range of colors with the help of a computer. Asian Paints is the market leader in the highly fragmented and highly competitive Rs 7750 crore ($1.73 Bn) Indian paint Industry. The organized sector constitutes around Rs 5400crore ( $1.2 Bn).

Q 1: The customer today is much more involved with the process of painting and is looking at the whole experience of interior decoration as well as painting as an expression of their personalities. They are buying into a product that’s promising self-expression, sophistication, technology and even services. How should APIL’s advertising evolve itself to remain continuously relevant to these customers? Ans:

Q 2: How should APIL, as a market leader in decorative paint category, upgrade its customers to value-added/ superior-quality/ high-margin products? Ans: As Asian Paints is already a leader in decorative paints market, it can persuade its customers to value-added/ superior-quality/ high-margin products by formulating and implementing the following strategies:

 Changing Focus: AP should emphasize more on technology and marketing that would enable them to come up with more revolutionary products that can cater the demand of customers. It hence can implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) solutions for streamlining its processes and supply chain.

 New Product Launches: Asian Paints can launch new products into the market to satisfy the value-added/ superior-quality/ high-margin demanding customers. Launching various new products into the market will also increase its market presence and penetration into the segments where its presence was small.

 Customer Service Solutions: Asian Paints should realize that distribution and service are the keys to success in the paints industry. Right from the start, apart from the urban markets, Asian Paints should focus on small towns, and on rural markets.

 Changing Image: Along with the customer relationship building initiatives, Asian Paints should also focus on its communication and brand strategy. Communication would help the company to reach out to the customer and create an attractive public image. Indian consumers are not brand conscious with regard to paints; usually the painter purchased paints for consumers according to the allocated budget. In order to change its image Asian Paints need to extensively work to change its image.

Q 3: APIL has made substantial mark for itself in decorative paints category. Can you design a suitable advertising strategy to ensure there is a positive rub-off in the industrial segment also? Ans: Kansai Nerolac is presently the market leader in industrial paints segment. Asian Paints has a very small share in this market. It should

effectively plan its strategy before fully venturing into this market. It can use it market leader status in decorative paints strategy to attract industrial customers and the advertising strategy to be taken up by Asian paints should be in this way:  Expansion of its product range and introduction of value added, niche

products in the industrial paints area:  Expansions of production capacity:  Line extensions of existing products to target lower income market segments both in rural and urban areas:  Continuous modernization to keep pace with the growing demand:  Diversification in to the unrelated but synergistic area of ceramics: