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Call it backward integration. These days, Pune-based Deepak Fertiliser doesn't just sell fertiliser to farmers. Instead, it offers soil management advice, high quality seeds and, of course, its own brand of fertiliser. ''We are moving from a capital-intensive business to a knowledge-intensive business. Five years from now, I am looking at partnering with the farmer to give him everything he needs to increase his output,'' says Deepak Mehta, CEO, Deepak Fertilisers. The trigger? Apparently, the soil in India is generally deficient in sulphur. DFIL has been importing and selling sulphur-based fertiliser (called Benzosulf) to improve soil nutrition. To test the fertiliser's effectiveness, the company a year ago took over 30 acres of arid land. Following soil treatment, the land was able to grow a healthy crop of sugarcane. Soil rebuilding costs money, but Mehta believes it is possible to reclaim more such arid land, and, thus, increase the area under crop in India. Yellow could well be the colour of the next green revolution. -Roop Karnani M A R K E T I N G
Such events don't come cheap, though. The Roshan Show, for instance, cost a staggering Rs 2 crore to organise. But that's just one small triumph for an industry expected to rack up Rs 300 crore in billings this year. What's more, the business is clipping at 30 per cent a year. ''The idea is to cut media clutter and see the brand interact with people at the real level. This is the best way of communicating your values and ideas to your people and clients,'' says Vikram Raizada, Director (Marketing), MTV India. As media and marketing objectives merge, the boundary between promotions and events is blurring, too. Explains Rohini Jog, General Manager (Business Development), Kidstuff Promos and Events: ''A lot of companies are creating properties around their promotional events, which develop as a parallel activity in line with the core business.'' A case in point, the Discovery Debates/Quiz and the Britannia Champ programme, both of which have sought to encourage creative activity and good all-round performance for school-going children across cities. Having discovered the larger marketing potential of events, marketers today want events to be an integral part of all customer-relationship management. Says Sabbas Joseph, Director, Wizcraft International Entertainment: ''The challenge before any serious event manager is not just the activity, but to effectively communicate with the consumers and manage the post-event relationship.'' If the industry estimates are anything to go by, events will garner increasingly more of the marketer's promotion funds. -Shamni Pande Q & A What's the impact of the internet on
video? Cool. So what's the problem? S U C C E S S
To be fair to its competitors, the Institute has a few things going for it. For one, it is the world's largest-and one of the only four-manufacturer of such vaccines. Besides, it sells at rock-bottom prices. For instance, the UN order for 870 million doses of the vaccine was won with a quote of $55 million, translating into an average per unit cost of just over 16 cents. In contrast, the institute claims, the same vaccines are sold by multinational drug companies at four to 10 times this price. But Poonawala, who is better known for his stud farms and racing horses, says that's not the only reason why it got the order. ''Making combination vaccines like DTP and MMR is not easy. Even today, few companies in India produce combination vaccines.'' What's paid off for the Institute is the fact that it has stuck to the UN ever since it first started exporting the DTP and MMR group of vaccines in 1993. Although the company's products reach as many as 132 countries, the UN is still its largest buyer. Says S.M. Dodawadkar, the Institute's pointman for exports: ''Two out of every three children in the world are vaccinated by our vaccine.'' Poonawala's big day, however, will come when he breaks into the US and European markets. The Institute already has the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) approval from the World Health Organization. But it still needs approvals from EU authorities and the US Food and Drug Administration. Even if the approvals come through-German approval is expected by the year end-it has three global competitors to reckon with: SmithKline Beecham, Aventis Pasteur, and Chiron. Admits Poonawala: ''It's going to be a long battle in Europe and the US. It will take five to six years before we get a 30 per cent share.'' With $55 million under his belt, Poonawala can afford to wait. -Roop Karnani C E N S U S Paper and pen in hand and a smile on his face, the Census man will set out on the ninth of this month for the 14th uninterrupted Census survey since 1872. For marketers around the country, the wait over the next three months when the Census Bureau will start putting out interim reports (the final report won't be out until 2003), will be more than worthwhile. The Government of India's once-in-a-decade exercise is the only reliable and comprehensive information that marketers get on India's millions of consumers. The survey, for instance, will throw up a tonne of data with regard to age, income, number of people employed in a household, amenities available, and even tell you whether or not the average Indian has a toilet inside or outside his house. Agrees Mohan Krishnan, Research Director, eTechnology Group, IMRG: ''Census is the only extensive data available which gives us an insight into the quality of life of the Indian people.'' This year's Census is important for another reason, too. For the first time, it will give a more reliable and wider measure of the impact of liberalisation and reforms on the lives of ordinary people. It will also probably settle the debate on the number of people below the poverty line. It's likely though that the census will throw up some predictable findings: that penetration of consumer soft and durables has deepened; that consumption in rural India is increasing, or that there are more nuclear families today than there were a decade ago. But what the marketers are interested in is the details. Says Tilak Mukherji, Executive Director, TNS Mode: ''We are hoping that the Census will give us some new insights into the consumer base on a national level.'' At the same time, the marketers also want the Census to broaden its scope and generate a lot more data, including psychographic. But for that, they'll have to wait another 10 years. -Jaya Basu
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A stage 40 ft high and spread over 10,000
sq. ft, 400 computer-controlled lights, pyrotechnics, and 70,000 watts
R.M.S. (that's root mean square or real music output) of mind-blowing
sound. It almost happened early this month: the larger-than-life Hrithik
Roshan show, now postponed to a later date in February. What all the
publicity the show has received points to is the pivotal role events have
come to play in brand promotion and customer relationship. Says Samit Garg,
CEO, Pinnacle Events & Exhibitions, the event managers for the show:
''Events have become bigger, more complex, and a more powerful medium for
marketers.''
He's
spent 30 years in telecommunic- ation, has worked in all the five
continents, and lives and breathes telecom. But, then, anything else
would be unbecoming of Alcatel's India CEO. And more than anybody
else, it is Christian Lacroix, the man himself, who is aware of it.
Therefore, even as he works to a punishing schedule, he manages to
steal time out for his passions: photography, skiing, and music.
When on the internet, these are the sites Lacroix likes to hit:
If you meet Cyrus Poonawala at his
sprawling Serum Institute in Pune, you'd find a slight spring in his step.
But don't bother asking him why. He'll tell you himself. Last month, the
33-year-old Serum Institute-which is the world's largest manufacturer of
measles, MMR (Mumps, Measles, Rubella) and DTP (Diptheria, Tetanus,
Pertussis) vaccines-bagged a Rs 254-crore order from the United Nations.
Poonawala believes that's one of the largest orders ever placed by the
United Nations. Says the 58-year-old Poonawala with understandable pride:
''We won this bid in competition with the best and the largest in the
world.''